United States House of Representatives

Committee on Foreign Affairs

International Trafficking in Persons:

Suggested Responses to a Scourge of Humankind

Oral Statement presented by

Rev. Monsignor Franklyn M. Casale

President, St. Thomas University, Miami, Florida

October 18, 2007

Chairman Lantos,

Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen,

Distinguished Members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs:

I thank you for the opportunity and honor to testify today on the issue of international trafficking in persons.

Our global civilization at its supposed apex of development is being tarred by memories of our darkest times: the commodification of human beings.

A week ago, addressing our St. Thomas University community, at our annual St. Thomas of Villanova Lecture, the former Archbishop of Washington, D.C., His Eminence Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who many of you know has been a leader in efforts for justice and peace world wide., observed: “Trafficking in persons is one of the greatest problems that I’ve met all over the world. We must do everything we can to set the record straight and to overcome this pernicious misuse of human beings, this terrible violation of the dignity of the human person.”

The United States is not immune from this cruel assault on human dignity. Human trafficking is present in the form of many commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor on farms, in restaurants, bars, and nursing homes, on construction sites and factories, in households, mail order bride schemes, the drug trade, guided begging, petty crime, forced gang activity and lamentably in the households of the diplomatic corp.

The victims fear for their life, fear for the life of their family members, fear being alone and illegal in a foreign country, fear the shame and contempt at home, if sent back. This perpetual fear paralyzes them and stops them from coming out in the open – even if they have a chance to do so. Death often appears to be the only escape.

Human trafficking is creating misery worldwide, but it is also extracting a heavy economic toll on our nation. One of the most profitable illicit industries worldwide, it seriously impairs the legitimate sector of the economy and endangers its development. It thrives in an atmosphere of corruption. The trade in humans leaves no paper trail for the authorities to follow, no bank account transactions to track, not even suspicions of tax evasion.  

Simultaneously, our nation is grappling here with three seemingly identical, but substantially different, though inter-related issues: illegal immigration, the smuggling of aliens and trafficking in persons. With all these phenomena proceeding in the dark, the issues get confused and joined together.

Unlike smuggling and illegal immigration, however, trafficking is aggravated by the virtually total control of the perpetrator over the victim; consequently there is a large undercount of the persons affected which points to the necessity of further in-depth study. But, whatever numbers represent the closest possible estimate, trafficking in persons remains a horrendous, growing, global, complex and multifaceted crime.

In my home region of South Florida, I would point to some cases in the Federal courts that demonstrate the pervasiveness of the problem. United States v. Tecum (2001) concerning a Guatemalan teenager kidnapped, brought into South Florida, forced to perform manual farm labor and sexual acts. United States v. Cadena-Sosa (2002) shattered a smuggling ring, trafficking young women from Mexico to Florida. In United States v. Ramos (2004), this prosecuted traffickers who were holding agricultural workers in involuntary solitude. U.S. v. Pompee involved the exploitation of a young Haitian girl as household servant.

The Catholic Church has always been a stalwart proponent of human rights and social justice, cherishing the individual as God’s most precious gift. For example, this is repeatedly articulated in the new Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church by the Vatican Congregation for the Vatican Secretariat for Justice and Peace, issued in 2004.

In light of this, St. Thomas University in Miami has done what academia does best:  provide a neutral ground for every relevant actor to bring individual expertise and to take a comprehensive and searching look at the problem described and solutions offered. 

In multiple programs engaging research, education, service to the community, and advocacy, the University has focused like a laser beam on the protection of human dignity, and, in particular, the struggle against trafficking in persons. Its Law School’s Graduate Program in Intercultural Human Rights, with its master’s and doctoral programs and global faculty, has become a prime center of training and research in the field of human rights.  

In 2005, in a dialogue over many months with eminent experts and decision makers from around the planet, the University produced a document with law and policy recommendations, entitled THE MIAMI DECLARATION OF PRINCIPALS ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING, which I ask the Chairman’s permission to be submitted for the record.

The research underlying this document has been published in Volume 1 of our Intercultural Human Rights Law Review, which has been provided to the Committee, dedicated in its entirety to “Trafficking in Human Beings:  A Global Concern.” 

If you will permit me then I would offer the Committee some recommendations based on the Miami Declaration:

• The U.S. should urge countries not yet parties to the United Nation’s 2000 Palermo Protocol on Human Trafficking to ratify this instrument which enables countries to criminalize and prosecute human trafficking.

• Human Trafficking should be considered an international crime.

The introduction of universal jurisdiction for the crime of trafficking in persons should be considered. 

Such an amendment would make this offense punishable in the U.S. regardless of where it is committed and what nationality its perpetrators or victims are.

• The U.S. should work on the international level to remove the immunity of diplomatic personnel from prosecutions in the host country for the crime of trafficking in persons.

• The importation of goods made by victims of human trafficking should be prohibited.

• In addition to law enforcement, clergy and medical personnel should be trained in detecting cases of human trafficking since they are often the first trusted outside contacts.

• Independent and reliable research centers specializing in the field of human trafficking should be supported.  They should be asked to undertake in-depth analyses of the scope and nature of human trafficking as well as global trafficking trends in order to properly assess the severity of the problem.

• Victims of human trafficking should receive a realistic and effective protected status under the U.S. immigration laws. This status should not be made unreasonably contingent upon cooperation with the prosecution of their traffickers.

• Victims should have a choice between repatriation and ultimate integration via safe legal status in the U.S.

• Root causes in source countries should be alleviated by economic empowerment, reduction of corruption, education and public awareness campaigns.

• An effective system of protection for victims should be developed, including the families of the victims. 

• Victims should be physically and psychologically rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.

May God bless your work in the vineyard of justice for these innocent victims, so we all may get closer to an order of human dignity on Earth.

I would like to conclude my presentation with a prayer[1] a leader in this global struggle, Sister Eugenia Bonetti, has said at the funeral of Tina Motoc, a 21-year old Romanian girl who was forced into prostitution and brutally killed on the street in Italy.

Dearest Tina:

In this last salute, I would like to speak on behalf of many people that are both present and absent. Together we would like to ask your forgiveness for our personal and collective responsibilities. …

I ask your forgiveness, Tina, even in the name of the killer who mutilated your young body in a barbarous way. But he is not the only one responsible for your death; in fact, before you were struck, you were already dead. How many people had already killed the dreams and expectations of your twenty-one years of life? We are all guilty and co-responsible for your death and for this we invoke the mercy of God.

May God bless your work in the vineyard of justice for these innocent victims, so we may get closer to an order of human dignity on Earth.

I thank you for your kind attention.