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"An Alliance Against the Traffic in Humans"
A modern-day slave trade, trafficking in human beings strips people of their basic human dignity, fuels corruption and organized crime, and jeopardizes individual and public health. The United States estimates that each year, as many as 800,000 men, women and children are bought, sold, transported across national borders and held against their wills for sexual exploitation or forced labor. Human trafficking affects the United States, Norway and all allies and partner countries across the NATO alliance. It has the potential to weaken and destabilize fragile emerging democracies, especially in southeastern Europe. While individual countries within NATO have acted to stop this dark and shameful crime, there is currently no alliance-wide policy to coordinate the efforts of the 46 countries in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, whose reach stretches from Canada to Central Asia. NATO has a special responsibility to ensure that our forces do not contribute to this problem. On Thursday, the U.S. and Norwegian missions to NATO, in cooperation
with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, will host the
first ever NATO conference on trafficking in persons. Since last October,
the United States and Norway have launched a discussion about the problem
of human trafficking - particularly of women and children - in the Balkans
and across all areas of NATO's operations. We want NATO to decide by April
on a policy to help counter this crime. The conference is the first step
in advancing the policy debate within the alliance. On Jan. 30, 2004, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz signed a Defense Department memorandum stating that trafficking in persons "is incompatible with military core values and will not be facilitated in any way." That memo was sent to all military service secretaries, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, combatant commanders and Defense Department inspectors and legal specialists. The Norwegian government, too, has been actively involved in calling attention to the sourge of trafficking in persons and taking steps to end it. A year ago, Norway adopted a Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Women and Children, to be implemented from 2003 to 2005 with a budget of about 1.3 million euros. The Norwegian government also has adopted Ethical Guidelines for Government Employees prohibiting the purchase and acceptance of sexual services. Norwegian military authorities enforce a zero tolerance policy on purchase of sexual services for all military personnel serving abroad. Thursday in Brussels, we are bringing together experts on the global problem of trafficking in order to focus on the dimensions of the problem and its effects on NATO operations and to decide on an appropriate NATO policy against trafficking. NATO's peacekeeping operations promote security and stability, and part of that task requires the alliance to take steps to protect the helpless in its areas of operation. During our conference we will work to develop a policy all allies and partners can support and one that follows the best objective guidelines we can establish. The United States and Norway advocate that nations take measures - including reviewing national pre deployment training - to ensure that their peacekeepers in NATO-led operations do not contribute to the problem of trafficked persons. At a minimum, we encourage alliance members and partners to take the following steps to address the trafficking problem as it affects military operations: Educate military personnel overseas about the human trafficking issue. Increase the efforts of commanders and military police worldwide to pursue evidence of trafficking in persons in clubs and other places frequented by NATO military personnel, placing offending establishments off-limits and providing support to host-country authorities investigating trafficking, within their authority to do so. Incorporate provisions in overseas civilian service contracts that prohibit contract employees from knowingly participating in any activities that support or promote trafficking in persons and impose suitable penalties on contractors who fail to monitor their employees' conduct. Devise ways to evaluate such efforts as part of ongoing reviews by inspectors general. Hosting a conference, even one as important as this, is a good beginning, but it is certainly not the end. Mere talk does not save innocent victims from the modern day slavery and exploitation of human trafficking. Only effective concerted multilateral action - the very type of action NATO is best at - can do that.
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Mission
for NATO, Brussels - The great foreign policy challenges of our time are
transnational problems requiring concerted multilateral action if they are
to be defeated. While globalization affords us many benefits, its dark
side has spawned a range of ills from weapons proliferation to terrorism
to narcotics. Few problems are more acute, more devastating to the
individuals involved, and yet more within our power to help eradicate,
than the brutal crime of trafficking in humans. 