Excerpt:
INDEX:
BURMA

24 Sanctions Against Burma and Effect on Garment Industry and SexTrade

QUESTION: Richard, twice in this month, the Department, once in an official testimony up on the Hill and then, just on Monday, with the release of the bi-annual report on Burma, the Department has acknowledged that the sanctions that were put in place in August have -- that there's evidence that those sanctions have had an effect, an effect on the garment industry there and have driven 30 to 40,000 young women into the sex trade.

I'm wondering how that squares, or whether that's consistent with the President's speech at the UN in which he talked about how sex trafficking has to be -- is one of the world's greatest scourges and has to be eliminated?

MR. BOUCHER: I'd have to look again at how exactly we put it in those reports.

Certainly, we think the sanctions against Burma were the right thing to do. We did that knowing that it would have an effect on the garment industry in Burma, knowing that that effect was necessary because of the kind of pressure we needed to bring against the regime, but that there were people who worked in those industries and who would, if the factories closed down, would lose their jobs.

Certainly nobody has encouraged them to go into the sex industry, and there are a whole variety of other programs to try to make that end that kind of trade.

QUESTION: Is it unfortunate?

MR. BOUCHER: I think it's unfortunate whenever somebody loses a job or whenever somebody loses a job and feels they have to go into the sex trade.

QUESTION: Oh, okay. You don't see any inconsistency between the -- between your opposition to sex trafficking and the sex trade and the fact that here is a policy that is directly contributing to that?

MR. BOUCHER: I think directly is too strong a word. I mean, --

QUESTION: Well, no -- that's what you said. That's what the Department said on Monday and what Matt Daly testified to earlier in (inaudible).

QUESTION: In his prepared statement is quite explicit.

MR. BOUCHER: No, I know, it's quite clear that the sanctions have resulted in closing of factories; factories have resulted in the loss of jobs, many times for young women who work there, and that we do believe that some of those young women have gone into the sex trade. It's just a little less than direct.

QUESTION: Could I ask you a simple question?

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah.

QUESTION: I mean, is it -- is this fact causing you to reconsider that policy?

MR. BOUCHER: I'm afraid not. It's certainly regrettable when that sort of thing happens, but we do think the sanctions against Burma were the right thing to do, and the only way that in the long run we can make life better for all Burmese.

QUESTION: Can I follow up on that? When Secretary Powell came in to the Office, he said that he was going to take a comprehensive review of all sanctions and see if there are better-targeted ways of doing sanctions on any particular country. Has there been any review of sanctions in that way, and in Burma, in particular, to see if there are other, more pointed sanctions you could put on a regime without hurting the people?

MR. BOUCHER: I think if you look at the three or four years -- three or more years this Administration's been in, the Secretary has been very judicious and careful about the use of sanctions. With regard to Burma, for several years, we applied very targeted sanctions on the travel or the assets of members of the regime, and we did expand that targeting over the course of time. But as the regime, in fact, has not responded to that, but in fact went in the wrong direction in a very severe way earlier this year, we felt it was necessary to up the ante, but each of these steps has been very carefully considered, because we are aware of the impact on economics, we are aware of the impact on people's lives.

Source : US State Department