Bills
| 3.23.22

Reauthorizing Funding for Federal Anti-Trafficking Programs (H.R. 2200)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 2200?

(Updated October 13, 2020)

This bill — the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2018 — would reauthorize funding (at current-year levels, unchanged since 2014) for the U.S. government’s existing multi-agency international and domestic anti-human trafficking efforts under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).

Specifically, this bill would:

  • Extend current-year appropriations for trafficking prevention programs with the Dets. of Justice (DOJ), Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), Labor (DOJ), State, and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) until 2021;

  • Allow pre-existing grant money to be used for educating children to avoid traffickers;

  • Require designation of U.S. embassy contacts responsible for receiving trafficking complaints and information abroad;

  • Require air carriers who contract with the U.S. to report annually on compliance with current statutory requirements to train personnel and report likely trafficking;

  • Enhance reporting and training for U.S. government procurement officers on foreign products and components linked to funding human trafficking;

  • Encourage more accurate reporting in the State Department Trafficking in Persons Report; and

  • Ensure that foreign government-supported security forces are captured in the analysis currently required by the Child Soldiers Prevention Act.

Argument in favor

Human trafficking is a serious problem that harms people both domestically and internationally. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act enables much-needed U.S. leadership on this issue, and it needs to be reauthorized to ensure the continuation of anti-trafficking program in a range of federal agencies.

Argument opposed

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s results aren’t very good when considering that few people were arrested for trafficking in the 2013-2016 period. Rather than simply reauthorizing TVPA, this is a good time to make this legislation better and more effective before continuing to fund its programs.

Impact

Human trafficking; DOJ; HHS; DHS; DOJ; State Department; USAID; State Department Trafficking in Persons Report; Child Soldiers Prevention Act.

Cost of H.R. 2200

This bill would specifically authorize the appropriation of $129 million in 2018 and $135 million for each of fiscal years 2019, 2020, and 2021. The CBO estimates that implementing this bill would cost almost $450 million over the 2018-2022 period, assuming appropriation of the authorized and necessary amounts.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) introduced this bill to combat human trafficking. He contends that U.S. leadership on human trafficking is needed to make a difference on this issue:

“I’ve been working on human trafficking since 1995. Many people thought it was a solution in search of a problem. You’d say trafficking and their eyes would glaze over. [U.S.] leadership … is making all the difference in the world — domestically and internationally – to mitigate this horror, this modern day slavery that disproportionately hurts women and children.”

Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) notes that this bill contains important reforms to both foreign and domestic anti-trafficking programs:

“This ambitious bill not only extends the legal authorities from the groundbreaking Trafficking Victims Protection Act that Rep. Smith authored 17 years ago, but also contains important reforms to our foreign and domestic anti-trafficking programs. This bill strengthens the State Department’s annual TIP Report and the Country Tier Rankings. Namely, they must tell the truth about the trafficking situation on the ground, and should not be subject to manipulation for the sake of diplomatic, economic, or political considerations.”

After this bill’s passage in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, President Trump praised it, saying, “My Administration is focused on ending the horrific practice of human trafficking, and the three bills the House of Representatives passed today [including this bill] are important steps forward.”

World Vision supports this bill. Its Policy Advisor for Child Protection, Jessica Bousquette, says that TVPA reauthorization is needed to prevent violence against children:

“With over one billion children experiencing violence globally every year, we must work together to prevent violence, including trafficking from happening in the first place. Reauthorizing the TVPA is critical in that effort. We must also maintain current foreign assistance levels to ensure we have the resources we need to end trafficking… During the last decade, we have made significant progress in identifying human trafficking victims, prosecuting traffickers, protecting survivors, and creating partnerships domestically and around the world to end human trafficking, so it’s critical that we protect those who are most vulnerable by reauthorizing Trafficking Victims Protection Act.”

Human Rights First’s Annick Febrey, a senior associate at the organization’s Bankrupt Slavery campaign, cast doubt upon the TVPA’s effectiveness in March 2016, writing that:

“Since the last reauthorization in 2013, just under 15,000 traffickers were convicted worldwide and law enforcement identified nearly 136,000 victims. The International Labour Organization also released a new estimate that traffickers are profiting $150 billion annually—about three times the previous approximation… Labor trafficking will continue to be an appealing business enterprise for perpetrators until we increase the risks for those who profit from enslaving workers both in the United States and overseas. The TVPA reauthorization gives us an opportunity to make that happen. Hopefully three years from now, the number of labor prosecutions will more closely mirror the percentage of victims who are trafficked for forced labor, disincentivizing traffickers from participating in this fundamental violation of human rights.”

This bill passed the House by a voice vote in July 2017, then passed the Senate with an amendment by voice vote in December 2018. It has 29 House cosponsors, including 16 Democrats and 13 Republicans. It has the support of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), World Vision, and Freedom Network USA.


Of Note: The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) and its reauthorizations (2003, 2005, 2008, 2013) are the cornerstone for current U.S. policy on combating international and domestic human trafficking. TVPA authorized and established the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, as well as other anti-trafficking efforts. In 2017, TVPA programs were authorized at $135 million.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline received 26,727 calls in 2016 and 7,572 human trafficking cases were reported in the U.S. that year. DHS says the majority of trafficking cases go undetected in the U.S. each year.


Media:

Summary by Lorelei Yang

(Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com / aradaphotography)