Aug 19 2008
Obama vs. McCain: On human trafficking
Few Americans will likely make human trafficking a deciding issue when they go to the polls this November. But nevertheless, the topic pops up now and then in speeches and interviews of the candidates. Paul Bernish, of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center’s Freedom Blog, broke down the candidates’ stances on slavery in a post titled, “Human Trafficking: What are McCain and Obama saying?”
“Most likely,” Bernish writes, “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.”
Bernish highlights some of McCain and Obama’s references to human trafficking, including a May speech by McCain on defending the rights of the powerless worldwide:
While the past few years have seen increased efforts on the part of the State and Justice Departments and the FBI to combat the human slave trade, we must do more. As President, I’ll increase cooperation and communication between all agencies of the federal government by establishing an Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking, whose purpose will be to focus exclusively on the prosecution of human traffickers and the rescue of their victims.
During last weekend’s Saddleback conference, mediator and megachurch pastor Rick Warren questioned Obama on how he plans to address the problem:
RICK WARREN: OK. Another issue, the third largest and the fastest growing criminal industry in the world is human trafficking. $32 billion a year. A lot of people don’t know that there are about 27 million people living in slavery right now. Many of them in sex trafficking than any others. How do we speak out and how do you plan to do something about that?
BARACK OBAMA: This has to be a top priority and this is an area where we’ve already seen bipartisan agreement on this issue. What we have to do is to create better, more effective tools for prosecuting those who are engaging in human trafficking and we have to do that within our country. Sadly, there are thousands who are trapped in various forms of enslavement, here in our country.
Oftentimes young women who are caught up in prostitution. So we’ve got to give prosecutors the tools to crack down on these human trafficking networks. Internationally, we’ve got to speak out and we’ve got to forge alliances with other countries to share intelligence, to roll up the financing networks that are involved in them. It is a debasement of our common humanity, whenever we see something like that taking place.
This was an extremely vague answer that demonstrated Obama really doesn’t know much about the issue or how to tackle it. He simply restated Warren’s question in the form of an answer, adding ‘give prosecutors tools’ and ‘work with other countries to bust financial rings.’
I’d expect more from Obama.