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 Sex trafficking victims are the least likely to win any monetary
award, even if prosecutors petition the judge, and are awarded far
less money than labor victims, according to the review of cases by
the law firm Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr LLP.
Overall, courts ordered compensation in just 36 percent of
trafficking cases, meaning that payment was the exception rather
than the rule even though it is mandatory under U.S. law.
Labor victims were awarded $213,939 on average, while sex
trafficking victims - who were far more numerous and whose services
were far more valuable to traffickers - received $151,076.
“These findings are extremely troubling,” said Martina Vandenberg,
president of Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center, who
co-authored the report.
“Why are our federal courts allowing traffickers to keep their
windfall earnings obtained through exploiting trafficking victims?
Trafficking victims desperately need these funds to recover from the
ordeal of abuse and exploitation.”
Anti-slavery groups estimate there are more than 14,000 trafficking
victims in the United States. They are U.S. citizens and foreign
nationals working in the sex industry, hotels, agriculture,
construction, health care and domestic servitude.
A 2000 U.S. anti-trafficking act requires courts to order convicted
human traffickers to pay their victims the gross amount they earned
from them, or at the least, the minimum wage plus overtime for their
hours of forced servitude.
In a landmark 2007 case, a jury awarded $936,546 to two Indonesian
women forced to work as domestic servants in the 5,900-square foot
(550-square meter) home of a New York couple, and the husband and
wife were given lengthy prison terms.
The appeals court added damages, and after reassessing the hours
worked, the trial court finally ordered a $679,866 payment.
FAST MILLION FOR ILLICIT SERVICES?
In sex trafficking cases, the U.S. justice system frequently fails
to live up to the requirements in the law, and victims receive less
compensation, according to the firm's analysis of all trafficking
cases in the period from 2009 to 2012.
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While prosecutors requested restitution for the victim in 61 percent
of sex trafficking cases, courts ordered payments in fewer than
one-third of those cases. Defense attorneys routinely argue that
sex trafficking victims do not deserve restitution because their
work is illegal.
The report quoted one attorney as arguing that women were
opportunists trying to make a fast million dollars through their
illegal activities.
“Women who come here illegally, commit illegal acts in our country,
and now they are trying to get paid,” it quoted the unnamed lawyer
as saying.
In contrast for labor trafficking, monetary awards were requested 87
percent of the time and ordered 94 percent of the time, the report
said.
One reason for the difference appears to be that labor trafficking
victims are more likely to have a legal advocate supporting them
through the court system and pressing for compensation, while sex
trafficking victims have less support, said Vandenberg.
"We knew this was a problem anecdotally, but we had no idea how bad
it was and now we have the hard data," she told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
(Reporting by Stella Dawson, Editing by Alisa Tang)
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