With less than 100 days to go before the November election, presumptive Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are gearing up for their party’s nominating conventions and the final post-Labor Day campaign push.
We’ve been examining both men’s positions on human trafficking and have found — not altogether surprisingly — that neither of the candidates or their campaigns are focusing much time or attention on trafficking-related issues. That doesn’t mean, however, that Senators McCain and Obama are ignoring the issue. On the contrary, both men do have a record of public comments and positions that address (sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely) human trafficking and contemporary slavery. It’s just that in an election in which economic, environmental and foreign policy issues will continue to dominate the political dialog, human trafficking is not likely to become a “hot button” issue.
A closer look at their campaigns reveals that of the two, John McCain has been the most specific in mentioning trafficking as an issue of concern. His overall position was outlined in a speech in May. In it, McCain discussed his “vision for protecting human freedom and dignity,” which contains several elements, among them the creation of a governmental Inter-agency Task Force to better coordinate government policy on human trafficking. The speech did not explain how this proposal differs from an inter-agency task force authorized in the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act and later manifested in the creation, in 2003, of a senior working level group called the Senior Policy Operating Group (SPOG), which meets quarterly.
McCain also has advocated increased disclosure requirements for web-based companies to enable law enforcement to better track down child porn, human trafficking and illegal sex businesses that often solicit customers — and victims — online.
Barack Obama’s campaign does not appear to have a position statement on human trafficking per se . But it is clear from the public record that human rights concerns, especially as they relate to women, have long been an issue for Obama both prior to entering elective politics and since his election to the Senate. For example, last December, his office issued a statement marking International Human Rights Day and in it, he specifically addressed the genocide in Darfur, human rights violations elsewhere around the globe and (quoting the statement): “Women’s inequality and the persistent prevalence of honor killings, trafficking, repression and sexual assault nearly six decades after the Universal Declaration [of Human Rights] shames us all.” Obama also has raised concerns about sexual assaults against women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and introduced legislation — later signed by President Bush — calling upon the Congolese government to deal with the situation.
Should the candidates be saying more about the human trafficking?
Most likely, trafficking will remain a secondary issue unless something happens to bring the matter into the public realm and prompt the political news media to raise questions with the candidates. One possible controversy that might thrust the issue into the public’s radar screen involves Congressional re-authorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). The reauthorization was passed overwhelmingly in the House, but has run into some opposition in the Senate, where action is unlikely until after the fall election. In the meantime, however, feelings are running high in public policy circles and on the blogosphere over one provision in the House-passed version that would consider prostitution as — potentially — a form of human trafficking by removing the elements of force, fraud and/or coercion from existing definitions of sex trafficking. As this debate heats up, it could spill over into the Presidential campaign.
What is your feeling on this? Should John McCain and Barack Obama address human trafficking issues explicitly and forcefully? Would doing so make any difference to the cause of modern abolitionism? Given the complexity of the issue (involving the entire globe), is it better for the candidates to focus on other issues? Let us know your thoughts.
Tags: human rights, Human Trafficking, McCain, Obama, TVPA
Posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 4:07 pm in Commentary, News.
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I am a Obama Supporter and someone who is sick and tired of the Republican party always getting the Evengelical protestant votes for the past 30 years faithfully.
I think Human Trafficking is an issue that Obama should start focusing on. I live in Upstate, NY and there was a Christian organization called Love 146 that has reached people of faith, liberal protestant groups, jewish voters and Catholics. This would be a great issue for Obama to speak about. It would show how incompetent our administration has been on border security, and it just may be an issue he can win points with a small segment of a voting block that has not been friendly to Democrats.