Ask State For Laws To Stop Human Trafficking

Human trafficking, "a modern form of slavery", is a crime and the state legislature must pass laws saying so and also provide services for victims, the City Council stated in a resolution passed recently and sent to Albany.

Councilmember Helen Sears (D-Jackson Heights) declared, "It is astounding that in this day and age and in this state that human trafficking exists."

Sears, chair of the Women's Issues Committee, explained: "The victims of human trafficking are mostly women and children who are forced to work in the sex trade, sweatshops, farming, manufacturing or as domestic workers. We are calling upon the state legislature to enact legislation that criminalizes human trafficking, punishes its perpetrators and protects its victims."

Sears said human trafficking is a transnational crime with national and local implications.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Sears says, trafficking in persons, or human trafficking, is a form of modern-day slavery and is identified as the recruitment and transportation of persons within or across boundaries by force, fraud or deception, for the purpose of exploiting them economically.

"Human trafficking is a global nightmare. It is a modern-day form of slavery," Sears said at a City Council press conference with Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Sears also noted that according to a U.S. State Department report, Trafficking in Persons 2006, which was released last June, active efforts and advocacy for antitrafficking measures are causing trafficking to receive "the worldwide attention it deserves".

Sears said that Secretary of State Condolezza Rice has named 12 countries that have not met the minimum standards specified in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. They are: Belize, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Laos, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

"The movement to end human trafficking will continue to gain momentum, thanks to the support of Speaker Quinn and my colleagues at the City Council," Sears concluded.-John Toscano