Bureau of International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) FY 2017
THE FUNDING NEED
$45,000,000 for International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) Trafficking in Persons Grants, to be implemented as follows: $40,000,000 under International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) for J/TIP to award grants to fight human trafficking internationally through prevention programs, strengthening protection mechanisms for survivors, training for law enforcement, and legal and strategic support.; and $5,000,000 specifically for Child Protection Compacts.
Summary of Program
The Bureau of International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) “advises the President, Secretary of State, other bureaus in the Department of State, and other departments and agencies within the U.S. Government on the development of policies and programs to combat international narcotics and crime.”45 INCLE’s goals are twofold: (1) to reduce the rate of illegal drugs into the United States; and (2) to help decrease the impact of international crime on U.S. citizens. Even though INCLE’s focus has been on combating drug trafficking, a substantial component of their work also consists of serious cross-border crimes, such as human trafficking. These grants provide very specific support to law enforcement to help train and educate officers on how to recognize trafficking and forced labor, how to investigate it, assist with prosecutions, and how to assist victims.
Need
INCLE grants to domestic and international non-governmental organizations are a critical tool to stop trafficking and forced labor through a wide range of prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnership initiatives, including providing technical assistance to reform foreign laws, supporting assistance for the protection of survivors, and developing innovative interventions to stop human trafficking in source, transit, and destination countries. Given the scope of human trafficking around the world, J/TIP needs additional funding in order to strengthen these partnership initiatives and make a more significant impact through comprehensive and coordinated efforts with its partners. Many of these partnerships are with non-governmental organizations, which are on the frontlines of combating trafficking in persons around the world.
In FY 2014, J/TIP received applications for $107,000,000 in assistance and was only able to provide $18,000,000 for 41 grants. This funding is needed to continue essential work, which previously included programs in 21 target countries. Among these projects include: working to reduce trafficking in mining zones in DRC; scaling up child protection systems in Mauritania to prevent and combat child trafficking; improving the identification of, and the provision of services to, trafficking victims for forced labor in the garment/textile, domestic work, and agricultural sectors in Jordan; and labor trafficking of men into the fishing industry in Thailand. Additional funding is also needed to respond to new challenges, particularly online-commercial sexual exploitation of children, both girls and boys, in the Philippines. This year, however, J/TIP funded programs in 14 countries and focused almost exclusively on “protection.”
These funds are critical to ensuring that victims are identified and traffickers are convicted. In 2013, only 44,758 victims of human trafficking were identified globally, of an estimated 21 million. This amounts to 0.2% of victims. Additionally, the 2014 TIP Report states that in 2013 there were an estimated 9,460 prosecutions and 5,776 convictions of traffickers globally. Prosecution and prevention efforts should be expanded and strengthened given the global magnitude of human trafficking.
Solution
J/TIP needs additional funding to strengthen its diplomatic efforts with programmatic support through the grants program. As efforts to support a global fund demonstrate, significantly more resources are needed, and as a global leader, J/TIP is on the frontlines of implementing effective policies through its programs. At current levels, J/TIP has insufficient funding to effectively combat human trafficking and forced labor, especially in countries ranked under the Tier 2 Watch List and Tier 3 categories in J/TIP’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. As the U.S. Government negotiates trade agreements with, and imports products from, countries ranked under Tier 3, it is imperative J/TIP has the resources it needs to improve these countries’ responses to human trafficking. Additional funding would enable J/TIP to meet this need.
ATEST requests $40,000,000 under International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) for J/TIP to award grants to fight human trafficking internationally through prevention programs, strengthening protection mechanisms for survivors, training for law enforcement, and legal and strategic support.
We also request an additional $5,000,000 be designated specifically for Child Protection Compacts (CPC). Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-4), the State Department is authorized to provide assistance for each country that enters into a child protection compact with the United States to support policies and programs that prevent and respond to violence, exploitation, and abuse against children; and measurably reduce the trafficking of minors, by building sustainable and effective systems of justice, prevention, and protection. The assistance can be provided in the form of grants, cooperative agreements, or contracts to or with national governments, regional or local governmental units, or non-governmental organizations with expertise in the protection of victims of severe forms of trafficking in persons. Compacts would include measurable objectives to be achieved and a country strategy to ensure sustainability after the end of the Compact.
In 2015, as a result of the funding and leverage provided to the U.S. Government by the CPC Act, the government of Ghana committed to protect children from slavery in Ghana. Since then, the previously dormant Human Trafficking Board of the Ghana government has been revived and has begun to meet regularly to coordinate key ministries. The State Department awarded $5,000,000 in grants to International Organization for Migration and Free the Slaves, under which capacity at all levels of government and civil society to sustain their resistance to slavery will be increased, as well as having a direct impact on the lives of over 400 children targeted to be released from slavery. We applaud the selection of Ghana and recommend that additional funding is made available for another country to be chosen in FY 2017. It is critical that J/TIP continues to be the implementing agency of the Child Protection Compacts and that sufficient funding is appropriated to allow them to fulfill this mandate.