Briefing on combating trafficking in human beings

JAMES APPATHURAI (Moderator): Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thank you for coming. This briefing will take place in two parts, as you probably saw from the release that we sent out yesterday. This part is on the record. And I am, of course, joined by two distinguished Ambassadors, Ambassador Burns and Ambassador Eide, who have played leadership roles in helping this policy come to fruition; this policy on combating trafficking in human beings. And we... I will make a brief opening statement and the two Ambassadors will also speak, and then we look forward to your questions.

When this is finished the Ambassadors, who are very busy, will go onto the rest of their days and will go back to background, as is our tradition for these briefings.

Let me just say a few introductory words. This policy on combating trafficking in human beings was something that saw its genesis in autumn of last year. NATO member countries are all signatories to the UN Protocol on Trafficking in Persons and all NATO member states are keenly aware that trafficking in human beings is a... it fuels corruption, it fuels organized crime and runs counter to our efforts to build stability where the Alliance is present.

And certainly all NATO nations are deeply committed to ensure that our personnel, their personnel do nothing to contribute in any way to this and indeed to make every effort to combat trafficking in human beings.

The policy therefore, which has been agreed relatively recently, sets out detailed requirements that NATO nations are committed to enforce, beginning with education and training, but also including sanction against those who contribute to trafficking. It also engages partners who contribute to non-NATO... sorry non-NATO nations, partners that contribute to NATO-led operations to sign up to the same level of commitment and indeed even contractors that participate in NATO-led operations.

So it is very comprehensive. It also includes not just uniformed personnel, but civilian personnel. Those... discipline for civilian personnel, NATO civilian personnel, of course, fall under the jurisdiction of the Secretary General.

The implementation of this policy is just beginning, so it's in early days, but we are very encouraged by its adoption. Trafficking is a scourge in very many countries around the world. Certainly where NATO is engaged we want to do our best, and NATO nations want to do their best to ensure that we combat it to the best of our ability.

Let me then turn over to you Nick.

NICHOLAS BURNS (U.S. Ambassador): Thanks.

Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be with you and I'm very pleased to be here because one of the stories that none of you wrote at the Istanbul Summit, and we were very discouraged by that, was on trafficking. You wrote about the Iraq decision, the decision by NATO to go into Iraq. You wrote about the expansion of Afghanistan, of our peacekeeping mission there, you wrote about the broader Middle East initiative, but you didn't write about trafficking. And so we're here to ask you to do that.

Why? Because it's a global problem. The United Nations estimates that 200,000 women are trafficked through the Balkans every year. That the vast majority of women who find themselves as prostitutes in the Balkan countries, in areas where NATO has operations, are there unwillingly. They are there as sexual slaves. They are there because they've been forced into this. And it's a human rights problem of enormous dimensions and all of our governments have a responsibility to help to eradicate this problem.

So we are very pleased that NATO made the decision at the Istanbul Summit, all of our leaders, to endorse this NATO policy of zero tolerance. And that means that all of us as member states will do everything in our power to make sure that our soldiers, unwittingly, to a very great extent, have nothing to do with this problem.

I say unwitting, because the great majority of soldiers in a theatre of operations aren't aware of this problem. And so at the first measure we have a responsibility to educate our soldiers about the tragic phenomenon of trafficking in women and of children in the Balkans, in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and Macedonia.

We were very pleased, the United States was very pleased to work as a sponsor of this initiative with Norway. We want to thank Norway for its leadership. In fact, Secretary of State Powell thanked the Norwegian Prime Minister for his leadership when they were together at the Summit in Istanbul.

We were equally pleased that once we had a policy among the 26 NATO allies we took this issue to the larger Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, our council of 46 countries, which includes Russia and Ukraine, the states of the Caucasus, the states of Central Asia and some of the European countries, not members... that are not members of the Alliance, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, and all those countries agreed to this policy as well.

So we now have 46 countries from Canada and the United States in the West, all the way across Europe to Central Asia, 46 countries, having recognized the problem, said they will follow a policy of zero tolerance.

This is a major step forward in the broader international effort to try to defeat this problem. And specifically it means that now that we've declared this policy NATO, in our view, should take the following steps.

NATO will develop specific provisions for our peacekeeping forces to work with local authorities, police authorities, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, to combat trafficking in human beings. NATO should design and implement new training courses on trafficking for the troops that are deployed on NATO-led operations.

We'll develop methods to monitor progress on combating trafficking, as well as establishing a confidential internal mechanism to report on violations of this new policy. We will certainly identify local and international organizations with a capacity for protecting and housing adult and child victims of trafficking, and will work to maintain very close relations with these organizations. These are non-governmental organizations, the International Organization on Migration and the United Nations. In fact, Ambassador Eide and I sponsored a conference here in March where those organizations, primarily the UN organizations, came to speak to the NATO ambassadors and to educate all of us, as well as our military officials, on this problem.

The only other thing I'd say, before I turn the microphone over to Ambassador Eide, is that this has been a preoccupation of my own government. In 2002 President Bush articulated a policy, a national security directive, on the issue of trafficking. In 2004, in January of this year, our Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz issued a memorandum for United States policy of zero tolerance for American military forces around the world and the U.S. has also signed the United Nations Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children. I believe 116 countries have signed that Protocol and are actively trying to implement it.

The challenge now will be to implement this policy. Step one was to get 46 nations to agree to it. Step two will be to work with our military authorities, to make sure that every soldier deployed on a NATO mission is aware of the policy, aware of the problem and aware of his or her responsibilities not to be involved with it in any way, shape or form.

It's going to be important in the implementation phase for each of our national militaries to be acutely aware of what NATO has done, because if a soldier is implicated in trafficking the organization that will actually punish that soldier will be the national... the nation itself. It'll be the United States or Lithuania, or Poland or France. It won't be NATO as an institution because our soldiers come under the direct authority of their national commanders, and that will be therefore important for all of us to be fundamentally engaged in that.

The final point I'd make is that my own government has made a $100 million available in anti-trafficking efforts over the last two years. We fund NGOs, we help to fund United Nations' efforts and we are very pleased to join this NATO consensus on this very important issue.

KAI EIDE (Ambassador of Norway): Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. From my point of view also, having done work together with the United States and particularly Ambassador Burns since October last year to get his policy in place, and I must say it has been a remarkably short time from the time we started the discussion and until the adoption both by NATO and by the EAPC in Istanbul and the endorsement which was given there.

I'll just add a few words to what Ambassador Burns now said, about the seriousness of the problem. By addressing it within NATO we do not single our NATO or soldiers as being the only category vulnerable to this kind of activity, participation or support of... direct or indirect of trafficking. It is very, very important to remember here that the same problem is faced with regard to military, police, civilian, NGOs, etc. participating in conflict or post-conflict situations. We believe that is the right thing, from our point of view, that we also at NATO take this very, very seriously. And we're pleased that we've been able to do that, and had the support that we have experienced over the lat few months from all member states.

How serious is it on the ground? I think we expect that around up to 90 percent of all purchase of sexual services in Bosnia stem from trafficking. Ninety percent. So it is a very serious problem. And we've seen throughout the nineties and the conflict period how, in fact, the centres of such activity have moved within the national community from one place to another, and has adapted also to the shapes and the places where international... where there is a concentration of international personnel, civilian and military.

Of course, we're very pleased also that, as Ambassador Burns mentioned, that we've been able to work so closely with NGOs here. These are the NGOs and the people who have the most experience from the ground, and we did spend quite an effort to select those who have the best competence and the most experience on the ground, who know the problem, and got them here in March. And we worked with them all the time after that in order to incorporate as much as we possibly could of their comments, of their knowledge, their expertise, into the policy that we now have in front of us.

For Norwegian personnel all purchase of sexual activities is prohibited. There's a complete zero tolerance policy. We believe that's right. We believe that that's the way we should be heading, and we believe that this document that you have in front of us take us a good step in that direction. All purchase of sexual activities.

We believe that is very, very difficult, and that it'll certainly be a big challenge moving up to the training now will be to educate our soldiers in order to be aware and to know that what they see in front of them is probably in all likelihood, in a post-conflict situation or a conflict area, is trafficking and nothing else than trafficking. And that this awareness has to be raised in both among soldiers and in military stops and in capitals. It has to be raised through legislation, and we all take care as a part of the departure, we look at our legislation, review it and see to it that it fits the standards that we have now agreed on, and also through then training programs.

We are at the very start of developing such training programs, but we have already offers from nations and as I said, from other international organizations, and from NGOs and from experts to help us do up such programs.

So I am quite confident that a little while from now, a few months from now, we will be up and running also when it comes to having or incorporated training programs into our own preparations, both before troops leave for their theatres, and after they leave. This has to be a continuous process. It's not enough to have a little module in a training program before you leave. It's something on which you have to see to it that the awareness exists throughout the training and the time where soldiers are in place in an operation.

But to conclude, I think we've taken a very, very serious and good step and we're very pleased to see the support that we've had from NGOs and experts from various quarters. Thank you.

Q: Inge (inaudible), Atlantic News. I'd like to know if there's been... there has already been NATO soldiers being sanctioned, I mean for this situation, and to what level do you evaluate the presence of NATO troops, for example, in the Balkans as drawing trafficking to the scene?

BURNS: I can just answer for my own country in this respect. The NATO policy is two weeks old. And so NATO will now begin to implement it as an organization. But in terms of the United States we also have a zero tolerance policy. We have a policy very similar to Norway. It is prohibited activity for any American soldier, or civilian contractor, or civilian employee of the United States government to purchase sexual services anywhere in the world. And the United States government has taken action against American soldiers, as well as civilian contractors of our government and our policy is clear. It's zero tolerance. And we'll continue it.

We also believe that's the right policy. It's ethically and morally the right policy. It also is consistent in both respects with the United Nations protocols. And so we hope very much, and we trust that all 46 countries are going to be as devoted to implementation of this as we have been.

EIDE: Could I answer this also. You asked have soldiers been sanctioned? Yes, soldiers from a number of countries have been sanctioned, as a result of having taken part, being involved in trafficking. NATO and other countries, I must say, that believe there's a long way to go before we have the policy in place across the board in all countries. NATO countries and countries participating in NATO-led operations, before we are where we want to go.

And since you raise the question of sanctions, when troops arrive in the theatre, in the post-conflict or conflict situation, you live of course in a situation where there are very weak institutions, very weak institutions, and often a high level of organized crime and corruption. Organized crime takes many shapes. This is one of them. Trafficking in human beings.

What do we do if we're involved in this? Not only do we destroy the reputation of our country and our organization and the operation, we violate fundamentally human rights of women and children. And we do harm to the objectives of our mission, which is to establish rule of law, establish the foundation for democracy and for a decent economy. Not to tear down rule of law, not to create grey economies, stimulate corruption. So of course we have to do absolutely everything we can do to see to it that what we do on the ground support that objective of our mission.

And this, of course, is one element in securing that we are as efficient as we possibly can. We must also see to it that since there are weak legal structures on the ground very often, that if something happens that a soldier does not live in a feeling of there being impunity. And that sanctions are taken by the nation from which the soldier comes. And there I think we have some way to go. And that's why also in this policy we say we have to honour or take upon ourselves the obligation to look through our national legislation and administrative rules to see that there is no sense of impunity. We know that they will be sanctioned, and we all have a responsibility to that effect. Only then, I think, can we do what we really want to do on the ground and see to it also that the victim does not end up in a situation with no possibility to pursue her interests, and the soldier lives in impunity.

APPATHURAI: If I may just add. This shouldn't be seen as a response to a massive problem within NATO, because it's not. It's a response to a massive problem in the international scene and we want to take preventive measures now to ensure that we don't contribute as an organization and as individual nations to it. Just... I think that point should be made.

You had a follow-up?

Q: (inaudible)...

BURNS: Yes, exactly. Thank you. Go ahead.

Q: Yes, sorry, but I'm a bit confused between the notions of trafficking and some moral principles. Could you just explain it in everyday terms. What do you mean when you speak about trafficking? Because maybe sitting here in Brussels we don't understand that it's a widespread problem, and maybe just to picture well a rather typical example. How it happens that the NATO personnel or somebody else is involved being unaware in this human trafficking?

BURNS: I think most of us are familiar with the phenomenon of trafficking. These are mainly very young women, teenage girls, girls in their early twenties, young women who are... who go to Bosnia or Kosovo or other places thinking that they're going to work in a restaurant or be a dancer and they arrive there, and their passports are taken away from them, they are sexually abused, they're intimidated, they are forced into sexual slavery.

Now that's the reports, the definition given to us by the United Nations, by the non-governmental organizations involved in looking into this and by our own governments, including my own government. And obviously this is reprehensible treatment of these young women. It's morally objectionable and it's against... it's contrary to international law, and as Ambassador Eide has said, to decency, and any standard of human rights.

What happens in places where lots of soldiers and civilian workers and NGOs and journalists and other people congregate is that houses of prostitution, of course, exist and most of the young men in question probably have no idea about the phenomenon of trafficking itself; that these are trafficked women. The difference between a willing prostitute on the one hand, and a trafficked women...it's our job, it's our responsibility to educate our young soldiers so that they understand the difference and they understand that there's a zero tolerance policy.

Meaning, one shall not procure sexual services and therefore one can stay away from even unwittingly, of course, contributing to this problem.

Q: It's just what you're saying, Ambassador, you made very clear that in terms of Norway and the United States the zero tolerance means no procurement of sexual services at all. Is that what the other 44 countries have joined up to? Are they saying that their soldiers cannot visit prostitutes under any circumstances, or are they saying only that it's if you know that this is a trafficked person you should not be involved? Is it a ban on prostitution for the military around the whole 46 countries involved?

EIDE: This policy addresses trafficking in human rights... in human beings. That means purchase of sexual services linked to trafficking. That being said, it is in this situation very, very difficult sometimes to see the difference, um? And it should lead us all to have some kind of warning ahead of us, in front of us, knowing that the likelihood that this is a person who may be involved, may be a victim of trafficking is very significant, very significant. And that we must learn always to have that awareness.

Second element, I would like to say, some governments say well, prostitution is allowed in my country. That is not the case in my, um? Now some countries say, some countries say that in my country, in our country, prostitution is permitted. So in other words, a soldier can, etc. But in most cases in countries where we have armed forces in theatre prostitution is prohibited by the laws of that country. And when you send a soldier out somewhere it is the legislation of the country in which you find yourself and not the legislation of the country from which you come which applies. You have to follow the law of the country. There is no such thing as immunity for these kind of activities. That has to be remembered. That is for me and for us a basic point in addressing this problem.

But again, when we sit here, Ambassador Burns and myself, we of course put the spotlight on what we do at NATO and it can lead to the misperception that NATO is particularly vulnerable. My own experience from the ground, I spent years in the Balkans, years in the Balkans, is that civilian personnel is as much, if not in some cases, more vulnerable than military personnel.

I have personally, as being head of... at being at the head of a big international organization in the Balkans for some time, a rather good knowledge about that. But we believe that NATO must have its policy, the UN must have its policy, the OSCE must have its policy and the European Union should have its policy. We take our part and the others should be exactly the same.

Q: Yes sir, I have a question maybe for Ambassador Eide since he is visiting the region of the Balkans, especially Kosovo in the last time. The problem, if you saw the report of Amnesty International is with the personnel of UN mostly. More than 30 percent of them are supposed to be engaged in sexual services of the prostitutes in Kosovo. I don't know whether Kosovo has a law at all, whether it prohibits or allow prostitution, but most of those are young girls from Moldavia or somewhere. I don't think that they would come to Kosovo to work in the restaurant. Having in mind how many unemployed persons are in Kosovo.

But are you co-ordinating this policy also with the United Nations in Kosovo, because they have a policy, civil police duties, not NATO, they have to prosecute those who are engaged in trafficking. Not NATO. NATO cannot do that.
And maybe for Ambassador Burns, how... what it says for the credibility of NATO to conclude after nine years that Bosnia, a place where NATO was for nine years, is... has such a high rate of combating of human beings... of trafficking of human beings?

EIDE: I think with regard to your question about Kosovo I partly answered that question. I said we want the UN to do the say, we want the European Union to do the same, the OSCE. All our person there. Everybody had to take their share. We take ours.

We certainly, when drawing up our policy, brought experts from the OSCE, experts from New York, experts from Kosovo and from Bosnia to help us do that. And so I believe that we've involved as many as we could, and I hope that will also be an inspiration to other organizations to proceed in their formulation of similar policies when they don't have such policies already. And I think we're rather in front, ahead of others in that respect.

The question was really asked to Ambassador Burns, but it's always a problem when you raise an issue and you will say what do you do after so many years. Well, if you hadn't done it now would it not being even worse. And I think we've all slowly become aware of a problem, or gradually become aware of a problem. Not slowly. We've gradually become aware of a problem and gradually become aware of the fact that we have to address it through a joint policy, a common policy. That's what we're doing. I think we're reacting quite promptly and efficient in fact, and more so than most others. And I wish every other organization involved to follow the kind of approach that we are now taking.

BURNS: You know, you asked about NATO credibility in Bosnia. We will have been there for nine years when NATO troops leave in December, and we stopped the war there in September, October of 1995. We restored the peace. We gave the people of Bosnia a chance, and they have taken that chance and they are rebuilding their country. If you've been to Sarajevo, if you've been to Bratunac(?), if you've been to Srebrenica you've seen this. You've seen some of the women to Srebrenica who lost their husbands and sons in the massacres committed by the Bosnian-Serbs in July of '95.

So NATO has done a great thing by going into Bosnia. We've very proud of NATO's effort. On the subject of trafficking a number of the NATO allies, including my own country, have been struggling for years against this problem. And by and large as Kai Eide has said, our soldiers by and large, are not the big part of the problem.

But we wanted to make sure that NATO as a whole did the right thing and enforced a policy across the Alliance and then spread it to 20 other countries beyond the Alliance. So credibility? We've got a lot of credibility. And we're happy to add to that credibility by taking the steps that we've taken.

Q: Thank you. I'm Robert Sermek with the Slovak Press Agency. Just to clarify or to sum up, is it correct to understand that you are encouraging all the nations who joined the policy, all the member states, partner countries, to prohibit the purchase of sexual services, and do you have the information in how many member states it's not prohibited, because you said in the United States, in Norway, it's prohibited. In how many member states it's not prohibited for soldiers to purchase sexual services?

BURNS: Well what we have done in agreeing to this policy is to require all of the 26 allies and the 20 partners to do everything in our power to help stop trafficking in the areas where we are responsible under either United Nations mandate, or the other mandates under which NATO operates. And that means that all of our individual countries have the responsibility to punish soldiers and to seek disciplinary action against them should they be seen to be part of this.

And to... obviously to act as a deterrent in order to educate our young soldiers about the dimensions of the problem so that we can reduce... we can reduce the size of the problem itself.

And I think that NATO, having taken its responsibilities is a good signal to other international organizations to do the same.

EIDE: Can I just clarify one thing? I said reacting slowing. By that I did not mean that individual nations did not already have a policy and have had it in place for quite a long time. What we're doing now is bringing 46 countries, 46 countries around the same policy. I think that is a major step in the right direction. Forty-six countries out of which almost all are involved in NATO-led operations in one place or another.
So I think the significance of this is large.

Let me also say one other question here...one other elements in order not to be... to get it in the right perspective. Are we proud of what our soldiers are doing abroad? Yes, very much so. We think that our soldiers are doing a tremendous job in NATO -led operations, be it in the Balkans or elsewhere. A tremendous job in helping to bring peace and democracy to the societies where they come.
Not doubt about that.

Do our soldiers face challenges caused by organized crime? Of course they do. And this is one way in which we have to try to address these challenges, and I hope we will do it very successfully. Thank you.

Q: Noelle Knox with USA Today. A quick question. Are the... can you be more specific about what the sanctions are, and are they uniform throughout NATO or do each countries get to impose their own sanctions?

BURNS: Noelle, we can probably give you... we can only speak for our own countries. The enforcement mechanism is the national military authorities of each country. So, for instance, if an American solider were to be involved in trafficking then it would be the Department of Defence that would discipline that soldier. In the January 2004 zero tolerance policy that Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz signed there is... it's very clearly spelled out what the disciplinary action should be and we'd be happy to get you some detail on that from an American perspective.

But it's the national authority. NATO... there's no central enforcement mechanism in NATO itself, in this building, or in the Secretary General. It's in all of our capitals. And so as all of our leaders committed to this policy last week they took that responsibility on themselves. And very openly so.

Q: There's no guidelines for what sanctions (inaudible)...soldiers from different nations going out, you know, to a bar and ending up at a brothel and one person... you know, one soldier gets very heavily sanctioned, and the other person, you know, gets a slap on the wrist or something?

BURNS: Well our assumption is, our working assumption, based on the negotiations that led to this agreement, is that these are real penalties. These won't be slaps on the wrist. And that's certainly true in the case of my own government.

EIDE: What we will do now of course is not only to educate, but to get a better view of what is the national legislation in various countries and through this policy countries have also taken it upon themselves to review their national legislation, including the kind of sanctions that soldiers may face in order to meet the standards of this document.

Q: Sorry, about trafficking it's quite clear. May I ask you something... is there ay clear policy by NATO which forbid soldiers to go with prostitutes, which is another thing.

BURNS: I'm not aware of it. It depends on the nation that you're talking about. In terms of the United States all of our employees, whether they're uniformed military or civilians, or civilian contractors are not permitted to violate the rules of the countries in which they are guests. As Ambassador Eide pointed out prostitution is not legal in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Afghanistan or Iraq, the places where there are NATO soldiers today and will be for the foreseeable future. And therefore, one of the first responsibilities we have as guests in these countries is to adhere to the laws of the countries. And so there are obligations that are explicit and implicit. But in the came of my own country it is forbidden. It is against our regulations. It's very clear.

APPATHURAI: I think it's also the case, just to mention, that the force commander will set rules for the conduct of... the behaviour of the troops under his command and those, I'm sure, always set a standard that is very high.

Q: Do you have intelligence that shows that this kind of trafficking is moving into other areas than the Balkans, like Afghanistan or waiting in the wings in Iraq for battle field conditions to be... to get calmer, so to speak.

And another question, I'm interested also more generally in the relationship between NATO and the EU right now. You say in your statement that there should be close exchange of information. I find it a little strange that you have not established any communication with the EU already in a phase where you undoubtedly must prepare for transfer in Bosnia. Could you elaborate a little bit on this, please?

BURNS: I'll just answer your first question and that is to say that trafficking in human beings is a global problem. It exists all over the world. It exists in most of the countries of the Alliance. Not just in places where we have military operations. And I'd be very happy to make available to you some of the reports done by the U.S. Department of State, which in our government is a central co-ordinating cabinet agency about the unfortunate prevalence of this practice in every region in the world, not just in south-eastern Europe.

APPATHURAI: I think that's about all we have time for, I'm afraid. Thank you for... well, thank you to the two Ambassadors who have joined us for this on the record briefing on an issue that we do, as I say, consider very, very important.