Video: Secretary Clinton's Interview With Jim Clancy of CNN International's Freedom Project

Interview With Jim Clancy of CNN International's Freedom Project

Interview

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Washington, DC

June 27, 2011

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QUESTION: Protection, partnership, all of those things are really important, but Hillary Clinton, you bring action to this. How and what – how do you get others to share?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Jim, I have been caring about and working on this now for longer than a decade, and the passion is there because it’s such a violation of human rights and human dignity. To see men, women, and children forced into bondage, slavery, in the 21^st century is just absolutely unforgettable and unforgivable. So we do take seriously the mission that the United States, along with many international partners, has undertaken, which is to prevent and to prosecute and to do everything we can in our efforts to stop modern-day slavery. And that means we have to have partnerships, which is very important, and we have to protect those who are at risk and those who are put into it. So we went from three Ps to four Ps, but passion underlies all of them.

QUESTION: When the United States took it upon itself through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act to do a report like this, when it also set itself up for criticism by those who would say, “This is politicized,” how tough do you see this year’s report in comparison to others?

SECRETARY CLINTON: It’s both tough and it’s encouraging, because on the one hand, when we started, we couldn’t even get this issue on agendas with other countries. I remember back in the late 90s, as First Lady, raising this issue in a number of countries, and I was really just politely dismissed. It was not something they wanted to talk about; they weren’t going to do anything about it; they viewed it as cultural, not criminal. And it only has been in the last several years that we have seen in – I would argue, in some measure, because of the U.S. report – that countries take it seriously, and that we have made common cause with activists at the grassroots level in so many countries who use this report to push their own governments for greater commitment.

QUESTION: Some governments like Saudi Arabia remain right on the bottom. Kuwait this year went down to Tier 3. When you look at that – how do you engage diplomatically to tell people who won’t even recognize that they have a problem, how do you engage them to make a change, a real change, not just passing a law?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think we have to look at the progress that we’ve made. Yes, there are countries that have not done, by any means, enough to even be taken seriously in addressing this. But there are many others who not only did pass laws, but have begun to put resources behind the implementation of those laws. So what we have is an international snapshot. There are some countries that are going up because what they have done is worthy of that, and there are some countries that are going down because they have backslid and maybe they’ve had a change in administration or they’ve just decided it’s not a priority for them. And then there are countries that are not making progress one way or the other.

We try to use this report to encourage change. I mean, the report in and of itself is a tool. It’s not an end in itself. It’s not some kind of giant report card and then we put it away and then dust it off and upgrade it the next year. All through the year, what we’re trying to do is to work with countries that are willing to take some action. We’re trying to work with advocates so that they know they’re not alone. And we’re trying to shine a very bright light on people everywhere who are still unwilling to admit that 27 million enslaved people is a rebuke to everyone everywhere; it’s not just a Western phenomena. I think human rights are universal rights, and therefore, we have to keep working with these countries and encouraging them, and frankly, naming and shaming to some extent to get them to change.

QUESTION: Does naming and shaming – do you think it works?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes. It does work. I mean, there --

QUESTION: But some countries are down on the bottom, Tier 3, every year.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we can look at the glass as half empty or half full, and that’s true that some countries are on the bottom, but other --

QUESTION: Are we pushing them hard enough or is this something where, “They’re our friends, we don’t want to push too hard?”

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we push pretty hard. I mean, it’s pretty hard to turn your eyes away from a report that is on the internet and that everybody can access. But I also like to look at the countries that have made a lot of progress. Look at what the Philippines have done in a change of administration. The Philippines probably export more people of their citizenry than nearly any other country in the world. They go all over the world to work in many different settings. And until the new administration of President Aquino, we didn’t really have the level of commitment we were seeking. We do now, and we see a sea change of difference.

So what we are looking at is, yes, those countries that are not moving, we’re going to keep pushing, we’re going to offer technical assistance, we’re going to keep raising it, it’s not going away, they can’t ignore it and thereby be left alone. And then we’re going to keep working with countries that are showing that they want to make a difference and do better.

QUESTION: One thing that has changed is that the U.S. is coming under a spotlight. The U.S. has said if: We have a problem, we admit it. But when you look at the War on Drugs or the War on Terror, there is no commensurate war on human trafficking in this country, a country with a hundred thousand young girls out on the streets, could become victims of human traffickers right here in this country – the funding isn’t there.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Jim, I don’t accept the premise of that. I think that part of the reason why I wanted to include ourselves in this report is that, I think, we’re stronger diplomatically if we can say to countries, look, we’re taking a hard look at ourselves. Now, we have done so much in the last 10-plus years, and a lot of what we do is at the local and state level, not just at the federal level. So if you look at all of the resources, from DA offices and police stations to judges who have been trained and really sensitized, all the way across our country we are making enormous progress off a very high base to begin with.

One of the first things I ever did that had anything to do with politics was as a young intern when I was in law school working on forced labor in our migratory labor in fields in our country, where people were basically enslaved. They were given contracts that they would never be able to fulfill and they were kept in, really, substandard housing, denied all kinds of services, and this was nearly 40 years ago. And there’s just no difference; it’s night and day. Our country has done so much. It is a national priority.

Once a year, I hold a meeting where our entire government comes together, from the Defense Department to the Justice Department to the Labor Department, and we do a tough review on what we’ve done and what we can do better. But what we have accomplished is really extraordinary. Is it a problem that we have overcome? No, but nowhere in the world has, but we set a very high standard and I’m proud of the work that our country is doing.

QUESTION: I want to shift gears and just ask you a question about Libya, Muammar Qadhafi, and the International Criminal Court: Is it such a good idea to have a public indictment of a man that you’re trying to force from power, or is it only going to make him dig in his heels even more – to fight his own people, to take their lives to an even greater degree?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Jim, that’s a judgment call. The international community at the United Nations included a referral to the International Criminal Court because of the credible evidence of behaviors that were deeply disturbing. He’s dug in pretty hard, and we, along with our international partners have made it very clear that he needs to leave power, and he also needs to stop the assault on his own people. But part of what the International Criminal Court has done is to take credible evidence and pull it all together. And it tells a fairly horrifying story about what he and his close associates, including family members, have been willing to do to stay in power, someone who’s been in power for more than 40 years, who cannot give it up, and who has so undermined the institutions of a country that has so much potential. So you can argue it round, you can argue square, you can say maybe we should have or maybe we shouldn’t have. But it was included in part of the international response to what we saw as a very direct threat to the lives of civilians in Libya.

QUESTION: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, thank you very much for giving us the time.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.

Fact Sheet: Trafficking in Persons

The U.S. is ranked in this year's report for the first time. That is very interesting given that for years we have been catching traffickers within our borders (those windowless white vans - I am always suspicious) or in a case a few years back an arriving ship with Chinese laborers. There was a case on Long Island not long ago of two women being held in involuntary servitude that received a lot of publicity. Here is the fact sheet from the State Department accompanied by some photos from today of the person who heads up that department (for your viewing pleasure).

Trafficking in Persons: Ten Years of Partnering to Combat Modern Slavery

Bureau of Public Affairs

Fact Sheet

June 14, 2010

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"The victims of modern slavery have many faces. They are men and women, adults and children.Yet, all are denied basic human dignity and freedom. … All too often suffering from horriblephysical and sexual abuse, it is hard for them to imagine that there might be a place of refuge." — President Barack Obama

The 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, compiled by the U.S. Department of State, marks the 10th anniversary of progress and challenge in the fight against modern slavery. In 2000, the United States enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), and the United Nations adopted the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children – also known as the Palermo Protocol.

The Palermo Protocol

The Palermo Protocol focused the global community’s attention on the scourge of human trafficking and the need for nations to work together to combat it. For the first time, there was a global consensus that all acts of trafficking in persons should be criminalized, including trafficking for forced labor, slavery, and slavery-like practices. The Protocol held that governmental responses should incorporate the “3P” paradigm: Prevention, Criminal Prosecution and Victim Protection.

A Growing and Committed but Young Movement

Over 10 years, governments worldwide have made appreciable progress in understanding some basic realities about human trafficking:

• People are in situations of modern slavery in most countries.
• Trafficking is a fluid phenomenon responding to market demands, vulnerabilities in laws, weak penalties, and economic instability.
• Trafficking can occur without movement across borders. But 10 years of focused effort to combat trafficking only represents the infancy of this modern movement. Many countries are still learning about human trafficking and the best responses to it. It is not enough to prosecute traffickers if governments do not provide assistance to the survivors and work to ensure that no one else is victimized. No country has yet attained a truly comprehensive response to this massive, ever increasing, ever changing crime.

The Victims

More people are trafficked for forced labor than for commercial sex. The crime is less about duping and kidnapping people than it is about coercion of people who entered a form of service voluntarily or migrated willingly. Men comprise a significant number of trafficking victims. Traffickers often use sexual violence as a weapon against women to keep them in compelled service, whether in a field, a factory, a brothel, a home, or a war zone.

Key Numbers from the 2010 TIP Report

• 12.3 million adults and children in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution around the world; 56 percent of these victims are women and girls
• $32 billion annual trade for the traffickers
• 49,105 victims identified worldwide, a 59 percent increase over the last reporting year (2008)
• Prevalence of trafficking victims in the world: 1.8 per 1,000 inhabitants (in Asia and the Pacific: 3 per 1,000)
• 4,166 successful trafficking prosecutions in 2009, a 40 percent increase over 2008
• Countries that have yet to convict a trafficker under laws in compliance with the Palermo Protocol: 62
• Countries without laws, policies, or regulations to prevent victims’ deportation: 104
• 23 countries received upgraded rankings in the 2010 TIP Report; 19 countries received downgraded rankings
• Two countries, the United States and Kiribati, are ranked for the first time in the 2010 TIP Report