Sex Trafficking of Thai Women

Sex Trafficking of Thai Women and the U.S. Response

The Incidence of Sex Trafficking of Thai Women in the United States and a Review of Relevant Governmental Policy

In many ways, Thailand continues to be a mysterious and idyllic region of Asia for many Western observers. The primarily Buddhist kingdom of Thailand remains a sociological jewel in many ways among many Southeast Asian nations by virtue of its progressive social policies and egalitarian approach to human rights. As the only Southeast Asian country to escape occupation by the Japanese during World War II or colonization by a European power (the country's name means "Free-land," after all), Thais appear to possess the natural ability to persevere psychologically and economically even during the worst of times, and their national motto of "never mind" (Mai pen lai) seems to sum up their carefree attitude about the periodic downturns that characterize the universal human condition. In spite of these many blessings, Thailand remains a center of international sex trafficking and the adverse impact on the young Thai girls involved has been profound with lifelong implications. While authorities debate precise figures, it has been estimated by the United Nations that between 700,000 to 2 million women, with some estimates as high as 4 million women and children, are trafficked across borders to work in the sex industry each year (Cwikel & Hoban, 2005). To determine how this combination of eventualities could emerge in an otherwise peace loving and progressive country, this study provides a review of the relevant and peer-reviewed literature to identify current sex trafficking issues in Thailand, and what the U.S. government has done in response from a policy-making perspective, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. A critical review of the literature is followed by a discussion of the issues involved and a summary of the research and salient findings are provided in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Background and Overview.

Today, Thailand enjoys a well-developed infrastructure, a free-enterprise economy, and pro-investment policies, and the kingdom seems to have completely recovered economically from the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis (Thailand, 2006). In fact, Thailand enjoyed one of the most impressive economic performance records during the period 2002-2004 in all of East Asia; increased domestic consumption and exports fueled further growth in the Thai economy in 2003 and 2004 in spite of an otherwise rocky global economy (Thailand, 2006). The country's leadership has pursued preferential trade agreements with a variety of neighboring trade partners as well as the United States in an attempt to further boost exports and to sustain these patterns of high economic growth (Thailand, 2006). In sharp contrast to these glowing economic reports are more troubling accounts of the growing incidence of sex trafficking practices in Thailand today. Worldwide, the number of women and children who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation during the last 15 years already equal to estimates of the number of Africans who were enslaved for sale in the United States during the 16th and 17th centuries: "The minimum number of African slaves transported here was between 5 million and 6 million. There is no doubt that world trafficking [in sex slaves] now is around that number" (Edwards & Harder, 2000, p. 14). According to Nelson (2002), at least 700,000 people, mostly women and children, become the victims of sex trafficking within or across international borders. "Many of these persons are trafficked into the international sex trade," Nelson adds, "often by force, fraud, or coercion.... Traffickers primarily target women and girls, who are disproportionately affected by poverty, the lack of access to education, chronic unemployment, discrimination, and the lack of economic opportunities in countries of origin" (p. 551).

A number of factors have been cited concerning why children in countries throughout the world continue to be victims of sex trafficking, and these reasons differ from country to country (Matthews, 2005). According to this author, "The common variable for all victims is that they are exploited, whether by a family member, their community, or even a corrupt government. How and why this exploitation permeates young lives is found in varying explanations in countries around the world" (p. 649). For example, researchers have suggested that the fact that the paucity of a consensus even concerning the definition of "child" has contributed to the problem of sex trafficking; clearly, if the international community is unable to achieve a common definition as to who is a child, many observers caution that it is impossible to determine who is being victimized (Matthews, 2005).

Indeed, although the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a working definition for "child" as being an individual under the age of 18 years and therefore, child sex trafficking laws should protect children age 17 years and under, some countries may consider the age a person can consent to sexual activity to be less than 18 years and the respective country's laws assume precedence over the international conventions (Matthews, 2005). This problem is further exacerbated in countries where births are not recorded officially or where a false identification card is readily obtainable on the black market. Therefore, to the extent that countries are unable to even agree on who qualifies as a child is likely the extent to which a significant percentage of sex trafficking victims remain unidentified and unprotected (Matthews, 2005). Furthermore, as Kuo (2000) points out, "The fear of criminal arrest needlessly pushes many abused women to the underground sector, where the cycle of abuse is even more unaccountable and hence even more brutal" (p. 42). Likewise, there is a lot of money to be made in sex trafficking and countries that have the practice fully entrenched in their culture have elaborate infrastructures in place to ensure their continued operations (Matthews, 2005). According to Matthews:

Victims are often unable to support themselves and have no means to escape their plight, thus making them easy prey for traffickers. Although these victims become the property of brothel owners, their basic needs of survival are being met. On the flip side, patrons from wealthy nations have the ability to travel to countries where laws to protect children from sex crimes do not exist, or are not enforced. These perpetrators also can afford to change venues if a country begins to enact or exercise child sexual exploitation laws. (2005, p. 650).

The increasing gap between developed and developing countries further complicates the problem of sex trafficking; the financial disparity among countries leads to the victimization of children from poorer countries by perpetrators of wealthy nations. Moreover, economically unstable countries victimize their own people to receive some of a prosperous nation's wealth. While poverty contributes to the trafficking problem, it is only one factor. In fact, Matthews emphasizes that the governments of some desperately poor countries are fully complying with provisions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 minimal standards for eliminating sex trafficking (2005). According to this author, "Trafficking prospers when local law enforcement condones it, whether implicitly or explicitly. Traffickers cannot conduct their activities in private -- customers must also know where to go to access victims. It only stands to reason that if customers know where the brothels are, local police must also know" (emphasis added) (Matthews, 2005, p. 650). The reason trafficking prospers in these types of locations in Thailand and elsewhere throughout Southeast Asia is two-fold:

Law enforcement is overwhelmed, and lacking in resources, and police corruption has led to involvement of officers in the sex ring;

Trafficking is especially prevalent in countries involved in armed conflict or civil unrest due to instability because it displaces women, and children become victims under corrupt or powerless governments (Matthews, 2005).

More specifically, a recent study of trafficked women conducted in Thailand and the United States identified nine factors that have contributed to the worldwide increase in sex trafficking:

Under economic policies of globalization, many services that used to be state-supported, such as education, health care, and social welfare, are now being transferred to private hands, increasing the economic burden on families who must pay for these services.

The sex industry is becoming more globalized, with recruitment and transport being conducted in larger and more sophisticated trafficking networks. Sex industry advertising is accomplished over the internet, offering further opportunities to provide international sex business.

The male demand for sex services is a hard market to saturate, suggesting that "the way in which sex has been tolerated as a male right in a commodity culture is all part of this demand."

The social structure in most of the world is built on women's inequality and economic dependence on fathers and husbands and male relatives. This inequality has allowed an almost endless supply of women who are desperate to earn money, particularly in developing countries and emerging industrialized countries.

The commodification of women's bodies as sexual objects, and therefore for sale, is common.

Child sexual abuse, in particular, puts young women in a vulnerable state that may be exploited in order to pressure women to work in prostitution.

The stereotype that "the exotic is the erotic" has fueled the demand for foreign women to enter prostitution, further inflating the demand for trafficked women. This has been a traditional marketing angle in the sex industry, dating back to Roman times when the hetaerae, or foreign women, commanded the highest prices for sexual services. Today, there is an even broader selection of source countries for recruitment.

War or a military conflict has fueled the demand for women to be brought to places of conflict so they can provide sexual services for troops. Where a permanent military presence is established, there are always brothels and prostitutes in the vicinity and places for the troops to rest, relax, and be entertained.

Restrictive immigration policies do not offer working opportunities with legitimate travel documents for those who want to work in non-professional jobs (Cwikel & Hoban, 2005).

Furthermore, because of the enormous amounts of money involved, it is not surprising that organized crime has become a major player in many countries where sex trafficking is taking place today (Matthews, 2005). According to this Matthews, convoluted crime syndicates manage to conduct their business without any interference throughout the various stages of the sex trafficking process. The United Nations defines organized criminal groups as "associations of three or more people, existing for some time with the goal of committing a serious crime for financial or material gain"; because of the enormous sums of money involved in sex trafficking, it has become the third-largest source of income for organized crime groups today (Matthews, 2005). Organized crime syndicates are active in originating as well as destination countries for sex trafficking, and operators in these situations have been compared to drug cartels in their ability to smuggle their goods across borders and utilize advanced communications to their benefit (Matthews, 2005). In addition, the increase in sex trafficking among children has also increased partially because of porous borders and increasing technological capacities; further, billions of dollars are involved in the trafficking industry in countries where there is a relatively low risk of being arrested (Matthews, 2005). Even in countries that have laws against trafficking, the prosecution of traffickers is often non-existent due to corruption in law enforcement or the victims' fear of testifying. Moreover, in some countries the victims are charged and prosecuted for illegal sex acts rather than being treated as victims of a crime (Matthews, 2005).

Finally, although there is a high incidence of HIV / AIDS infection within the community of trafficked children, misconception about the disease actually leads some people to feel safer sexually abusing young children. Some tourists believe children are less likely to be infected with AIDS and are therefore safe sex partners. A number of cultures believe a myth that sex with a virgin will cure the disease and therefore seek young virgins through the trafficking industry (Matthews, 2005). Nevertheless, simply because a given culture embraces a casual attitude that trafficking in children is fine and dandy does not necessarily make it morally acceptable to the rest of the international community. Indeed, Article 34 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly stipulates that children around the world have the right to be protected from sexual exploitation (O'Grady, 2005). Unfortunately, there are some powerful forces at play in the sex trafficking marketplace that make is comparable to the Latin American drug cartels that have terrorized their countries into submitting to their organizational goals at any cost in terms of human lives and misery.

According to Edwards and Harder (2000), "The profits from a growing global sex trade in women and children soon will be the world's most lucrative illegal activity if a new U.S. law doesn't change the situation. Human trafficking is the third-highest illegal-income source in America today behind drug -- and gunrunning. The dark side of human trafficking is that, unlike drugs, [sexually enslaved] human beings can be resold and reused, thus making them a more profitable commodity" (p. 14). Clearly, then, the only difference between these purveyors of human misery and those involved in the sex trafficking industry are the products and services provided, and many who seek out such products and services today naturally turn to the historic leader in child prostitution - Thailand - and these issues are discussed further below as they relate to the incidence and contributing factors relating to the practice today.

Incidence and Factors Contributing to Sex Trafficking in Thailand Today.

According to O'Grady, a modest consultative effort was launched in 1990 in an effort to raise awareness of the issue of child prostitution: "A little-known non-governmental organization in Thailand initiated research into rumors that children were being kept in brothels in many parts of Asia. The Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism, a small church organization based in Thailand that was set up to monitor tourism in Asia, contracted social workers in Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Taiwan, as well as Thailand, to investigate the situation" (O'Grady, 2001, p. 123). The results of this investigation indicated that approximately one million children under the age of 16 were being kept as child prostitutes in brothels throughout Asia; while the majority of the children had been used by local customers, there was a large and growing demand by foreign tourists for sex with children (O'Grady, 2001). In this regard, Hall and Ryan (2001) report that, "The capitalist system and the classifications of 'other' that are created by fragmentations based on hegemonies of European-American male-based cultures are important in explaining the emergence of sex tourism in Thailand" (p. 11). There is, they maintain, a standard "objective" narrative about the Thai sex industry that commences with, "[T]he decay of local communities leading to large-scale migration of rural girls (and later, also boys) to work in prostitution for the U.S. soldiers, for an increasingly prosperous urban market, later for the tourist trade, and finally as an export commodity" (Hall & Ryan, 2001, p. 11). Unfortunately, the "rest and recreation" aspect of the sex industry in Thailand that was previously provided solely for American soldiers has been expanded to a global basis. Today, Kuo (2000) suggests that, "The clientele base reaches far beyond soldiers seeking refuge from the military aggression of the war. Economic progress cannot eradicate the existence of trafficking and prostitution. It merely increases the standards of 'service' to accommodate higher living standards. For instance, Malaysia and Thailand, both of which are experiencing rapid economic growth, are moving away from brothels and massage parlors and instead are developing private clubs with more luxurious environments better suited to the growing middle class" (p. 42). According to Kuo (2000), around 20% of prostitutes in Thailand begin their work between the age of 13 and 15 years. This author adds that, "The increases in prostitution and trafficking also partially explain the dramatic rise in sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HJV infections. In Thailand, approximately over 1.5 million women are afflicted with HIV" (Kuo, 2000, p. 42).

Although some developing countries are enjoy more natural resources of one type or another that provides them with some competitive advantage in the international marketplace, it would seem that all such developing countries have plenty of disposable women and children available that can be sold time and again until they are used up at which point they can simply be discarded. Morality aside, this is an outstanding business model that has historically attracted its fair share of operators. For instance, according to Cwikel and Hoban (2005), "Moving women between countries for the purposes of work in prostitution dates back to Roman and Biblical times and was a major concern among social reformers of the late 19th century who fought against the 'White slave trade.' However, the nature of contemporary trafficking enterprises has changed both in volume and method" (p. 306). Likewise, in their essay, "Sex Slave Trade Enters the U.S.," Edwards and Harder (2000) report that, "While there is nothing new about what once was called white slavery, the last two decades have seen sex trafficking turned into a well-organized international criminal enterprise corrupting whole countries. Such traffic began to flourish in the Philippines and Thailand after the Vietnam War -- first catering to soldiers and then to sexual holidays for Japanese, American, Canadian and European men frequenting brothels in Southeast Asia" (p. 14). Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian women were also targeted by these criminal enterprises (Edwards & Harder, 2000).

In this context, sexual trafficking has been defined as a "situation where women or girls cannot change the immediate conditions of their existence; where, regardless of how they got into those conditions, they cannot get out; and where they are subject to sexual violence and exploitation" (Toepfer & Wells, 1994, p. 83). Approximately 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are even smuggled into the United States each year, with about 30,000 of these sex trafficked women and children being from countries in Southeast Asia (Nelson, 2002). As more and more women from abroad are forced into becoming prostitutes in the United States every year, they not only violate U.S. immigration, labor and prostitution laws, but they may represent a threat to national security by strengthening corrosive elements abroad (Edwards & Harder, 2000).

The conditions are ripe for the practice to take place in many of these developing countries, and the methods used to recruit young women and children into the sex trafficking machinery can be hard to resist. According to Nelson (2002), "In countries where jobs are scarce, recruiters approach women with employment offers as models, dancers, or waitresses abroad. Traffickers use a variety of false promises to capture the women who will soon serve as prostitutes; women "know that they will work as sex workers, but have no idea that they will be bought and sold as chattel and forced to work essentially as slaves" (Nelson, 2002, p. 552). Sex traffickers typically arrange for the women's travel, passports, and visas; when they arrive in a foreign country, their documents are confiscated by the traffickers (Nelson, 2002). Stranded and lacking proper documentation, the women are held captive and are forced to work off their debt by engaging in prostitution; if the women refuse to participate, they may be beaten and raped (Nelson, 2002).

The victims of forced prostitution work under inhumane conditions. Most must work ten to eighteen hours a day, for at least twenty-five days each month. They cannot leave the brothels, or even their rooms; often they are chained to their beds. Women are forced to service about ten customers per day, without the privilege of negotiating which clients they will take and which acts they will perform. Trafficking in women for forced prostitution is a lucrative business for the pimps and procurers (Nelson, 2002). In fact, one recent estimate placed the total revenues earned by international traffickers at $9 billion per year; in fact, sex trafficking represents one of the fastest growing international crimes today: "The profits from a growing global sex trade in women and children soon will be the world's most lucrative illegal activity" (Edwards & Harder, 2000, p. 14). In fact, even modest operations can gross their managers more than $200,000 a month, but unlike drug dealers that are only able to sell their commodities once, brothel owners enjoy a continuous return on their investment. One investigator commented that the investment in trafficked women was "better than mutual funds" (Nelson, 2002, p. 552).

In addition, sex trafficked women typically only receive a small fraction of the money they bring in and they are not permitted to leave the brothel without paying off their debt in sexual services (Nelson, 2002). Furthermore, women and children who become victims of the sex trafficking industry start their lives of prostitution already in debt because they are forced to reimburse their "owners" for the costs of their own smuggling; in fact, these women and children must pay for their own room and board, clothing, toiletries, birth control, and doctor visits with their miniscule earnings and the majority receive only 20% of the client's payment for services, plus tips (Nelson, 2002).

The process by which sex trafficking took hold in Thailand was largely driven by economic considerations. According to Askew (2002), "The commercialised domestic sex trade focusing on brothels, massage parlours, hotels and entertainment venues emerged with expanding incomes which supported an expanding clientele for sexual services in Thailand from the late 1950s. This expansion was unrelated to foreign tourism" (p. 254). By the 1980s, the structural changes that Thailand had experienced in support of its tourist-orientated sex trafficking trade were evident. "The foreign-orientated sex trade followed the expansion in the tourism sector generally from the mid-1970s and was given the blessing (indirectly) of the state through tourism promotion. Tourism expanded dramatically to form a significant foreign currency-earner for the Thai economy whose fortunes had become bound to the global marketplace, not just in resources, but in services" (Askew, 2002, p. 254). The growing body of research concerning the tourist-orientated sex trade in Thailand in particular has shown that a far more complex process than previously acknowledged is at play in the country today:

It is perhaps unsurprising that these more sophisticated perspectives have been developed through detailed ethnographic research - the best of it conducted in the native language of the informants (unlike western political economy-based studies). A recent ethnographic study by one adventurous young Thai women academic (who disguised herself as a bar worker for her research in Chiang Mai bars) strongly supports the argument that women in tourist-orientated prostitution are active, assertive and skilled agents in the interactions that take place in the red-light districts. (Askew, 2002, p. 255).

While the precise number of Thai women and children that are affected by sex trafficking remains unknown, the current estimates make it clear that the industry is thriving in many places, and great sums of money are being made at the expense of those who are in the least position to protect themselves from such abuses, and a review of the U.S. government responses to these trends is provided below.

U.S. Government Responses to Sex Trafficking.

In response to the growing problem of human trafficking, the U.S. Congress enacted the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (Nelson, 2002). As defined by the Act, sex trafficking is "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act" (cited in O'Meara, 2003 at p. 24). Prior to the passage of the Act, international sex trade traffickers were prosecuted in the United States using a variety of pieces of legislation to fight the practice. Furthermore, the international community has responded to this increasingly frequent crime as well. For example, in 1999, the U.N. General Assembly adopted an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Nelson, 2002). Before the year 2000, the United States approached the prosecution of sex traffickers of women using a loose framework of various criminal statutes. In one case, for example, a sex trafficker was convicted of, inter alia, three counts of importing and harboring illegal aliens for the purpose of prostitution under 8 U.S.C. Section 1328 and 18 U.S.C. Section 2; the defendant in this case was also convicted of subjecting a person to involuntary servitude during a period in American history when the offense was punishable by ten years' imprisonment (Nelson, 2002). Likewise, current immigration law prohibits procuring an alien for prostitution or any other "immoral purpose"; furthermore, sex traffickers may also be charged with conspiring to interfere with an individual's free exercise of constitutional or legal rights (Nelson, 2002). Offenders may be confined for up to ten years unless certain aggravating circumstances are present, in which case the punishment may be confinement for life or even a death sentence (Nelson, 2002). The power of the U.S. Congress to regulate interstate and foreign commerce provides another set of guidelines for the prosecution of sex traffickers:

conviction for transportation of an individual in interstate or foreign commerce for the purpose of prostitution carries a sentence of ten years' confinement;

Persuading, inducing, enticing, or coercing an individual to travel in interstate or foreign commerce for the purpose of prostitution is also prohibited;

Transporting a minor in interstate commerce for the purpose of prostitution or traveling in interstate commerce for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with a minor is also an offense;

Persuasion and transportation of a minor each carry a higher penalty: up to fifteen years' confinement (Nelson, 2002).

In addition, kidnapping a person to be sold into involuntary servitude or enticing a person to board a vessel with the intent that the person be made a slave was also prohibited and punishable by ten years' confinement. These statutes have been subsequently amended by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which is discussed further below.

Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. In response to the growing recognition that existing legislation was not sufficient to effectively address the growing problem of sex trafficking, Congress passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (hereinafter "the Act" or "the Trafficking Act") (Nelson, 2002). The Trafficking Act uses a comprehensive framework in which to address the problems associated with sex trafficking. For example, the Act establishes an agency to coordinate and monitor implementation of measures against trafficking; in addition, the Act also contains provisions for the prevention of trafficking and for the protection of and assistance for the victims of trafficking (Nelson, 2002). Further, the Trafficking Act creates new offenses regarding sex trafficking or trafficking for involuntary servitude (Nelson, 2002).

The U.S. Congress defines sex trafficking as "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act." "Commercial sex act" refers to a sex act for which any person gives or receives anything of value. Today, Congress defines severe forms of trafficking as:

Sex trafficking induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the victim is under eighteen years of age; or,

Recruiting, harboring, or transporting a person for labor through the use of force or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude or debt bondage (Nelson, 2002).

Section 7103 of the Trafficking Act establishes the Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking ("Task Force"). This section mandates that the president will appoint the Task Force members, to include, inter alia, (a) the Secretary of State, (b) the Attorney General, - the Secretary of Labor, (d) the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and (e) the Director of Central Intelligence (Nelson, 2002). The Task Force has been tasked with a variety of important responsibilities in the fight against sex trafficking, including the coordination of the implementation of the Trafficking Act; other responsibilities of the Task Force include measurement and evaluation of the United States' and other countries' progress regarding implementation of the Trafficking Act (Nelson, 2002).

The Task Force must also work to expand data collection on trafficking and facilitate cooperation among countries of origin, transit, and destination. The establishment of an agency to coordinate and monitor anti-trafficking efforts is required today because sex trafficking is one of the fastest growing international crimes, behind only drug trafficking and illegal weapons sales (Nelson, 2002). Some of the sex trafficking prevention initiatives established by the Trafficking Act include foreign economic initiatives; such initiatives may include programs for skills training and job counseling, programs to keep girls in elementary and secondary schools, and programs to educate victims of sex trafficking (Nelson, 2002). Any such funded initiatives may also include grants to nongovernmental organizations to advance women's political, economic, and educational roles in those countries; beyond these initiatives, the Trafficking Act also tasks the president, through the various members of the Task Force, to create programs to increase public awareness of sex trafficking in the United States, particularly among potential victims (Nelson, 2002).

Unlike laws that only punish the pimps and procurers of women and children, the Trafficking Act provides assistance to these victims of trafficking, regardless of their immigration status; indeed, victims of severe forms of trafficking in the United States who are aliens are granted the same eligibility as refugees under any federal or state program. In order to obtain assistance, the victim of a sex trafficking crime must be under eighteen years of age or be willing to assist the authorities in investigation and prosecution of severe forms of trafficking. The victim may receive assistance for as long as is necessary to effectuate the prosecution (Nelson, 2002). The process is not simple, though, and it takes time. In their book, Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity, Bernstein and Schaffner (2005) report that, "The Trafficking Victims Protection Act does too little to strengthen the rights of most migrant workers, whether in the sex industry or outside of it. Insofar as HR 3244 attempts to address the very real problem of migrant and sex worker abuse, it is an honorable if inadequate effort" (p. 64).

These authors reiterate the need for a more comprehensive approach to the complex issues that comprise the sex-trafficking industry today, and emphasize that any truly effective response requires more than lip service to address the enormous economic disparities that exist between the world's richest and poorest countries, together with a recognition that the criminalization of migration and the labor associated with it seriously endangers the well-being of vulnerable workers (Bernstein & Schaffner, 2005). These author add that, "HR 3244 may lead to increased convictions of traffickers, but it is unlikely to challenge deeply held and hostile attitudes toward poor women, undocumented workers, and prostitutes. In the first two years after passage of the law, 36 convictions against traffickers resulted, a doubling of the number successfully prosecuted in 2001" (Bernstein & Schaffner, 2005, p. 64). These authors suggest that it is noteworthy that the first recipient of a T-visa was neither a prostitute nor an exploited undocumented worker; instead, it was a 4-year-old boy from Thailand named "Got" (Bernstein & Schaffner, 2005). According to Bernstein and Schaffner (2005), "At age 2, Got was used as a decoy to help create the illusion of a proper nuclear family by a smuggler attempting to bring a Thai prostitute into the United States on tourist visas; the boy apparently had been rented for the occasion from his mother (described in the media as an HIV-positive prostitute and heroin addict) for $250; the child was taken into custody by the INS when they determined that the couple was not married, the child was not theirs, and the boy was HIV positive" (Bernstein & Schaffner, 2005, p. 64). The woman was subsequently deported and the INS then spent the next two years attempting to deport the child as well, against appeals by the Thai American community in Los Angeles and antitrafficking activists (Bernstein & Schaffner, 2005).

According to one Washington Post reporter, the "Thai Elian Gonzales" became a rallying point in the fight against sex trafficking in the United States: "For opponents of sex trafficking, Got was their spotted owl, their Polly Klaas...with trafficked women, there is always the question of their complicity. With a boy who cannot speak his own name yet, no one can say he agreed" (Bernstein & Schaffner, 2005, p. 64). When a federal judge stayed his deportation, Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that the boy would become the first recipient of a so-called T-visa, describing the child as the poster child of trafficking: "Human trafficking victims are too often people like Got. Too young, too frightened, and too trapped in their circumstances to speak for themselves. This is a 4-year-old child" ("Boy used in smuggling scheme can stay in U.S.," 2001, cited in Bernstei & Schaffner, 2005 at p. 64).

The Trafficking Act also affects immigration; for example, alien victims may be exempted from deportation if they have assisted the authorities as witnesses in the investigation and prosecution and would suffer extreme hardship upon removal. Furthermore, the U.S. Attorney General is empowered to modify the status of certain nonimmigrants by assigning them permanent resident status (Nelson, 2002). This elimination of the threat of deportation represents a major step in the right direction because one of the primary reasons many sex trafficking victims are reluctant to come forward is their fear of being deported (Nelson, 2002). Another reason why victims of trafficking may not report the criminal activity to the local authorities is the fear of reprisal or recapture; under the provisions of the Trafficking Act, victims of severe forms of trafficking now must be protected while in federal custody. They must be detained in facilities appropriate for crime victims and must be provided with necessary medical care. The victims must also receive government protection if their safety is at risk or if there is a danger of recapture. Furthermore, the protection extends to members of the victims' families. The protection of victims is an essential element of a successful trafficking prosecution because authorities are less likely to prosecute without any witnesses (Nelson, 2002).