Vt. lawmakers grapple with human trafficking





By Peter Hirschfeld
Published: January 15, 2010


MONTPELIER – In 2004, law enforcement officials raided three Chittenden County brothels masquerading as health spas and discovered eight Asian women allegedly smuggled into the state through a modern-day slave trade.

More than five years later, Vermont is one of the few states without an up-to-date statute banning human trafficking. On Thursday, lawmakers set to work on creating one.

"It's a really complex issue and one we don't know a lot about here in Vermont," Sarah Kenney, public policy coordinator for the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We definitely lack a comprehensive statewide plan for dealing with this issue."

The 2004 raids at brothels in Essex Junction, Williston and Burlington offered a rare glimpse into a human-trafficking problem that law enforcement officials say is more prevalent than arrest rates would indicate. Vermont's relative ignorance on the issue, according to Commissioner of Public Safety Thomas Tremblay, makes it difficult to recognize, let alone eliminate, the incidents of human trafficking that do occur inside Vermont.

"I think we're naïve if we think that a problem identified by (federal) law enforcement as one of the fastest-growing problems … isn't having impacts here in Vermont," Tremblay told lawmakers. "I believe there's the potential for human trafficking to occur here in Vermont, and that law enforcement officials and the criminal justice system needs to be better positioned to respond to it."

Still, Tremblay is bearish on legislation pending before the Vermont Senate. The bill, modeled after legislation in other states, would create a wide-ranging system of prevention and victim protection as well as new criminal sanctions. Tremblay said Vermont needs to move more slowly, and recommended creating a task force to study the problem before moving ahead with any new laws.

"You're saying we're putting the cart before the horse?" Sen. Richard Sears, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Tremblay.

"Respectfully, yes, sir," he replied.

Sears said his committee learned about the statutory void as it worked on major anti-sex-crimes legislation last year. Liz Tedrick-Moutz, a Morrisville resident and founder of the Coalition of Vermonters Against Slavery Today, said Vermont is the only state in the Northeast without a modern law against human trafficking.

"It makes us extremely vulnerable to human trafficking crimes and creates the potential for them to flourish in Vermont," she said.

Because Vermont lacks any organized efforts to track or identify human trafficking, Tedrick-Moutz said, it's impossible to know how prevalent the problem is. But she said Vermont is not immune to an international "epidemic" that claims more than 12 million victims annually, according to estimates by a national anti-trafficking organization.

While federal laws prohibit human trafficking, advocates warned against punting to federal authorities. Not only are federal prosecutors over-burdened with cases, Tedrick-Moutz said, local and state police are in far better positions to ferret out potential abuses than their immigration and customs enforcement counterparts. Local entities are also better equipped than the federal government, she said, to link victims of the slave trade with the social and legal services they need to escape captivity.

The problem isn't confined to immigrants. A 2000 case involving a young woman from Burlington uncovered a sex-trafficking ring between Burlington and New York City in which ringleaders apparently recruited resident Vermonters.

Nor is the problem unique to the illegal sex trade. Sears said he wants to ensure that debate over the legislation includes concerns about migrant farm workers who also might be potential victims of human trafficking.

Too often, Tedrick-Moutz said, the victims themselves are treated as offenders, rather than the well-organized, well-financed crime syndicates that coerced them into captivity. The 2004 raids, advocates said, spotlighted those shortcomings. The Asian women discovered in the brothels were arrested on immigration and prostitution charges. They were released and quickly disappeared.

Kenney told lawmakers Thursday the Chittenden County prosecutor in that case bemoaned the lack of state laws at his disposal.

As the Senate ponders its approach, House lawmakers are considering legislation that would establish a commission to review the problem.

Tremblay said he prefers that course. In the meantime, he said, he'll institute an educational campaign for frontline state police officers later this summer dealing specifically with the issue of human trafficking.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20 ... 004/NEWS03