Witnesses. As you are well aware, we have votes going on. With the chairmans guidance, we will continue out of respect for your time. We will begin with my own questions. Kutcher, thank you so much for your leadership. We are shining a National Spotlight on the importance of it. I am so grateful for your efforts. We both agree as you work on this issue that the state departments annual trafficking in persons report is a valuable resource in for your efforts to fight Human Trafficking. Yes . Yes, absolutely i do. Ashton you cant solve the problem if you dont know how big it is. So we want that report to be as accurate as possible, right . These are what we call leading questions. [laughter] tomorrow i plan to introduce a piece of legislation called the department of state and usaid agency for and us accountability 2017. And provides this committee better transparency regarding the more than 180 General Accountability Office recommendation for the department of states and usaid that have not been fully implemented. , the recommendations are at heast among t recommendations or at least 3 pertaining to this area where you are passionate. The legislature will enable this committee to conduct more effective oversight. Usaidld require state and to light a timeline of implementation of these antitrafficking proposals, as well as other proposals. Would ensure that any gao recommendation that is not implemented, we are sure as to why that is. Given the large number of open recommendations, would be my hope that most would be implemented, and we can get bipartisan support for this effort. I am inviting members of both sides of the aisle to work with me on this legislation. We will be dropping it tomorrow. I would like to ask both of our the growing in of sexual exploitation, forced labor, what we generally call modern slavery here in around country. Some of my thinking is informed by the good work that has been and with the leadership of the Indiana Attorney general, and so many other stakeholders in our state, we have put together a a report, the 2016 indiana state report on Human Trafficking. Typically we ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record. I consent to have entered into the record. [laughter] i think this will be instructive to further your efforts, and those of others who are working on this issue. This was the product, this report, and related initiatives in my home state of indiana, was the product of a privatepublic partnership to address the unique challenges that our state and others are facing. The report indicates that the condition of Service Providers youth in traffic 2016 . Rafficked youth in 2016 alone. Of those provided in 2016, 94 were girls. As a father of three young girls, i feel particularly passionate about the need to address this. Is something that afflicts both genders as well. The report found 30 of those infected are 15 or younger, percent between the ages of 10 between the ages of 12 and 14. In indiana, victims were as young as 7 when first trafficked. These speak to the broader challenges we face nationally and internationally. If you could each speak to whether the tribe lines trend lines in the state of indiana are reflective of your findings across the country. Ages, gender. Ashton most studies have found that average age of entry is 12 years old. Numbers you of the are finding in your state are accurate. Relative to the legislation you are alluding to earlier, i would like to ask, then went . Then what . We to measure it, we know that it is a problem, but then what . What are the consequences if the reporting is not there . What is the tools are not being used . Sen. Young i would be happy to indulge that question. Working with the chairman and Ranking Member and people on both sides of the aisle, i think we should make every effort to make sure that the state department has a specific concrete plan of action, comprehensive in nature that would arrest this problem internationally, since that is the focus of the state department. We also have to have a domestic range of solutions to this. End that we need a resource. And then we need a resource. I know that has been a point of this is your own testimony. Here on this committee, perhaps the first step is to see the numbers on both sides of the aisle continue to push and authorizing the, something the chairman has shown leadership on recently. To the extent that we can include trafficking, that is part of answer to your question. Did you have additional thoughts on the trend lines . Id o. I think those are reflective of what we see. I think it is really important, the state level focus on trafficking. It is a big global problem and there are a lot of ways we need to tackle it. It is really quite important. That sounds like extraordinary leadership at the state level to be tackling these issues close to home. Hearf the things that you from both of us is the reporting is to measure progress and know what strategies are working. One of the things that human rights first is focusing on is making sure that federal and state Law Enforcement have the resources they need to go up higher in the food chain of these criminal enterprises, both on labor and sex trafficking. Labor trafficking cases are a much smaller percentage of the overall prosecutions that have been. There are a greater percentage of victims in the labor trafficking area. They are much more complex and expensive cases to bring. They are really important. I think congress should Pay Attention in making sure that these prosecution units are wellfunded and can work in coalition at the state, and local, and federal level to integrate the solutions to those problems. You mentioned the Publicprivate Partnership peace. Sen. Young that was my next question. Thank you for anticipating it. Maybe you can speak to the importance of that. The indiana state report on Human Trafficking and entity it created to help fight the scourge in our state it is a notforprofit initiative. There are 75 authorizations statewide focused on collectively addressing this issue. Perhaps you can speak to the importance of these Publicprivate Partnerships in addressing modern slavery. Thank you. Just to touch on the point, another thing that should not be lost is the focus on demand prosecution in space. These are victims. You said it yourself, these kids are 12 and 13 years old. Is not a criminal, that his victim of a crime. That is not a criminal, that is a victim of a crime. If we are not prosecuting the traffickers, not just for trafficking, but, that is statutory rape. Kit should be treated as such and prosecuted as rape. I dont think that we do a good enough job yet of addressing that issue in that way. Sen. Young do either of you have thoughts on what we might do to for these individuals to justice . Ashton it my understanding there is an initiative underway currently that will address this within the judiciary system. I think the best thing we can do is to support the initiative. That the safe harbor provisions with bipartisan support, are very important. The Publicprivate Partnership ey. Ect is absolutely k is a lot that governments should together. Y and close as ashton pointed out, the supply chain into slavery, we have to be looking at that. Pieceshould be three publicprivate in this partnership. It should also be the private sector companies, and companies in particular. When i talk about american leadership, i dont just mean the american government, i mean all of us. In many places in the world, American Companies are the american brand. Making sure we enlist those companies, especially after you all passed legislation that humans the tariff act amends the tariff act. It allowed slaves made labor through this loophole. You have closed the loophole down. That is a potentially transformational thing in Human Trafficking. Now we have to make sure it is enforced, lieberman of the land Security Forces it, that the Companies Understand what they have to do. Most companies dont want anything to do with slavery. Many dont understand what they need to do to look at their supply chains and make sure there is no forced labor. We have to come together to talk about. One of the things youll could you a report was due to from the department of Homeland Security on how they are imple menting this new provision. That. You to ask for we would love to talk with you about that. Sen. Young thanks for your ideas and your counsel on this. We will continue to stay vigilant. That is the important thing. Thank you so much. Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for coming back filling in. I appreciate it. I have had two experiences that had an impact on me. Was hearing the statement of someone in the audience speaking to his congregation saying, if not you, who . I think we all know what that means. We together who hear this people need to be the ending lve ourselves in this. The other was experiencing a group of about 20 young ladies in the philippines ending goine Police Department there, seeing would a u. S. Private entity was doing to teach prosecution. Seen how this is a crime of opportunity, many think this is largely the mafia. And they definitely are involved. But as you know, a lot of Small Business people take advantage. They have dominion and use this to make money. And ending efforts, it needs to be our focus part of the effort also has to do with what we do with victims after they have been victimized. The efforts that was so howessive to me was seeing these young ladies who were maybe 13, a rural part of the philippines. A gentleman came by and said, would you like to go to manila for the night . Brothel themselves in a for 7 or 8 years, or in a place they cannot get out of. They need to have a place to go, to be protected from people that would otherwise kill them or testify against them. They have to have a way of coming back into society. Can you speak to personal experiences as what we need to do as a nation to address that component also . Ashton sure. Pipeline out. Organizations 5 domestically doing good work. Courtneys house, the rebecca vendor initiative. I have had the privilege to to look at the organizations, and assess the effectiveness of it. They do extraordinary work. They do the best they can to rehabilitate them. I think one of the things we can thenitely do is cross sector of ngos and look at the one that is the most effective. Replicate that and grow it. I think there has to be accountability in our spending relative to this. There are simple low hanging opportunities that i think the private sector can come in and be drastically supportive. Administration calls Administration Roles are being ooks. On these kinds of b i think there is Enterprise Software that can be given away meshese and create efficiency in these organizations. You have to find a place to keep these people. I am in russia. The girls that were getting left out of the orphanages get let out at the same age. The traffickers circle the orphanages waiting for those girls to hit the prime age where they can use them. If people dont have an environment of love and support, and the expertise to help them with the Mental Health issue of the abuse they have endured, they dont get better. I think Mental Health is a gigantic issue in this country in a lot of ways. We have to look at this not only as a slavery issue, but a Mental Health issue, to make sure that finances and support are going into that arena as such. This is a problem globally as well. Is very similar. We have worked closely with many women. We gave our human rights award activist,i woman helping women abducted and held in sexual slavery by isis. These women are so traumatized. They are now barred from coming here under this order. They said, if you cannot save us from this, then just bomb us, because we cannot survive. They need to Mental Health services desperately, even if they cant come here to get them. I think there is more we could be doing to fund organizations that can provide those kinds of services to women who have or,fered unspeakable horr many of them children. Sen. Corker thank you. Senator menendez is. Is back. He was the lead sponsor of this legislation and has been my friend, certainly an advocate for victims in human rights. I look forward to your questions. I would like to submit to the record that human rights first is a blueprint for congress to dismantles Human Trafficking. First let me say that my is thence in the senate fundamental difference is that one senator committed to an idea or ideal and willing to fight for it can create change. You did that in the context of Human Trafficking. You made it a singular issue. You are focused on it like a laser beam. I am glad to have worked with you on. Clearly you deserve the credit. It is the embodiment of what you can do. Isolate you on. I salute you on that. I have listened to both of your testimony with great interest. In having a caucus on russia right now, but this is important. I have questions for both of you. May be the chairman will be generous with the time. You can take as much time as you wish. Sen. Menendez i wont do that, but i will ask serious questions. There have been questions regarding the integrity of the past two years trafficking in persons report. To me, that report is the gold standard. I want to show why it is so important. What do we do with them . The reports are a template for how we judge countries in the world. The amendment that i got into law, which now denies a country that is in tier 3 of trafficking any preferential access to the u. S. In terms of any trade agreement is incredibly important, a powerful tool. We need the right type is important right type of reporting so that people do not get removed from the category unless they do things necessary, which would be good for the victims of trafficking in their countries. Would have meant they improved their standards. I introduced Bipartisan Legislation with senator rubio and senator mccain that makes sweeping reforms to to the integrity of the writing process. I believe there is bipartisan consensus that reforming the ranking process is a priority we should address early in this congress. One,ou speak to, number organizations reactions to the report, and what damage, if any, did that. . Did that create . Thank you for your leadership on that legislation and on the tip report. Human rights first has focused attention on reports coming out of the state department that have been mandated by congress, and why it is important for those reports to be not colored by political considerations. For many years, we did the country report annually. We did a critique of those because we thought there was too much political influence. Administrations from different parties. There was too much political concerns and other shading the facts in those reports. We stopped doing that critique because we felt that the state Department Country reports had improved significantly and were much more objective. The point of reports is to provide a baseline for policy. That is why it is so important that results reports like these are just the facts and have integrity. We were concerned that there appeared to be of some countries scale without any demonstration about what the that. S were for tool fort has been an diplomats to use. People have improved performance as a result of the ranking process. Is important to have transparency about how those rankings are made, to make sure that countries dont get a free pass because we have other business to deal with. Sen. Menendez that is a concern. This is either as important as this country has dictated in a bipartisan way, which means you cannot subvert its importance because you have economic reasons for the country, may be to some degree even security reasons for the country. When you do that, you underline the essence of the importance of the integrity of trying to end human slavery. My legislation regards rankings to be contingent on concrete actions taken by the country in the preceding reporting period. The state Department Must explain how these actions or lack thereof justify the rankings. Would you support such changes . Ms. Massimino yes, i would. Tcher,enendez mr. Ku extraordinary work. Before i left to vote, i heard about you were talking about having the freedom to take a risk on the technology that could further help Law Enforcement entities both capture, reclaim those lives most trafficking, capture the traffickers, prevent efforts on trafficking. I said in another committee on the finance committee, which deals with all kinds of trade. If there was a way to incentivize the effort by you and others similarly situated, is there a specific way beyond letting you go big . Are there tax incentives . I think about already the systems that you have. Maybe one of the requirements is that other countries use the best Available Technology at the time. Something we dont have a in estimation as to whether they are moving in the right direction on Human Trafficking. Can you tell me how we do that and create a better opportunity employment . Opportunity for its the claimant . Core, the reason that most of our publicprivate partners are Technology Companies is because they are incentivized to do something about this. To performnies want they want they are tool to be used in the right way. They dont want to be regulated, because it regulates the potential of the tool for good. I cap and to support that notion, that it is the user that is the malicious actor. In order for these companies to maintain that stands, it is my belief that they have to support efforts in technology to actually grow to that fight against these atrocities happening on their platforms. Efore, we have had extraordinarily willing participants in that effort. We have also launched the best practices guide for companies relative to trafficking. I think when your employees are involved in this space, or your company in some way touches this space, i think it affects the quality and performance of your company in the longterm. Cutting companies be aware of these best practice guides, there is a larger issue relative to what we call modern slavery. I think it is in the nomenclature of calling it modern slavery. Is slavery. Its just slavery. We do a disservice to the people that were slaves in this country for so long, and the oppression they felt by not calling it what it is. Ande just call it slavery acknowledge that just because someone is of a different nationality, or being sold for sex makes it Something Different so we can pat ourselves on the back and say, we did all we can i think that will have a big impact. It motivates people emotionally to actually build things. The other side, i think these tools are best built in the private sector. The reason why is that we are willing to take those risks. We are willing to create that accountability. When you get to the level where it becomes a fundamental institution to solving the problem and we have 4000 lawenforcement officials and 900 agencies using the tool, we have shown its effectiveness and that it can be measured and improved. At that point in time, it becomes incumbent upon the Public Sector to step up. To give our tools away for free. I look at it like facebook. Grow and at some time can create a revenue model that creates sustainability. That works, it is effective, and we can leverage it domestically and internationally to behoove everyone. Sen. Menendez your testimony noted a new provision in the bill requires the Multilateral Development banks to conduct a Human Trafficking risk 2 countriesor tier as a condition of u. S. Support. It is my hope that these assessments can draw together a wide variety of stakeholders from International Civil society organizations, local community, Law Enforcement and others to ensure that the Development Banks projects combat Human Trafficking wherever possible. As part of that, organizations such as yours would be called upon by the Multilateral Development banks. It seems to me that we have done a few things that are important, but we have a lot more tools at our disposition we can use. The multilateral banks having a strong report, thinking about how we incentivize the technology, aided by allowing it to be free, as is adjusted, thinking about the privacy elements so that we do not constrain it unnecessarily. Committee looking at other countries and say one of the ways you test if youre moving in the right direction, are you employing the latest technologies . Id appreciate what we have gleaned from your testimony and look forward to working with you. Ms. Massimino i just want to underscore that i think this provision youve talked about requiring an implementation of antitrafficking with the Development Banks, i think is this what we have been talking about how you take it to leveragee change. You know, i completely agree senator, that we have a lot of tools that are not fully used to tackle this big problem and a lot of what done here has moved between theward federal acquisition regulations statute, seeking to implement that, making sure that actchanges to the tariff get implemented. Theres a lot that this body can tools and makee sure that theyre being fully exploited for good and that takes a lot of attention, it sometimes takes money. If we can pull this all together, i think thats the way that were really going to make in this problem. He. Menendez thank you, helped me write the bill and i appreciate his support alongside me. Both for being here. The chairman will be back any minute now. Theow youve talked about integrity and trafficking of persons report and i dont know whats been discussed already made,e of the points ive this is always an issue when it comes to human rights, the our geopolitical relations and information about allies that is embarrassing. I think youll both concur that purposesicking of report a lot of people think is a piece of paper the u. S. It hasent publishes but been impactful. Part of our role is to shame those who are less than efforts to tackle this including people at home abroad. Governments i want to reiterate how critical it is that this report be free interference and to be blunt, the notion that someone could come and say to the state department, look, i to change the tiering of a country because weve got a on athing going with them Foreign Policy issue and we dont want to offend them and it is my feeling that that occurred in the last report. Happen again and so our hope is to prevent that from happening and i would imagine every advocate out there believes that, as well. That these issues are we as a natione are hopefully being honest about own internal problems with regards to that. The first thing i want to talk have, mr. Kutcher, you may talked about this already and may have been asked but the website talks about people using share child to abuse material are doing so with seemingly low risk of getting caught. Learning howd in thorn cloberates with Law Enforcement in the United States and around the world especially in countries with weak criminal theice systems to change sort of behavior with impunity of this criminal activity and at time using that also as a tool to hopefully train Law Enforcement agencies about victimfriendly procedures. There are places around the quite frankly, jurisdictions in the United States, if someone is trafficked they aretitution, arrested for the crime of prowstitution and treated as a criminal as opposed to as a victim and weve had arguments with Law Enforcement about that, its thehom argue that only way to break them free from the endeavor. Ive hadcases, disagreements with regards to that but how is thorn working to that cycle of impunity where people think they can do whatever they want, the chances very low caught are and penalties are not very high. Ashton thank you for the question. You know, at its core, one of trafficking,th sex specifically domestically and most certainly internationally itthe lack of attention that actually gets from Law Enforcement resources, i should say. Most trafficking divisions in Police Departments across this twotry are maybe one or people and theyre understaffed theynderfinanced and so really are when we first went in, we were looking at the tools they wereusing and going into chatrooms and trying to strike of conversations with traffickers or Trafficking Victims in order to get leads on investigation. We saw and specifically relative to minors, that if we a platform or a tool that helped them prioritize byir case load, understanding what we call maturity score of the victim, we help get the victims as early as possible out of the young as possible out of the system first. So weve created this prioritization tool. Id be happy to show you spotlight at some point in time. I dont want to reveal too much about it because i dont want to risk the enduring power of the platform but we helped them prioritize their case load and what were doing is just taking this internet, which largely anonymous in many ways, and making it far less anonymous. Track victims as they get trafficked across state lines. Haven create we investigation tools that allow us to understand the full picture, the full story of the Trafficking Victim over time and the trafficker over time, which admissible in court which is really good evidence in order to these cases. Senator rubio this question is for both of you, one of the things you hear about which i find to be one of the most grotesque and outrageous ive ofn and thats the conduct back page. Com. There was a recent article in talkedami herald that about a local organization filing a lawsuit against back page. Com and found that in miamidade, over half the adult Human Trafficking cases were advertised in back page. Youre probably aware the senate has conducted an investigation with regards to that report. Following that report, back page has closed the adult section but reported that the ads are running on the dating section and some are now asserting and i that this is nothing more than a publicity stunt. I would welcome both of you to and in on that change the end, didnt they just change the name of the same activity . Ashton this has been happening long before backpage. Six years ago i started going after the Village Voice for advertising sex on their wentorm and the way i after them is i went after their advertisers and said did you know this was happening and advertisers quickly pulled back and the Village Voice started to to that. Es relative i talked to the founder and c. E. O. Of backpage five years were watching we know whats happening, i know you know whats happening, you in the fightin us against it or youre going to it and theyool for really sort of didnt want to hear about it. Hand,s list, on the other the founder, craig newmark, was very willing and interested in fighting this and was distancing himself from what was happening on his platform. We watched. We technically watched the traffic move from the adult the Women Seeking Men section. We watched it. We analytically watched it happen moments after it was shut down, moments. So you look at it and you go, its a game of whackamole, right . That weonly question toe is, its not relative censoring it or shutting down the internet but relative to can areuild the tools that better than their tools to fight whats happening. Are sites in the United States that do this other than backpage, a lot of them, in fact. There are sites internationally that are doing this that are other sites. Its happening all over the place. Its been happening for decades in print media. Just recognizing it for what it is and i think that thats the most important part secondarily to that is lets build the tools, lets finance lets deploy the tools to fight back. Elisa so i think that backpage forto be held accountable what theyre doing and one of the things that theyre doing right now, theres evidence that they have been doctoring the ads. Of their ads to conceal the underlying transaction, meaning that they do that, theythey should not be protected by the law, andknow, current there are good reasons for it, says that internet sites that thirdparties to post arent responsible for the content of that post but you that law to go after what backpage is doing right now. They ares that intentionally altering ads to likeunderage people look they are consenting adults and that is despicable and wrong and accountablebe held for that. Senator rubio thank you so much. Here. You for being jean badersnyder is here, the lady sitting up front. She has been an operational leader here. Ago, in an airport in another country, saw a young was beingshe thought trafficked. She went to talk to officials back, she was gone and shesnted her committed her life to dealing with this issue so we thank you for that. You for helping us be in the place that we are today ready to launch what is and to, that senator kuhns. Senator corker, i want to thank you. I want to thank you for taking the experiences that others have brought to you and applying your and yourour leadership passion to mobilizing this committee, to engaging in a bipartisan way in legislation, to fighting tirelessly for funding and to empowering have got the that skills, the tools, the passion, to now go out and make a aboutence and im excited the opportunity to continue working with you in this end humanight to slavery in the modern era. Thank you for your leadership on this, chairman corker. Theres other great folks on this committee who have also it, as some of you may know, i spent a lot of my in africa as a member of the committee, former chairman african subcommittee it is tragic what we know happens to people who are country, and in countries around the world, so i you, ashtonto thank kutcher, thank you for your leadership and innovation. To see your tool and how it works and to better understand what thorn is deploying here in the United States and youve got some terrific people working with you, julie and others who help make this real each and every to ms. Massimino and human rights first, thank you for also providing the analysis the support. There are a lot of great organizations in this space. Many more. Y, the scope of this problem dwarves the resources we deployed against it. But look, there are days here and are somewhat partisan are somewhat frustrating and we dont get as much done as wed like. This is a moment that is worth focusing on because it is a can recognizee significant progress. I am the cochair of the Law Enforcement caucus and given in your testimony and what ive heard, i hope we have a chance to talk further how we get u. S. Law enforcement better funded, equippedgaged, better to deploy this tool and these resources, better trained. Life, i wasus responsible for a county police force and im confident that dont have as much in the way of resources as they would a county thatre was bisected by i95 and were on on where on a regular basis, we had homeless and runaway victims of Domestic Violence and im certain of trafficking, as well, and yet with have done much more more resources. We had one officer who did what youre talking about went tried to gather evidence, tried to help pursue and prosecute child prostitution, child pornography cases very dedicated, very loyal, very skilled officer. There are a few more resources today but far below what it should be. I just have three questions. First im interested in how we expand thorns model globally because i think youve a Significant Impact so far but if you look at the level of resources and training and access in u. S. Law enforcement, thee all know, in developing world, Law Enforcement, courts, transparency, are significantly less resourced so id be yourested in hearing how think further investment by the United States government in the End Modern Slavery Initiative might inspire engagement from our private sector and i think digitalciting, the partners and the Information Technology partners, susan and others youve brought to the here. How might more investment in our appropriations leverage increased resources from private sector. And second, what are the limits spotlight internationally . What are the challenges you face to really scale this up but in countries where mobile technology is now widely available, but where the transparency, reliability of the is enforcement system significantly below what we would hope and expect. Just, on a personal enthusiasm, a whole group of us worked together last year, flake and menendez and pass the end to wildlast trafficking act. Oftenfe trafficking is viewed separately from Human Trafficking but its really not and the Human Networks that benefit from wildlife andficking are killing selling parts and are often the same criminal networks involved in trafficking people so how could we reinforce those two at times engage completely separate n. G. O. s but goal, toth the same end grotesque criminal activity that destroys and denigrates wildlife and enslaves people. To how wequestion is might invest more and extend the reach . Two tools that i talked about today that are built and several others that deployed. And already as i mentioned, the heavy a certain extent is done. Successto the ongoing of the tools is continuing to iterate on those tools and make better over time. Senator rubio mentioned backpage. Down one section of their site and another section popped up. Incumbentgs become upon us having a malleable tool in alln effectively work markets. But now that the database is algorithm is built, relative to understanding the Contextual Understanding of this content, is expansion internationally in so much asple we need to find the environments that are being utilized for those spaces and put them into our engine. The trick, which you alluded to that,ve to the limits on is there are some countries where this platform probably work but its incumbent upon us to build the next tool there. Ll work a lot of this trafficking and the advertisement online. Lavery happens in some sense, theres a benefit to that, right, because in some be tracked but building the tool relative to market isnt trivial. Were currently working with International Partners canada is using our spotlight tool. Were talking to the u. K. About using our spotlight tool. We think it will be very effective in those markets. Our dark web tool is being used spaces, illnal just say, by several people. Proven to be very effective, because the same dark tool tour, created by the Naval Research lab, is the same tool thats used internationally. So really just training our database to have an of variableg languages and things like that is fully doable. The limits, the real limit is that, you know, were only sitting at the identification barrier, right . The limit. We can identify these people. I can identify all the people in world, right, but if we dont have the right resources and on theund side outbound side, its just going to be a cycle. And i think having a holistic understanding of the issue and from thatg it perspective is essential to andally solving the problem relative to the wildlife piece, definitely on the dark web, our tool could be repurposed for specifically that, if somebody was so interested and passioned same wayt issue in the as im passionate about solving tool couldking, our essentially be repurposed for need be. Like that if coons thats an intriguing conversation. Elisa the big picture is around the riskreward equation. People fromeep going into the business of exploiting others through slavery . Id right now, this is, as said, a very lowrisk enterprise for the bad guys and high reward. So how to flip that, you have to increase the risk. That includes through Law Enforcement, through damage toal and other companies that dont do a good slavery ining rid of their supply chain, and decrease reward. So we have to tackle both sides of that. And, you know, as you keep hearing, some of the pieces of bes problem really can solved or significantly advanced through increased resources. Ofon the closetohome kind perspective, in the tvpa example, ition, for would be really good to have designated Human Trafficking prosecutors. Were only 297 of these prosecutions last year. A provision that authorized Human Trafficking prosecutions in key u. S. Attorneys offices, i think that number could go up and they could be responsible, the hub, for cultivating the relationships with all the different agencies that deal with this. We have seen jurisdictions with that type of collaboration filed bytheir cases 119 and defendants charged up by 86 so some of this really is a resource question. I mentioned the federal regulations. Like the tariff act, another transformational change in the way we do business, we, the United States, do business. If we were to fully implement those regulations, we to authorize Human Trafficking compliance advisers offices of all these agencies state, d. O. D. , g. S. A all of these places who would work with the Contracting Officers and make being taken really seriously. So there are lots of theres a lot of potential here right now thats not being fully implemented and with congressional oversight and attention on all of those youall started a lot of that. Through, making sure its fully implemented, i think those could be transformational. Ms. Massimino and to you and your organizations and everybody who supports them, ill close by saying, sexual slavery, Human Trafficking is some of the activity that happens in the world. It thrives in dark places. Aspects of dark human nature and im really grateful for your work and mr. Chairman, for your leadership, in shining a light on this problem and on bringing just hope, butot confidence that we can solve this, bycan address appealing to the light within by coming together in a way that actually brings light to this darkest of subjects. Work. You for your thank you, mr. Chairman. Corker thank you so much for your leadership on this issue and so many others. I know that weve got a meeting this to build on this and look at some of the tools in private that are being utilized you both for thank outstanding testimony, for committing your lives to this examples, andng bringing notoriety, bringing awareness, if you will, to this issue, that plagues us all. There will be some followup questions. Know youve got a couple of day jobs and you do, too, but followup questions afterwards and well try to keep those to a minimum, knowing that got other things that you do in life. But this has been an outstanding hearing. Apologize for theres a lot happening up here on the been as you know, and has reported and its taking people in a lot of Different Directions been aow but this has very impactful hearing and we look forward to building upon it. Things that i do wish we could have touched more on alluded to this, ashton, but the sexual piece and day labor piece, there are a lot of differences that exist, cultures we of the deal with in other parts of the world and the collection of passports i know when we visit countries now, its one of the first things that we bring up, im heading to that part of the world this weekend. But there are cultural aspects that are barriers and people, again, unwittingly think theyre to a country for a particular job for a period of being entrapped there and so there may be some questions in that regard, too. But again, the lives that youre leading and example youre us, your willingness to come here and go right back deeplyr work is, appreciated. I dont know if either one of you this is a rather informal wish to say anything in closing, but youre welcome to, wish. Ashton id just like to say you. As i mentioned before, this is one of the greatest honors of my life. And i know the work that youall is strife with conflict and headlines that dominate your and pull you in directions that oftentimes you dont even want to go. But if we really care about slavery, if we really thingbout doing the right here, well realizes that there negative repercussions think theions and i biggest thing that i got out of today, i got reminded of a story a friend of mine told rabbi named halel who the torahto explain while standing on one leg and he Love Thy Neighbor as else is justything commentary. Elisa thank you. I also want to say thank you so much to you in particular, mr. Chairman, who really have put this issue on the map in the United States congress in a way it has never been before and now using that awareness, that growing awareness, that we all slavery. Nd modern you know, i think it was senator mccain who said this is not a topic and a lot of people, particularly americans, like to think about it, dont want to talk about it and pretend it doesnt exist. And particularly dont want to ways in which were all complicit in this problem. Made that harder for to thank youwant and all the members of the committee who have done so much people uncomfortable about this issue and thats where it starts. Much. Nk you so senator corker thank you, both. Its been outstanding. Were going to walk across the some of this how you have developed works so well. We thank you for that. The meeting is adjourned. [captions performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National 2017]satellite corp. The Associated Press writes, president Donald Trumps nominee abruptly drew his nomination yesterday after Senate Republicans balked at supporting him, in part over taxes he belatedly played over a former housekeeper not authorized to work in the United States. The article goes on, the withdrawal by puzder came on the eve of his longdelayed confirmation hearing. Many republicans were troubled by his it knowledge meant the he had not paid taxes on the house until after donald trump nominated him to the cabinet post on december 9, five years after he had fired the worker. President trump urged israeli Prime Minister netanyahu to hold off new new settlement construction. Those leaders talked about the Iran Nuclear Deal and a path to a two state solution in the middle east. President trump