For Immediate Release

February 4, 2005

GILL CALLS FOR FAST ACTION ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING BILL

Senator Nia H. Gill today called on her colleagues to act swiftly on her bill that would criminalize human trafficking and establish severe penalties for those convicted.

Senator Gill’s bill was released from a state Senate committee on Thursday, the same day law enforcement officials arrested a Union City woman and are searching for two other suspects and charged them with forcing dozens of Honduran women and girls, some as young as 14, to work as indentured servants at a Union City bar. The women were urged to turn to prostitution to pay $20,000 to smugglers. Media reports indicate the women could have been held against their will for as long as two years.

The Union City arrests are only the latest in New Jersey. Three years ago an international human-trafficking prostitution ring was uncovered in Plainfield.

Gill said her bill is needed to establish state laws to combat an international trend toward increased human trafficking. “The United States estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 victims are trafficked internationally each year with 70 percent of them being female and half of them children. A majority of those women and girls are forced into prostitution,” Gill said.

“This despicable international trend is at our doors,” said Senator Gill. “It is 21st Century slavery. We must act immediately to save these victims.”

Of the 45,000 to 50,000 women who are trafficked yearly in the United States, about 7,000 to 8,000 arrive in the New York/New Jersey area. About 4,000 are forced to work as indentured servants in go-go bars, strip clubs, escort services and massage parlors. Women have been beaten and even murdered for trying to escape their captors in the sex trade.

There is currently no state law specific to human trafficking, Gill said. Law enforcement authorities must seek prosecutions on underlying charges such as prostitution, kidnapping or criminal restraint.

Senator Gill’s bill would make human trafficking a first degree crime punishable by a prison sentence of 30 years to life with no parole eligibility for at least 30 years.

The bill would also provide penalties of up to 10 years in prison and a $200,000 fine for anyone who held a person’s passport or similar government-issued document in an attempt to force them into work.