Sex trafficking.

I WAS DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED by "Sex Trafficking: Why the Faith Trade Is Interested in the Sex Trade" by Jennifer Block in the Summer/ Autumn issue of Conscience.

Three issues require correction because they are so dramatically off base: the discussion of victim data, the description of grants to faith-based organizations, and the misrepresentation of the US government's position on prostitution.

Despite Ms. Block's assertion that "there's no data" regarding the percentage of victims who are women and children, the data exists and it is shocking: current government estimates are that of the 600,000 to 800,000 transnational victims, approximately 80 percent are female, 34 percent are girls under age 18, and 70 percent of the total female victims are trafficked into commercial sex exploitation. Of the total number of transnational victims, about 50 percent are children, under age 18. No one can know for sure how many victims of labor and sex slavery there are in the world--this crime occurs in the shadows--but the profile we have is horrific and it has spurred this administration, together with hundreds of organizations around the world including many church groups, to action.

Regarding faith-based anti-slavery efforts, the office I lead works with religious organizations across the political spectrum. Faith-based groups are often working in the poorest parts of the world, caring for the powerless--who are vulnerable to promises of a better life made by human traffickers. These groups, thank God, are a major reason human trafficking came to the attention of policy makers! But your article takes an extremely cynical, suspicious attitude toward this good work, accusing the "faith trade" of exploiting the exploited for money.

Here are the facts: In Fiscal Year 2003, faith-based organizations received $3.27 million in grants out of an estimated $71 million (from the Department of State, USAID and the Department of Labor) to carry out international anti-trafficking in persons programs--4.6 percent of total funding. That's not exactly a windfall. And money is most certainly not the motivating force for the thousands of advocates motivated by social justice and human rights who take up the cause of slavery victims!

The terms prostitution and trafficking are not "used interchangeably" to "confuse the scope and character of trafficking." Rather, the fact that these are related phenomena has led to a strong stand against legalized or deregulated prostitution. This position is empirically derived, not ideologically determined.

The most glaring omission in this flawed piece is the lack of victims' voices. If your author had talked to the victims of sex and labor exploitation, she would probably have become a new abolitionist.

AMBASSADOR JOHN R. MILLER

Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

Author's Reply

WHAT AMBASSADOR MILLER calls "off base" is my reporting of information beyond what is generated by his office, such as that provided by David Feingold of the United Nations' Trafficking Statistics Project. That information undermines the State Department's "estimates" and by extension Mr. Miller's justification for the Bush administration's lurid focus on sex trafficking. (Ambassador Miller's own report also suggests some confusion at the State Department over who is trafficked. It says that 70 percent, not 80 percent, of trafficked individuals are women, p15.) Had Mr. Miller agreed to an interview--several requests were made and declined--perhaps we could have explored these discrepancies further.

Mr. Miller also claims that my facts are flawed on US funding of faith-based groups. But the fact is that the US government now restricts all anti-trafficking funds--all $71 million--to those groups that agree with this "new abolitionist" ideology. Some of these groups are "faith-based" and some are not, as I acknowledge in the article. The salient issue is that groups that are doing important and effective victim outreach, advocacy and disease prevention but disagree with the Bush administration are no longer receiving funds. That policy is most certainly based on ideology rather than fact. As several activists, researchers and health workers have said, such a restrictive policy only further harms the victims it purports to be "saving."

JENNIFER BLOCK

New York, NY

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INsightful article on how the religious right and its supporters in the US government have co-opted the debate over human trafficking to further an ideological agenda that often harms, rather than helps, women around the world.

The Episcopal Church-USA is among the many faith groups that advocate on behalf of legislation and public policy to combat sex trafficking. We are very aware, however, that sex trafficking is part of a broader problem, and that US policy must also address the exploitation of workers (including women), child labor and other dimensions of human trafficking. These concerns, on which the Episcopal Church has a long history, of social policy and action, are all too often absent from the current debate.

Moreover, we share your concern with the use of the trafficking issue to further an ideological agenda focused on limiting, rather than strengthening, the rights of women around the world. It is deeply troubling that the Bush administration and Congress have saddled the US's anti-trafficking efforts with the same sort of ideological restrictions that currently impair our nation's efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and promote responsible family planning worldwide. The refusal to fund anti-trafficking programs that don't explicitly oppose legalized prostitution threatens to severely undermine our nation's response to trafficking. Additionally, as the article demonstrates, the restrictions would have consequences well beyond anti-trafficking programs, most critically in the further weakening of our already ideologically hampered global AIDS policy.

The challenges now facing the developing world--reflected in the UN's Millennium Development Goals--are significant in scope and complexity. Our nation's international policy can play a vital role in meeting these needs, but only if it is allowed to operate unburdened by ideological restrictions whose focus has little to do with the underlying challenges.

ALEXANDER D. BAUMGARTEN

International Policy Analyst

The Episcopal Church-USA, Office of Government Relations