When watching lecture 12, Dr. Halavais had said that over 800,000-900,000 people are imported or exported and trafficked across borders to be used and sold as sex slaves. After hearing about this, I was shocked and appalled about how high this number was, and I was couldn’t help but wonder what is being done in order to prevent this from happening. I did a little research and found out that in 2000, then President Clinton signed the Trafficking Victims Protect Act (TVPA) in order to provide an international solution to an international problem. The act provides “effort to protect trafficked persons, to criminalize the conduct of traffickers and to penalize sex trafficking as if it were a crime as serious as rape, punishable with a sentence of twenty years to life imprisonment”. The TVPA also “provides financial assistance, protection, benefits, services and education to victims both here and abroad as well as the right to their permanent residency in the United States and a work permit.” Since being signed, the TVPA have had a positive effect on many foreign governments by providing financial support and advice. Although the results of TVPA have been slow, it’s positive impact both domestically and internationally have been deemed a success. I’m just happy for all the victims who’ve suffered through it.
This information can be found on papers.ssrn.com
February 27, 2006 at 11:13 pm
[...] I am revising this post. According to Dr. Halavais, 800,000-900,000 people a year are trafficked across borders to be sold as sex slaves. To establish what has been done to remedy this shocking news, I did some preliminary research. I discovered that President Clinton signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act ion October 28, 2000. The act serves to provide an “effort to protect trafficked persons, to criminalize the conduct of traffickers and to penalize sex trafficking as if it were a crime as serious as rape, punishable with a sentence of twenty years to life imprisonment”, as well as to “[provide] financial assistance, protection, benefits, services and education to victims both here and abroad as well as the right to their permanent residency in the United States and a work permit” for those victims who are willing to aid in the prosecution of their traffickers. This act has proved to have a positive, if slow, effect. Due to the change in administration, it took about a year until any effect was seen. However, the passage of the TVPA made prosecuting sex traffickers much easier, given the new criminal statutes that the act provides for. Between 2001 and 2003, 92 traffickers were tried in 21 cases, 65 of whom were sex traffickers. A 19% increase was seen in October 2001 since the previous year. The increase in prosecuted sex trafficking offenders is a positive start to solving an international problem. Statistics obtained from “The Domestic and International Impact of the U.S. Victims of Trafficking Protection Act of 2000: Does Law Deter Crime?” by Susan Tiefenbrun. [...]
October 30, 2006 at 10:52 am
Emmanuel
He that is ill to himself will be good to nobody…