Defining the Problem of Trafficking: The Interplay of U.S. Law, Donor and NGO Engagement and the Local Context in Latin America

Abstract

The problem of trafficking has received enormous attentions since the late 1990s, driven in particular by the United States initiatives under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, and its subsequent reauthorizations in 2003 and 2005 (the TVPA) and the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000) (commonly known as the Polermo Protocol). Under the TVPA, the United States not only declared the war on trafficking a national and international priority, it predicated United States foreign aid, in part, upon compliance with the TVPA's mandate that all states undertake similar efforts. The donor community and local and international NGOs also have aggressively worked on the problem. Trafficking has been the subject of growing media attention throughout the world, drawing attention to the horrors of this form of human rights abuse. Nonetheless, the problem remains ill-defined and efforts to combat it have floundered. Unfortunately, the actors responsible for putting the fight against trafficking on the public agenda, the United States, the donor/NGO community and the media, have at the same time, wittingly or unwittingly, shaped and sometimes distorted our understandings of the problem and the efforts needed to address it. These difficulties are not unique to Latin America, although I will focus my attention there. In order to highlight the overall problem of trafficking, I will begin by identifying the definitional, sociological and legal problem that hinder the development of an accurate assessment of the problem. I focus not upon the empirical problems of research and assessment, an area addressed by others more qualified to do so, but rather upon those issues within the compass of policy makers and advocates. I will then describe the basic features of trafficking in Latin America and identify efforts to address the problem highlighting, in particular, the role by the United States, the TVPA and the donor/NGO community. Finally, I will suggest appropriate methods for limiting the problem and assisting its victims.