Transcripts For CSPAN2 Human 20240706

In the field. This is live coverage on cspan2. For being here. I also thank you, we have the administration here today, especially our ambassador at large, cindy dire, thank you for being here as well. You know, more than 20 years ago, Congress Approved and president signed historic legislation that i authored known as Trafficking Victims protection act of 2000. This bipartisan landmark law created a comprehensive whole of Government Initiative that combat sex and labor trafficking in the United States and around the world. It also established dozens and dozens of new programs to protect victims, prosecute traffickers and prevent Human Trafficking in the first place, the three ps. Looking at the progress made over the years, its hard to believe the Trafficking Victims protection act was met with a serious opposition, a wall of opposition, for those in such of a problem including the media, many exaggerating, that we were talking about the prevalence of this crime not only around the world, but right here in the United States. Most people at the Time Associated trafficking with drugs and weapons. Not human beings. Reports of vulnerable persons, especially women and children being reduced to commodities for sail are often met with surprise, incredulity or indifference. Top Administration Officials testified against major provisions including right here in this room, including sanctions and the need to create the trafficking and arguing that exposing them with poor records on Human Trafficking would be, quote, counterproductive. The point was just put some more enhanced reporting into the country, for the human rights practices and call it a day. They did, support, however, increasing the penalties for traffickers and that was a good thing so we had solidarity on that and liked the interagency coordination and they already had one and our law expanded it and statutory. And i think its, you know, there was talk, and we found this when we did the International Freedom act, that how we would be creating hierarchy of human rights rather than value added. All human rights abuses need to be confronted and fought and this is so egregious and pervasive we werent doing enough at the time and we would not be a tier one country back then, we would have been a tier three country and thankfully all of that has changed. As a matter of fact, when our bill was stalled and languishes, presumed dead and how many times i was told it wasnt going anywhere, especially in the senate. I invited victims of trafficking and they sat at hearings just like this and made their case, often through tears. They made clear that delay was denial and that we cant do this fast enough. We have to do it right, but it has to be done as quickly as possible. Took over two years to muster the votes for passage and the bill was finally signed into law in november 28th, the year 2000. Within a year after enactment, no one was arguing anymore that the protection act integrated prevention, protection for victims and prosecution of the traffickers was flawed or unworkable, unnecessary or counterproductive. Remember, the push back with administration was bipartisan, too. Ill never forget after the bill passed we went now to the Bush Administration and said please implement. One month went by, another month and another month went by and they werent doing it. I asked the head of the Foreign Affairs committee, asked if we could do a hearing demanding that they get this up and running. They said, he said okay. And we set a date and the administration got back to us in that case and said, give us a month. So we gave them a month and still didnt do much. They even said you could come over and cut the ribbon. I dont want to cut the ribbon, and i want this up and running. And so theres been bipartisan footdragging with administrations and needs to be underscored, its just not acceptable. The bill included, as i think all of you know, a number of sea change criminal codes treating as a victim of trafficking and not a perpetrator of a crime. Anybody who has recruited, harbored, for commercial for sex act or Labor Services we were just talking to ms. Vandenburg, right from the beginning there was that twin no diminution of how enforced labor is, or slave labor, if you will, both trafficking offenses need to be confronted and aggressively so and always made that point so eloquently. The Trafficking Victims act looked at the way they responded to Human Trafficking and we had an admonishment to states with justice to say, pass your own laws. We need more prosecutors, more eyes and ears to take this, and everything cant be done at the federal level at the u. S. Attorneys and we need and thankfully every state, including my own, has a tremendous statute in hand, and you know, as long as weve got good prosecutorial discretion, this is a difference and making a difference. And the human traffickers have been prosecuted and jailed. And Jeffrey Epstein was being prosecuted pursuant, and he never obviously got to the point where the trial took place, but the indicting process. And most countries have responded to the gross violation of human rights and antitrafficking legislation. There must be more to strengthen u. S. s responses to this time and 27 Million People the estimates vary are still being trafficked today. And the reauthorization in 2003, 2005, when we first did the bill we could not get by and for an ambassador at large. We got that in the 03 reauthorization and you know, that not only raises the statues, the stature of gravitas now. Ambassador dyer, but the previous leaders, not just in the building, but the state department and everywhere they go, the ambassador at large is very, very high position and we couldnt get that until 2003. We also put in in 2003 a language that said when supply chain this went to a labor trafficking issue, that the ceos, cfos have to sign and say clearly that they understand theyre complicit in trafficking and they lose the contract and hopefully criminally prosecuted as well and they lose the contract. Nothing is perfect, but its been a difference. In 2016 after eight years, three times passed in the house, International Meghans law became law. Why is that important . We know that child sex tourism is rampant and men go all over the world to bangkok, to south america, brazil, mexico, and they rent a child, which is disgusting beyond words and abuse at that child and we know its happening. And International Meghan law. And meghan, the little girl lived in my district in my hometown and i got to know meghans parents, she was killed in 1994 by a cruel pedophile who lived across the street. Nobody knew of his background and he lured her in and killed her horribly and had the audacity to hand out pamphlets, do you know where meghan is, hes the one that killed her, hes in prison today. And in our states, district of columbia, port puerto rico. The pedophiles when theyre out they get passports and travel with impunity and secrecy. Passed three times in the house, couldnt get any movement in the senate and finally did. And angel watch is doing a tremendous job noticing countries of destination of that pedophile who is travelling, or pedophiles, often travel in groups. And notifications and have has led to the country saying, youre not coming in and you know where the idea came from . I was meeting like ambassador dyer does with all the delegations when they come in, you know, talk about what theyre doing to try to combat Human Trafficking, and so i met with the thai delegation and i said, it pops in my head. If you knew the convicted pedophile was coming to bangkok or some other places, what would you do . We wouldnt let them in. And started drafting the bill and eight years later its made a difference. Karen bass and i wrote the prevention and protection act and worked with the greatgreatgreat grandson of Frederick Douglas, and put a big emphasis on prevention pieces making sure our children are situationally aware, k through 12. What it looks like, what to be on the guard for, if you see a friend enticed with drugs or something, that you immediately get to that principal, to your teacher, and to train them as well. To the hhs and others have very good curriculum how to. And i would hope that anyone hearing this hearing in a school would look to say, lets have an antiHuman Trafficking couple of days and really bring in someone who is a survivor who can sensetize these young people and the u. S. Faces a crisis at the southern border that resulted in countless victims, especially women and children being exploited and traffickers take advantage of the chaos with the expiration of title 42 las night, its now more important than ever, examine what can and must be done to stop this crime and rescue these victims. I talked to one president of guatemala, he suggested to me, about 80 of these young women making their way up to the border into the United States are sexually assaulted somewhere along the line. And we dont know how many then, particularly the unaccompanied minors, the New York Times put that number at about 85,000, we dont know where they are. And that they are just easy prey for these predators. So weve got to do so much more. Let me just say briefly and conclude on this, in 2015 i chaired a congressional hearing to demand accuracy in designating tier rankings with the tip report. And reuters broke the story and then reuters interviewed a number of people who made strong recommendationses china, cuba, asia, and others be tier three. Went up to the state department for other reasons disconnected from trafficking, all of a sudden got passing grades and i did three hearings in the space of two years, one of them is called get it right. And it was trafficking and persons report and you know, the point is that the credibility of the report itself is, you know, thats one of the mainstays of the t t. P. A. And all of the efforts and the other programs are important as well and it rests on accuracy. So the report gets it accurate, but then in countries, look it, i remember even thailand being upset and malaysia with as getting a passing grade. Even on enforced labor, they had horrible things happening and even the European Union gave them a red card as they called it, it so, so bad. No fudging, no favors. And nations in other agendas. Friend dont let friends on human rights abuses. I believe that really demoralizes the victims and antiHuman Trafficking advocates as well as countries trying to improve their records. In the coming days i plan on reintroducing the Frederick Douglass prevention act significantly informed by survivor input and includes a survivor empowerment approach to victim services. The bill was strengthened antiTrafficking Programs including ramping up prevention and trafficking of children and i look forward to working with my colleagues on that and again, thank you for being here and id like to yield to my good friend and colleague, ms. Wild, for any opening comments. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here, i appreciate your willingness, mr. Chair, to call this really important hearing today. Let me begin by addressing extraordinary witnesses who are here today. Thank you all for your steadfast dedication for taking on the horrific scourge of Human Trafficking and several of the witnesses here are themselves survivors of trafficking. By dedicating your lives to ensuring that others do not experience the inhumanity that you did, you exemplify the forces solidarity for the human spirit at its best and most courageous. As members of this committee and subcommittee, democrats and republicans alike, were very united on this issue and while weve made substantial progress. Much of it outlined by the chairman in his remarks, all of us know that an enormous amount of work remains to be done. Every aspect of this crisis demands every more interconnected efforts in lock step with governments across the International Community and through International Organizations which is also part of this subcommittees work. We are the subcommittee on global health. Human rights and International Organization, so this is a topic thats squarely in front of our subcommittee. But the trafficking of children, sex trafficking, men, women, children, denied their most basic human rights and forced into systems of modern slavery, which almost seems like an oxymoron to me, but thats what were here to address and we must continue to address and its all too easy for so many of us to forget that this exists throughout the world and for many, its something that if we are we think about it, its too easy to compartmentalize its a difficult subject to think about. Thats what were here today. Were called upon to do it. Im honored to be part of this subcommittee and work on this issue with the chairman and other members of the subcommittee. Our objective is clear, we have to build a future of dignity for all. A future where no human being is ever confronted with these practices, which are an affront to our common humanity. And this transcends not only party lines, but religious boundaries, philosophical boundaries, cultural differences, whatever, this is an issue thats unacceptable to know persons who consider themselves to be a moral and humane being. And so weve got to work on this. I really look forward to hearing the powerful testimony of all of you and look forward to working with each of you with chairman smith and our colleagues to bring about the process for those urgently need. I truly hope that in a matter of years there wont be a need for this kind of hearing. And im going to try to be my eternally optimistic self and believe that we will actually get something done on this. Thank you very much. Thank you so very much, Ranking Member wild for your excellent opening statement. Id like to ask thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. Okay. Thank you. Id like to now yield. Theres different kinds of courage, been around a lot of marines, a lot of guys, a lot of sailors and Army Soldiers and they have a certain kind, unveils the courage of those people who come out of something so horrible and actually appear before a very Public Committee and become vulnerable to save others. I applaud you, i thank you from the bottom of my heart. The youth minister for 20 years, you see some great things and you see some horrible things, and i really cannot say how bought into im to solving this to the best of our ability. It is a bipartisan issue. Its something that all americans should be bought into. Hopefully we try to stay away from the politics of it and just the human nature, embrace the human nature aspect of this because its something purely evil. We could call agree theres nothing other than to defeat this is our only point so thank you, thank you very much for being here, thank you for participating, thank you for being brave, courageous. Standing up not only for yourself, but everybody else going into these for now and in the future. This might will never be done. It will never be done and making it better and we have a long road ahead of us. Weve seen in georgia, some of the worst places for child trafficking. Weve made some good strides, i think. The governor has addressed in big ways and i think it has huge support of aspect from the political spectrum as well as the private industry. Frankly, the government is not going to solve this by itself. And they dont understand what a massive problem this is. This is a heart problem. This is a spiritual problem. Its a humanity problem. And people have turned away from whats good and embraced whats evil to a large extent. So we have to be equally courageous on what is good and courageous and spiritual to defeat this. So, i continue to pray on this and i continue to work on this and after this hearing, dont think that theres ever a day that will go by where you cant reach out to any of us and continue this fight aside from a hearing because this is just the beginning. Thank you. Its now my honor to introduce our first panel and i will begin with ms. Bella, had a subject Matter Expert on Human Trafficking with lived experience. Appointed member of the council on Human Trafficking. Bella currently works in Program Management for the administration of children and families, and refugee resettlement, and migration and Mental Health. She has worked with unaccompanied children from central and south america, as well as unaccompanied refugees, minors in foster care operations for over seven years. Prior to orr, an asylum officer for Immigration Services under the department of Homeland Security and monitoring at u. S. Catholic bishops. Social work, and again, i thank you for your help as we were writing the tvpra, the Frederick Douglas act last time and accepting us again in crafting that bill for this year. A subject Matter Expert as well on Human Trafficking and she, too, is an amazing survivor. From the survivor led nonprofit, we rise new jersey which provides resources and Emergency Assistance to survivors and serves as a board member on the coalition of Human Trafficking. Cochair of antitrafficking task force of the new Jersey Academy of pediatrics, working with the new Jersey Department of education, gina helped develop guidelines for schools on Human Trafficking and frequently speaks to students on the prevention of Human Trafficking. Gina engages with legislators at the state house as well as washington and testifies and helped move our state to be in the lead on this important issue. She received the national liberators award for survivor leaders in 2020 and parenthetically we worked together as recently as generals in Monmouth County new jersey, where there was a symposium on combatting Human Trafficking. While we all spoke, everybody listened with great attentiveness to what gina had to say. It was an amazing presentation you said and so i thank you for that. Then well hear from mr. Robert long who again another subject Matter Expert on Human Trafficking with lived experience, survivor. He is a former chairman of the u. S. Advisory council on u. S. Trafficking and serves as a District Court judge in the 18th judicial district of colorado. Pardon me. He also provides presentations nationally and internationally on issues such as Human Trafficking, childhood trauma and resiliency, military, medical field, educational field, including the u. S. Department of education. Faithbased organizers, first responders, Mental Health professionals and Law Enforcement. Mr. Long has served as a consultant with the office of victims of crimes under the u. S. Department of justice, children and families, the Human Trafficking Expert Consult network under the u. S. State department network, shared hope international, shi, and the National Center for missing exploited children. And thank you, mr. Long, for your experience and consultation on Frederick Douglas act. What we do here is ask you what you think should be in our legislation and without that, we would not be, i think, making a difference, so its all attributable to you and others for doing that then well hear from ms. Becky murray, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, dedicated her life making a positive impact on the world. Founder and ceo of one by one fighting exploitation in some of the worlds most improverished area. Its been provided restorative care and empowerment to sustainable level to prevent exploitation of countries around the world. And a career as a pediatric nurse in the United Kingdom after graduating from Sheffield University with a bachelors in nursing studies. Thank you, becky for making a trip here. Then were hear from ms. Martina vandenberg from the Human Trafficking legal center. For more than two decades worked to fight trafficking, against women. And pro bono, civil cases shes trained more than 5,000 pro bono Attorneys Nationwide to handle Human Trafficking matters and thats truly remarkable. Provides Technical Assistance and mentoring to legal teams handling trafficking cases nationwide. Without objection, even further bios will be included in the record about these this wonderful panel. Id like to go to bella and youre yielded such time. Okay. Ill start over. Good morning. My name is bella, and i am a member of the u. S. Advisory council on Human Trafficking. Colosseum. Many of you know since 2016, the council has published six reports and the recommendations of the federal agencies, and this year, consult has plenty first 2023, fort refocused on how to best address the services and support for Human Trafficking survivors and in my time in the console, i have witnessed to the strength of collaboration heard since joining in 2019, for example, in that intercessions with the state, health and Human Services, we have new regulations on importance of collaboration between agencies. In my individual capacity come i have interacted with groups like the one approved, is the subject matter and these engagements both on council enough council, gives me hope. Alas our voices are suggestions and recommendations to the federal government, as survivors are not only about sharing her, with you all, for about past experiences, but about collaboration in the partnership. Some personally will not be sharing my story with you today but i can say with 100 percent certainty that those who have survived trafficking and how their living today and how theyre able to tell the stories is embodiment of the strength of the human will and the human spirit. There, our collective experiences is also a tale of morality in the story from more than surviving in my experience, is a story of the human spirit and refusing to be dominated by evil in the council, this discussion has prioritize collaboration at the federal agencies for a common goal of combating trafficking by making efforts to address and identify the root causes of traffic and the roots of human sharon the air that is a hard issue. And we agree without. We previously called on several agencies to address the demand for forced labor and exultation by holding the traffickers accountable and helps to call for increased accountability and of companies for the young people and all of us here know that Human Trafficking is a complex in a changing issue. Which requires consistent effort from all of us in from the government, to Law Enforcement, nongovernment individuals, and individuals. Semi also heard earlier somebody mentioned that humanitarian crisis. The demands of faceted response involving a range of strategies from stakeholders. So to that end, the survivor leaders like ourselves, must continue to be among these voices and continue to represent the diversity of experiences and background in with their efforts for you to reach the communities that you dont often engage with or hear from. It is a directed recipient, i received a lot of support from the council because i was able to achieve the things mentioned today selecting a test Plan Personally screens for the progress of any me together to improve the outcomes of trafficking survivors. Many of you also technology and address needs of the survivors that are said to remain by for example many do not have access to equal essential Mental Health services and housing support. And also vulnerable populations remain risk of experiencing labor trafficking in her country. And so you know, i looked up some of your bios before speaking to you today the recognize that many of you have dedicated your entire career to combating trafficking. And ensure that we received a sport we need so thank you very much for your continuous effort thank you for remaining strong in the face of adversity entered adversity and opposition and you all should be proud of the strike that inscribes you made. It also to continue to remain vigilant and i am hopeful together we can continue to create pathways of opportunities through new legislation the authorization to survivors like myself, and should enter continue to be on the path for selfsufficiency so that the people other survivors can fully reintegrate and reclaim their lives were holistic quality of care and become available and as a country, and is legislatures, and its people, we say no to expiratory should interactions must continue to demonstrate that is more obligation from all of us. So on behalf of the council, we thank you very much for collaboration forward to seeing you at a support offense. And this is thinking you from my heart and thank you. Thank you so very very much and i would like to now recognize the next person. Good morning. Good morning. First i want to thank god for bringing me here today. For me, one of the miracles for many, i am choosing to sharing to you little bit more of a snapshot of my background because he did not start with just trafficking, theres always layers upon layers that and hopefully, this can help continue to support all your efforts and that it is worth it for me and also to be a voice for those who are still silent and living in fear and shame. But thank you for inviting me here today. From new jersey to speak about my own lived experience and as a subject Matter Expert on Human Trafficking is so critical survivors heard and i would like to commend you all for inviting me to the table and listening to what i have to say. Im a new jersey native is a survivor of domestic violence, and childhood abuse. That experience as a child, let me to a place where i felt unashamed and unloved and rejected and also led me to being trafficked. School was like an extension of my home i struggled in school with her third learning, learning disabilities as well as other disabilities. The only thing that i succeeded at was being the funniest because i used factor to hide behind my pain. It was very important for me to be accepted and loved especially by my family i wanted my family to be proud of me. And then he was incredibly strong. But impartially come i was ever able to obtain their life or approval. Was my vulnerability and weakness and that vulnerability led me into the hands of the wrong people. Collision all used by someone who pretended to be my friend. But ultimately, objected me into making traffic to and for nearly two years in the age of 18, i was prosecuted, consulted the highest bidder and raped over and over again. My identity was taken as i was given a new name. Sleep deprivation, threats of violence, and pornography and drugs and food were all used to punishment and reward and leaving my traffickers, taking psychological control over me. It is a selling anything a young person dreams up for their future. Having this kind of life being stripped and robbed of your mind, your body, your dignity, your respect and your humanity. I became a commodity to be used for others again but i often blamed myself for my situation because i believed that it was my fault. Because of the complex nature of this crime traffickers frequently operated under the radar. And is being trafficked do not always identify is tims afraid traffickers maintain power and control of the victims for physical and psychological control. And Substance Abuse heard and as a victim, i was taught by my traffickers to distrust Family Friends and especially Law Enforcement. In the more they isolated some of the more fear i felt animal control the gained. Which is very intentional. They can still do me a strong distrust of the police. I was afraid of being arrested which in my case, happened several times. In one case i was raped by an officer and released back to my traffickers. The minute National Hotline number at the time, i wouldve had a safe place to call that was not Law Enforcement who i feared. And thankfully today, we have National Hotline number which allows victims to feel safe Access Service and most importantly, is done through a trauma informed manner. My traffickers moved around a lot and not necessarily to follow conventions of the big events. So they would not get caught. Because my first addictions, many times, i would not know where i was in the country or even when i was moved into canada for a short time. Traffickers are also women in my case, but i thought i knew the people, and total of two years it was three men and one woman he trafficked me and little did i know they were also using false identities to protect themselves and i learn is quite common many traffickers are not they usually say they are. Making it difficult to prosecute them heard it took the case for me to identify the deficit victim of mystic products in a child abuse and that i was a victim of trafficking and ive learned through counseling my continuous journey that would happen to me was not my fault great and i realized that i had been protecting those who were violating me. And as victim him i was left with a lifetime sentence relationships and addictions, hospital visits, suicide attempts, lack of jobs and education and also with shame and fear i learned that if you do not deal with hurt you, you will lead on others who did not cut you. In the years after escaping trafficking, the effects of being stripped of my humanity left me trauma and Mental Health issues. I was also left with criminal records and for the mental anxiety and we needed to expose the buyers and sellers and they must meet capitol and for that we need to strengthen and continue to strengthen our laws and improve education on all levels and imaging the buyers and sellers and not the victims and also helping those who seek to end exploitation and abuse of trafficking, learned that they need to be a safe person and understand what that means is something that we can all become someone who holds back judgment and instead offers food, and offers a blanket, and emotional support, treating all individuals with dignity and respect. But what you can especially do as lawmakers is to ensure that in every aspect of the work to in the trafficking and you put forward, measure mandating wide spread survivor informant trauma informed training this has become the norm tennessee only way to bring light inhumane crime and awareness to our communities and to expose the criminals read we need to create a safer country, where people can come forward without stigma, to reveal their experiences rated and no one should feel double victimized. Nobody should feel the double victimization of being trafficked it as well as feeling that they have to stay silent because of shame and fear not feeling safe and it was not until 2015 that i found my voice and my truth and my freedom that im working to get the criminal records that i was left with expunged and vacated and one down, one to go. And today when i go into countless schools throughout new jersey in the United States, students are always engaged and eager to talk. Nsr their parents. The students and always wanted to come back for many young people in particular the need safe people to talk to about trafficking and other forms of abuse. That is successful, for the children are made aware of what trafficking looks like. In the valuable information to empower them and keep them safe while ensuring that all information they received is, and survivor informed. This is a bridge of all voices in the survivors in the non survivors we need to collaborate to continue to make this work. I cannot do what i am doing without the amazing leaders and advocates that i walk along side with each day. And im deeply grateful to my colleagues at the new Jersey Coalition against Human Trafficking, the new Jersey Chapter of the American Academy of pediatrics task force at all those in the new Jersey Commission on Human Trafficking which i am honored to serve them also incredibly grateful to congressman chris smith, who is this fight against the trafficking, for so long ensuring that there is funding another provisions to protect and prosecute and continue educating our community and survivor informed way. That is why am so pleased to be here today your all making such a difference. Help and support survivors pretty Human Trafficking, comes in so many forms and discriminates against no one. Countless women and men, boys and girls, are trafficked, every day. And theyre subjected to humiliation, shame, exploitation and continued abuse being abused. Although im no longer a victim, the foot having to me, could make a difference to one person, it would have been worth it braided i am encouraged today and am filled with gratitude and hope because you are willing to hear me and hear other survivors. It is essential that survivors in all aspects of the word, to prevent trafficking including education. Lawenforcement and response in healthcare, and so on survivors need to be at the table, engaged from the beginning to the end and compensated it doing so. Thank you all for listening and thank you for your continued to do doing this horrendous crime. Thank you so very much. Thank you for your leadership in a yield to mr. Long. Thank you chairman and honorable members in congress and my colleagues credited to bunion later to my body, that it is better in prayer to have a heart without words and words without part. I pray that youll hear my heart in these words when i speak my truth. In the 1970s, mentor the boy to whom he was related to a cabin from into rural part of the country, and the mental the boy, to entrust into to wait. In the boy avoid him. Moments later another boy entered the room and the company by two men. The first boy upon seeing how scared the second boy looked at, ask, what is matter and why are you so scared. Single reply, in shock and disbelief. You dont know you dont know element took the second boy into an adjoining room, and two men proceeded to privately rape the boy. I am the first boy. That was the that i was trafficked heard was trafficked for four years. And as the physical abuse, abuse, middling emotional abuse, trafficking and torture read and ever more than 13 years of my childhood. I managed to graduate high school and managed to graduate college. In the managed to graduate law school. In my courtroom, they all rise and the only judge. Now, know this there are no survivors who standalone the recovery. Survivors need help. They need food and shelter they needed education read any counseling recovery services, the need good and fair employment. Any support, need very provisions. The survivors of today, need this and need you. You need to all need to to do this and they need you, to support this bill medicare this bill for word. I will undoubtedly, receive criticism for my fellow survivors were saying that they need you. Because survivors are proud people and fiercely fight for themselves and whatever the weight in a way they can to survive and no survivors they dont stand alone did not get here alone pretty and my mother, strong woman of faith. She taught me to believe and hope and i have my grandmother, taught me about courage and had my brother who taught me to trust again had a flock of therapists including Jennifer Sandberg and others in colorado who taught me the vulnerability, is not weakness, vulnerability unimaginable strength ive had amazing friends at mark ed, the under david bill and dan and paul and alessandro, tina, nathan, russell, anna, others. And so many others who stood by me and my lowest of lows printed the greatest bridge, my wife of 19 years, investment, and all along of had my god great who loves me, he forgives me, and guiding me to this very day into this very moment. An ability for you contains provisions that can provide the resources and pathways for the children for the youth, for the Young Persons in adults to find their own pathways. For their own goals pretty whether those goals are to graduate High School Photo their own company or be an advocate or be a parent or be a mentor, or a judge or congressperson United States invested door. And with the aid that you have the power to provide a futures argument this the victims of trafficking needs these productions and these provisions of so they also may transition from victim to survivor to thrive or read many do. We need you. And i need you. I need you to look at our faces. The faces of the survivors are not as if we are strangers with no connections to you, i need you to imagine instead, seated here are your sons, and your daughters of your children, needing this help and i need you to imagine saying yes, that you will have a victim become so much more than what happened to them read and shared with you that i was a first boy and would happen to me that day and the years thereafter. In support this bill, adopt this bill, follow congressman smiths path to provide for survivor so that one day 30 last girl glass boy the last child, to come before congress, begging for your help. Every single one of you this job for the exact same reason. To help others pretty to make a difference. The most noble of employments and in the mix in the mess of your daily duties, he started the site have your first purpose from your true calling and i know no one will remember me nobody is going to remember that this five minute speech to beg you to remember the story of the first boy because history will remember you. History will remember if youve made a difference in a few joined in support here is your chance to re embrace your true purpose to make a difference make this difference support this bill and this is the way and after your true purpose to help others and to make a difference for this is your way and leave you with one more quote from somebody else history will never forget, work, as if everything depends on you and pray, as if everything depends on god and may we be blessed in all of your work in a sacred halls, for the greater good of all read and i think you, may you be blessed. Judge long, thank you for that excellent testimony, your experience, absolutely encourages all of us to do more and again for helping us write this bill which it was a great introduction and laughter when we did the federal douglas the house no want to thank you for the information you provided, is extraordinary thank you. Without our survivors, or survivor informed trauma informed, we would not know where to go so thank you. Miss becky, the floor is yours. Good morning. Chairman smith, honorable members and think you for the honor and privilege to set before you today and represented the Global Community of ngos working to fight against Human Trafficking abroad in my name is becky murray, ceo and founder informed by one and u. S. Headquartered national tenancy. My very national counted accent. In one by one was founded over a decade ago and went on a trip to and i was a student at the time in my 20s and on the trip ive met a little girl nine yearold or a good girl filling in the streets and is she had no shoes and so for less than a dollar i bought her a little pair of flipflops and she approached me and she said, should weight in your bedroom and that little girl was being so abused, that she presumed less than a dollar met the now my underbody that one moment changed my life rated i decided that moment i would devote my whole life to this even if it was only for one child, would you like whole life to no child should go through that the sigler event launch a Global Movement to to address Human Trafficking and modernday slavery and some of the most impoverished areas of the world and founded in 2011 from one by one has provided necessary educational support and empowerment toward sustainable living, to prevent exploitation of vulnerable. In the developing world, one of the signature projects in a most out of is the project that is not reached over 50000 girls from across africa and asia in different parts. And. Poverty is a worldwide problem that affects millions of women and girls every day and the lack of access to essential product and facilities and educational around it is a complex issue that is rooted in economic and social and cultural factors and it needs 70 girls to be an exploit tainted and trafficked card and the girls in their missing school in critical educational during their absence and girls who miss it are the work due to their they become far more vulnerable to the tactics of trafficking as a result of this the invitation of this project, we seen a tennis rights just raise rise significantly and they are costeffective measures in my opinion, really deal with neglected the three ds entities prevention, and however, many cannot say to the level of the true Global Impact without the investment and support from the u. S. Government. And as you are undoubtedly aware, both usaid and state department place to combat trafficking nick plays a critical roll in addressing issues for slavery in the United States as many Global Leader in this which is a british girl to say is a big deal, you guys are Global Leaders. And since the passing of the Trafficking Victims protection act in 2000, thanks to the unwavering leadership and commitment of representatives smith amongst many of us honestly a personal thank you on behalf of every child that ive had the honor of helping and working with on their behalf i want to thank you to yourself and everybody was committed in this. Just recently i had the opportunity to meet with usaid representatives across kenya and uganda, and i was disheartened to learn that little to no investment was made the focus of the work on specifically Human Trafficking and while i was thankful for that time in the inside to the work that is being done, i was confused at the lack of given the scope and the impact of Human Trafficking in those regions. Additionally, and that congress of more than 60 million and that 23 alone for foreign aid yet since 2001, in the last 22 years, usaid is only invested a grand total of 17 million into fighting Human Trafficking trafficking in person is a threat to economists, global health, health security, gender equality, gender equity and empowerment, all of which are Key Highlights the president s 24 bridget requested however, trafficking was not represented in the budget and the state department offered to monitoring, trafficking has made significant investments in efforts in a capacity for foreign governments to combat Human Trafficking and much of this investment is being focus on the pillars protection and prosecution recognized that these are obviously critical to effectively address mothers labor day and modernday slavery however i submit that the prevention of the third piece has been from the more neglected they come up as a practitioner in the field is my observation that they often fail to address the root causes and exultation and trafficking and i understand the prevention is harder to measure and activities and not quite as flashy as some of the socalled rescue operations however, provided truly have an impact, we must focus and invest on prevention. The most important question that the government should be, how do we prevent Human Trafficking from happening in the first place and they should never be the first boy. In 2019, that having inperson report published by widely recommended in the quote, increase prevention efforts in the outreach and Intervention Services for marginalized communities. Not only reflects its dedication to principles of freedom, justice and Human Dignity but it also says strategic investment that fosters stability, prosperity and the rule of law and countries around the world. By funding and supporting antitrafficking efforts the United States continues to dismantle criminal networks that proper from exportation of vulnerable individuals, many of whom fall prey to traffickers due to poverty, lack of education, social marginalization, poverty. These criminal enterprises undermine the global economy, corrode the integrity of use institutions and jeopardize the collective security there are respectfully submit enclosing the following recommendations to this committee. To increase and direct the use of appropriate funds to usaid to invest addressing the issues of modernday slavery, to pass the Trafficking Victims protection and prevention act without delay. This legislation will expand u. S. Efforts relating to combat Human Trafficking including force labor as those new recommendations to usaid, to integrate prevention efforts to their global program. And to amend International Megan slow to address any loopholes to keep children safe from traveling convicted and lastly i call upon this committee to introduce the legislation that would and child trafficking prevention, education to address children that of a sexually abused and exploiter as well as child trafficking online. These steps will bolster the work already being done and foster new efforts in preventing exportation of vulnerable people. People. As a work toward establishing a world where all children are free to achieve their full potential without threats of being exploited or trafficked. Thank you for your time. Thank you so very much for your testimony, go leadership and for sharing that story of the young girl in sierra leone. What a a moment for you and jt underscores how cruelty to exportation of children actually is. Ms. Vandenberg. Good morning, chairman smith, Ranking Member wild and members of the subcommittee, its an honor to testify before you today. I am president of the Human Trafficking legal center. I also just what you say its an honor today to testify alongside ballot, jean and robert. Thank you all for your leadership. We couldnt do this, any of this without you. Before i i begin i just want o thank you, congressman smith. I have appeared before you over your last 25 years of leadership on Human Trafficking, testifying before the on multiple occasions to discuss peacekeeping and Human Trafficking, Human Trafficking by government contractors, trafficking of Domestic Workers by diplomats, and forced labor in Global Supply chains. I am particularly grateful for your attention to forced labor which is an egregious violation of human rights. We have gathered together today to discuss the implementation of the tpa so want to begin this morning with this. The first is accountability. The tps driven to be a powerful tootle traffickers and perpetrators of force labor accountable. The statute covers extraterritorial jurisdiction and a such a provision to combat force labor in Global Supply chains. Number two, access to justice for survivors. In 2003 congress created a private right of action. That law permits victims to hold her traffickers accountable in the federal court. The extraterritorial jurisdiction provisions of the statute have a lot trafficking survivors to bring successful civil cases, even where the forced labor occurred abroad. In two important cases litigated in Eastern District of virginia, litigated by pro bono lawyers i should add, roe versus howard and dell versus howard, federal courts awarded damages to Domestic Workers trafficked in sexual servitude and forced labor by a u. S. Diplomat. The trafficking occurred in japan and yemen. The Fourth Circuit court of appeals upheld the jury verdict in roe versus howard, decision of reflected Congress Intent to provide Trafficking Victims with extraterritorial jurisdiction to hold the traffickers accountable. Number three, the success of the tip report. The trafficking in persons report has evolved into a powerful Foreign Policy tool although i do agree with you, congress and smith, absolutely about the grading issues. The country rankings matter a great deal and being rigorous and honest with those country rankings is absolutely essential. Number four, a big success is evident here today on this panel and its survivor leadership. One need only look at remarkable and powerful witnesses on this panel to recognize the fundamental role that experts with the lived experience pn the formulation of u. S. Policy. Trafficking survivors have an immense amount to teach us. They know what is working. They know what is failing. They know how it can be fixed, and they should be emboldened to fix it. Finally, a big success thats already been mentioned, the three peas. The tpp a famous threepiece, prevention, protection and prosecution. Over the last two decades we have focused myopically i fear on prosecution. We are beginning to see more focused on the most neglected, as becky also called it, prevention. Everything Human Trafficking we must focus on root causes. Again i agree completely here with becky. We must focus on root causes. Violations of workers rights, violations of the freedom of association, discrimination, lack of enforcement of labor law, and poverty. And as weve seen today, also broken immigration systems. Its still despite this process over 20 years, which is remarkable and, and enviable, there still an enormous challenges. One problem that we see her in the United States is with diplomats. Diplomats and International Organization personnel are permitted to bring Domestic Workers into the United States on special visas known as a three and g5 visas. Some of these Domestic Workers are held in forced labor. The department of state now administers and in Person Program to interview each 83 and g5 Domestic Work annually. These official check in play an essential role in preventing Human Trafficking, catching it before it can become so egregious. These interviews also have placed diplomats on notice that the state department is watching and will take action. Moreover, the in Person Registration interviews can provide the only opportunity for Domestic Worker held in forced labor to escape her traffickers. And we have seen this happen. We have advocated to make these in Person Registration programs requirements statutory here and we urge congress to pass this mandate in the new key tpa. But what about the Domestic Workers for home trafficking wasnt prevented, those are held in forced labor, those who severed Human Trafficking in the United States . Those workers, those trafficking survivors still confront total impunity. Take the case of malawi. In 2016 to federal court in maryland ordered a diplomat from malawi jane to pay 1. 1 million in damages for trafficking a Domestic Worker into forced labor in the United States. That Domestic Worker is here today. She is my colleague at the Human Trafficking legal center. She is also a member of the u. S. Advisory council. That diplomat, jane, was allowed to return to malawi where she was promoted picture became ambassador to to make other african countries. On behalf of the government of malawi. Seven years later that 1. 1 million judgment is still outstanding. Other countries have made what are called expatriot payments, payment and struggling to survive is to cover the crimes of their diplomats, because this is a prime example of corruption. When state officials engage in Human Trafficking, that is corruption. It is clear that additional consequences are necessary for diplomats and their states who choose to fort federal court orders. This makes a mockery of the rule of law, devotes engage in Human Trafficking should face sanctions. I would like to turn now to Migrant Workers held in forced labor in other sectors. What we have learned in our 25 years of working on trafficking and working on the ttpa is at forced labor is a feature and not a bug in Global Supply chains. We now know that we will not prosecute our way out of forced labor Human Trafficking. In 2021 2021 according to e Department Trafficking in persons report there were just 1379 prosecutions for forced labor, in the world, in the entire world. We still need criminal prosecutions. Im not saying avoid that p entirely but we absolutely must now pivot to prevention and focus on workers rights. Speaking of workers rights, i want to raise the alarm bill because were seeing every troubling trend here in the United States. Professional workers brought to the u. S. With contracts that include steep financial penalties that are euphemistically called liquidated damages. We call these provisions abscond but clauses. The provisions are ubiquitous in contracts are nurses, particularly nurses come from the philippines. The contracts preclude the nurses or any worker from leaving their position for three years. And if that individual does try to quit their job, the employer or recruiter enforces the liquidated damages clause in state courts. The army of these cases in state courts that are pending even as we speak this morning. The penalties range from 30,000, to 150,000, trapping these workers in debt bondage. And in new york, ten nurses who left their jobs and their lawyer faced criminal prosecution, criminal prosecution for socalled abandonment of their patients. It took years to clear up those charges to get those indictments off the book, but you cannot, you cannot turn around and arrest. You cannot turn around that harm. Finally, a state Appellate Court in new york determined that those prosecutions violated the 13th amendment of the u. S. Constitution. Nursing shortages in the United States should not give rise to Human Trafficking. Nursing shortages in the United States should not give rise to abuse of conditions before nurses. Nursing shortages should not give rise to what we consider an american catholicism. Contracts with us, fees, no matter the euphemism used to mask the abuse must end. These contracts are unconscionable and they should also be unenforceable. I would like to end today with some concrete recommendations. First, i echo becky. Increased appropriations to focus on the forgotten p prevention. That means increasing funding for the department of labors bureau of Labor Affairs i let. It also means the state department tipoff is sunday and u. S. A. I. D. Funding should shifp to focus on workers rights, freedom of association, prevention of forced labor, and prevention of all forms of Human Trafficking. Second, focus on corporate accountability. All of us have seen the series in the New York Times about children exploited on the night shift in slaughterhouses, in the United States. Its 2023. This is appalling. Corporations should face prosecution, administrative fines, and debarment from u. S. Government contracting it they are found to have held workers, if they have found two of held children in forced labor, or if they benefited from that forced labor. Diplomats and their sending states accountable for trafficking of a3 and g5 Domestic Workers. We have requested sanctions. Mandate in Person Registration interviews with Domestic Workers on a3 g5 visas and to allow them an opportunity to escape. Finally, prohibit the use of contracts with penalty, abscond mid fees for nurses and for all Migrant Workers in the United States. These tools are used to traffic in our country. I would like to end with a quote for my colleague who has said for many years, the thing about us without us. And that is why it is so important that your working directly with survivors to write this legislation. Thank you for this opportunity to testify, and i look forward to your questions. Ms. Vandenberg, thank you so very much. And you have for years i think your testified seven times or at least i deeply appreciate that. Every time we learn something new, and obviously all of our consultations, our staff director for the subcommittee and we are working on this legislation and through your input again and the input of all of our very distinguished witnesses is making a difference, so thank you for highlighting but also giving depth as to what these issues are all about. And you write about the forced labor issues and they have neglected to some extent. I mean, i just had a hearing on forced labor, i chair the China Commission and its something we again a good joint effort to get that legislation passed. And theres every reason to believe that xi jinping is gaming the system, despite good effort on the part of our customs people. I mean theres all kind of loopholes there already exploiting. Equally, talking about forced labor, i had hearing on what is going on in congo with regards to dves, what you like it or not, electric vehicle thats find that your preference but the cobalt that is needed for them is all, most coming from congo and theyre using children, 35, 40,000 kids who are being exploited horribly are curing process out. Our witnesses were from some of the cargo talked about the deficit is is these kids are acquiring by the inhalation of dust and the light from the cobalt. About 200,000 adults. Some of the where dropping next week similar, not similar but pretty much, much the same timeframe as this bill on Frederick Douglass reauthorization to go after that supply chain. If ford and tesla and all the others are going to be using cobol, did it from a source that is completely and totally clean, and this is not clean. As you all know are probably know, most of the work on those mines, after the extract of cobalt, goes to try goes to send john and places like that right where the uyghurs are expensing a genocide. You can make to step up how horrible it is and we need to do a lot more. So thank you. Forced labor is a huge issue. I think with the careful about not taking promises or fake reforms that come out of places like beijing. When china was upgraded from tier three countries where it actually belongs for both forced labor and for sex trafficking, it was pointed out that yes, they were getting rid of their reform through labor. Ive been there. I was there along with frank wolf right after Tiananmen Square where Tiananmen Square activist were making jelly shoes and socks for export. We bought the evidence, give it a customs can be put in import ban on it and that place actually close. They opened it up somewhere else but there went through this great subterfuge about how to be getting rid labor and allow dash for it wasnt true. They just transferred what they were doing and, of course, they went back to tier three to next year but weve got to have those eyes wide open and not be willing to buy into xi jinping or what you sent, coercion towel and others, you know, false repetition of what china is doing fashion who jintao. So thank you all for your testimony. Just couple of brief questions and very brief. Its a covid19 has exacerbated efforts about Human Trafficking. I know its been made clear grueling online has become much more aggressive to get young people, and when of the things i learned because i chaired a couple of forums as head of the osd parliamentary special representative on trafficking and we had a number of women who had employment and then lost it because those jobs went away. The employment peace i think is extremely important. You might want to speak to that. On housing which was mentioned earlier, our bill will have a 35 million per year per year times five years effort to have money set aside for housing. There needs to be a a decent e to live that is safer than were many of these victims find themselves. So that is something we want to put in there and really make it an allout effort. Its not major to 35 mean its a lot of money but at least its a step in the right direction, times five like this it can live your authorization. On Situational Awareness you might want to speak to this, particularly those who have lived experience. There have been surveys that i found that 80 of Trafficking Victims, some would say higher, Access Healthcare at some point, often several times, particularly if theres a pimp involved and his property which i found so outrageous and we all do, needs to get into the hospital because of beatings, because of the rate that is so frequently occurs. We need to do more to make our hospitals and personnel, we he legislation of course, law situation aware. You were at our conference and went from what some of the new jersey hospitals are doing to train the emergency room people and they do it else at the hospital, health care facility, whatever it might be tough eyes wide open about whats going on, situationally aware. Be a vigilante, take that information to Law Enforcement immediately so that they can hopefully step in and rescue that victim, if thats a trafficking situation. So you might want to speak to the healthcare part of it. Schools we are working on that like you know to try, thank you gina for doing so much in the schools. And all of you do talk about the importance of faith in terms of the healing process. I dont know how someone doesnt have faith, maybe they can get through to good psychological counseling, but again to know again youve been victimized and so often the victims blamed themselves which is absurd but it happens almost all the time. And faith gives us the sense of renewal, reconciliation and hope. Says in the bible without hope the people perish. We all need help at a Trafficking Victim seems to be needs it more than anyone, and faith helps to provide that. So if you want to speak to that briefly as well. So the other questions but it o want to get to my colleagues and yes, gina. I know for me when i was in the life, i did welcome drugs because i just did want to feel or see anything. So that, i mean, that added to the addiction but that then also enabled and added to their control over me. With their was that reward and punishment concept. As far as Emergency Rooms and beatings or any other health issues, i mean, i had no insurance. One of the big red flags, because its a difficult at times to identify what a trafficker looks like, you know, what these criminals look like, because its very deceptive and they are masterminded. I am uncomfortable even giving them that credit but its so true. But one of the victims across the board from it own experience is that when victims, whether they know they are victims or not, they dont speak for themselves, and their head is down in some else is speaking for them, or they start to speak because they may be feeling a little to speak but the perpetrator, the criminal takes over. Thats a huge sign, whether it be regardless of what is said, whether it is what setting, whether healthcare or any other setting as well. But in hospitals i felt safe but i was still scared because the perpetrators are there, you know. Very rarely was a left alone. One of my women traffickers was always tagging along with me, and if i didnt keep in the line steps that i was psychologically groomed to be set in, and that you go back to him and then there was retaliation. And their threats are real. There is a lot of violence, so you know, so those are areas that are really important. I know in another incident, instance, i mean even as i remember someone intentionally hurt me, and this was a Family Member, and i went to the hospital. And i share this with you because it is a way i thought, the way, i thought everyone lived like this. I thought that this was the normal. And i remember going to the hospital because the Family Member intentionally hurt me where i required stitches. So i was at the hospital and my mother came, and the staff was asking what happened. And my mother was protecting someone who was harming me and said oh, she closed the door too hard. But thats not what happened. The person who is trying to hurt me pushed the door with his arm and the class shattered over me, causing me to go to the hospital in needing stitches. So my point behind this is that i heard her say and i said, thats not what happened. She does about what i said. But i didnt close the door too hard. But my take away from that was what i learned through the years, is protecting those who are hurting me. So that foundation was already laid at a very young age. And the other part was is when i said to her, why did he hurt me . And she said, he didnt hurt you. He loves you. So you know theres that trauma bonding, theres the stockholm syndrome, theyre so many layers to this. Because its not until, for me, i mean, my healing journey will always continue. In counseling i would, i dont go as frequent as i used to, but for me i had my tool belt on. I know it works, and especially being told to do the work that i do, its important that i take care of myself and i know what needs to be done. But its not like you go to counseling is it okay, im all better, i arrived. Thats not how this works. The trauma, the triggers are always there. So in order to do this effectively i know what my needs are. I know when you need to say no. I know with the boundaries are. As far as the school setting, i mean, it is incredible. I am just taken back every time i walk into a school, whether its a middle school through universities. These kids from sixth grade are so engaged and they are so hungry that only to listen but to talk. And, unfortunately, we always have to adhere by the bell. You get so many minutes, i think it was 32 minutes per class, and we will go for the whole day and it six great to the high school. And the kids are left with so many questions because we dont have enough time for q a. The teachers and the principles, the feedback is always consistent that even the kids that their difficulty, whether its kids that are the boys come the kids that are distracting come into the kids with the poor grades come its the kids who think they know it all, even those kids that are difficult, they are there so attentive and so hungry to want more. Because theres so much they can relate to. Its not a simple crime where, whether you know the person or not, and plus theres so many different types of trafficking when we talk about familiar trafficking, again trafficking, when we talk about the grooming with the boyfriend dean, many times it is not who we think they are. They are being deceitful. They are lowering you into a relationship. Another big sign is when they want to continue to divide you from the parents or the family that you think you are safe from in some cases. Because the more they isolate you, the more control than ovr you. One of the things that i would like to see more of is more caretakers and more parents involved. Because i feel it so important that as far as prevention as well, i feel that we need to start from the beginning. And how girls and boys are raised can look very differently, regardless of your background. And i know that from my own experience speaking from where i came from, theres many cultural boys to have accountability and its okay for boys to get a way to do that, or its cute. And its not cute and its because we are creating monsters. We are enabling behaviors that have no accountability at all. So i, and the same thing for girls. Because ive seen it, too, where girls are so abusive and girls are always, as i said earlier, traffickers. So thats really important. Thank you, ms. Gina. Representative smith, you mentioned about psychological healing and you talk about faith perspective. One thing that i submit to you all is to sum up introduced the bill that allows for continued Mental Health services in form of funding for survivors. We know that trauma is it a linear path. People dont heal. The continuous journey, and so if the survivor is not a believer then perhaps they can have access to funding that allows them to receive Mental Health services. And from a faith perspective come when i i met these things ive aware that there are survivors are watching from all over the world. And so if you are a survivor, thats watching all of us today, i would say from my personal experience that you cannot heal by yourself. Everything you see was formed by something you cant see. And so if you are watching, i need you to believe that the sings that your traffickers told you, they are not true. You are not broken. You are not middle class. You can heal. You are not effective. You are not damaged. You are not disposable. You are loved, and if you experience from this time you can identify to that. I invite you to have a sense of belief, at least try it out. You cant possibly heal on your own. God did not hurt you. People did, and its people thats going to give you hope again, so thank you. Entrance of the medical training i think thats a crucial part in certain from an International Perspective to go in into training with medical professionals because it is a key place where they are coming into contact directly with in terms of modernday slavery against slavery and trafficking. They dont like it is. Ive got two brains when equipment because i was a nurse, a pediatric nurse before launching the foundation and so i know the chaos of being there and how hectic the workplaces. Your mindset is definitely lets fix the physical problem and then discharge. Your conscious, events and this is the crucial news of going into training medical professionals to be aware of what its like in the what to do so you dont endanger the victims further. And so i think doing medical training is crucial. So we just started launching once in hospitals right on the borders between king and uganda because were seen a lot of children crossing over the border there being trafficked so were starting to training in hospitals on both sides of the border because this is a key place. The other mentioned was schools anything prevention point of view to go in and reach the children at early age of what to be aware of what to look out for but for me specifically from where i come from and the International Community identifying poverty is, cute vulnerability factors massive. We are encountering children across different communities who are having to miss a lot of school every month because of the shame and the statement that is to attach to them so they wait at home for that week, the months come many girls are dropping out of education and are still in primary education, elementary here . Letter to my terminology right. Elementary education could never make it on the high school. I think at that can be addressed is a key component in prevention in tackling and poverty that can a big impact. If i can just address three of your questions briefly. One is we have learned over the last 30 years of working on Human Trafficking that survivors actually need lawyers. That goes also for children who are trafficking survivors need lawyers. And that goes also for children who are sexually abused by americans or u. S. Persons abroad. We have worked very hard to get pro bono lawyers to represent those children, even while theyre still any country of origin and the country with that abuse has occurred. So having legal representation along with Mental Health support and addiction support and housing, all of those basic needs, but legal needs are also quite fundamental. Secondly, and i think you heard this today, survivors need agency. So when you talk about medical care i think its very important to remember that survivors need to be making the decisions. Survivors need to decide whether theres reporting to Law Enforcement, unless its a child and the mandatory reporting. This also goes for the hotline. As gina said, survivors, Trafficking Victims wind in the situation they are terribly frightened of the police after sometimes abused by police and associate arrested by police. And so with the u. S. Hotline now with the national Human Trafficking hotline, victims themselves, when they call need to be able to decide whether or not to report to Law Enforcement. Survivors should not be arrested. They should be given opportunity to do what my colleague evelyn was a survivor of child forced labor and the United States said it to me once, evelyn said i rescued myself. Trafficking survivors rescued themselves. Finally i want to turn to the question about employment. Because i think some of the biggest wins that we have had in the last four years, five years on forced labor, have been because of the week of forced labor prevention act and because of robust enforcement by customs and Border Protection at of n 307 of the tariff act. And those laws as i i said iny written testimony, those laws which prevent goods made with forced labor from entering the u. S. Market, those laws protect not just workers abroad from being held in forced labor, they protect workers here in the United States who can in no way compete with workers abroad who are held in forced labor. The last thing i will say is that we have much to thank department of labor for these days. With the department of labor who found those children working, cleaning meat house, packing floors in the middle of the night its the department of labor inspectors who found that. One thing we need to do to protect workers here, and again to prevent Human Trafficking, his fund the department r so those inspections can take place so there fully, fully resourced. Thank you. I begin by considering whats probably a very common experience for survivors of Human Trafficking, whether in labor or in sex trafficking, is the overwhelming sense of isolation that you can turn to no one, the stolen come to rescue you, theres no way thats going to help you. And that keeps you silent for years sometimes, decades. And when i began to realize that i was not the only one and that there were others out there like me, of course it was sad but also very encouraging and empowering to know that theres others out there that it had these experiences that are trying to make a difference. And my First Encounter was with a nonprofit in colorado that was doing some great work, and then i learn there was a call about a counsel often called the Governors Council because collection of professionals trying to improve laws in colorado on antitrafficking. And then i learned when i attended in 2014 Share Hope International conference in d. C. That the federal government was working on it. And i have no idea as a victim of Human Trafficking at the federal government have any idea what Human Trafficking was, what youre doing, nor did i know 20 years ago that you, sir, are making an enormous difference. So i thank you for all your work. And i think of how proud i am of the United States and of you, sir, and of my congress and that we are the greatest country in the world and that we lead by example. We are not infallible. We are a flawed country. We are a flawed government. We are doing a hell of a lot of good and will continue to do that come and im forever a man of hope. And when i encounter the department of justice had obc and the administration for children and families had, has national Human Trafficking training Technical Assistance that the state department has their network of experts, that the department of labor is engaged, it was humbling, encouraging to realize how many different divisions of the federal government have actively been combating Human Trafficking. Its so very encouraging and we still have a lot of work to do but im so proud of my country and my government for making a difference. Thank you. Judge lung, were so proud of you and, frankly, your hope is contagious. I will defer my other questions in written form. Gina, just you. May i make one more comment . One of my concerns in the work that i do that i observe, its pretty consistent. I think that organizations and individuals who do this work, not many of them, theyre still a lot that are not survivors reformed where there are not survivors at the table but they say they are survivor informed. But if theyre doing a project for they are having a panel or their having speakers, they are missing the survivors. Or they may invite a survivor but the survivor is just there and others are speaking over their voices. And to me thats tokenism. And i think we need to take a look at, and i would love for your support to help, help me take a look at this, that when funds are distributed, that i believe that they should be distributed to those who are actually doing the work and not using survivors as tokens, but really, because we need each other. Survivors cant do this alone, and you all cant do it without us. So i appreciate that camaraderie, that respect, that collaboration. We need to continue to build bridges, not separate them. Because were more than our stories we are more than survivors. I have my professional life, y personal life and my lived experience. But it really concerns me when i see organizations who are trying to do the work but they are just missing the most important part. Because i see when i do presentations. I see it when i take a backseat and i see other people do presentations, that there are survivors missing. Because the impact that you have when you walk alongside a survivor between your professionalism, your experience and our experience, the impact we make and the outcome we will have an move mountains. But if we do this without you or you do this without us, its not going to work. Its not going to have that same impact. So i request and i plead to you to take a look at this moving forward. Well, if they say well, yeah, we have a survivor included. Well, youre ten or 20 people their age of one survivor there and and i barely hear him speak or her speak, you know . I could clearly within a few minutes see that its tokenism. And if that survivor is not in a good place, we are we exploiting, and thats not what we want to do. I also want to just mention that for me which am so grateful to and always will be, has been a big part of my healing, has been celebrate recovery, which i did not intentionally go to one day and say oh, you know, i have issues. I didnt even think i had issues. However, i went and i was invited and it was for macbooks and your commitment, and it was free. Its all over the country. And i was invited and i said ill just do it to do it. And when i started it was incredible. I mean, i did get to the point after a couple of months where the horses were at the gate and the trauma and the triggers were coming out and i would say i cant continue going there because its causing me to remember things that i buried decades ago. But that is where my healing, what im so grateful for. The only difference between that and celebrate recovery is this was a faithbased program. I share this with you because part of it is i had one prayer, and as robert had shared, too, you know, the isolation and feeling of being alone can be really, really difficult. And i prayed to meet one survivor. I wanted to meet one survivor because i think its like someone whos going through cancer or they are recovering and have those groups, you know, different types of groups can divorce groups, cancer groups, we cant agree. I wanted to meet one survivor, not necessary to get into a group but just you know just to be able to relate, you know, that it wasnt alone. And it was amazing. My prayer was answered, just incredible. I met Theresa Flores and through Theresa Flores who does projects at the turn, provides healing retreats for women and men. I have a community of brothers and sisters throughout the United States, and its just so important that we had that as well. Thank you. Ranking member wild. Thank you so much. I honestly dont even know where to begin. Again, thank you all for shedding light on the subject, and i regret that more members of our subcommittee are not present. I will be sharing with my colleagues on the democratic side the import of what happened today. Unfortunately friday hearings are what we call a fly out day, are very challenging to i believe chairman smith and i both drive which makes life a little easier for friday hearings, but i do apologize that there are not more of us here. And they canceled food for two which means people got out early. Early. I just want to say that because the lack of bodies up here does not any way reflect the import of this subject, which i will be sharing with all of them. You know, the testimony of his cabal of an judge lung makes it clear that all those, jurisdiction of our committee, the subcommittee falls within the Foreign Affairs committee, this is not just an international problem. This is not just something that has roots abroad that we need to address. Its clearly worldwide and the duo to tell you, even sitting here listening to all of the testimony, i couldnt help but almost feel, not helpless, ner helpless in this job, but but worried about how do we really stop this. How do we really address this. I do think there are a lot of good efforts that are happening to many of which have been discussed here today. But i think this is going to be something that requires far more than government officials, far more than Civil Society, far more than philanthropic organizations but is literally going to need to be addressed by employers, educators and people at all levels of every society in order to really, really get to the root of this and stop it from happening. So as i said i could, i dont know where to start but i do want to start with the issue of the diplomats and their Domestic Workers because i guess i am drawn to that because it feels like an area where we might actually be able to be effective quickly, and to you, maam, any obvious im so glad youre here today with us. Thank you for being willing to appear. Its very meaningful to hear the stories. But ms. Vandenberg, you mentioned that the state Department Personally interviews Domestic Workers of diplomats and i want to talk about that for a couple of minutes for ask you a few things about it. From what you remarks were i took it as a sort of a policy of the state department but it is not embodied in any kind of statute, is that correct . Thats exactly right. So that if the state department, and a talk about any particular state department under it, any particular administration, but if the state department were understaffed, overworked, had different priorities, these kinds of interviews could easily not happen, is that correct . Thats exactly right. And how long to the best of your knowledge have the interviews been going on . So theyve been going probably for about six or seven years. You can ask the state Department Officials to testify next. Its about six or seven years. This idea was not ideal. We are way behind on this because the europeans have been doing this for more than a decade. And so the u. S. Actually learn about these in person interviews added osce meeting where other countries including belgium, the netherlands, austria indicated that they were doing these images to prevent harm against these Domestic Workers. It seems incredibly obvious that we need to make it a statutory requirement. And i will reserve some of my questions for the state department individuals, but one of the concerns i have, ms. Cavallo pointed out imports having survivor inform people present. I dont know how these interviews are conducted on whether survivor informed individuals are present and participate in these interviews. Im also very concerned about what then happens to the Domestic Workers. I imagine theres a lot of fear in being honest in these interviews, and probably fears of deportation i assume if they leave the employee of the definite and thats in a shell as the state department as well unless you know. But providing a safe haven for these Domestic Workers i think is really, really important. And also sends a message to the diplomatic corps that this will not be tolerated by the United States. So i think thats a really important first step in the glad you brought that to our attention. You also mentioned Migrant Workers and focused on workers rights and this is one of the areas that i am most deeply concerned with. As you know we had a vote yesterday on order bill. Border. Theres been a lot of discussion about the problem of not allowing Migrant Workers to come into the United States to work in construction come to work in agriculture, that kind of thing many of us on both sides of the aisle recognize that these Industries Need Migrant Workers, at the same time i worry deeply that they have absolutely no level of workers rights under at the complete mercy of their employers since they are here. That obviously addresses pay and that kind of thing but in addition it seems like the situation that could really just lead to trafficking and forced labor. And i think does. Youre right, it does. I i mean, if they complain of not being paid, the answer is too bad because you have no legal status here. Is that a fair statement . Thats exactly right, except windows workers are connected with service organizations. That goes for the Domestic Workers who were interviewed by the protocol office. Workers who are being harmed should be connected immediately with Service Providers. And the Migrant Workers that we see who are most protected are those who are in worker socially driven, worker driven socially responsible program like the coalition. So when they can be peer support among workers and workers understand that you do have rights and they cant be deported and they can get giftgiving traffic. So if we were being, this might be i was to come, but if we were able to come up with a bipartisan comprehensive approach to happen Migrant Workers commute to work illegally, it would seem to me that the information about these organizations that you just mention mentioned needs to be given to them at the onset, not weight for once theyre in a forced labor situation then i go to be able to reach out to these organizations. Is that fair to say . Thats fair to say. Unfortunately in one of the tvpa reauthorization we did years ago i think 2008 there is a brochure that workers who come in with legal visas receive upon, upon their interview and more than one language . Hundreds of languages last i checked. They have translated into other languages. That pamphlet is enormously important but its not enough because those workers have to be able to reach the organizations that are able to help them. Thank you. And it just makes me wonder whether we need some sort of program as youve described with the diplomatic corps that also, and a talk about a Governmental Agency that interfaces with any kind of industry or employer that is using Migrant Workers. I think thats the role for the department of labor. Thats what the department of labor should be doing and should be resourced to do. The other problem, and judge lung, you mentioned the different states and all these other organizations, and im glad that we are seeing a multistate approach to it. On the other hand, it seems in many ways and needs to be centralized because i am from pennsylvania. I have some knowledge of whats happening in pennsylvania to combat this problem, but if i heard from somebody in another state about a Human Trafficking problem im not sure i would know where to direct, make it my business to find out where. I mean i would be interested to hear from you, judge, about how you feel about the decentralization of these kinds of services. Ill start with acknowledging under the Obama Administration there was the National Committee on the sex trafficking of children and youth and the United States, and i was honored to be a member of that committee. They tasked as with his impossible challenge that we accomplished over the course of five years to create a twotiered system to analyze the antitrafficking efforts of every single state in the United States. We created the tooth used to determine at what level the states are come some states might only be at tier one in some states are more advanced certainly new jersey in texas and couple others that shared hope regarded as their states were definitely here to write from the start. We create 35 or 36 different ways of analyzing the antitrafficking efforts in each individual state. And then required each individual state to grade themselves and other folks involved in the system to participate in the grading other individual states. Our point of contact was generally the Governors Office in each of the individual states where we would at least reach out to the Governors Office and asked him to make the point of contact and then we would receive feedback from each date on where they were in the tier system. What ive been told is that the chairperson of that committee has reached out, i believe our host was a state department, and that theyre going to reach back out and see if they were going to reup that committee to follow through and see if okay well we have developed this tier system to analyze the states performances, how are you doing . Its the thing i think of with all of your efforts especially under the tvpa is that its incredibly important to have this multidisciplinary approach of by the federal government, you know, we need the department of labor in agriculture and education in state department, we need every single agency, every Single Division of the federal government to have a role in this. But then what else we need are two things or three things. We need collaboration. Last year ot ip collaborated with ovc to have a project together and was fantastic to see the department of justice and oh tip saying we come lets see how we can advance this together. Having different federal agencies reach out to each other, if department of education says im not sure how we do this, lets go call the father of justice ovc and see what they would recommend, great. You have to reinvent the wheel for each individual division of the the federal government would like to reinvent the wheel. Start with who is ahead of the game and get their information. I think across agency across divisions of the government is important. I think certainly as congressman smith is indicated, its included for to make sure there is a limitation. We can write every great law in the world but if we dont implement them then we are just wasting our time and words. I think if imitation is critical important. The thing that is most important is his followup, have accountability. Okay hey, we gave you 350 million, show us what you did with it. We wrote these laws, we passed this, we expanded your mandates on what you can do from your agencys. Show us what you did. So we need to have accountability. The interesting thing is for nonprofits they get a grant of 15 billion to do do this project for that project, and they are mandated to a followup. Okay now we gave you that grant, show us what you did with it. And they have to. I need the federal government to do the same thing. If youre going to have your grantees approve what they do with money i would like to see the divisions prove to an accountable position or to this very committee okay, we gave you this money, we authorize this law, what did you do with it . It doesnt have to be some kind of consequence. Its just how bout we celebrate what you do with it . Lets recognize what you accomplished and then lets figure out how we can advance it further. That may very well be the subject of another hearing. I would suggest to the chairman and same thing with the diplomatic corps. I can envision we could spend an entire congressional session just on some hearings of todays hearing im sure. I want to give my call it a chance. Ive got plenty more questions but i would like to yield to them for now. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Almost hate to call you victims because of our nominal success youve had in your lives, what you carved out and what i think is a very Bright Future for people like you to make a difference and continue to make a difference in the future. You are truly empowered warriors. Unspeakable, you see death of babies. You see children who grow up with a mean sense of who they are and how it leads to these horrible abuse situations in the home and out of the home and you see this in spiritual realms in the fact several you talked about the spiritual side of this and frankly i would like to reinforce that this goes beyond government and how we face this through our churches, communities, the individual relationships we have. Something i thought was interesting is when i first joined the military it was commonplace for us, when i say we, the military in general, not myself, visit brothels in a foreign port and thats now illegal, we dont allow it because it was part of child trafficking, it has been addressed by your self and others. I applaud those efforts. Weve seen progression over time. I want to take a moment to recognize a bigger part of this when you talk about faith, we talk about what we are doing outside the government. I want to give you an opportunity to talk about not just what we can do but what we collectively can do as a nation outside of government which is always well intended but sometimes doesnt get to the heart of the matter. How can we as communities band together and empower you to get out of the way or encourage participation not just by people who have massive budgets but massive hearts when it comes to dealing with this, people in churches that arent aware of the problem or who can address this when it comes to counseling or pro bono work or all the things we do for communities. If you are to speak on the empowerment of people in this great nation that i believe has the most philanthropic heart, we give millions of dollars outside of the most accountable way in making a difference in the future so by the way i want to acknowledge i thought it was a powerful statement when you say now you walk into a room and people stand. I would stand right there because that empowers you not just as somebody to do something but somebody who has overcome something. An incredible moment that i wrote down in my journals. Fantastic. Thank you for sharing with that. I nominate you to go first. It is a great question because sometimes government is not the right solution. Its part of the solution. The grassroots organizations that are not dependent on or restricted by certain government regulations. We worked with st. Thomas University College of law in miami, a professor there actually runs an antitrafficking organization, spacebased organization making efforts in miami that way. A church that i attended to in colorado, southeast christian, that hosted an antitrafficking organization and put on a presentation, phenomenal presentation of survivors and trafficking organizations in the community. I was astounded what a basic absence of Knowledge Community members had so these provisions our church provides, educational outreach, think about Share Hope International. They had not just their National Conference but of faithbased congress they hosted in florida and a different conference for first responders. Im encouraged by people who think heres an absence of knowledge or place we can make improvements and go do it, dont just find there is a problem, be the solution. Always amazing examples of small organizations making phenomenal differences. Your point is wellmade. I love our government. Our government is the greatest but sometimes we are too big and cant compost things and need to rely on smaller renovations where a different approach to solutions, faithbased organizations are phenomenal. Appreciate you paying homage to having a faithbased approach, sometimes government cant be a part of that and thats okay too. Homage, you said people now rise when you enter the room but eventually we all have to look at something bigger than us and thats why i point out faith because there is an ultimate power far greater than this government so thank you. All right. Thank you for the question. I grew up in michigan, grand rapids, michigan, on a little street where the youth pastor was also a lawyer would drag me to the pool or the teacher or the nurse or my piano teacher. The power of community. It wasnt about if you were republican or democrat, wasnt about if you were from michigan, wasnt about anything but prioritize me and 22 other girls and boys. Seeing us as people, as children and the more we prioritize that, at the heart of it, is to love people, care for people. Sometimes i understand that working for controversial agency, but continuing to see that if we dont take action who is at risk here and you mentioned being a doctor and seeing people lose their lives. We might not target every community, but doing what we can for the next person because all those people on my little street on madison avenue in grand rapids, michigan is allowing me to be in front of you today. Of those people see me, a little girl who survived trafficking, i was a girl in juvenile home but as a person that needed help, a person with potential, seeing actions that accord their beliefs, they say they love god and dont shove the bible and everybodys face, they say they love god and i was the next person presented the love of god so i think again the power of collaboration regardless of where we fall in the aisle and see people as people, needing to serve them is going to continue prioritizing. Far greater youth ministers than myself, i will say the universal truth is we all want to be loved and often we dont feel loved is when we are most vulnerable. Thank you foring that out. Getting back to government and unintended consequences one thing i do have, i am very encouraged by the programs we do have, that we are making progress towards better legislation but im worried about legislation with unintended consequences that can encourage a problem. Im very concerned with half a Million People a month crossing the southern border not just because its a humanitarian crisis but because of the vast number of children being assaulted as they progress up here. I believe the chair mentioned 80 of the women migrating this way are being raped. 80 . If you consider how many people, a couple hundred thousand per month, 80 of that, lets just rounded off even lower. 100,000 women being raped per month who are migrating up here because of what i consider bad policy. Im sure its horrible where they live too but thats not due to us necessarily. I am worried that what we failed to legislate, over 100,000 rapes a month and further the chair also mentioned 85,000 children in our charge. I take this very seriously. Im a man of not just faith but of military consequence. In the marine corps we are accountable for what we take charge of. The general orders are very clear of that. We as americans when we take charge of a child, our most precious commodity, as a father of seven, nobody is going to come near my children or take charge of my children more than i am going to, nobody more accountable to my children than myself. If i as a government say i am going to take charge of your child, whether i know the parent is or not, 85,000 children we take charge of have disappeared. We have a significant problem in our policy. I am worried that what we are doing is causing harm which our first application of the hippocratic oath is to cause no harm. Im worried policy can do great good but can also create great harm and i want to make sure the government is not distilled accountable for what we do right but what we do that causes harm. I want you to address, you talked about prevention. May be the biggest thing in healthcare, prevention is one of the biggest things we talk about. If you are not obese. If you are exercising, if you are taking care, prevention will lead to an incredible life compared to without prevention. In government what im worried about is not doing the right things to prevent these horrible things, nobody can doubt 85,000 children disappeared 100,000 being raped on the way up here by the way. If 100,000 people are already used to being raped and then 85,000 disappear, what have we caused because of our lack of prevention or because of harmful legislation. I would like you to address that. Through medical background it is trump didnt you prevention is better than your, better for the person but also as an nhs nurse it is cheaper for the nhs to prevent it than to cure it. With that approach with Human Trafficking prevention is absolutely the key for me so as much as i dont feel like i have the authority to speak to what is going on here but i can speak to is identifying key vulnerabilities that have a Global Impact so being aware of what key vulnerabilities are and addressing that that point, rather than waiting until it has happened, for someone, waiting until after someone has been raped but instead being aware of the key vulnerabilities and addressing that at that point. I keep coming back to period poverty because that is something ive seen firsthand across kenya, uganda, and pakistan, huge issue where girls particularly are marginalized. It leads them into different situations of abuse. Ive met girls i have been willing to sell their bodies just in order to get products. That to me as an area where every single one of us can make an impact that is so cheap, so easy and makes a life difference to girls around the world so i think for me, i wont speak to your broader issues but what i will speak into is being aware of the vulnerabilities out there and it different ngos at attacking those vulnerabilities. Before it becomes an issue. Thank you for mentioning africa. Ive seen, i will combine my two statements with the faithbased which i have been part of faithbased organization the distributed sanitary to subsaharan africa, you nailed it, people are selling their bodies for necessity. Ive been to orphanages or places in 5 different nations around the world and it does make great joy to see america involved in that in some very real ways that are consequential around the world, but to talk about, i do have the authority to talk about what we do in the government and i want to make the statement that although we often mean well, there are real consequences to bad policy. Im very concerned about migration for people that want to have hope and experience the American Dream which i dont disparage anybody who wants to take part of the American Dream. I have benefited as much if not more than anybody in the world by this American Dream and i am so blessed as is anybody who comes to america but at the same time the amount of evil by evil people preying upon people who try to hope in the something greater that they are experiencing because we have had bad consequential legislation or lack thereof that has led to a massive Border Crossing of humanities that is being pillaged and raped and put into slave labor and being tormented and sometimes killed even because we have horrible border policy. Worries me greatly and i think i would be remiss if i didnt mention that if we dont change it we are going to see more death, destruction, slavery and rape, those words should never come out of the words of the us representatives mouth when it comes to our consequences for our actions or lack thereof in america and with that highyield. Thank you, doctor mccormick, for those comments and i agree with you 100 . 85,000 kids have been lost, unaccompanied minors. It is an engraved invitation to the traffickers to exploit. I would like to yield. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for sharing your profoundly touching story. As an indigenous woman, how Human Trafficking particularly affects indigenous women. Im deeply concerned about it. I have a couple questions here. One of them has been partially addressed along the way but let me put these two questions out there for all of you, if you want to address any or all parts of it, very helpful. What more can the Us Government International Community do to deter traffickers and implement Prevention Strategies . Thats one. The other is how has the crime of Human Trafficking, including geographic trends changed over recent years . How did the invasion of ukraine, covid 19 and other world events affect Human Trafficking trends and how did they impact antitrafficking efforts . I would love to hear from any and all of you. I can start, thank you for those very important questions. Let me start with the ukraine invasion. And Organization Called la strada which coordinates many Many Services for trafficking survivors and policy advocacy all over europe, in ukraine and the former soviet union, wrote a report at the beginning of the crisis right after the russian invasion and that report, a very important report put out a list of all the things that could be done to prevent trafficking of ukrainians, women and children mostly who are fleeing the war zone. What they suggested, what the europeans by and large have dennis creating paths for people to enter those countries and work and survive. It is not reasonable. Its not humane. Its not logical to expect people to come to the country and have no opportunity to work and also have no money to support themselves. I think there needs to be incredibly thoughtful consideration of what people need while they are waiting for award to end, what people need while they are waiting for their asylum decisions to be made because people cannot live on fumes. What we have seen is people who are highly vulnerable are the ones who than are trafficked and although there has been trafficking of ukrainians in europe which is where most of the refugees ended up, it has been far less than anticipated because of the protections put in place for those migrants. The United States has also allowed ukrainians to come to the United States, about sponsorship of people from ukraine, haiti and several other countries. I would argue those programs that give people status and ability to earn a living of that make them less vulnerable are the policies we need to look at to prevent trafficking rather than trying to resolve after the harm has already been done. I will start with something on top of your questions. You began with identifying the indigenous people. It makes me proud of the work the United States Advisory Council does. The United States Advisory Council, the members are only survivors of Human Trafficking. I served for two years under the Trump Administration and when i was on the council, one of the projects we were doing was trying to identify underserve populations, included the indigenous people, not just native americans because it is a crisis in that community and the outlying provinces in other locations that are unseen, underserved, almost ignored. We made an effort to define that population and call attention to federal agencies, heres the underserved population. Boys were part of that lgbt q i plus community etc. But indigenous was one of the populations we identified as underserved. So i was proud of the councils work in that regard. One of your questions was regarding the impact of covid. Thats a massive issue, one of the significant and immediate consequences was when you take away access to schools, take away access to church and take away access from Everything Else that makes up a person and their community, those connections are how we learn about abuse, how we learn about Human Trafficking. There is the statistic that is 80 , 85 of Human Trafficking have contact with the medical field in urgent care and er and other locations, significant and that is one of the ways we learn about Human Trafficking, those providers finding out Human Trafficking victims are coming up through the system, through the medical field, same thing happening in schools, that school counselors, nurses, encountering this child looks like theyve been abused or having emotional or psychological issues and start to investigate what is going on but when covid occurs and suddenly you cant go to school and cant go to your church and cant go to your community and engage in these things, covid doesnt stop Human Trafficking, Human Trafficking is amplified by things like covid when you start isolating a person from different parts of the community that might have been able to engage and prevent that further. Massive impact. I am fearful of the next pandemic we have the legalizes are being isolated from our communities. Thats a tragic shame, one that we will probably encounter for a while, the impact of our children and their educational experiences when they were essentially kicked out of their own schools for a year, families were kicked out of their own communities or churches or whatever was the definition of their community, legislatively removed from those rights we had but for the pandemic. That was a massive impact. A question on what the International Community can do, i cant help that i was born in pogo. If i what i could have, dont think i would have. It is sort of a barrier to be born a woman and so for me i think about the work the network is doing in india and cambodia as touch of life in ghana. Both of these programs are striving to empower young women and girls and the Economic Empowerment in parts of india in ghana, its not a privilege to be a woman. You have to sell your body to have access to food. That may cost 0. 50. In india what they do is women who are trafficked, instead of aspiring to go abroad in order to have a job to feed your family, they teach life skills, sewing, making shoes or purses or scarves so that they can sell these items worship them internationally to have the financial return from that. The same in ghana they have boys and girls, who have been trafficked, put them in schools so they can be educated and earn their living in these countries, if you are born a girl, neither any of us can control, i cant help that i was born in west africa and i am a woman. But being born a woman is a disadvantage because then i am not supposed to go to school, not supposed to be educated, not supposed to aspire to become anything. To your question, many of these about empowering, giving Financial Support so that we can continue on Financial Empowerment so we dont wait until somebody is exploited or a total desperation, i dont know your personal lives but im sure youve been in situations where you are extremely desperate. Dont know if youve been in situations where you were desperate for water, food or sleep on bare concrete or that you wish an animal would walk by so you could kill and eat it raw, dont know if youve been in that situation the total state of desperation, they will do anything to survive, to survive in this hour, what the International Community can do when we talk about geographic location etc. What i think about is these young girls in india, cambodia or ghana or the moment we are here, there in a state of desperation. May be some of them have died and these are the things we can do something about. So i think it goes back, what are we doing . We believe in human rights, we have a moral obligation, are we taking action for moral rights . Peoples moral rights . I will yield before. 100 again and again, why girls are treated as less, disposable in communities weve been working in and so again just to echo what you said that this is a huge problem we need to address from the prevention angle and in turn weve witnessed a lot of children who dropped out of school during covid because school is closed and international communities, Online Learning platform available in a community when you dont have electricity, theres no Online Learning and so many children are then put to work, useful for the family, doing what they can to help the family but since the schools have reopened and children never came back because the family became used to the children working and it was considered normal, put towards the family so covid had a huge detrimental impact in ngos around the world including they are fighting the consequences of covid. And just to go back, i think churches have a part to play in fighting Human Trafficking so in the uk, churches against Trafficking Campaign where we are working with churches of all different denominations and backgrounds, uniting the church to tackle its great to see the kind of key message that we need all hands on deck to fight this and as we come together, the community can bring down the traffickers. I want to add something quickly. You mentioned earlier about accountability for cooperation that corporations. When companies in this country who instead of improving conditions for labor, they are turning to vulnerable populations more cheaply. Covid happened. Instead of saying we will improve conditions so people can work in a way the dignified successor country, they turn into where can i find the most vulnerable people, children, there you go, people, vulnerabilities. For me, when we sit here and talk about this the first thing i think of, in the next report, where does that countability lie . Is it dhs . Urges countability lie so that the next Health Global crisis, traffickers are not just in the communities but turning into organized crime, what can i say about corporations . Not accountable because im just a Staffing Agency and i subcontract out. How do we hold thirdparty contractors, thats my question to you, does the bill address companies that are hiring or forcing out to find workers and exploit them. What does accountability look like for staffing agencies who are turning into thirdparty contractors to continue their work . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. One final question. I will submit some questions for the distinguished panel but we want to get to our second panel. A moment ago, doctor mccormick talked about the military and i say this as an invitation to anyone who has any information about anything relative to trafficking, let the tip office no, let us know, let their local Human Trafficking coalition in new jersey know because it does make its way into policy. Right after the td pa was signed into law a reporter prosecutor in ohio said he had evidence, he showed me a video of our troops in south korea going to juicy bars as they called them where women who were either indigenous, south korean, philippine women, some russian all were being held, could not leave and we had a patrol outside for troop protections outside these brothels and it was horrible. I went to Joseph Schmidt who was ig for the pentagon, asked if he would investigate the balkans where there were problems with the war and trafficking, with un and others and look at south korea. He did an unbelievably good job and took it to the president of the United States, george w. Bush and asked him to do an executive order that would make it very clear complicity in any trafficking as actionable offense under the code of military justice. He went beyond that and said even prostitution is an actionable offense under uniform code of military justice. Our supreme allied commander in south korea got so into ensuring there was no complicity or n a bowling of this and we work to get rid of their entertainment visa which is bringing women in from the philippines and the military just lock stock and barrel, and the greatest preventative was putting places off limits was one but also having a time limit as to when youre drunk at 2 00 in the morning and going to one of those bars bad things happen so it was amazing how the curfew worked. He testified before the Armed Services committee and they only put it into the epa as National Defense in terms of minimum standards in terms of the military and peacekeepers and because of this reporter prosecutor who gave us a tip that we acted upon and so i say to anyone, even the cspan audience, if you have something, please tell us. I too want to move to the next panel but im going to ask you a question which if it is more appropriate for the next panel feel free to say so but the tvpa, Trafficking Victim protection act provided authority to impose targeted sanctions against foreign individuals related to Human Trafficking. My understanding is the i think it has been around since 2000 i think, to date the executive branch under multiple administrations has not yet used this authority though it has imposed some relevant sanctions against other authorities. Do you believe targeted sanctions, specifically on this issue would help to deter Human Trafficking . I do. And weve asked for sanctions but according to a cfr report and the information i know Trafficking Victims protection act is not been used. Thank you very much. I want to thank the panel for your insights, guidance, passion, you are inspiring beyond words. We will submit a few questions for the record. Thank you. We will adjourn for a minute or two. And welcome our next panel to the table. I will. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] hello, so nice to meet you. Im good, thank you. 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And maybe thank you very much and again, that was a very Inspiring Panel of leaders including survivors, the hearing is reconvened. I want to thank our panel for not only the work you are doing but for your patience. We did want to hear from amazing survivors. Normally the administration goes first and kind and curious to extend that to them as well, so thank you. We have two testing wished witnesses beginning with the ambassador at large to monitor and combat trafficking of persons, leading the United States engagement to combat Human Trafficking and support efforts across the Us Government. Congratulations on your confirmation, professor dyer is working at the last local International Levels to respond to Human Trafficking, Sexual Assault and domestic violence, Vice President for human rights, Global Partnership and teresa or for whom i went to high school with, back in the Clinton Administration, after the Clinton Administration timewise, for 12 years where she worked with local government and Civil Society leaders in 25 countries throughout asia, on issues related to Human Trafficking. Prior to that she served as director of the office of violence against women in this part of justice under president george w. Bush and began her career at the local level serving as specialized mystic Sexual Violence prosecutor in dallas, texas for more than 13 years and she earned her bachelors degree from texas a and m and baylor law school. We will then hear from mr. Walsh, Deputy Assistant minister at us agency for International Development. He oversees the bureau for developing, democracy and Innovation Center for democracy and human rights and governance. He was most recently a expert at the us institute for peace from 2,0172,020 one and previously served in government in a range of Foreign Policy including as the us mission to the un senior policy advisor for the middle east and south asia and state Department Adviser on afghanistans peace process, tours of duty in rack and afghanistan. I yield the floor to our distant wished ambassador at large and thank you for being here. Chairman smith, Ranking Member wild, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the United States department of states efforts to combat Human Trafficking, thank you for the opportunity to hear the amazing testimony of the panel before move. Me. I hung on every word. The time flew by. It was an honor to get to listen to them. Thank you for that opportunity. Human trafficking is a crime that exists in every country and affects people of every age, ethnicity and gender with historically and systemically marginalized groups often at greatest risk, the last few years have been particularly challenging as you discussed earlier, new trends in trafficking, the covid 19 pandemic, inflation, russias or on ukraine is disruption caused by Climate Change of exacerbated entrenched challenges such as poverty and economic inequality, heightened job insecurity in many sectors, diminished access to justice and services, disrupted Global Supply chain zant contributed to new waves of risky migration. All of these factors and others have heightened the risk of trafficking around the world. In recent years weve seen increased online recruiting and exploitation of Trafficking Victims especially online Sexual Exploitation of children, more forced criminality and rapidly growing forced labor in scam centers based in Southeast Asia that exploit victims worldwide. The scale of trafficking as bad mother challenge we face immense but we are not helpless and we are using all the tools at our disposal to face these challenges head on. Today, more than ever, the United Statess sustained leadership and commitment to combating Human Trafficking in all its forms is critical. As secretary blinken stated last year in the launch ceremony it will continue to take relentless diplomacy, coordination, advocacy and commitment if we are going to stop and as he noted, the United States is committed to fighting it because trafficking destabilizes society, undermines economies, harms workers, and riches those who exploit them. Undercuts legitimate business and most fundamentally because it is so profoundly wrong, the state Department Office to monitor and combat trafficking in person, the tip office which i have honor to lead is advancing the United Statess global efforts to combat Human Trafficking throughout framework, the prosecution of traffickers, protection of victims and prevention of Human Trafficking. We address the 3piece collectively by objectively analyzing government efforts, engaging in strategic bilateral and multilateral diplomacy targeted foreign assistance to build capacity of foreign governments and Civil Society and advancing the federal antitrafficking policy through interagency coordination. We also partner with international and Civil Society organizations, Human Trafficking survivors and private sector to advance the fight against Human Trafficking. It is a partnership that strengthens the effectiveness in the fight against Human Trafficking. We recognize that all countries can and should do more to prosecute traffickers, provide justice and protection for victims and actively work to prevent Human Trafficking. We are focused on implanting key actions to advance an effective antitrafficking response including addressing Human Trafficking in the context of the impact of russias war in ukraine, decrying Human Trafficking in the peoples republic of china, especially the prcs built and road initiative, highlighting cubas coercive Labor Export Program and supporting diplomatic engagement with countries hosting these works to mitigate their exploitation. Engaging with survivors in underserved communities and preventing Human Trafficking and Global Supplychain tenuoUs Government procurement of goods and services. We recognize combating Human Trafficking cannot be done alone. We must continue to work collectively across the Us Government with bilateral and multilateral partners and local government and Civil Society to further advance antitrafficking efforts. Thanks to sustained support from congress in particular through the groundbreaking Trafficking Victims protection act of 2000 and subsequent reauthorization. The department has wellestablished set of tools to draw upon in the fight against Human Trafficking. For 20 years the trafficking and persons report continues to be the worlds most comprehensive resource on governmental antitrafficking efforts, and dip omatic tools to guide relations with foreign governments. Our most recent chp report included narratives for 188 countries and territories and its introduction focused on the importance of engagement for survivors of Human Trafficking. The tip report is one of the most powerful tools to encourage government around the world to improve their antitrafficking efforts, ensuring it remains accurate, objective and effective is among my highest priorities for the tip office. That targeted us foreign assistance resources we bring to bear to strengthen the capacity of government and Civil Society is an important element of our approach, since 2001 the tip office has leveraged 700 million in foreign assistance funding to support antitrafficking project in 90 countries to address sex trafficking and labor trafficking worldwide. Through bilateral projects and innovative programmings like Child Protection compact, partnership and the program to end modern slavery, our investments produced tangible results. Our assistance helped thousands of Human Trafficking survivors receive vital assistance including repatriation, Psychosocial Support and counseling to rebuild their lives. We have also helped dozens of governments to build crucial legal, policy and Regulatory Infrastructure to care for victims and traffickers to justice. Those who are particularly vulnerable to trafficking like southeast, south asia, many parts of africa, our assistance is helping identify victims of trafficking and ensuring they receive the trafficking and services they need. Chairman smith and Ranking Member wild, thank you again for holding todays hearing and the committees commitment to combating Human Trafficking as the subcommittee considers legislation for the 118th congress, i look forward to working closely with you and your staff on legislative efforts to reauthorize the International Provisions of the tdpa which are a cornerstone of global efforts to combat trafficking. Ensuring Congress Continues to provide appropriate tools and authorities we need to tackle International Trafficking challenges day today and tomorrow is essential. Thank you for your testimony and leadership. I would like to turn to johnny walsh. Thank you, chairman smith, Ranking Member wild and established members of the subcommittee. Thank you for your leadership on combating Human Trafficking all these years. I have to acknowledge the first panel which is unbelievably powerful. All of us in the gallery were feeling emotion rising within us but also feeling inspired by how much courage these folks show. They are more than horrible stories many of them have gone through. There is smart, strategic, and if you will allow me i want to thank staff at the state department, who work on counter trafficking, who are so smart and accomplished, they have done immense amounts to help against this terrible scourge. In 2001 the passing of the tdpa, assistance and 88 countries to support counter trafficking efforts in 35 and in many more are larger body of Department Work that contribute in one way or another, to unpack to the trafficking sites. In fiscal year 22, we obligated 32. 5 million into counter trafficking activities globally, 3 million above our earmark which is an indicator of how important our missions around the world very organically considerably. And between counter Trafficking Program, very large fraction of International Development work helps in one way or another by addressing root causes of trafficking, conflict or corruption or poverty or violence, natural disasters, lack of opportunity or by Building Local capacity in ways that are relevant to the fight against trafficking. For example by supporting stronger judicial systems and will apply. Usaids effective relies on strong presence through the mission and these allow us to design and monitor intervention informed by local context and adapted to local context. Our counter trafficking work can follow in terms of four ps, invention, protection, prosecution and partnership. Briefly, first, on prevention, we work 2 oh raise awareness of trafficking particularly with the most vulnerable groups and high Risk Communities by promoting Public Information and education campaigns. By way of example, in colombia, usaid is working to protect the rights of venezuelan migrants who are vulnerable to trafficking. This program is raising awareness about different methods of exploitation and we complement it with tools like training almost 4,000 Service Providers how to address trafficking issues. Second, on protection, when we think about protecting trafficking survivors, usaids approaches survivor centered, trauma informed. Everything that was said in the first panel resonates deeply with us. We support around the world reintegration assistance for survivors, that means psychosocial and medical services, legal assistance, it means providing safe and secure accommodations, providing access to employment and business opportunities, whatever survivors need. Third, on prosecution which is especially in state department claims, we help with the develop of antitrafficking laws in many countries with real penalties for traffickers and protections for victims. We provide victim centered training and Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement, prosecutors, judges, so they are maximally effective in what they do. If a Regional Program across the caribbean region to improve the prosecution of such cases, helping countries to develop or strengthen National Referral mechanisms to screen, identify and investigate trafficking. On partnerships, there is no way to do this alone, work across government and Civil Society and faithbased organizations, advocacy organizations, we are all in it together. It takes an all hands on deck approach as one panelist said. In senegal, for instance, we bring together all of these constituencies to work on the problem of force child begging, which i cant imagine a more vulnerable population to this problem but a multistakeholder approach is the way we cover most of it in the country. Briefly to close, in december of 2,020 one, usaid revived our trafficking policy to align with the Us Governments new National Action plan to combat Human Trafficking. Among other things, the usaid policy emphasizes consumer centric approaches partnering across all these groups that are referred to, government and otherwise, that are coordinated in our own governments. So chairman, Ranking Member thank you for calling this hearing. We showed believes we are all in it together. We do not have no monopoly on good ideas. Through this exchange we can dance the fight against this issue. Thank you. So much for your testimony and leadership. I do have a number of questions and hopefully we do a second round cycad you to my colleagues. In opening i did mention ambassador dyer the importance of getting it right. I had three hits about how we got sarong in 2015 and i would say that kerry johnstonoehler testified in one of those hearings and information provided in the tip report itself was right on. Was are accurate and but when the recommendations went up the chain of command for other reasons totally disassociate with Human Trafficking three countries are upgraded to either watch list or to know who went to tier two but they were upgraded. China, oman as a mentioned, malaysia was, because they thought theyre going to get into tpp at the time which is making its way through congress, but it was just like these are not chips be given away. This is all about speaking truth to power in absolutely honest way to the best of all our abilities. I want to think kerry because she did a great job but went up the chain of command that we did lose and as a said before reuters with one to broke the story after doing anonymous interviews with the tip office that things got change. Yesterday make the final call the under secretary, secretary of especially but they should just be what you do and we did this when he wrote the original law a special with the lag between bindings in tip and what action might be taken pursuant to sanctions. That is all at Administration Call and then they wanted to go things into consideration. I hope they wouldnt at the tip report has to be sacrosanct. I remote talked to a number of countries who were so angry because they were tier three and they said others were elevated to watch lists and, therefore, nonsanctionable and the records were worse. So the argument isnt really against the tip office or you. It is really against what happens when it comes up the chain of command. If they do it again i will have them or try to come and give an accounting for that. I remember i asked secretary curry, who made the decision . Buck stops with me with the full Committee Hearing. It shouldnt be that way. Oman got it. They had been very involved in the Nuclear Negotiations providing their consulates in europe but that shouldnt be a reason to give them a benefit where it is not perfect same way with cuba because we had an opening up an embassy and i have try to get into cuba my entire career, and i thought when we looked like were moving towards or we have diplomatic relations, i went there with the abbasid and he said but you got to know this, we tell the people you cant see. I said what . You know, thats not what human rights work is all about. They were elevated as well. I just would hope the people of that chain of command will realize that Congress Gets thatt up with that kind of manipulation. Speak truth to power and go wherever it goes. Thats just an encouragement for you because in know youll get it right in the report the next steps the worried its the next steps are more to that. Let me ask if i could. Obviously with title 42 ending last night, we have differences of pain of what we should do visavis the border. I voted for the secure fence act of 2006 which establish everything that we thought would have mitigated illegal crossings. Chuck schumer voted for it. Hillary clinton voted for it as did a lot of other people on both sides of the aisle. There were 80 votes in the senate for it back in 2006 at a think we wouldve had a different dynamic today had that wall been built. Im all for Legal Immigration im all for refugees, wellfounded persecution getting the help they need. One of the concerns and in of the New York Times underscored this, that the office of refugee and resettlement seemingly has lost some 85,000 Migrant Children unaccompanied minors and wondering last in the tip report an obvious of the us is included tip report, it was pointed out the government our government continued not to mandate Human Trafficking screening for all for National Adults and immigration detention or custody. And did not screen for trafficking indicators among the people it removed. Also on the record prioritize recommendations, screened all, this is you, tip report saying this, screened all individuals in immigration detention or custody for Human Trafficking indicators to and im wondering if Homeland Security asphalt to on that on that recommendation made by you . And if you could, do we know whats happened to those children . Is it any further insight . I we all, we heard from victims today. To think that could be tens of thousands of victims who, children, that we just dont know where they are. Thank you, sir. First of all, certainly i personally and the j tip office sugar deep concern about not only unaccompanied Migrant Children but about all migrants in making sure that those individuals who are making a perilous journey are protected and their protected specifically on trafficking. I know that also really addressing the challenges of irregular migration go specific providing protection for refugees and asylumseekers and offering lawful migration pathways are key priorities for the administration to and actually noted that these team Martina Vandenberg during her previous testimony specifically of course is such a recognize the three specifically called out offering lawful migration pathways as a key way of reducing vulnerabilities and that is actually a part of this plan. We recognize that forced displacement in the western hemisphere has reached historic highs. And im also mindful of the commentary about individuals who in her words they are fleeing and under state of desperation. And so we look at this crisis through that lens of sympathy that many of these individuals are fleeing and under state of desperation. The administration is working closely with the interagency group, both the department of Homeland Security which i think has the answers to many of the questions that you guys were very good questions you were bringing up your today. Health and Human Services and department of state. For a role if the department of state and at the that thg in Persons Office we see our highest and best purpose as making sure that were protecting vulnerable, and if they are being screened, to your excellent point, mr. Chairman. One of the are they . That was maybe a year ago in your recommendations. We are, we agree with you all migrants should be screened. I will have to defer to my colleagues at dhs with regard to especially now that title 42 is expiring and title eight will come back up, i will defer to them on speeded can you get back to us so we know in terms of your interpretation of what theyre doing . Absolutely and certainly its a perfect hundred asking the question because we are having a change in the authorities under which we will be working. I do know as a pertains to screening some of the work the trafficking in Persons Office to specifically in the region in the western hemisphere specifically encourages screening of migrants so that they do receive protection and services into the great point of the panel earlier, preventing individuals are at great risk of trafficking from becoming actual victims of trafficking. We had programs in the region specifically focus on screening and prevention. We have Regional Programs that are not just one country focused by the whole of region approach because we recognize this as a crisis that not one country can solve. I think its important to know we have 80 million in Trafficking Program in the western hemisphere which is the region that has the highest amount of programming which i think speaks to the administrations focus and sincere concern about this issue. In addition to the International Programming money that we have there, we are also engaging and bilateral diplomacy, making sure that our allies and colleagues in the region are doing what they need to do to stop trafficking in their countries before it goes further. We are also making sure to call these efforts out in a trafficking in persons report. Please know that i share your emphasis and to focus on getting it right and integrity or download because this user have my name on it but also because we are told dash i worked with ngos in the field who relied on that report to speak what they saw. It serves as a microphone to the advocates and activists so please know that we share your deep concern about that. We are really working aggressively to address this crisis using all the tools that you have given us and paying a specific attention to make sure and also through the Interagency Working Group. So thank you for the opportunity to address that. If you could, do we have any idea, i mean, news media and other sometimes conflate the coyotes or bring people up getting paid to do it. Im just wondering because i havent seen the specifics or the breakout, maybe you have it, how many of these individuals either evolves into modified trafficking situation with young people we dont want terms being imprecise because obviously it is dangerous when you pay sony to bring you up and return it to be part of a cartel at how many of them, any idea how many cases of Human Trafficking we had . And i will say why thats important when we did the original we did Us State Department number of the th0 people come in the year. That was a best estimate and nobody knew but but i put ie findings of the bill. The Washington Post took me to task a couple years later and said how, well, its more like 17,000. Thats because there was a reappraisal that was done ncaa was involved with it and will and is a big page one story that were exaggerating. So i am one of those who absolutely loathes exaggeration. Dont over account or undercount but if you could how many of these cases are you Human Trafficking what would becf these kids . And adults not just gets, the adults as well. Do we have anything on that . I wish you squeeze it i wouldnt want speaker on the number and perhaps i think we should come back to the record with a best estimate. If you could. Again we need accuracy of this as well. Maybe you embed into the tip report that youre just so it gets enshrined in the findings of the tip report. Again, we have done tip work, bipartisan all alone. When republicans dont do it right, weve got to speak up or when the democrats dont do it right where to speak at pickets all about the victims. I can tell you how concerned again about how many of those people particularly the women and children on slate today. So that number would be extremely important and assumes you can find it would be great. And what is being done to help them. Because again there needs to be an all hands on deck on every country, every state any but especially in places like texas and arizona. Let me just ask you very briefly about the dr congo. I did hearing and you and half ago on cobalt. I mentioned it earlier today and the fact theyre that ur a special child labor to extract it and send it to china for processing. The dr congo i know theres an m. O. U. With them at a dont think, you know, theres all kinds of corruption. They dont have a foreign practices act so we know people are being paid off which we have every reason to believe. Those lines are being run by the chinese, communist party. Theres almost no salary to speak of. When americans at one of those minds come since then is been dropped by like 60 in turn the salary salary. And the kids thats just wrong at every level. So just wondering if that something youre looking at. Its reminiscent in a way with what happened in dr congo with peacekeepers. I went to congo, met with the peacekeepers at a course that with Government People and above all with victims when the deployment of their, they are there to protect and there you have the u. N. Peacekeepers. We had four earrings on that before and after the trip and, frankly, the u. N. Said they wanted zero tolerance. They put out a strong statement, and one of the areas we called zero complaints with the zoo intolerance effort. So on peacekeeping in general your thoughts on how well we are doing, or not doing, with regards to these 100,000, whatever the whatever the number is today, u. N. Diploid and other peacekeepers as well. Weve got to stay at that one. You know, because unfortunately when in country the sense of entitlement and abuse is very strong and you have a vulnerable population. In congo these were 12 and 13 year old kids for a meal were being sold. Thank you so much for your concern. We appreciate you raising this issue, and definitely we are paying close attention to the situation in the drc, and also to your good point, a broad influence that prc has in african countries. Recognizing that it is not just a uniquely drc focus problem, that this is prc influence. I was also appreciate that not only is a child victims but there are other adult victims of trafficking that are in equally deplorable situations. We are actually using the Interagency Working Group through the president Interagency Task force and also through the forced Labor Enforcement Task force, a j tip office represents state department on that task force to make sure that we are really taking a close look at any goods made with forced labor. Thats actually been one of the biggest things that ive had an opportunity to do since joining the office in january. We are also i wanted to mention you also touched on the peacekeeping and importance to really focus on this. Ill tell you as someone whos been reading the draft narratives for 2023 tip report, this is this is included. Where absolutely monitoring peacekeeping. Whether not peacekeepers engaging in or contributing to trafficking in persons. Thats deathly something where monitoring and calling out in the trafficking in persons report. The International Bankers law if you could, and thats okay, a lot of you to get past that you get on that one and we know these trips are occurring. We did put a redundancy notches on the reporting that they have to tell us where theyre going or face a very significant jail sentence, identical to make ends law. Long story short, we also put in the language in that what you call it, and the passport, you open it up, the people at Border Security name of country opens it up and says the bear has been convicted of crime against a child and we worked very closely with megan was apparent in getting that into law as well as with members of the senate and were very hopeful on that. Long story short, we understand that theres a lot of people who are not being included in this, passports are good for ten years and whenever theres a a new passport and document that stamp on it so that out of abundance of caution for children. Because we know why many of these comp the proclivity to recommit these cards is a high. Anyway you are doing them a favor. Youre making less possible maybe they will do it, that we could renting a child in brazil or whatever. I just wonder what you think we should be doing to advance this . Im very concerned. Theres up to 900,000 registered sex offenders in u. S. Thats a lot of potential people not all are our child sex os but many are. Well, first of all we absolutely i guess one part of the main point, critics argue the state department should be capturing more the passport application by adding a question on about this. Right now that doesnt happen. First of all, where absolutely supporting the goal of this legislation to as a former Sexual Violence prosecutor im i very well f the recidivism rates and appreciate your leadership here and certainly extraterritorial child Sexual Exploitation and abuse is awful, and when you did everything that we can to prevent it from happening. I know that dhs has the Angel Watch Program which really oversees it and i believe that my colleagues at the department of state in Diplomatic Security are the department of state colleagues that oversee that. For the specific mechanics of how it works, i would need to refer to those experts. But but i will say that in adn to a supporting the goal of this and recognizing its importance, the department is also called s out in her trafficking in persons report, and so it is deathly an issue that we recognize the critical importance of and are followed. We are looking legislation of changing from may register to shall register. Hopefully you can be helpful on that. I met with angel watch people, they are great, wonderful but they dont have the full help from the department of state, becomes more difficult if its more permissive standard. Mr. Walsh, if you could and then i will yield to my distinguished colleague. We who have been reports from ig roth usaid staff potential involvement with and participation in Human Trafficking. I dont know to what extent where that is but as you know and appreciated you saying how you train providers and, of course, staff numbers as well to be very cognizant of being part of the solution, not part of the problem. I am wondering if you could shed any light on the igs investigation . So the nature of the ig investigation would have a whole lot of insight into what stands right now. I would say that generally usaid over the last few years has really tried to batten down our hatches internally. Weve is a bit at a code of conduct across the agency that starts with the obvious things like provisioning involvement, anyway in trafficking for forced labor by staff can i implement partners, by contractors but goes beyond that to in effect render all members of usaid eisen is to be watching for this come to be conducting Due Diligence as we work with stakeholders who might well see something or find themselves adjacent to such an act. And that every Single Member of usaid now in the first few months that they are on board takes training on this so they know what to watch for, the different forms trafficking to date because the sun always, not for people coming in. Its a very intensive control process and thats in advance of any finding the ig comes out with. Thank you. Ms. Wild. Thank you s o much, mr. Chairman. I want to ask a quick question about funding for the trafficking hotline, that my understanding is only minimally funded by the u. S. Government and done more by polaris project on a private basis, is that correct, do you know . If not i will find answer. Thats overseen by health and Human Services oversees that. It. I do know they speedy hhs program, okay. But you are correct that it is okay. Thank you. Ambassador, i havent been, ive been trying not to be too obvious with my scrolling but what i been scrolling about on my phone is topic of todays hearing and i was looking up the tip report that state has done and i think you made reference to the fact that enable go on this in years report and i look forward to that. When does that generally come out . It the tbv requires that ret be issued to you by june 30. So that you are working on a. Its in my sights. Thats great and im just going to ask west africa to make sure that we get a copy of it when it comes out. So but my question, as i was looking through the 2022 report i was most of the countries that i i saw in tier one didnt surprise me. I was a little surprised to see if the philippines in tier one. And i and the author of the philippine human rights act and have particular interest in what goes on there. But, and i will learn more as i evolve on the subject about the criteria and so forth. But my question to you is, how often do the regional bureaus within the state department or other parts of the executive branch argue for modifying . And by that i mean improving i countries ranking based on considerations having nothing to do with the tvpa prescribed criteria . I mean i assume that happens and i will just us to the second part, well, lets go with that first. I will say that the tvpa sets out very clearly what can be considered in a countrys tier ranking and what cannot. And i can assure you that the conversations that we have are firmly rooted in the parameters set by the tvpa. Okay. And one of the good things is that we actually, we dont just communicate or consult with those regional bureaus at tipp report time. We actually have ongoing relationships with them and so that actually does make it much easier. These are not discussions, kind of like an employment review. You dont bring it up for the first time at the review. Something we should have talked about before. We have really pretty good ongoing conversations regarding that only the tip report but also programming in that country. We are very mindful to remain within the parameters that are vertically set by the tvpa. So then i take it from that response that no matter how much internal lobbying there might be by a region or a bureau, the criteria is strictly applied . That is correct. All of my conversation and in all of our conversations we are focused on the minimum standards that are very clearly laid out. I actually, i love being able to have because i can come and actually uses when im explaining to other governments why they may or may not have a tier ranking that they like. Actually the clarity that is in the tvpa is like a security blanket for me and i can say this is what i am here to look at. And its very grounding. Im glad to hear that. I guess that leads me to my next question, and how often do you have to interact with other countries governments on the issue of their tvpa ranking . We actually, we will insert ourselves into any conversation that they will let us sleep in the door. We actually engage in really very, and robust bilateral engagement with countries as well as multilateral. Of note, just yesterday the secretary was having a meeting with a foreign minister from a country and we were able to attend the meeting, too, to make sure that this issue is front and center even if that wasnt the topic of conversation. I think a lot of that is due to the hard work you guys are done with the tvpa. It is relevant and so many conversations and we definitely will squeeze in the door whenever we can. Okay. Im glad to hear that and i will as i said watch closely for this years report. Mr. Walsh, i wanted to switch gears a little bit. I have the honor of representing a district that counts one of the largest ukrainian american populations in the United States, and on their behalf my constituents behalf, and i hear from them often, i do want to ask about russias horrific ongoing invasion and Russian Forces use of various forms of trafficking. Its been pretty extensively documented. Im not sure that its been documented to the true extent that it is happened but we had another hearing and a think we had a full Committee Hearing on the issue of children being kidnapped and taken to russia. I just think the numbers are probably, that we are seeing are once lower the what is happening but just raised on anecdotal evidence. So can you just tell us Jennifer Taub usaid is working to address this situation . Just tell us how. Long before russias further war into ukraine to get this is major area of antitrafficking work for u. S. Aid and for others. And got a partner government in many partners across Civil Society to work i would say across. That included helping ukraine set up its own huge National Hotline that created a lot of reporting mechanism to detect trafficking. Do they have that in place to . They do. There are many other things before but hotline, for example, example is one of many preexisting things that weve contributed to in ukraine that were essential when the true crisis hit early last year. And so we had 6000 people i think it was working on like reporting through this hotline able to receive reports of emergencies in a moment when everyone think of an author in an emergency. Some of those parts about our very hard to get at like who is being held in captivity in russia. But it does mean theres a Large Network to help ukrainians contact and reabsorb kids who could make their way back into ukraine to provide survivor services. Its not just people who are trafficked by way of russia. When a lawyer is displaced that creates vulnerable populations across the board. I think its actually two and a lot of our programming on ukraine but the preexisting was such a valuable foundation to really turn into high gear. So let me just, you lead me to another thought, which is witty make sense for the United States to work with other countries who perhaps dont have this kind of infrastructure in place that you mention that ukraine has, or had before the war . Because it seems to me that that is a vital component of this worldwide. I dont know how many countries have that kind of trafficking infrastructure. Can you give me an idea of like the percentagewise or i would struggle to a size it but your describing the core use of our worth in trafficking. In countries either with the host government is very serious about this problem or where the Usaid Mission class in this is exercise about or both. What better do is essentially a whole of Society Approach that is in the first instance prevented by nature but it is also very much about protection of survivors. It is about upholding and strengthening the rule of law to go after violators. The 35 countries 3n we are currently operating, almost 90 where we have done this, it very often is setting up the systems of resilience that can catch, every kind of trafficking in principle. It works better in some the others. We try to be very agile when theres an opening in a country. So the chairman manchin dr congo before that everything is easy in dr congo the one thing with a might be a moment of opportunity is there reconstituted the antitrust commission naturally picked it seems keen to work with each of us so at a moment when the world is focused on especially labor abuses in the congo for much larger geostrategic reasons, we have this tool that like we can build out into a resurgent multistakeholder approach to really chip away at the problem. Okay. Thats good to know. I would love to continue the engagement with our committee and will what we might do n congress to continue to assist in that endeavor, both in ukraine and the rest of the world, of the countries that need it. My impression at least from our full hearing that we had on the situation with the children in ukraine was that the ukrainian prosecutor general is incredibly cooperative and proactive, am i right in that assessment . That was very encouraging to see. I dont know whether you have that in other countries that you work with or not but im glad that thats the case. If theres anything that we can do, and believe me, i fully understand that ukraine is not the only place that we need to focus on this problem. It just happens to be right now the most visible one i think. And, of course, ive i do l interest because of my constituents. But if theres other things that we should be looking at to improve from our Vantage Point please bring it to our attention. Thank you. Yield. Ms. Red wagon. Thank you very much, ambassador dyer and deputy administrator walsh for appearing today. Usaid has many comprehensive documents including the ct ip field guide, called condit and standard offering procedures that guide to work on combating Human Trafficking among staff. Assuming that usaid has Human Trafficking experts that have read and understand the tvpa and related laws, why is the term sex work used throughout these documents . I think that the term sex work has come into increasingly common use across a wide range of fields including lots of part of the trafficking apparatus of the u. S. Government. I would say that we are not assigned value judgment to it when it has been used and that the official position of the u. S. Government including this administration is that sex work is not meant to connote legitimate legal work in a place, legality of it in different places obviously varies but were not trying to soften or wash the term because use, has a fairly clear positn on. That is usaid promoting sex work as a legal form employment rather than treating it as exploitation . And in cases where theres harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for purpose of the commercial sex act as sex trafficking in accordance with tvpa . I mean, is the administrator aware of how this approach compromises the safety of u. S. Taxpayer beneficiaries . Where absolutely not promoting this work in any of our programming. That is not policy, that is not the intent. And if ever we were to find an inadvertent and sold it affected one of our programs that have that effect we would address it immediately. Our focus is on the immense amount of trafficking that infiltrates the industry in many different ways, and trying to provide every kind of support, especially to survivors and accountability to perpetrators that we can and that we can help our local partners to do. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you. Just a couple of final questions, and again thank you for your patience. Its been a long hearing and i think very, very enlightening. Let me just ask you with regards to jtf is obviously created the Human Trafficking consultant at work, and im very glad you include victims the way you do and it just wonder if theres any attempt for any plans to try to hire, bring in and make fulltime employees in very strategic positions those who again have lived experience and have overcome what they have overcome . First of all, i completely share your focus on including survivor leaders and those with lived experience. They absolutely are critical in every phase of our program. Not just in drafting the law, yes, but also in how we implement it. And it has been in order to get to work with members of the Advisory Council, even in the highest levels during the most recent president Interagency Task force, and Brandon Myers powell from the Advisory Council spoke and sat at the table right there next to all the cabinet level people. It wishes amazing at such a change from i began working making 93. Suggest its wonderful. We actually, we actually are considering ways to better inform all of our work, and always whether it is to hiring, whether through using the consultant network. We currently do i think the best training that ive ever personally attended was when he came onto the job and it was offered for the office and was provided by a member of the network, the consultants network. She did it in connection with another expert. It is tremendous and were actually thats one of the priorities that i want to make to make sure that we are full some late including in all that we do. I promise it will be it will remain a priority for me. Can ask you how many people are working in the office today . Obviously your people in every embassy that are doing calls and the like but in actual tip office . I believe and i can correct this if im wrong i believe it is about 86 alltime folks and about 27 additional consultants. We also have some Foreign Service officers. I can let you know specifically, and youre right that we do work really close with our colleague colleagues, the Foreign Service officers that are out in embassies that a kind of the boots on the ground. Its great honor to get to collaborate with them. You may not like this question but is your budget sufficient . Could you do more with more resources . Im not going to turn down piles of money, but you know lack of resources. We are able, we are a lean mean machine and were doing really, we are fully meeting our mandates. We do have a terrific staff with amazing expertise. I have specific enjoyed getting to work with some of our Foreign Service officers, too, so we appreciate your focus on us, thank you. Mr. Walsh. On the question on the road survivors in our agency, the first thing i would say is such is the prevalence of this crime and that any agency of largest u. S. Able absolutely have a great many survivors working for it. There is no way around that. Second, we very formally ended a concerted way to incorporate survivors in designing basically anything that has to do with counter trafficking. For instance, our global antitrafficking policy that we put out was based on consultation with survivors who we brought in for very vigorous backandforth exchange that versions of the Chicken Program designed around the world. I would say we often see these s very virtuous followon effects on that. As one example in bangladesh we did a major antiTrafficking Program that included, like training and a vast range of service to help survivors. The sort we talked about. The essential graduates of the program self organized into their own National Advocacy network of survivors and they are pushing the Bangladeshi Government which is to set up in many cases in a way that we ourselves couldnt possibly have achieved. Its this virtuous cycle. And then in terms of, im not going to way too much into funding questions but i which is referred back to my very first point which is we dont have centralized dedicated antitrafficking money at usaid and submissions are looking at their discretionary budgets and making choices among uniformly virtuous causes. It is very clear here at figure that the demand for antitrafficking resources is quite high. Like, it easily outstrips every year a minimum year mark. We in the center trying to inform those programs and make them as effective as possible but reflects not just the scale of the problem but to do something about it every, without telling people just organically around what. Im so sorry to step out, esther chairman comer i have to get to a 1 30, but im going to be following up. Inc. Is a a village for holdig this hearing. Just one or two final questions and we will submit a few for the record as well. When the interagency meetings occur, does Homeland Security get into Justice Barrett as well, into what the prosecutors are doing are not doing, u. S. Attorneys are doing or not doing to make this a priority . Every time, every administration we have tried very hard to say please make this a priority. I met with my own u. S. Attorney unnumbered times, say please, please make it a priority. You know, if they comes from the attorney general it is a priority. Im wondering especially with these huge numbers of Migrant Children, unaccompanied minors and others who potentially, i would hope you get back to us asap on those numbers, i mean we i believe have a catastrophic situation underway now, when they have gone missing and being exploited while some very heavy focus and you are prosecuting, focus on Law Enforcement with the idea its all about rescuing bullets were after the perpetrators of these crimes will make a difference. Does that get discussed when you have the interagency and again, with all due respect when certain people say oh, the board is secure, well its not. Evidence every day at future lines of people coming in the border this but i couldnt be more about those individuals. In the opening i have heard from several people including the present of guatemala how many of these women and young girls are sexually assaulted. Its just, its outrageous. So what is discussed in the interagency meetings about we need to go after this with everything weve got . One thing that bush did when he first got elected, first began as it took him a while to intimate that tvpa and its hard to say that, but then when he did he did rescue and restore conferences all over the country. I went to a few of them. I went one, he did one in tampa and is to get the local prosecutor everybody, ngos and the whole faithbased community. It was to say make it a priority, make it a priority. Quickly priorities become less been so if we dont ever promote it. Im just wondering if come just asking again, is it a priority enough among all the different agencies . Thank you so much for asking. As you are asking the question i was wondering if youd eavesdropping on the night yesterday. Because not only do we talk about it at the president Interagency Task force and certainly of the Senior Policy Operating Group that we have one off meetings we go into deeper detail. I had a meeting with hillary axum yesterday who in such a fan of. She is head of Human Trafficking prosecution unit at doj pursues also the new National Coordinator there at doj on Human Trafficking and she and i were talking about this literally yesterday. So we are absolutely focus on it. Were absolutely trying to make sure also another thing that we talked about i think interestingly i know people who present been in this role have been prosecuted but theyre all federal prosecutors. I was a prosecutor that had a can of corn propping up one corner of my desk because we have all the research but many state and local are getting these cases. We were even strategizing about that. So please know that i dont want to over emphasize prosecution because i know deeply all that occurred at it as a prosecutor which is what i worked at a for nine years and at a nonprofit but certainly of a role to play it is top of mind as recently as yesterday. So thank you so much. Not to belabor the point but is any ballpark number as to how many of the Illegal Migrants are trafficked . Juno, and you bring up a good point. The migrants are deeply at risk of trafficking or the very reasons that you spoke about earlier. Many times they have debt that they have paid some would help them get across the border and then once they arrive they are not able to pay off that debt. They are ending up in a place in debt bondage. Thats one of the most common ways. I do not have a specific number for you but i will definitely commit to look and see if they exist because we certainly recognize that migrants are deeply vulnerable for the reasons we talked about. Im happy to look in to see if theres actual again, dont conflate with smuggling and i kind of thing because we need a clear line of demarcation even though sometimes smuggling matriculate into trafficking situation. We need to be as specific. A preshould you get back to us asap. We do have a final question or questions for my friend and colleague, ms. Radewagen. Thank you very much mr. Cherry. Actually i have two questions. Heres the first one. Mr. Walsh, the revision of the ctiic policy in general 2021 was for the first time survivor inform my paying survivor consultants for their expertise and review of the documents what steps did usa take to ensure the revision in december 2021 was also survival informed. The policy highlights survive informed approach to what steps are being taken by Usaid Mission to create local programming and our survivors being paid for the Consulting Services to u. S. Aid . So that policy is essentially a guidance that washington puts out to any Field Mission that wants to do Trafficking Programming or to renew it. And is conveying best practices overall priorities, and thats true across the range of fields. If there was one foremost principle that we try to imbue in this version of the ctiic policy, it was the survivor centered framework through which we want every program to be designed. I wouldnt describe it as new per se but it is our foremost priority. And so now when missions do design these programs, we will send topnotch expertise to help them to help convene survivors, to inform the local context of any Given Program speedy excuse been mr. Walsh. My time is short. You are not answering my question. What steps did usaid take to ensure the revision in December December 2021 ctip policy was also survivor informed . I, i fear i miss missing which part of not answering. We consulted with a group of survivors. I could come back to you on who was paid versus not paper i would have to look into that. I wouldnt want to misspeak. But they were central drivers of the core ideas in the policy, and by extension our programs are designed thusly. And with your permission, mr. Chairman, ambassador dyer and mr. Walsh, antitrafficking organizations often in concert difficult in applying for and competing with Large Development organizations for u. S. Funded programs because federal contracting procedures are complex to say the least. How can jtf and usaid develop system for antitrafficking implementation that help the smaller organizations such as setasides for survival led organizations or increasing the number of smaller grants that only grassroots organizations are likely to bid for . Likewise, is there ctip accountable officer usaid 12 with these efforts . If so, if not, why not . I actually really appreciate that question. I worked at a nonprofit where we focus on supporting locally led Women Leaders in womens organizations. You are so right that they were unable to apply for not just jtip funding for just any federal government funding. It is very complicated one of the things that it think that jtip has done a good job of is many of our programs require like a local organization and so some of our big programs, we have the Main Organization is a big, big nonprofit that is able to do the Financial Disclosures and they have a done number and if all these things but theyre required to work with your l in the field. So thats one of the ways. The benefit of that is a lot of times those local ngos actually get on the job Capacity Building with the hopes that they cant at some point learn to do it themselves. So thats something i know weve done that with our program to end modern slavery which we are very grateful to congress for helping sp us. I know weve done with that program. And i know one of the things i really focus on is as a former grantee of the jtfs office is making sure that we really making sure that our programs are not only available to the smaller ngos but also that our grantees are survivor led. And so really focus on that so thank you for your question. Administrator walsh . First of all, localization one of our Top Priorities across areas. It certainly applies you. Theres a continual balance between ensuring accountability for the money that we put out into the field with minimizing the burden on him for mentors such that small organizations local organization are as able to compete for, to implement programs with our money as any large conglomerate. And so i think we look at that as number one, the percentage of money that is going to small organizations. But it is localization on ctip program anything else is also about local voices to sign it per our last topic, is about how involved are the in monitoring the program as it goes on. So helping us gather very localized data so the work we do is tailored to local needs. And by way of one example i would say in malawi theres an Organization Global hope mobilization really Inspiring Group that is the direct of a mentor of the real whole of Society Approach across really all the four ps. There is no international media. Its very Effective Group of locals in a country that is experiencing like a democratic and human rights opening so really important moment to take advantage of. In terms of you asked about the senior official accountable on some level, i regret to note that its me. We are in the center, we are vastly smaller than jtip in terms of a dedicated antitrafficking office. That is somewhat ballots by the fact that our missions are implemented any more decentralized way, the vast budget of usaids worked on the group. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Yield back. Thank you thank you. I can want to thank you for your leadership. I thank you for your patience. This is a very long but i think a very, very insightful hearing from first our first panel and now the both of you, so thank you for that. I do want to thank cspan for being here. You know, they have independent editorial judgment as to what they cover because theyre so many hearings on capitol hill and so many that they can go to. They are here today and they have provided an opportunity for americans to hear you and to hear our extraordinary panel that preceded you, and the victims who just poured out their hearts about what they went through but also what theyre doing to mitigate hopefully end this horrible scourge of Human Trafficking. So thank you. The hearing is adjourned. 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