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Viewpoint: Polaris Project

Polaris Project is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization committed to combating human trafficking and modern-day slavery and to strengthening the anti-trafficking movement. Our work focuses on direct intervention, survivor support, policy advocacy, and movement building. A comprehensive counter-trafficking strategy is fundamental to achieving systemic change in this criminal industry. Top-down institutionalization of counter-trafficking capacity in laws and in the criminal justice system should be combined with bottom-up implementation though prosecution of the traffickers, law enforcement-NGO collaboration, and victim outreach and services. More focus is needed on trafficking operations in sweatshops and farms subcontracted by multinational companies. From China to Mexico and New York City to Saipan, workers are subjected to horrific abuse in conditions of modern-day slavery, including being forced to work long hours with little or no pay, trapped in guarded factory compounds, and physically and sexually assaulted. Major multinational companies are generating tremendous profits from these operations, but are protected by the subcontracts that allow them to deny any knowledge of these circumstances. We must hold the companies--and ourselves as consumers--accountable. The trafficking of people within their own country is another issue that deserves more attention. Internal or domestic trafficking is a serious problem in many regions, including in the United States where over 200,000 children are considered at high risk for sex trafficking. Though domestic trafficking victims should be equally protected under the law, law enforcement and service providers tend to focus exclusively on foreign nationals. Polaris Project works everyday with clients who have been sex trafficked from the age or 12 of 13 years old by violent pimps, but who have always been viewed as criminals rather than victims of a crime. Though domestic victims do not have language or immigration concerns, they suffer equally from the violence from their traffickers, and deserve comprehensive specialized care. They also often fear approaching law enforcement, having repeatedly been prosecuted rather than protected. In a hopeful trend, progressive U.S. attorneys offices are beginning to prosecute domestic pimps using federal sex trafficking statutes. On the policy front, this is a historic year for the anti-trafficking movement in the U.S. Only a handful of states have laws against trafficking and involuntary servitude, and none are comprehensive in scope. Sixteen bills are being or have been considered so far this year, and many more are likely to be introduced in states across the country. Passage of such state statutes against trafficking is key to increasing the volume of investigations and prosecutions. Derek Ellerman Co-Executive Director, Polaris Project www.PolarisProject.org

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