Ashcroft's letter published in today's NYT, in response to The Girls Next Door (Sex Slaves article)

The NYT Sunday Magazine ^ | Feb 15, 2004 | John D. Ashcroft, USA Attorney General

[summer]

Letters

The Girls Next Door

Peter Landesman's article (Jan. 25) shines a spotlight on the very real practice of human trafficking. While portraying the cruel and dominating world from which so many young women find no escape, the article failed to mention this administration's aggressive three-year initiative that has made substantial progress in combating this scourge.

Stamping out this vile trade has ranked among the Bush administration's top priorities since its earliest days. In 2001, the Justice Department announced a new initiative to battle human trafficking, built on the pillars of prosecution, enhanced outreach and law-enforcement cooperation. Three years later, our prosecution statistics are the highest ever. From the fiscal years 2001 to 2003, the department charged 111 traffickers, a nearly threefold increase over 1998-2000. Of those, 79 were charged with sex trafficking. During that same period, we convicted 77 defendants — 59 of them on sex-trafficking charges — a 50 percent increase over the previous three-year period. Overall, since fiscal year 2001, we have opened a total of 229 investigations, double the number opened in the preceding three years.

Our work continues: at present, the department has open 142 investigations, double the number open in January 2001. On Jan. 29, a federal court in Texas handed down lengthy prison sentences to the leaders of a sex-trafficking ring. These criminals smuggled young girls from Central American nations into America, holding them in forced servitude and repeatedly raping them. In another case — the largest human-trafficking prosecution ever, the operators of a forced-labor factory in American Samoa, who had imprisoned over 200 Vietnamese and Chinese, face American justice in Hawaii. These traffickers employed bondage, starvation and beatings so brutal that they left one female worker without an eye. These are just two of our many prosecutions.

While prosecution efforts are central to defeating human trafficking, we are also reaching out to local and faith-based organizations who work with the non-English speaking communities most frequently victimized. By building close ties to those groups, we hope to root out the problem and help the victims.

Effective interagency and intergovernment cooperation is also a key part of our strategy to combat human trafficking, and we are training federal and local law enforcement. Last month, we held the largest, most comprehensive antitrafficking training session ever for federal prosecutors and investigative agents. We are developing interagency crisis teams for deployment to major trafficking hubs and are also working with other agencies to obtain visas and humanitarian assistance for trafficking victims. Since 2000, we have assisted more than 450 victims in accessing immigration and refugee benefits.

In order to address trafficking at its root, Justice Department officials have traveled to foreign "source'' nations, including Thailand, the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. Finally, the government is devoting substantial effort to a public awareness campaign, launching the Trafficking in Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force Complaint Line, 888-428-7581.

At its core, human trafficking is pure and unadulterated evil. It is medieval in conception and brutal in execution, and unfortunately still touches far too many lives. The trafficking and compelled abject servitude of one human being by another is a practice that should long ago have been consigned to the ash heap of discarded inhumanity. It is a practice that this administration will not countenance, and one that we work daily to defeat.

John D. Ashcroft
Attorney General of the United States
Washington [, DC]

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[summer]

I agree. But when people like Ashcroft are making progress in such a problematic area as this, then credit should be given. I am very disappointed in the NYT for not mentioning the phone number provided by Ashcroft in his letter.

[summer]

BTW, I meant to italize "Very good article" in my reply to you.

[summer]

I am sympathetic to your concerns about the border problems; I share those concerns. I just don't believe all those problems began the day GW took office (and I don't mean to imply you do). I would like to see more attention to that matter as well.

[summer]

Thanks for your post #13. BTW, you have an interesting profile page! :)

[summer]

Thanks for that link in your post #17.

[proud American in Canada]

bttt...

[Travis McGee]

Leaving the border wide open is a conscious political decision by the executive branch. The border can be sealed air tight in one week with an executive order, using the current Border Patrol. If the order is not given, it's because the Whitehouse does not want the border closed. Platitudes about cracking down on the sex slave trade are worthless words while the border is purposefully left open.

[summer]

I don't think criminal prosecutions are "worthless words."

[summer]

But, I also don't understand why a border would be left open, especially in this day and age. This is an issue I hope does come up in the debates.

[A.J.Armitage]

I was actually thinking about the big deal they made of "white slavery" in the late nineteenth century. It was probably exaggerated then, and having just read the original article I sincerely hope this is very exaggerated now, but I don't think you can ever stop it completely any more than you can stop murder completely.

I haven't seen you in awhile!

Hmm... I seem to remember I had some extremely interesting conversations with you, but I can't quite think of what they were.

If I were double my age or so I'd blame that, but I don't have that excuse. :-)

[yankeedog]

Why does the executive branch choose to leave our borders wide open?

[Pro-Bush]

Thanks Summer. John Ashcroft Bump!

[Travis McGee]

IMHO, it's because the GOP's largest contributors enjoy cheap compliant labor.

[summer]

Re your post #33 - You may well be correct on that, but, I notice the Dem leaders are also not rushing to the microphones to discuss this border issue. And, that silence leads me to believe there are some Dem donors who are likewise raking in the same benefits as the GOP donors you mention. Seems strange to me that during a presidential election year this issue does not get more attention, since it certainly gets the attention of the average voter on both sides of the aisle.

[summer]

Re your post #33 - You may well be correct on that, but, I notice the Dem leaders are also not rushing to the microphones to discuss this border issue. And, that silence leads me to believe there are some Dem donors who are likewise raking in the same benefits as the GOP donors you mention. Seems strange to me that during a presidential election year this issue does not get more attention, since it certainly gets the attention of the average voters on both sides of the aisle.

[sarasmom]

Thanks summer.
Perhaps some people who think such a horrible practice could not possibly happen in the USA might open at least one eye now.

[summer]

You're welcome. Thanks for your post here, sarasmom.