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HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Members of the New York Anti-Trafficking Coalition celebrated a victory over forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation when then Governor Spitzer signed an anti-trafficking law on June 6, 2007. The law became effective Nov. 1, 2007. Traffickers now face serious penalties, survivors will have access to support services and an interagency task force connects the law enforcement community and service providers to assure the new law’s effectiveness.

The U.S. Department of State estimates that between 18,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year primarily as agricultural workers, domestic servants, waiters and prostitutes. Because New York is a prominent port of entry, transit and destination for trafficking victims, strict enforcement of this law will reduce human trafficking nationally.

For the Labor-Religion Coalition, the 2007 anti-trafficking law caped years of education and advocacy on the issue. In 2001 the Coalition researched and published a report on the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children in partnership with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Organizations of women religious, worker rights organizations, and dozens of other groups joined forces to become the New York Anti-Trafficking Coalition under the leadership of the international women’s rights organization Equality Now.

For updates on implementation of what has been called the strongest anti-trafficking law in the nation, see testimony from a hearing of the New York State Interagency Task Force on Human Trafficking. Click here for testimony from the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center at a Dec. 2007 hearing.

See the site of Equality Now for testimony about the need to strengthen anti-trafficking legislation at the federal level.