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Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

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Overview:
The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP) coordinates United States activities in the international battle against modern-day slavery, including sexual exploitation and involuntary labor; manages U.S. funding for anti-trafficking efforts across the globe; and is responsible for submitting a yearly Report to Congress on foreign governments’ successes and failures in meeting the minimum standards set by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) in regards to steps taken to prohibit human trafficking, assist victims, and cooperate in investigating and extraditing traffickers.
 
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History:

The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons was established in October 2001 as a result of the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. Enacted two years after the Clinton administration and the 106th Congress launched a government-wide anti-trafficking strategy of prevention, protection and support for victims and prosecution of traffickers, TVPA was devised to supplement applicable laws, including the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude. The TVPA mandated the President to establish an Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, and appoint members to it, including the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and other officials of his choice.

 

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What it Does:

The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, operating under a three-P paradigm of prosecution, protection, and prevention, with the underlying goal being to stimulate the governments of other countries to take actions that will lead to the obliteration of human trafficking, coordinates and chairs an interagency process guiding U.S. government anti-trafficking policy and programs. Its top priorities are working with foreign governments, developing new comprehensive legislation, strengthening already in place anti-trafficking laws, toughening enforcement strategies, and training criminal justice officials how to implement laws and practices. The target: Increased protection of innocent parties, numbers of arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and prison sentences for traffickers, as well as complicit government officials, including military personnel.
 
Once a year G/TIP is mandated to compile a Trafficking in Persons Report to Congress. Via data from U.S. embassies, foreign government officials, nongovernmental organizations, published reports, research trips, and information submitted to tipreport@state.gov , it assesses what foreign governments have done in the past twelve-month period to prevent trafficking, prosecute traffickers, and protect trafficking victims, and furnishes a roadmap for what they can do in the future to help combat trafficking. G/TIP rates the countries based on their annual efforts as Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List, or Tier 3, Tier 3 being the worst offenders. These gauges include the extent to which the country is a country of origin, transit or destination for severe forms of trafficking; the degree to which the government of the country does not comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, including, in particular, the extent of the government’s trafficking-related corruption; and the resources and capabilities of the government to address and eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons. Countries that fail to comply with the anti-trafficking standards in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, or fail to make significant efforts to comply, face sanctions, such as the withholding of non-humanitarian and non-trade-related assistance, or the U.S. choosing to vote to deny a nation World Bank or International Monetary Fund Assistance.
 
G/TIP also manages U.S. funding programs to combat trafficking throughout the world by preparing solicitations, organizing panel reviews of grant proposals, making visits into the field, and identifying priority countries where trafficking is on the rise. Proposals are solicited from embassies, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations, for projects that: raise global awareness; support overseas education and training for law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and the judiciary; and embrace efforts to assist, protect, and rescue victims. G/TIP coordinates proposed grant funding with other U.S. government agencies also involved in aiming to combat trafficking through the Senior Policy Operating Group, which vets all proposals to ensure there are no program funding duplications and that the proposed project is in compliance with U.S. government policy.
 
The countries for which G/TIP has recommended bi-lateral support for efforts in FY 2008 and 2009 are, in order of priority: India, Cambodia, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Dominican Republic, Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Guatemala, Bolivia, Chad, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Paraguay, Mauritania, Mozambique, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Yemen, Libya, Mongolia, Russia, Armenia, Moldova, CAR, Mali, Zambia, Kyrgyz Republic, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Kiribati, and Solomon Islands.
 
Public outreach is also a focus of G/Tip, especially as a way to warn the most vulnerable to the dangers of trafficking. The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons arranges for widespread dissemination of information through print articles, TV and radio segments, internet stories, and digital videoconferences. It also works with the United Nations, faith-based groups, multilateral institutions, the business community, and private citizens to continually develop new strategies for prevention, and has received commitments from more than 600 travel and tourism companies in 28 countries to aid in combating sex tourism by signing the Global Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism (PDF).  
 
From the Website of G/Tip

Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000

(PDF)

 

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Comments

Nelson P Valdes, Emeritus Professor 2 years ago
I just read the section of the 2010 report dealing with Cuba. I have a number of technical questions related to that country-specific report. Who should I contact with my questions? Nelson P Valdes Emeritus Professor 619 Girard NE Albuquerque, New Mexico 87106

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Founded: 2001
Annual Budget: $4.25 million operating
Employees: 30
Official Website: http://www.state.gov/g/tip/
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
C de Baca, Luis
Director

President Obama turned to a career prosecutor with many years of experience in fighting human trafficking when he nominated Luis C de Baca to be the next Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the Department of State. Confirmed May 6, 2009, de Baca holds the rank of Ambassador-at-Large and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State. The Trafficking Office is statutorily mandated to coordinate U.S. government activities in the global fight against contemporary forms of slavery, including forced labor in factories, fields, homes and sweatshops, and the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation. Worldwide, there are estimated to be as many as 27 million persons living in slavery today. 

 
The brother of De Baca’s great-great-grandfather, Ezequiel C de Baca, was New Mexico’s first elected Hispanic governor. Born in New Mexico, Luis C de Baca was one of three children born to Dr. Robert C de Baca, an animal scientist known as the “Father of the Iowa Beef Improvement Association,” and Mary (Marchino) de Baca. He grew up on a cattle ranch in Huxley, Iowa, where he was active in the local 4-H Club and graduated from Ballard High School. He earned a B.A. in political science from Iowa State University in 1990, and a law degree in 1993 from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was President of the Hispanic Law Students Association and an editor of the Michigan Law Review. 
 
Straight out of law school, de Baca was hired by the Department of Justice to be involuntary servitude and slavery coordinator, a position he held until 2000, when he was named chief counsel of DOJ’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. In that position, he tried more than 100 cases, including several high profile ones, such as U.S. v. Kil Soo Lee, which involved the enslavement of more than 200 Vietnamese and Chinese workers in a garment factory in American Samoa; the so-called “Deaf Mexican” slavery case, which involved scores of hearing impaired Mexicans who were lured to the U.S. with promises of employment and then forced to sell cheap trinkets on the streets of New York City, Chicago and other large cities; and U.S. v. Cadena, a path-setting prostitution slavery case in Florida. He was also instrumental in developing the victim-centered approach to combating modern slavery, which means that former slaves are assisted in establishing normal lives, rather than deported or otherwise treated as criminals. In 2007, de Baca was named counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, working for Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), where his portfolio included national security, intelligence, immigration, civil rights, and modern slavery issues. 
 
A Democrat, de Baca donated $2,250 to Democratic candidates and causes between 2001 and 2004.
 
The “C” in de Baca’s is part of his surname and stands for Cabeza. 
 
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Lagon, Mark
Previous Director

Mark P. Lagon served as director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons for 20 months until January 26, 2009. He received a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard in 1986 and a PhD in 1991 from Georgetown University, both in Political Science. Before working on Capitol Hill, Dr. Lagon was the principal aide to the Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and was also an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics and Georgetown University. In 1995 he became a Senior Analyst for the House Republican Policy Committee, chaired by Rep. Chris Cox, and in 1997 he began serving as the committee’s Deputy Staff Director. From 1998 to 1999 he was Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow at the Project for the neo-conservative New American Century, specializing in China, and from 1999 to 2002 he was a senior member of the Republican staff at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Lagon was an aggressive supporter of the invasion of Iraq. He served on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and from 2004 until the end of May 2007 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. He began working in his current positions on May 31, 2007. Lagon is the author of The Reagan Doctrine: Sources of American Conduct in the Cold War’s Last Chapter, and he was associate editor of the journal, Perspectives on Political Science. Lagon was a regular contributor to John McCain’s campaigns and also gave to the Bush-Cheney ticket.

After leaving the federal government, Lagon became the executive director and CEO of the Polaris Project, an anti-trafficking organization.

 
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