    [House Hearing, 111 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

         OUT OF THE SHADOWS: THE GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 111-131

                                   __________

            Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

     Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

                                   ----------
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                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                     HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman
    GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York           ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
    ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American      CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
      Samoa                              DAN BURTON, Indiana
    DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey          ELTON GALLEGLY, California
    BRAD SHERMAN, California             DANA ROHRABACHER, California
    ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York             DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
    BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts         EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
    GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York           RON PAUL, Texas
    DIANE E. WATSON, California          JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
    RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri              MIKE PENCE, Indiana
    ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey              JOE WILSON, South Carolina
    GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia         JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
    MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York         J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
    THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          CONNIE MACK, Florida
    JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee            JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
    GENE GREEN, Texas                    MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
    LYNN WOOLSEY, California             TED POE, Texas
    SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
    BARBARA LEE, California              GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida
    SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
    JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
    MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
    BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
    DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
    JIM COSTA, California
    KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
    GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
    RON KLEIN, Florida
                       Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
                    Yleem Poblete, Republican Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                                   WITNESSES

    The Honorable Luis CdeBaca, Ambassador-at-Large, Office to
      Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of
      State..........................................................    10
    Mr. David Abramowitz, Director of Policy and Government
      Relations, Humanity United.....................................    37
    The Honorable Mark P. Lagon, Chair, International Relations and
      Security Concentration, and Visiting Professor, Edmund A. Walsh
      School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University...............    50
    Aruna Uprety, M.D., Founder, Rural Health Education Services and
      Trust, Partner, American Himalayan Foundation's Stop Girl
      Trafficking Program............................................    61
    Ms. Neha Misra, Senior Specialist, Migration & Human Trafficking,
      Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO.....................................    73
    Beryl D'souza, M.D., Medical Director and Anti-Human Trafficking
      Director in India, Dalit Freedom Network.......................    90

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    The Honorable Howard L. Berman, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of California, and Chairman, Committee on Foreign
      Affairs: Prepared statement....................................     4
    The Honorable Luis CdeBaca: Prepared statement...................    13
    The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Representative in Congress
      from the State of Florida: Statement to the St. Thomas
      University Human Trafficking Forum, September 13, 2010.........    24
    Mr. David Abramowitz: Prepared statement.........................    41
    The Honorable Mark P. Lagon: Prepared statement..................    54
    Aruna Uprety, M.D.: Prepared statement...........................    64
    Ms. Neha Misra: Prepared statement...............................    76
    Beryl D'souza, M.D.: Prepared statement..........................    92

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing notice...................................................   108
    Hearing minutes..................................................   109
    The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, a Representative in Congress
      from American Samoa: Prepared statement........................   110
    The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of Missouri: Prepared statement......................   113
    The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
      from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement..........   114
    The Honorable Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from the
      State of Texas: Prepared statement.............................   115
    Mr. David Abramowitz: Material submitted for the record..........   116
    Aruna Uprety, M.D.: Material submitted for the record............   120
    Written responses from witnesses to questions submitted for the
      record by the Honorable Russ Carnahan..........................   122
    Written responses from witnesses to questions submitted for the
      record by the Honorable Barbara Lee, a Representative in
      Congress from the State of California..........................   136

         OUT OF THE SHADOWS: THE GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING

                                  ----------

                          THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

                      House of Representatives,
                                  Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
    room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard L. Berman
    (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Chairman Berman. The committee will come to order.
        In a moment, I will recognize myself and the ranking member
    for up to 7 minutes each--the ranking member for this hearing
    will be the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith; there is a
    certain appropriateness to that in this particular hearing--and
    also Mr. Royce for a 3-minute opening statement. Any other
    members who come can have 1-minute opening statements. And,
    without objection, members may also place written statements in
    the record.
        Human trafficking, or ``trafficking in persons,'' is an
    affront to human dignity that links communities across the
    world in a web of money, exploitation, and victimization.
        Trafficking encompasses many types of exploitative
    activities, including sex trafficking, slavery, forced labor,
    peonage, debt bondage, involuntary domestic servitude, and
    making children into soldiers.
        The International Labor Organization estimates that 12.3
    million children and adults are currently suffering from forced
    labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution worldwide. Of that
    number, approximately 2.4 million are trafficked either
    internally or across national borders.
        Human trafficking is a $32 billion global criminal
    enterprise, second only to illegal drugs in the profits it
    generates for its perpetrators, which range from sophisticated
    criminal syndicates, to independently owned businesses with
    labor recruiters, to family operations.
        Trafficking is a problem that can be effectively confronted
    only through cross-border cooperation, but it has proven very
    difficult to combat.
        Next month marks the 10th anniversary of enactment of the
    Trafficking Victims Protection Act, authored by our colleague
    Chris Smith. That law provided protection and assistance for
    victims of trafficking, authorized public awareness prevention
    campaigns and strengthened the prosecution and punishment of
    traffickers.
        We have reauthorized the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
    several times and, in the process made the act much more
    effective in protecting the most vulnerable and punishing the
    guilty.
        One hundred fifteen other nations now have laws on the
    books banning all forms of trafficking, and the number of
    victims identified and traffickers prosecuted has grown over
    the years.
        But trafficking remains a persistent problem, and many
    challenges remain--both at home and abroad--as we look to the
    next decade of anti-trafficking efforts.
        Earlier this month, the Department of Justice and the FBI
    dismantled the Nation's largest human trafficking ring and
    indicted six recruiters for bringing 400 Thai laborers to the
    United States.
        These laborers were lured to the United States with false
    promises of high-paying jobs. Some of the victims were duped
    into paying up to $21,000 in recruiting fees. Once in this
    country, their passports were confiscated and they were forced
    to work under slave-like conditions. If the victims complained,
    they were threatened with deportation.
        They lived without electricity, sanitation, and running
    water. They were cheated out of their wages for back-breaking
    work picking fruits and vegetables. Because their food rations
    were insufficient, many had to resort to eating leaves or
    fishing in rivers.
        This example of forced labor trafficking involved labor
    brokers who convinced their victims that they were not ``free''
    until they first paid off their recruitment fee debt. With a
    high debt, workers entered into a debt bondage situation and
    became vulnerable to exploitation.
        We need to pay particular attention to this form of forced
    labor trafficking and examine the role of labor brokers and how
    their presence increases the chances of exploitation of
    workers. According to Anti-Slavery International, debt bondage
    is ``probably the least known form of slavery today, and yet it
    is the most widely used method of enslaving people.''
        The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report
    contains a wealth of information about debt bondage, forced
    labor, and other forms of trafficking worldwide. The report
    also provides a country-by-country analysis and ranking, based
    on what progress countries have made throughout the year in
    their efforts to prosecute, protect, and prevent trafficking in
    persons.
        We are honored to welcome Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca,
    who oversaw the compilation of this year's TIP Report. We are
    particularly interested in hearing from him about the major
    trends and challenges in trafficking, whether sanctions are a
    useful tool in persuading other nations to increase cooperation
    with the United States in anti-trafficking efforts, and the
    U.S. ranking in the report.
        The fight against human trafficking is the modern-day
    continuation of the fight against slavery. It is the fight to
    give all people the dignity they deserve, and to prevent human
    beings from being reduced to machines for production or
    pleasure.
        A number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have
    been leaders in the fight against human trafficking and in the
    months ahead we will continue our efforts to make the
    Trafficking Victims Protection Act as effective as possible.
        In addition to Ambassador CdeBaca, we have an extraordinary
    and distinguished panel of experts with us today that will
    address some of the key issues associated with human
    trafficking.
        I should let the audience and others who might be following
    this hearing know that, when we set this hearing, we expected
    Congress to be in session through next week. When it got into
    the early and middle of September, we expected Congress to be
    in session through Friday. And it turns out Congress recessed
    for the election last night.
        The one thing I can assure people is that Members of
    Congress and members of this committee have a very high
    interest in this subject. Because of the schedule, a number of
    members aren't going to be at the hearing this morning. We have
    circulated the testimony and the information was passed around.
        And now I am very pleased to turn to the ranking member for
    this hearing, the ranking member of the Africa and Global
    Health Subcommittee, the author of the original legislation,
    Chris Smith, for any comments he may wish to make.
        [The prepared statement of Chairman Berman follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and
    especially thank you for convening this very important hearing
    on human trafficking.
        You know, Mr. Chairman, we have come a long way since a
    September 1999 hearing that I chaired on human trafficking in
    this very room--it was part of a series--almost 11 years to the
    day today. And that particular hearing, then-Assistant
    Secretary Howard Koh called human trafficking ``a global
    plague'' and said that, while the Clinton administration
    supported the objective of the bill to combat trafficking, he
    testified that the existing legislative framework was
    sufficient and that new legislation should not focus on
    developing new institutions or establishing onerous new
    requirements. Beefed-up reporting in the annual country reports
    on human rights practices, he said, would suffice.
        Secretary Koh further testified that the administration
    sharply objected to singling out and sanctioning countries with
    poor records and government complicity in trafficking, but did
    agree on the need for alien asylum protection and enhanced
    criminal penalties for traffickers.
        That said, we pushed hard and ahead, in a totally
    bipartisan fashion, and crafted comprehensive landmark
    legislation known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
    (TVPA).
        So many remarkable people did so much--too many to name
    today--to help shape that bill. Top staffers on my committee,
    Joseph Rees, who was our general counsel, and David Abramowitz,
    who will be speaking momentarily on the second panel on the
    Democrats' side, were extraordinary in helping to craft that
    bill. And I thank them, because this is an enduring legacy for
    the most vulnerable and the weakest among us. On the Senate
    side, people like Mark Lagon and other staffers also played a
    vital role. And, again, it was totally bipartisan over there,
    as well.
        As a direct consequence of the TVPA and faithful
    implementation of it since it was enacted, for the past decade
    the United States has led the world in combating modern-day
    slavery. Much has been done; much more remains to be done.
        Three Presidential administrations, one Republican and two
    Democrats, have vigorously sought to protect and rescue victims
    from being turned into commodities for sale. Three
    administrations have sought to punish traffickers with rigorous
    prosecutions and jail sentences, both here and promoting that
    abroad, commensurate with these heinous crimes. And in the last
    3 years especially, nations have been strongly admonished to be
    compliant with the law's minimum standards or face significant
    sanctions.
        Ambassador Mark Lagon did an amazing job at the TIP office
    under the Bush administration, as is Assistant Secretary Luis
    CdeBaca today under President Obama. The United States is,
    indeed, fortunate to have had and have individuals of their
    caliber, their competence, and their commitment leading the
    fight against trafficking.
        In 2010, the good news is that convictions are
    significantly up worldwide, as is the identification and the
    response to the victims: Shelters providing safe haven--and we
    are trying in this country to expand the shelters that are
    available, and the beds as well.
        As special rep for trafficking for the OSCE Parliamentary
    Assembly, I can also attest to the fact that significant
    progress has been made in many member states, including Bosnia,
    which I visited on several occasions. I have been to shelters
    in Sarajevo. And it was the focus of hearings we held, because,
    unfortunately, many of the peacekeepers and the police deployed
    there under the U.N. auspices were actually complicit in
    trafficking.
        Today, I would strongly urge Ambassador CdeBaca to
    undertake a comprehensive reassessment of at least two Watch
    List nations, China and India, for failing to meet the minimum
    standards prescribed in the TVPA and for not taking significant
    action to comply.
        I would respectfully ask that you undertake a serious
    analysis of the nexus between the PRC's barbaric one-child-per-
    couple policy and its consequences on sex trafficking. I know
    Ambassador Mark Lagon began to speak about that during his
    tenure in office, and I think the evidence is absolutely
    compelling and grows worse by the day.
        This past Saturday marked the grim 30th anniversary of that
    anti-child, anti-woman policy. I would note parenthetically
    that more babies have been murdered by the one-child-per-couple
    policy, especially baby girls, than all the people slaughtered
    by Mao Tse-tung.
        China's one-child-per-couple policy has resulted in the
    worst gendercide in history. Today, the missing girls of China,
    a massive crime against young women, means that an increasing
    number of men simply cannot find wives to marry. Some Chinese
    demographers have stated, by the year 2020, 40 million Chinese
    men won't be able to find wives, having been killed by sex-
    selected abortion, creating a colossal market for bride-selling
    and sex trafficking.
        Earlier this week, we heard in this room, at a Tom Lantos
    Human Rights hearing chaired by Ed Royce, we heard from three
    North Korean women who made it across the border into China,
    thinking they were finding some kind of refuge and some kind of
    hope going there, only to be trafficked. And one of the women
    told us that they are called ``pigs'' by the Chinese men who
    enslaved them. And because one of the particular women was
    beautiful--she is a model--she said, ``They called me the best
    pig''--so dehumanizing to that woman and to all women.
        Years ago, I held a hearing, also with North Korean
    refugees, and one of the women told us how she had made it
    across the border, first following her daughter. She was
    trafficked. When she and her other daughter--because news does
    not get back to the families; they were looking for her--they,
    too, were then trafficked.
        So this magnet that has been created by the one-child-per-
    couple policy will only mean, going forward, that there will be
    more missing girls and a greater push by traffickers to bring
    women in.
        In India, it is very similar, although it is not a coercive
    population-control program, but unfortunately women are not
    treated with the same equality to which they are entitled, and
    sex-selection abortion is rampant there. Some years ago, the
    Human Population Fund actually did a study and suggested that,
    in India, there are missing at least 60 million girls due to
    sex-selection abortions. Again, a huge magnet in India, as
    well.
        And I would hope, Ambassador CdeBaca, that you will take a
    good, hard look at this nexus between this terrible crime of
    forced abortion and sex-selection abortion and human
    trafficking because it is only going to get worse.
        I yield back, and I thank the chairman for convening this
    hearing.
        Chairman Berman. Thank you very much.
        I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
    California, Mr. Royce, the ranking member of the Terrorism,
    Nonproliferation, deg. and Trade Subcommittee.
        Mr. Royce. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
    for calling this hearing.
        The issue that really strikes us is the explosion of human
    trafficking that we have seen over the last few years. It is
    the magnitude of this explosion. And I think the thing we all
    ask is, why isn't this getting the attention it deserves? Why
    isn't more being done to leverage against this? I want to thank
    the chairman for holding this hearing to do exactly that.
        I also want to thank Chris Smith for the legislation that
    he has offered up, that he has worked so hard to pass over the
    years in order to try to address this real travesty.
        My hope, coming out of this hearing, is that it will focus
    attention beyond the NGO community to the wider international
    community about the fact that something has to be done to
    address and stop these practices.
        And I think the State Department's report that it released,
    its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, in some ways, is a
    tool that we can use. It catalogs those human-rights abuses
    around the world. It was the first report to include the United
    States, and we are certainly not immune from this crime.
        That is evidenced by the arrest and conviction, for
    example, of a New Jersey woman who smuggled girls from West
    Africa to the U.S., forced them to work every day, 14 hours a
    day, in her hair salons without ever paying them. Thankfully,
    this trafficker now faces 27 years in prison.
        There are too many cases like that at home, but that 27-
    year conviction sends a message to other traffickers that, here
    in the United States, we are serious about this and there will
    be serious consequences to trafficking.
        What we want to do is make certain that other nations also
    send that message, that there are serious consequences. In that
    respect, I am going to take a minute to criticize a portion of
    this TIP Report that falls short.
        I was disappointed to see that Cambodia was bumped up a
    level. It is no longer identified among the world's worst
    violators of human trafficking. In some ways, the
    administration has released the pressure on Cambodia at a time
    when the situation is really out of control.
        Put very bluntly, this is a slap in the face to the
    thousands of victims in Cambodia of this practice, because so
    many girls there continue to be forced into sexual slavery. You
    just saw the news report from ``Dateline.'' Many here who are
    involved in this issue or concerned and following this issue
    saw that report, where they say Cambodia continues to be such a
    magnet for people who prey on the young.
        There, children as young as 3 or 4 are sold to sex
    tourists. My own chief of staff traveled to Cambodia to work
    with some of the children just recently released from brothels.
    The stories that she relays to me were absolutely horrifying.
        Sadly, NGOs and eyewitnesses report that Cambodia's
    Government continues to hamper trafficking investigations and
    frequently covers up the problem. As a matter of fact, the
    government goes after people who bring up the problem in
    Cambodia.
        If I could ask for a few more minutes, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Berman. I ask unanimous consent to give the
    gentleman an additional minute.
        Mr. Royce. I would really appreciate it if you could, Mr.
    Chairman. Thank you.
        The corruption is endemic. Local police and government
    officials are often directly involved in the trafficking. They
    are pocketing profits as a result. We should not be elevating
    Cambodia on that report.
        Today we will also hear from one of our witnesses about
    trafficking in India, where caste-based discrimination against
    its Dalits results in millions of women and children being
    victims of human trafficking. Of the 3 million sex workers in
    India, nearly 40 percent are children, most are Dalits. The
    Indian Government has made recent efforts to protect Dalits,
    but, clearly, much more needs to be done to eliminate a very
    longstanding and entrenched practice.
        No country is immune from the problem of human trafficking.
    Only with increased accountability and honesty can we help some
    of the world's most marginalized people.
        I would like to thank the chairman once again for holding
    this important hearing.
        Chairman Berman. Thank you.
        The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from
    Texas, Mr. Poe, is recognized for 1 minute.
        Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding
    this hearing.
        This issue thrives in darkness, and it is going to be, I
    hope, the goal of the United States to shed light on this
    human-trafficking nightmare, not only on the rest of the world
    but what takes place in the United States, as well.
        In my other life, I was a judge in Texas forever and saw
    the results of some of these issues. And I think, being from
    Texas, I have to keep it simple. There are three people
    involved in human trafficking, at least: First and foremost is
    the victim. And the young girl that is kidnapped and forced
    into slavery is not a criminal; she is a victim of crime. Then
    you have the customer who pays for this slavery. And then you
    have the trafficker. You got three entities.
        And, first and foremost, we need to regard the young
    woman--generally--as a victim and treat her as such. It is
    interesting, if we have a child brought into the United States
    that is trafficked here and she is rescued by the system, she
    is treated as a victim. If we have a child in Houston, Texas,
    that is trafficked to Los Angeles, that child is treated as a
    criminal. She is not rescued and put in some safe haven; she is
    put in the criminal justice system.
        Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        Mr. Poe. I thought I had 3 minutes. You just said a minute?
        Chairman Berman. I did just say a minute. You don't like
    that? Do you want to compromise at 2?
        Mr. Poe. I would ask permission----
        Chairman Berman. For an additional minute?
        Mr. Poe. Yes, sir. I will try to sum it up.
        So that is the first issue. We have to treat the person as
    a victim.
        The second guy, they need to be exposed, and we need to let
    the world know who they are. And if we capture them and they
    are prosecuted, let's put their photographs on the Internet so
    everybody knows who these people are.
        And then the last person, the trafficker, they need to be
    punished to the fullest extent. Even one case, I had a Texas
    Ranger tell me, ``Judge, when you get one of those in court,
    just get a rope.'' I am not so sure that that is really the
    answer, but we need to make sure that they are punished and
    that we also, then, control the visa system in this country
    where a person is an ex-con for child molesting and they leave
    our country, and the reason they are leaving is to go overseas
    and continue their evil ways, we need to make sure that you
    know, and the State Department, who these people are. And so,
    that is in a piece of legislation that is pending.
        But the United States is the leader in human rights, and we
    need to make sure that we continue to be the leader in human
    rights throughout the world. And we need to protect our young
    resources, young women here and abroad.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Chairman Berman. Thank you.
        The time of the gentleman has expired.
        It is now my pleasure to introduce our first panel, a panel
    of one. Ambassador Luis CdeBaca was appointed by President
    Obama to coordinate U.S. Government activities in the global
    fight against human trafficking. He serves as senior advisor to
    Secretary Clinton and directs the State Department's Office to
    Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
        Previously, Ambassador CdeBaca served as counsel to a
    committee that I am privileged to serve on, the House Judiciary
    Committee, and as a Federal prosecutor for the Department of
    Justice, leading investigations and prosecution of cases
    involving money laundering, organized crime, alien smuggling,
    official misconduct, hate crimes, and human trafficking.
        Ambassador, it is very good to have you with us. Your
    entire statement will be placed in the record. Feel free to
    summarize, and then we will go through a round of questions.

     STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LUIS CDEBACA, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE,
       OFFICE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S.
                          DEPARTMENT OF STATE

        Ambassador CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I would like to thank you, Ranking Member Smith, and the
    other members of the committee for convening this critical
    hearing on human trafficking and also for your support on this
    issue over the last decade and before, but, on a personal note,
    your support and leadership when I was a Judiciary Committee
    staffer working on this, intelligence, and other critical
    issues.
        Almost 150 years have now passed since the Emancipation
    Proclamation was issued, and slavery persists in many forms. In
    the 1910s, the focus in Congress and the Justice Department was
    against European women brought here for sex slavery. In the
    1930s, it was called peonage; it was U.S. citizens held in
    bonded labor in agricultural situations. The attention of the
    1990s: Again, European women and sex trafficking. The
    Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 hopefully breaks the
    pendulum of attention and then inattention to this problem that
    we have so often seen in those 150 years.
        No matter the euphemism or the technical term or the
    technical label that we use, we are seeing things now that show
    how human trafficking cuts across these lines. We see victims
    held in servitude in factories, farms, and homes, bought and
    sold in prostitution and captured as child soldiers.
        We have come to understand that men comprise a significant
    number of victims but also see the feminization of modern
    slavery clearly demonstrated, with women making up a majority
    of those trapped in commercial sex as well as in forced-labor
    situations.
        Traffickers now are changing their method of control: More
    female recruiters, more subtle means of exploitation, greater
    psychological abuse. This crime impairs human rights, degrades
    public health, corrupts government officials, and weakens the
    rule of law.
        Not limited to one gender, faith, or geographic area, the
    universality of this crime is reflected in the bipartisan
    consensus around this issue. The U.S. Government's sustained
    application of the ``3-P'' approach of protection, prevention,
    and prosecution through three administrations now is evidence
    of this consensus and commitment. And so I am glad to not only
    have succeeded Ambassador Mark Lagon at the Trafficking Office
    but that we are both able to come before you today in the
    spirit of that shared commitment.
        So what is the Obama administration doing to fight modern
    slavery? I will certainly refer you to the much more fulsome
    version of this testimony that we are putting into the record,
    but there are a few things that I would like to highlight in my
    oral presentation.
        The annual trafficking report remains the United States'
    principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on the
    issue of modern slavery, and we feel that it is the world's
    most comprehensive resource on anti-trafficking efforts by
    governments. It has prompted legislation, national action
    plans, and the implementation of policies and programs.
        We are committed to using the tools of the TVPA. And,
    indeed, Harold Koh, now the legal advisor at the Department of
    State, has in the Obama administration been a very supportive
    and strong voice for application of the minimum-standards
    rankings and sanctions analysis. What a different 10 years
    makes from the testimony that he was sent to give that Mr.
    Smith references.
        And so, what have we seen? While there is much to do, there
    are also many things that have changed for the better: A steady
    increase in sex-trafficking prosecutions and shelters for
    victims in Gulf states; greater efforts to address the forced
    begging of Koranic students in West Africa; passage of a law
    and formation of a national task force in Swaziland; cross-
    border cooperation and joint law enforcement efforts with
    Mexico; a significant uptick of victim identification in
    Albania and Montenegro; the naming of the first TIP czar on the
    island of Malta; and greater anti-trafficking collaboration by
    the Malaysian Government with the U.S. Government and NGOs,
    which have led to new trafficking investigations and
    prosecutions.
        This litany would be impressive if it were the last
    decade's accomplishments. This is the last year.
        Bosnia, as Mr. Smith points out, we feel is a particular
    success story--on Tier 3 for many years, ravaged and plagued by
    sex traffickers and organized crime. But the government changed
    course and aggressively tackled the crime because of the
    leadership, not just of the United States, the TIP Report, and
    programs, but also the Helsinki Commission, the OSCE, and other
    structures that the U.S. Congress supports. After a decade of
    hard work, Bosnia is now a Tier 1 country and a model for other
    countries that can make that journey.
        We feel, as well, that the inclusion of the United States
    in this year's TIP Report, a testament to Secretary Clinton's
    insistence on partnership, provides such a model, as well, as
    we try to hold ourselves accountable to the same standards that
    we would expect of our foreign counterparts.
        The TVPA recognized that this was not just a foreign policy
    imperative but also a domestic law enforcement priority, as Mr.
    Poe points out, requiring attention at the local and State
    level and coordination and expertise across agency lines. And
    so the Interagency Task Force on Trafficking at the Cabinet
    level and its working group, which I chair, the Senior Policy
    Operating Group, were created to coordinate those interagency
    policies, programs, and planning issues.
        In the submitted testimony, we have a recitation of many of
    the things that have been done to coordinate, to implement the
    laws, the TVPA and its reauthorizations. And we would certainly
    call people's attention to that.
        One thing that I would like to bring up specifically,
    though, is one of the mandates of the Wilberforce Act, the 2008
    reauthorization. Responding to congressional concerns about
    guest-worker abuse, the State Department, with the Departments
    of Homeland Security, Justice, and Labor, consulting with
    nongovernmental organizations, developed an information
    pamphlet on the legal rights and resources available to aliens
    who are applying for nonimmigrant visas. The pamphlet is given
    to visa applicants in the consulates overseas, and they
    hopefully travel with them. It is in multiple languages.
        It has resulted in 148 calls to the national hotline this
    year. And, earlier this week, I heard from legal service
    providers who recounted that seasonal workers who had suffered
    in silence in previous years with the same employers, not
    knowing that they had rights in the United States, this year
    when they traveled had that pamphlet with them. And a number of
    calls to the hotline have resulted--workers who had not known
    of their rights or that there was somebody in the United States
    who would be willing to help them.
        That pamphlet was a direct result of the work of the
    members of this committee and the staff of this committee in
    that authorization and is much appreciated by those of us who
    are on the front lines.
        Going forward, in continuing the work of our predecessors
    in the Bush administration and the Clinton administration, the
    Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons will
    continue to work with our interagency partners, State and local
    governments, and foreign governments to develop comprehensive
    anti-trafficking legislation to strengthen existing laws and
    train criminal justice officials to see victims as victims
    rather than merely illegal immigrants or criminals. We hope
    that this will lead to increased number of convictions for
    traffickers and complicit government officials, including
    military personnel and corrupt border officials.
        We hope to strengthen victim protection and assistance by
    encouraging cooperation between governments and NGOs and
    enhancing the capacity of civil society to provide
    comprehensive services that fully address the needs of the
    victims. And we will wisely stretch every appropriation that
    you give us to do that.
        We will support evidence-based research to evaluate the
    impact of our programs and to fill core data gaps so that we
    know that the money that we are spending on programs is well-
    spent. And we will leverage those resources even more by
    working with the private sector to have innovative public-
    private partnerships to solve this problem.
        Mindful of those who suffered and died in bondage
    throughout the history of this country, and heeding President
    Obama's call in January for a recommitment to this ongoing
    struggle, we will continue to promote a global movement to
    abolish modern slavery.
        I thank you for your important support of this issue, and I
    look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ambassador CdeBaca follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Berman. Thank you very much, Ambassador.
        We will begin the questioning. It is the chair's intent,
    because we have two panels and have the Pakistani foreign
    minister coming to the committee at 12:30 p.m., to limit the
    questioning to 5 minutes and one round for each panel.
        I will yield myself 5 minutes to start.
        Your testimony does an excellent job of giving us an
    overview of accomplishments in the fight against trafficking in
    the last 10 years. I would be interested--you talked a little
    bit about looking forward in your general thoughts about the
    next decade in terms of the fight against trafficking.
        What is that going to look like? What should it look like?
    What are your key priorities? What particular countries do we
    need to put special emphasis on?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I think that the thing that we will
    hopefully see in the next 10 years and that we are working
    toward is to remove this from being a boutique issue. In many
    ways, human trafficking has been the thing that is, kind of,
    done after everything else with the law enforcement community.
    It is, you know, working on trainings, working on rule of law.
    Whether we are doing development work or whether we are talking
    to our foreign counterparts, trafficking often is then a
    separate conversation.
        And I think that one of the things that we are working on
    that is very important to Secretary Clinton as well as to
    myself is to incorporate the trafficking office into the work
    of other parts of the Department, such as the INL and others,
    who have such an impact when they are doing law enforcement
    training, when they are getting that kind of mentoring and
    money out there.
        We have seen this now with the inclusion of trafficking in
    the Merida process with Mexico, standing up and supporting
    trafficking units with the Mexican Government. I think that
    that type of joint law enforcement is going to be very
    important.
        And we would like to support not just joint law enforcement
    where perpetrators are arrested both here and in the source
    country, doing that together, the way that we have done now
    with Mexico and Cambodia, but, in fact, have that become the
    international norm, especially countries that don't have
    extradition treaties with us, so that we know that the
    traffickers are being brought to justice.
        So, on the law enforcement side, that is, I think, our
    priority, is that kind of collaboration and cooperation.
        As far as victim protection, we are working, whether it is
    through international fora or otherwise, to make sure that
    victim protection comes to the forefront rather than being
    solely an adjunct to law enforcement, but rather that the best
    interests of the victim, the best interests of the child be the
    way that the governments look at this.
        We think that moving out of a detention-based approach to
    trafficking-victim care--a cleaner, nicer jail for trafficking
    victims is better than a dirty and bad jail for trafficking
    victims, but it is the position of the United States that there
    should be no jail for trafficking victims. And I think that
    that is something that we will see continue in the next decade.
        Chairman Berman. Thank you.
        Just to follow up, is there a thought about what to do with
    our missions abroad, in terms of prioritizing and training and
    educating them on things they can be doing, in terms of their
    agendas, that raise this issue?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I think the leadership principle
    certainly comes into play. And one of the things that we have
    seen is that--and it doesn't mean that a good report comes from
    good activity, because it is up to the local government. But we
    have seen that, where a chief of mission is very engaged
    throughout the year, that the governments respond. We have seen
    with Ambassador Harry Thomas, for instance, in Manila, the
    level of engagement that he has brought with him as he has
    gotten his team in place is now being reflected back by the
    Philippine Government, and not just in words, but in actions.
        And so, that is something that we are encouraging with the
    outgoing chiefs of mission. We are working with them at the
    Foreign Service Institute and otherwise, so that they land with
    a bang. I think that we also, then, see training both for the
    reporting officers and for diplomatic security agencies as
    being critical.
        Chairman Berman. My time is about to expire, so I am going
    to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Ambassador, again, thank you for your leadership and
    testimony.
        Let me just ask a couple of very quick questions. In my
    opening, I talked about India and China. Could you speak to
    those issues?
        Our hope is that they are on Tier 3. Vietnam ought to be
    added, as well. And you and I have a whole fact sheet on why
    Vietnam, particularly on labor trafficking, ought to be there.
        You know, last year, Fiji was--Fiji Islands--was Tier 3.
    When you look at the enormity, the scope, the government
    complicity in a place like China, or total indifference in some
    places, India as well--I mean, Mumbai has made some efforts,
    but it is far from effective--these countries need to be on
    Tier 3.
        What we do at the penalty phase--and I know there is a
    great deal of pushback within the building and from the
    missions abroad, from our ambassadors very often. ``Don't
    complicate state craft by injecting a human-rights issue of
    this caliber and weight.'' But, you know, we need to speak
    truth to power, not some of the time, but all of the time.
        So, please--and the nexus with the one-child-per-couple
    policy and sex-selection abortion, because it is only going to
    get worse. If you could speak to that and whether or not you
    would do a comprehensive study on that.
        Ambassador CdeBaca. Well, as Secretary Clinton has pointed
    out when talking about 21st-century state craft, state craft
    and diplomacy exists not to sustain itself but to convey our
    national interests and our national values. And so I think that
    is why we see the human-trafficking issue being something that
    we are raising at the highest levels of government and not
    shying away from those often uncomfortable discussions with our
    friends and allies.
        I will start with China. I, too, met with some of the North
    Korean refugees who were in town last week, and it confirmed
    what our reporting and other sources of information that are
    reflected in last year's report had indicated, which is that
    the vast majority of the women in northeastern China from North
    Korea appear to be trafficking victims. They are not recognized
    by the Chinese Government. To the degree they are, they are
    either seen as a source of low-level corruption, payoffs, or
    they are deported.
        One of the things that was troubling to me to hear from
    some of the women was that one of the only ways of escape was
    whether or not the clients, the men--South Korean men who use
    them for Web chat, sex chat videos, if they could get one of
    the clients to understand what had happened to them and have
    that man help them out. If the only way to escape from sex
    trafficking is to depend on the kindness of a customer, then we
    have a problem there.
        But we also see the reports in other parts of the country--
    Burmese, Vietnamese, and other women trafficked across the
    borders for prostitution and brides--for the specific reason
    that you mentioned, as far as the population imbalance in
    China. And we are very worried about that, as well as the
    massive labor trafficking that occurs within the borders.
        We are heartened by the fact that China recently ratified
    the Palermo Protocol. But we think that, at that point now,
    they need to look at their domestic law to bring it into
    compliance with Palermo.
        Their definition of trafficking seems to be different than
    many. And you see these numbers about child-selling and false
    adoptions as what they seem to be wanting to work on. I will be
    going to China as a result in the coming month and beginning to
    have that conversation with them directly, because it is
    something that we feel we need to raise with them.
        As far as India is concerned, I have certainly raised this,
    not only with Ambassador Shankar, but also with the foreign
    minister, as has Under Secretary Otero, Secretary Clinton, Bob
    Blake. Assistant Secretary Blake cares very much about this. I
    think he saw it in his iterations in the embassies in the
    region, recognizes that the south and central Asia region is
    kind of a hotspot for a lot of this activity.
        We are heartened to see that India finally has
    characterized bonded labor as part of their trafficking fight
    in a communique to the field of last September. But bridging
    the Federal and state gap in India will be critical. You can't
    devolve power on such an important human-rights issue fully to
    the State and locals lest you do have simply those bright spots
    that we have identified, whether in Andhra Pradesh or in
    Mumbai.
        So we are working with the Indians to use our experience
    with federalism, use our fight as far as how we manage the
    interplay between local law enforcement and the Federal anti-
    trafficking, as an example of how they can deal with that
    problem.
        Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, is recognized for 5
    minutes.
        Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent
    to place my statement into the record.
        Chairman Berman. Without objection, it will be included.
        Mr. Green. Thank you for being here, Mr. Ambassador.
        One of the concerns--I mean, there are so many issues with
    trafficking in persons. One of the ones I am concerned about is
    forced labor and government contracts in conflict regions. The
    State Department's 2010 TIP Report includes a special section
    on government procurement of forced labor. It states that,
    ``Too often, it is reported that workers, particularly in
    combat zones, have been misinformed about their contracts,
    poorly housed, had their passports confiscated, and were
    required to pay back large recruitment fees.''
        On January 15, 2010, the offices of the Inspector General
    for the DoD, State Department, and USAID each submitted the
    first of a series of congressionally mandated reports that
    evaluate the incidence of human-trafficking violations among
    U.S. contractors abroad.
        In your opinion, how serious is the problem of intentional
    or inadvertent government procurement or forced labor through
    contractors? And is the U.S. Government doing enough to address
    the problem?
        And second is, what has DoD, State Department, and USAID
    done since the issuance of the January 2010 OIG report to
    address reported trafficking among contractors?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I think that is an excellent question,
    Mr. Green.
        The thing that we have started to realize is that
    government procurement strategies, whether it is for service
    contracts in many of these war zones or whether it is the
    things we buy, that we end up having a footprint that dwarfs
    that of the private industry that we go to to encourage to look
    at their own supply chains. And so, not only have we been
    responding to the concerns that were initially raised with
    peacekeepers coming out of Eastern Europe and have flowed
    through that, but also are starting to look at procurement on
    the Federal acquisition side.
        But as far as the overseas contractor issue, we are working
    with the inspectors general, convening meetings with the IGs
    from State, AID, and Department of Defense. They are going out
    into the regions, doing the samples of what they consider high-
    risk offices. And, as you know from the report that was
    submitted in January, some areas of improvement were noted,
    especially with people not knowing what the rules were, not
    knowing what constituted trafficking and forced labor.
        We have taken one beginning step on that, as far as U.S.
    employees who are under chief-of-mission authority now, under
    the Foreign Affairs Manual, have heightened responsibilities
    for not mistreating their staff, and not only are reminded that
    they could be prosecuted back here in the United States, but
    also will have administrative punishments if they are caught
    doing that. We now need to take that out to the contractor
    level.
        And I think that one of the things that is heartening for
    us in the interagency is that the Senior Policy Operating Group
    has now put together a working group on this contracting issue
    and the acquisitions manual, led by DHS--which also has a large
    footprint--DoD, and the EEOC. And their convening started after
    the last meeting of the interagency quarterly working group. We
    are going to be working with the Acquisitions Contractor
    Training Corps to make sure that the training officers get this
    out there.
        One of the things that the IG found that was shocking to
    everybody was that a lot of the contracting officers just
    aren't even putting this into the contracts. It is required. It
    is required because it is the right thing to do, but it is also
    required because Congress mandated it. And, yet, there are too
    many contracts where this just doesn't even show up.
        Mr. Green. I appreciate that effort, because that is
    something, obviously, since we are paying the bill, we ought to
    be able to deal with it. And that is something our government
    can do directly.
        So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I would also note, if I may--and this
    is the intersection of policy and art that we often see and
    hear in this area. The big, hot film at the Toronto Film
    Festival in the last 2 weeks was about a whistleblower, a woman
    who had called attention to these exact problems during the
    Kosovo intervention. I think that the more that we see the
    public look at this as a problem, the more we will be able to
    drill that out into the agencies.
        Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        The gentleman from California, Mr. Royce, is recognized for
    5 minutes.
        Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a
    statement of our ranking member, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
        Chairman Berman. Without objection, that statement will be
    included in the record.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Ros-Lehtinen follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        By way of further information, this is a trafficking
    symposium that she and Ambassador CdeBaca held at St. Thomas
    University in Miami, Florida, 2 weeks ago.
        So, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I wanted to ask about the justification of Cambodia's
    promotion to Tier 2 status. As you go through the TIP Report,
    the point is you have 36 traffickers who were convicted, in
    comparison to 11 last year, and that is the argument.
        But you read the report, and the report says that local
    police and government officials extort money or accept bribes
    from brothel owners sometimes on a daily basis in order to
    allow brothels to continue operating. In terms of the appeal
    court judge there, the appeal court president, he accepted
    $30,000 in bribes for the release of brothel owners.
        The corruption is absolutely endemic. The point I would
    make is that the conviction of 25 extra traffickers hardly
    justifies moving in the wrong direction when Transparency
    International now rates Cambodia 158 out of 180 in its
    corruption index.
        The point I am making is that the corruption is so endemic
    there and the Cambodians that we talk to and the NGO groups are
    so traumatized by the fact that things are imploding so quickly
    in terms of the absence of any rule of law and the fact that
    the police are in on the corruption, and these girls at the age
    of, what, 3, 4 are being recruited in larger and larger
    numbers.
        The point they make is that maybe this was a mistake, to
    tick this down the other direction. I would ask you for your
    observation on that.
        Ambassador CdeBaca. It is tough, and I think especially in
    a country like Cambodia where there are these problems.
        One of the things that we look at when we are looking at
    the ranking is what kind of effort the country has made and is
    making. This is one of the minimum standards that is mandated.
    And we had seen a shift in the willingness of the government to
    work on this, an uptick in prosecutions, a use of the anti-
    trafficking unit in a different way, not just simply going out
    and doing blind sweeps of the red-light district and then
    calling that a trafficking case, but instead more long-term
    investigations, working with some of the NGOs, like APLE, A-P-
    L-E, that does a lot of the child sex tourism investigations
    and child protection.
        So, too, we have also seen a little bit more law
    enforcement cooperation with the United States, as far as not
    simply helping arrest our pedophiles so that we can then bring
    them back to the United States, or the Swiss or the German
    pedophiles so that they can be prosecuted in the home country,
    but then also stepping up and prosecuting the Cambodians who
    sold those children. That was something that Cambodia had
    always refused to do in the past, largely casting this as a
    problem of westerners coming to abuse their children.
        So I think that, for me, that is one of the things that we
    see that is a bright spot, is their recasting and looking at
    trafficking in a new way.
        The proof is in the pudding, though. And I think that,
    unfortunately, Cambodia is a country where we have seen--and in
    the report we always have the chart about what a country has
    done over the years. It has gone up and down and up and down.
    We would like to see Cambodia get on a glide path of success,
    but, given the endemic corruption, given the poverty, given the
    breakdowns in rule of law, it is very difficult.
        Mr. Royce. We have seen other countries take similar
    measures and they have still been downgraded, unlike Cambodia.
    Yemen would be a case in point. They are taking these measures,
    but the argument is it is so endemic in Yemen that we are not
    going to adjust that.
        The point I am making is, if they don't face sanctions, if
    there aren't consequences, then when you have a police
    department that is in on a racket, when you have appeals court
    judges that are part of the problem, and when you have a
    political class that is involved in this, then the situation is
    only going to get worse. As ``Dateline'' says, it is now a
    magnet for pedophiles. It needs to be addressed.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, is recognized
    for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you so
    much for having this hearing on such an important topic.
        I also would ask unanimous consent to enter my statement
    into the record.
        Chairman Berman. Without objection, it will be included.
        Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair.
        Let me just say--Mr. Ambassador, thank you for being here.
    I cannot imagine a more heinous crime than the denial of human
    autonomy. Because to do that is to say a human being is a
    thing, an object.
        And in making sure that this is a priority for U.S. foreign
    policy, we need go no further than our own American history. We
    fought a civil war over the issue of human autonomy. Well,
    there are some revisionists that want to pretend it wasn't
    about slavery. From first to last, it was about human
    trafficking because there was a whole philosophy that said
    someone of color was a thing, an object. We fought a civil war
    to settle that question. And after that civil war, we no longer
    spoke of ``these United States'' in the plural; we spoke in the
    singular case, ``the United States is.''
        There can be no more fundamental American value than the
    assertion of human autonomy. In our own Declaration of
    Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that among these
    inalienable rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of human
    happiness--strange one.
        And, therefore, it seems to me, from the wellsprings of our
    own founding, human trafficking--putting an end to human
    trafficking, insisting with other governments that they move
    this way up on the priority list and making sure our
    ambassadors and our representatives do the same is fundamental
    to who we are and to American character. So my question to you
    is candidly, how do you think we are doing? I mean, I have
    traveled widely. Ambassadors have full plates. There are lots
    of competing priorities. I mean, there are military,
    political--I understand. Not everything can be a priority
    because if everything is, nothing is. But I am concerned that
    it is possible that unless we ratchet up the importance of the
    subject, a busy Ambassador may--it may be further down the list
    of priorities but not his or her top five or three.
        I would like your assessment of how well we are doing and
    what kind of mechanism do we have to make sure that the
    prioritization of this issue, as very fundamental to who we
    are, is impressed on new and reassigned Ambassadors?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I will be going this afternoon to an
    event that the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association and the Mount
    Vernon Black Women's Association will be jointly hosting that
    draws the exact parallel.
        Mr. Connolly. In the 11th District of Virginia.
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I try to stay in the area. And I think
    that one of the things that is being talked about at this
    conference is how we have to capture that exact promise, the
    promise that was made to the people who were in chattel
    slavery, but also the promise that was made to those who were
    being held in indentured servitude, debt peonage. The first law
    that Congress passed when it came back in 1866 was to extend
    those protections to the Hispanic residents of the former
    Mexican territories.
        Made it very clear that the promise of the 13th Amendment
    applied to anyone in the United States, whether it was the
    newly freed African American population or the newest arrival.
    And that is as true today as it was almost 150 years ago.
        I actually think that the 150th anniversary of emancipation
    gives us an opportunity, an opportunity to tell our story to
    the world.
        Mr. Connolly. I have to interject, I have 43 seconds. How
    are we doing?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. How we are doing is that I think we are
    seeing in many ways the antislavery and anti-trafficking fight
    through the lens of the TIP Report and the lens of the TIP
    reporting, rather than necessarily seeing it through the lens
    of the overarching American value system. And I think that is
    something that we need to work on internally so it is not
    merely a ``We have got to do the TIP Report this year and
    everything flows from that.'' Rather it is ``Here is this value
    that our country was born upon.''
        The last 10 years have been a critical time in this fight,
    but they are a critical time because they are modernizing that
    promise that we made so long ago.
        Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
    gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 full minutes.
        Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Four of the worst abusers are Burma, Cuba, Iran and
    Zimbabwe, according to our own government. But yet they still
    have the ability to receive aid from the United States. We call
    it humanitarian or whatever. But how do we know that that aid
    is going to the right people in those countries?
        The only leverage we have to get people's attention is the
    almighty dollar. And if we quit giving them money, maybe they
    will get their country in order and quit promoting human
    trafficking or allowing it to exist. And this has to be an
    issue that the United States leads in. We can't stick around
    and wait for the United Nations to do anything, because so many
    people in the United Nations are abusers of this whole process.
        So I don't think we ought to be giving aid to any country
    that promotes human trafficking, especially when we say they
    are the world's worst abusers. It doesn't make any sense to me.
    I would like you to clarify that.
        But first, I have introduced legislation, along with my
    friend, Jim Costa--we are both co-chairs of the Victims' Rights
    Caucus--to require people who have gone to our own
    penitentiaries for sexual assault, primarily of minors, if they
    travel abroad, they have to register with the State Department,
    and then the State Department has the authority, discretion,
    not to allow them to travel overseas.
        Now, Ambassador, it is my understanding, and I would like
    an answer to this, that throughout the world, these middle
    guys, the customers, you know, the people that pay for the
    slavery, 25 percent of them are from the United States and they
    leave the United States to go abroad to seek out young children
    to have their way with them, and that is a blight on our
    country.
        So what do you think about the issue of making sure that we
    know who these folks are when they come to see you and they
    want to travel abroad, not necessarily to do business but to do
    monkey business? What do you think about that?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. A lot of the equities in that bill--and
    I know there are other similar bills as well--are actually
    things that are in some other parts of the State Department,
    and I don't really want to speak for them.
        As far as the trafficking office is concerned, I think one
    of the things that we find is critical, and it is one of the
    things that we judge a country on, is what they are doing to
    reduce the demand for child sex tourism in many ways. That can
    be everything from the posters that one would see or training
    for hoteliers to make sure that the concierges and the front
    desk aren't collusive in bringing in these kids.
        But what we see as reducing demand the most effectively is
    prosecuting these pedophiles, prosecuting the people who would
    sell a child to them. As far as the various restrictions on
    travel, again, I know that there are several different pieces
    of legislation out there.
        One thing, though, that we have noticed as we have tried to
    look at this, especially in demand reduction for commercial sex
    with children, is that oft-repeated 25 percent figure comes
    into question a bit when one looks at the high percentage of
    Asian clients that are abusing children all over Asia.
        Mr. Poe. What is your opinion? Is it 25 percent, is it
    less?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I don't think we really know the actual
    number, but if you talk to police, again, and to the Cambodian
    example that Mr. Royce is concerned about, if you talk to the
    police and to activists in Cambodia, the unnoticed plague seems
    to be coming from Japan, Korea, China, et cetera.
        And so I think that we need to make sure that we are
    focusing not simply on the Westerners in these countries, but
    other sex tourists as well, and harness those countries so that
    they start doing what we do, which is prosecute their people
    back home. We have a number of countries that don't expand
    extraterritorial jurisdiction over their traveling pedophiles,
    and I think that that is a U.S. practice that we need to export
    to the rest of the world.
        Mr. Poe. Last question. It just seems to me--and correct me
    if it is wrong--I am wrong--that countries are just kind of
    resistant to doing anything about this issue. And that is the
    sense I have based on your testimony and what I have heard from
    other people that, just, you know, that is not really something
    they want to get involved in for whatever reason; is that
    correct or not?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. It is correct to some degree. I think
    that there are a number of countries that when they start to
    be, frankly, embarrassed in the international community, they
    don't want to be the country that is behind their neighbors,
    and they don't want to lose aid. So we have seen, for instance,
    in The New York Times about 3 weeks ago, the President saying
    it was the U.S. coming to them that made them act.
        Mr. Poe. Thank you.
        Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
    gentlewoman from California.
        Ms. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask permission to
    submit my statement for the Record.
        Chairman Berman. Without objection, so ordered.
        Ms. Watson. Ambassador, there are differences in the
    definition of trafficking in persons between the U.S. and the
    international community. For example, the U.S. definition omits
    the removal of organs and makes a distinction between
    prostitution and sex trafficking. Can you explain these
    differences and can you outline the implications and how do
    these differences inhibit the effective coordination between
    nations?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I will start with the second one and
    then move backwards.
        Ms. Watson. Thank you.
        Ambassador CdeBaca. The U.S. definition, which has severe
    forms of trafficking being the parts of the trafficking fight
    that is based on the 13th Amendment's prohibition against
    involuntary servitude and slavery, is focused upon the
    involuntary servitude nature of what is being done. So whether
    that person is being held in compelled service for sex or for
    labor, they are considered to be a trafficking victim under the
    13th Amendment analysis.
        The Vienna negotiations for the U.N. Protocol, the
    exploitation of the prostitution of others, which is the way
    that the Palermo Protocol deals with the prostitution, the
    countries that have used that verbatim in their laws tell us
    over and over again that they see exploitation of the
    prostitution of others the way that we use the words ``severe
    forms of trafficking.''
        So it is not that they are saying that it is having a
    prostitute, it is exploiting the prostitute. So on that issue,
    even though the words are dissimilar, the concept of the person
    who is being held in compelled service ends up being the same.
        Where there is that difference is when it comes to the
    organ trafficking. The United States has interpreted the organ
    trafficking portion of the Palermo Protocol to criminalize
    those who would traffic a person in order to harvest their
    organ. Some countries are looking at it more expansively and
    looking at the trafficking in the organ itself.
        And so if we had somebody who, you know, cases where
    somebody was being held in servitude to have parts harvested,
    that would be a slavery situation, that would be a trafficking
    case.
        We have tried to explain to other countries, when they
    proffer their organ trafficking policy as something that meets
    our minimum standards from the TVPA or the Palermo Protocol,
    the difference between that thing, the liver or the kidney,
    what have you, and the person whose freedom is being denied
    them for the harvesting, that that is at the heart of the
    distinction that we make. It is the difference between slavery
    and illicit transport of a piece of contraband.
        Ms. Watson. Since you mentioned the purpose of trafficking
    in terms of organs and so on, do the countries see this kind of
    thing as a felony offense? Because certainly harvesting these
    different organs can certainly affect the health of a human
    being and can lead to a fatality. How do you make the
    difference?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. Unfortunately, one of the things that
    we have seen is there has been more action kind of at the U.N.
    Conference-going level than there has been at the law
    enforcement level. And I think this is one of the things that,
    you know, we have heard a lot about the trafficking of organs,
    but we haven't seen much law enforcement activity against it;
    one big exception being the case here in the United States,
    here in the United States in New Jersey, with some folks who
    are doing some illicit organ trafficking. It is actually one of
    the few criminal cases that have been done out there, and that
    was a felony charge in that case.
        Ms. Watson. Since my time is almost up, do the other
    countries, the countries most involved in sex trafficking,
    organ trafficking, and so on, do they make a distinction and do
    they penalize people according to whatever the definitions are?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. It is a little up in the air. Many of
    the countries have criminal law that simply tries to mimic the
    Palermo Protocol. Many of them are now changing that to
    something that is more closely related to the U.S. law, because
    the Palermo Protocol itself doesn't necessarily work in a
    courtroom.
        Ms. Watson. Thank you.
        Chairman Berman. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
        The gentleman from New Jersey, chairman of the African and
    Global Health Subcommittee, Mr. Payne, is recognized for 5
    minutes.
        Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. The case that you talk
    about in New Jersey with the trafficking of organs, as you
    know, is still ongoing. It was very shocking, the complexity of
    the case of immigrants coming over, predetermined that, you
    know, their organs would be sold as a part of their coming into
    the country. So we hope that the prosecution will really
    convict these people in this heinous crime.
        The fact that it is very difficult, according to a 2007 GAO
    report on human trafficking, concluded that U.S. Federal law
    enforcement agencies would benefit from improved interagency
    cooperation on investigations and prosecutions for trafficking
    crimes, including cooperation between Federal, State, and local
    enforcement elements. And I am sure that in law enforcement in
    general, this is not a new problem. It permeates the system.
        But if, as the 2007 GAO report indicated, the U.S.
    Government is having trouble with law enforcement coordination
    on human trafficking crimes, what can we reasonably expect from
    other countries which have fewer resources, fewer support and
    capabilities than what the U.S. have in combating? Have we
    tried to work with them, or is it possible to have an
    interagency cooperation?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. The GAO report was certainly correct. I
    think you are dead-on as far as seeing that as a problem in
    many of our law enforcement areas. One of the things that we
    have seen and that we are trying to mirror in this important
    civil rights crime is the experience that we had during the
    expansion of the hate crime laws in the 1990s where we realized
    that Federal hate crimes enforcement would never be able to
    capture the scope of hate crimes in the United States.
        And so States started passing hate crime statutes,
    enlisting State and local law enforcement, and culturally State
    and local law enforcement were finally ready for that. You
    started seeing State and locals in places where the Feds had to
    be the only game in town, because the local sheriff may have
    been part of the Klan that was being investigated a generation
    ago.
        We see the same thing happening in the human trafficking
    field, with all but 4 of the 56 States and territories having
    passed anti-trafficking legislation. That training is now
    getting out into the field, and we are starting to see more and
    more State cases. So we are glad that we don't have all of our
    eggs in that Federal basket.
        Taking that, then, and looking at the rest of the world,
    many of the countries that we are dealing with don't have that
    Federal system.
        There was a bilateral agreement that the Clinton
    administration entered into with Italy back in--and I want to
    say 1998--where the folks from the State Department came back
    from that meeting, having agreed with the Italians that certain
    questions would be asked of victims when they were encountered.
    The Italians, because everybody in their system reports to the
    Justice Minister and the Interior Minister, within a week or
    two, they had all of that information out into the police
    forces around Italy, more than 300 cases as a result.
        Our State Department folks came back, came over to the
    Justice Department and said, Okay, now order everybody to do
    this. And there are 17,000 independent police forces around the
    country that do not take orders from the Attorney General, as I
    think Eric Holder can attest to.
        So it ends up being much more of the cultural shift that we
    have to have here in the United States, through the long-term,
    hard-core police training, policemen and prosecutors who do
    these cases getting promoted. Hopefully that ends up reflecting
    society's wishes more than something that comes down from on
    high.
        So the types of police training, the types of structures,
    the task forces, et cetera, that we have put in place to try to
    increase that coordination, we are now taking and replicating
    those in other countries. And the countries that have stood up
    their own anti-trafficking units and had that kind of
    coordination are starting to see an impact.
        Mr. Payne. Well, I think my time has about expired, so
    thank you very much.
        Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        Ambassador, it has been wonderful to have you here. Thank
    you very much for not only your testimony here, but what you
    are doing in your position, and we want to support you.
        We are now pleased to have a second panel and if they could
    come up and take their seats. We do have a slight logistical
    problem. We really have to adjourn this hearing no later than
    12:20 p.m. or so.
        I will begin the introductions. David Abramowitz is the
    director of policy and government relations at Humanity United
    where he leads outreach efforts to the U.S. Government,
    multilateral institutions, and international NGOs and provides
    strategic counsel and advice to a broad range of grantees.
        Previously, Mr. Abramowitz served as chief counsel for this
    committee, where he worked on the Traffic Victims Protection
    Act, among many issues. He also worked at the Office of the
    Legal Adviser in the State Department.
        And I just have to add, on a personal note, that as we have
    recessed our session until after the election, we come to a
    lame-duck session and people talk about what is the agenda in
    the lame duck. I have watched Mr. Abramowitz take the William
    Wilberforce Act, the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims
    Protection Act, and knock himself out, working with friends and
    collaborators in the other body, to produce a piece of
    legislation when no one thought he had chance of doing it. This
    is a tribute to his commitment to this issue. We are really
    pleased to have him back here testifying on a subject he has
    demonstrated over and over again he cares greatly about.
        Ambassador Mark Lagon is chair of the International
    Relations and Security Concentration and visiting professor in
    the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown
    University. He is also adjunct senior fellow at the Council on
    Foreign Relations.
        Ambassador Lagon served as director of the Office to
    Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S.
    Department of State from 2007 to 2009, as Mr. Smith mentioned
    earlier. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
    for International Organization Affairs and on the staff of the
    Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he was involved in
    these issues.
        Dr. Aruna Uprety is the founder of the Rural Health
    Education Services Trust in Nepal. In 1995, Dr. Uprety began
    working with the American Himalayan Foundation on the problem
    of young girls in rural Nepal being trafficked to India. In
    addition to her work with the Rural Health Education Services
    Trust, Dr. Uprety also serves as a consultant to the United
    Nations.
        You came a long way and we are very honored that you could
    be with us today.
        Neha Misra is the senior specialist for migration and human
    trafficking at the Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO, an international
    workers rights NGO, based in Washington, DC. Previously, Ms.
    Misra was the deputy country director and program manager for
    the Solidarity Center's Countertrafficking in Persons project
    in Indonesia. Before her assignment in Indonesia, she worked in
    Bosnia and Herzegovina on postwar elections in democracy, and
    as a senior attorney adviser with the U.S. Department of
    Justice.
        Dr. Beryl D'souza heads the Health Care Initiative of the
    Dalit Freedom Network and Operation Mercy India Foundation.
    Concerned with the issue of human trafficking and HIV/AIDS in
    India, Dr. D'souza works with Dalit activists and international
    medical professionals to improve the health and well-being of
    the Dalit people.
        You also have come a long way.
        So I thank all of our witnesses. Mr. Abramowitz, why don't
    you begin with testimony? Your entire statements will be
    included in the record, and it would be great if you can
    summarize them and then we will have questioning.

       STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ABRAMOWITZ, DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND
                 GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, HUMANITY UNITED

        Mr. Abramowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Royce, and
    other distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for
    holding this very important hearing on the global fight against
    trafficking.
        My ears were burning with both Mr. Smith and yourself, Mr.
    Chairman, talking about the work that I did. I happen to know
    that Doug Anderson, who is also sitting in the room, was there
    from the beginning on the TVPA, working with Joseph Reese and
    myself, and I think that should be noted.
        At the end of the day, I remember any number of
    conversations that I had with Mr. Smith when he was the lead on
    some of the Trafficking Victim Protection Reauthorization Acts,
    as well as the act itself.
        With you, Mr. Chairman, I have to say that despite the hard
    work that we all did at the staff level, at the end of the day
    I think these things wouldn't have happened without you. I
    think you should be very proud of the work that you have done
    and the accomplishments that came from it, as Ambassador
    CdeBaca was discussing.
        It is a privilege for me to return to the committee in my
    new role as director of policy and government relations at
    Humanity United, a philanthropic organization that works to
    advance human freedom by combating modern-day slavery and to
    build peace and prevent conflict.
        Mr. Chairman, as described in my written testimony, and as
    you recognized in your opening statement, trafficking continues
    to inflict suffering on tens of millions of people around the
    globe, including here in the United States, and may even have
    undergone a surge during the current global economic downturn,
    as I think Mr. Royce was suggesting in his opening statement.
        Every victim of human trafficking, whether laboring in the
    fields where our food is grown, or in the streets where U.S.
    youth is sexually exploited, deserve the freedom to be a
    survivor.
        Mr. Chairman, at Humanity United we believe there are
    solutions to these heinous abuses but that they require a unity
    of effort between civil society, which can work directly with
    survivors; the private sector, which can ensure supply chains
    are slave-free; and governments which can implement policies to
    help end this scourge.
        In that regard, Mr. Chairman, the Trafficking Victims
    Protection Act of 2000, or TVPA, and its various
    reauthorization acts, establish a powerful framework for the
    United States which, as Mr. Smith noted, has been implemented
    vigorously by three administrations under Presidents from both
    political parties.
        In particular, the Trafficking in Persons, or TIP Report
    mandated by the TVPA, has been a tremendous tool for catalyzing
    changes. As again Mr. Royce noted, it has been an important
    element of our diplomacy.
        I ask that a document demonstrating how the TVPA has
    fostered real change, which was compiled by the Alliance to End
    Slavery and Trafficking, or ATEST, be entered into the record.
        Chairman Berman. It will be included by unanimous consent.
        Mr. Abramowitz. Mr. Chairman, as reflected in my written
    testimony, this year's TIP Report shows a dynamic analysis of
    trends in human trafficking. Countries continue to be
    downgraded as well as upgraded, and several key countries
    remain on Tier 3 and therefore subject to sanctions.
        The overall assessment of U.S. performance on the
    international front, however, remains an unfinished story. My
    written testimony raises a number of concerns, including the
    following.
        First, we need to continue to ensure that the TIP Report
    focuses on trafficking into both sexual and labor exploitation.
    This year's report continues the longstanding trend toward
    focusing a bit more on trafficking into labor exploitation. Yet
    I believe the report needs to capture more fully, for example,
    the risk facing women and children who migrate for legitimate
    labor purposes but end up being exploited sexually as well.
        During my trip to Nepal last week, activists suggested that
    as many as 90 percent of women and girls who have migrated from
    that country face such dual exploitation. I was encouraged that
    Ambassador CdeBaca alluded to these phenomena in his testimony
    today.
        Second, the administration needs to ensure continued high-
    level support for U.S. diplomacy on trafficking issues. Making
    a difference in primarily difficult cases laid out in the TIP
    Report will require high-level diplomatic intervention. For
    example, will human trafficking be raised at or around the
    President's summit with Prime Minister Singh of India later
    this year?
        Mr. Chairman, I cannot emphasize too much the importance of
    combining the TIP Report with robust diplomacy. Earlier this
    month, as Ambassador CdeBaca alluded to, Senegal successfully
    completed a first-ever prosecution of those who were benefiting
    from child begging, and Senegalese officials specifically
    stated that this prosecution occurred as a result of the TVPA.
        I believe the testimony from all members of this panel
    suggests that U.S. diplomacy needs to move toward encouraging
    better implementation of local statutes and rule of law in
    order to make a real dent in human trafficking, a view I
    strongly endorse.
        This committee also has an important role in this effort.
    Every subcommittee should ensure that human trafficking is
    raised when assistant secretaries from regional bureaus of
    State come to testify before them, so that those responsible
    for day-to-day relations in the Department are sensitized to
    the importance of this issue.
        Third, you should keep an eye on diverging approaches to
    trafficking within the U.S. Government. One of the reasons that
    it may appear that there is more focus on trafficking into
    labor exploitation is continuing differences in the executive
    branch on how to approach this issue. And I go into that more
    in my written testimony.
        Mr. Chairman, this debate is distracting government from
    its real work and should be resolved.
        Fourth, Mr. Chairman, as I laid out in my written
    testimony, you should ensure that the TIP Report is not merged
    with other human rights reports. I am happy to discuss that
    with you during the question-and-answer period.
        Finally, Mr. Chairman, my written testimony has a number of
    additional suggestions regarding how U.S. law could be improved
    in the reauthorization bill the committee will consider next
    year.
        Let me just highlight one at this point. The U.S. should
    enhance civilian protection in humanitarian crises to prevent
    trafficking when the vulnerable population often increases. I
    think this really goes to the point that Ambassador CdeBaca
    raised about taking trafficking out of being a boutique issue
    and bringing it into the mainstream.
        In particular, Mr. Chairman, I believe the committee should
    support create an emergency response fund for the TIP Office
    that can be programmed as needed.
        This was demonstrated most heavily this year after the
    Haiti earthquake. Rather than robbing Peter to pay Paul to
    address such urgent needs, an emergency fund should be
    established to deal with such unanticipated humanitarian
    crises. The Senate Appropriations Committee actually took a
    good first step this year by including language on this matter
    at the request of Senator Kerry. Institutionalizing such a fund
    in TVPA could be an important contribution to saving lives.
        Mr. Chairman, the voices of the victims and survivors of
    human trafficking are indeed heard all too often from the
    shadows. We in civil society will work with you and this
    committee to ensure that we stay on the path to eradicating
    modern-day slavery and advancing the cause of human freedom.
        Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I stand ready to answer your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Abramowitz follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Berman. Thank you very much, Mr. Abramowitz.
        Ambassador Lagon.

    STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK P. LAGON, CHAIR, INTERNATIONAL
     RELATIONS AND SECURITY CONCENTRATION, AND VISITING PROFESSOR,
         EDMUND A. WALSH SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN
                               UNIVERSITY

        Mr. Lagon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Royce and members
    of the committee for inviting me to testify on a very important
    subject, the slavery of today. I want to note that the
    committee for years has been addressing the highest imperatives
    of human rights that transcend partisan lines, and if it
    weren't for members of this committee, such as the
    indefatigable Mr. Smith, there wouldn't be a Trafficking
    Victims Protections Act or a TIP Office, so thank you.
        On its page 7, the latest TIP Report estimates that there
    are 1.8 trafficking victims for every 1,000 people in the
    world, and that is based on very conservative ILO estimate of
    12.3 million victims globally, less than half of the estimate
    of scholar Kevin Bales. So, think about it. At least 1 out of
    every 555 people in the world today is a human trafficking
    victim.
        I would like to comment on a couple of patterns today in
    the world, 10 years after the TVPA, the creation of the TIP
    Office and the Palermo Protocol, and then I would like to offer
    recommendations in four key areas of action.
        The first trend that I want to highlight relates to rule of
    law. The main tangible impact of the TVPA, the TIP Office, U.S.
    diplomacy, and the Palermo Protocol have been passage of new
    laws addressing human trafficking in well over half the
    countries of the world. Yet rule of law consists in so much
    more than law on the books, whether in the United States or in
    the least-developed countries.
        The TIP Report documents 7,992 prosecutions in the whole
    world in 2003, and then down to 5,506 prosecutions in 2009. And
    of those 5,506, only 432 were for labor-related trafficking.
    Prosecutions are limited. They are down from a few years ago
    and they are minimal for nonsexual exploitation. If we are to
    be plain, lots of effort is not apparently moving the needle of
    change a great deal. We need implementation of rule of law.
        Secondly, I am often asked where are the most significant
    places in the world for the human trafficking problem. One
    answer is India because, of those 27 million people, Kevin
    Bales estimates, who are trafficking victims in the world, some
    two-thirds are there, chiefly in bonded labor.
        China is another answer, due to migrating workers without a
    safety net; a female deficit, as Congressman Smith referred to;
    a wild-west kind of sex trade; official discrimination against
    Uyghurs and Tibetans; and a failure to treat North Koreans
    fleeing atrocious political and economic conditions as
    refugees. East Asia is of particular concern because it is a
    focus of both labor and sex-related trafficking.
        And, finally, the Gulf is a major flashpoint because if you
    are a woman or if you are a foreign guest worker, or worst of
    all, if you are both, you are likely to be treated as a lesser
    human in the Gulf.
        But despite all of these flashpoints and foci of
    trafficking, there are no lesser victims of trafficking. So I
    see another pattern 10 years after the TVPA, which contributes
    to the needle not moving as much to abolish slavery. It is the
    fissuring of efforts, the siloing of focus on particular
    groups. For instance, victims of forced labor are no less
    important than victims of sex trafficking and vice versa.
        Sex trafficking is not the only source of exploitation and
    violence against women. A couple of examples. When I was
    executive director of the NGO Polaris Project, I met two
    Chinese women in Japan who were victimized for forced labor
    under a labor training program exempt from Japanese labor law.
        Also with Polaris, I met with an African woman who was a
    human trafficking victim, served as a client by Polaris, here
    in our country, right here in Washington. And she noted she
    thought it was charming how Americans talk so much about
    cruelty to animals, but some humans like her are treated worse
    than animals.
        As the TIP Office director who I would say established the
    parity of emphasis on labor slavery, I hope the pendulum isn't
    swinging toward focus on labor to the exclusion of sex
    trafficking. On page 8 of the 2010 TIP Report, it emphasizes
    that prostitution is not trafficking.
        That may be counterproductive. I don't think prostitution
    is one and the same as slavery, but prostitution is the
    enabling environment of sex trafficking, whether in brothels or
    in seedy streets or, until recently, on Craigslist in the
    United States. Sex trafficking is the basic enabling
    environment of men fueling demand by purchasing, chiefly,
    females, and that problem of sex trafficking and the demand
    shouldn't lose attention.
        There is another serious area of fissuring. Despite what
    some at the Department of Labor or the ILO or some businesses
    think, crossing borders is not a necessary element of
    trafficking. Whether the family freed from bonded labor that I
    met in Tamil Nadu, India, or the Mexican girl I met who was
    prostituted as a minor in Chiapas, those people are every bit
    as much TIP victims as those who cross borders.
        The global fight for dignity for human trafficking victims
    requires equal value and energy accorded to all of these
    victims.
        Let me talk briefly about four things I think we need to
    do. First, we need to be an exemplar. When I was the TIP Office
    director, the essential premise was that the United States
    needed to be an exemplar in order to be an effective promoter
    of the anti-trafficking agenda internationally. I very much had
    in mind the problem of U.S. detainee policy undercutting U.S.
    promotion of freedom and credible antiterrorism policy, and
    that is a continuity between the different directors of G/TIP
    in multiple administrations.
        Under the last administration we put a profile of the
    United States into the TIP Report. We disseminated the
    Department of Justice's annual report on the U.S. record
    widely, globally. And we got the Department of Justice to
    produce it in the same month as the TIP Report.
        I would really like to commend Secretary Clinton for going
    farther, for including a profile with a ranking, with a grade,
    and more lengthy recommendations about areas of weakness.
        Let's think about the problem at home. ECPAT, the NGO,
    commented recently in reading the profile of the United States
    in the TIP Report that according to U.S. Government statistics
    from 2008 and 2009, almost three times as many prostituted
    children were arrested as offered protection and assistance in
    the United States. We have got to be an exemplar.
        Secondly, persuading other governments to do more benefits
    from offering a helping hand. It is not fully appreciated, but
    the assistance to NGOs and the most efficacious international
    organizations like the IOM is as an important part of U.S.
    policy as any. And that assistance should go to some
    governments too, those on Tier 2 and Tier 2 Watch List that
    have a will to change but deserve help.
        I commend Amabassador CdeBaca for going to Africa on his
    first trip, and it is a good signal because less-developed
    African nations need not so much grading on a curve in the TIP
    Report as tangible assistance.
        Being an exemplar and offering a helping hand are important
    complements to pressuring governments. But make no mistake:
    Pressuring governments we must. The TVPA has manifestly
    worked--in case after case we have seen how the report and the
    rankings have worked. Even among allies unused to prodding from
    the United States, Turkey, Israel, the Philippines, the UAE,
    even Ireland, as we have seen it recently appointing an anti-
    trafficking czar.
        The Wilberforce TVPA reauthorization had a tremendously
    important and welcome provision in the time limit on Tier 2
    Watch List status. Please, please conduct----
        Chairman Berman. Sir, on the time limit.
        Mr. Lagon. Okay, I will wrap up.
        Chairman Berman. No, no, just repeat on the time limit.
        Mr. Lagon. Yes. I said that the time limit on Tier 2 Watch
    List countries was probably the most valuable thing that you
    and your colleagues included in the TVPA reauthorization.
        I urge you to conduct oversight in how the Department of
    State and the executive branch deal with that time limit
    because, in fair-mindedness, you gave flexibility to the
    Secretary of State and the executive branch to defer or avert
    an automatic Tier 3 ranking if the national interest was
    involved. Play your vigorous role, as ever, in looking at how
    that is dealt with.
        And here is one other area for tougher love, which I know
    my friend David Abramowitz agrees on. One of the places where
    trafficking for labor and victimization of women converge is
    right here on U.S. soil: Diplomats mistreating domestic
    servants.
        I met with a woman from Goa, India, who was a human
    trafficking victim of a Kuwaiti official stationed here in the
    United States. She said to me, across a table, that the family
    treated her far worse as a domestic servant here in the United
    States than in Kuwait, because they felt even less reason to
    think that they would face consequences in the United States
    than in a Gulf country. That should make us pause in horror. It
    was worse in our country because of the impunity delivered by
    diplomatic immunity.
        Congress has made crystal clear in the TVPA, three times
    reauthorized, that attention should be paid to government
    officials found complicit in human trafficking. That is what we
    are talking about here and those cases should be cited
    specifically in the text of the TIP Report.
        One final recommendation. For 10 years, governments, NGOs,
    and international organizations have been dedicating sizeable
    efforts to fighting trafficking. More definitive efforts, more
    definitive results, more movement of the needle to squeeze
    trafficking and make it less profitable will come about if
    businesses work together to help.
        Let me be totally transparent here. I have been a paid
    consultant for a business engaged in corporate responsibility
    work in this area, LexisNexis Inc. In a week and a half, major
    businesses, including LexisNexis, from sectors as diverse as
    information technology, soft drinks, cosmetics, labor
    placement, energy, the auto industry, the airline industry,
    travel, entertainment and legal publishing will meet to talk
    about the feasibility of forming a Business Coalition Against
    Human Trafficking.
        Businesses need to go farther than they have to date--not
    just dialogue with the government and the U.N., not just public
    awareness campaigns that don't involve any accountability for
    their own business operations, and not just single-sector
    accountability efforts, such as in electronics, chocolate or
    hotels. We can end human trafficking if businesses are fully
    engaged. But if they are not, or if they are working in siloed
    sectors, we can't have that impact.
        Consumers are empowered by the Department of Labor report
    that indicates those goods tainted by forced and child labor.
    If those consumers knew that some businesses were actually
    trying to fight human trafficking rather than being enablers,
    those businesses would benefit.
        The TIP Report and the TIP Office have done a lot to take
    the issue of human trafficking out of the shadows. You might
    want to think here at the committee about how that office has
    done something that the State Department has had terrible
    trouble with for 10 years, public diplomacy: Raising up our
    universal values; offering the United States as a partner;
    engaging publics abroad. That is a model for other policies.
        Thank you for holding this hearing, taking this critical
    issue out of the shadows all the more.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Lagon follows:]

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        Chairman Berman. Very good. Dr. Uprety.

        STATEMENT OF ARUNA UPRETY, M.D., FOUNDER, RURAL HEALTH
       EDUCATION SERVICES AND TRUST, PARTNER, AMERICAN HIMALAYAN
               FOUNDATION'S STOP GIRL TRAFFICKING PROGRAM

        Dr. Uprety. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and other
    members of the committee for inviting me to testify today here.
    I really feel that I am representing not only the two
    organizations that I am affiliated with--Rural Health and
    Education Service Trust and American Himalayan Foundation--but
    I am also representing my brothers and sisters from Nepal who
    are trying their best to combat this problem of human
    trafficking.
        I would like to start with a story why I started this small
    organization. In 1992, when I was in Mumbai to take part in an
    international seminar on HIV/AIDS, we went to red-light areas
    and found out that there were more Mumbai working girls who
    were minors. And we talked with them, if they would like to
    come back to Nepal.
        And one of the girls looked to us and said, ``Now it is too
    late for you to ask this question. If you had asked this
    question when we were still in our village, we were not lured
    by the beautiful dreams. And if we had had education, maybe we
    didn't come here and then we would have been safe without
    dying.''
        That statement, told to us with a very sad voice, made us
    feel that we had to do something in the villages where girls
    are treated very badly. They are not given the education and
    all the time they have to do household work. Because of gender
    discrimination, these girls are very much [unintelligible] To
    see, when they are asked to come to Bombay or any of the
    beautiful cities, and that was the seed for RHEST to be
    established.
        And after establishing this organization, which started
    with 54 girls, we have now grown up to 7,500 girls, and they
    are getting education in different places, including the
    government, and at the same time we are trying to raise the
    issue of Gulf trafficking in many cases with the girls, with
    the teachers, with the committees, with their parents, and we
    have found that it has been--really worked very well.
        And when you talk about Gulf trafficking, we used to think
    that it is only in India, in some Indian cities. Now we have
    said that it doesn't mean Gulf trafficking, not only to India,
    but even in other Middle East countries like Kuwait, Saudi
    Arabia, Indonesia, where girls are lured by the beautiful
    dreams that you are going to be house maid, you will have lots
    of money, you will have a very easy job. And once they land
    there, they find that they are victims of sexual abuse, they
    are not paid, and they have to be repeatedly abused by the
    owners.
        And about only 2 months ago, we had very sad incident where
    15 Nepalese women had committed suicide because they were
    sexually exploited by their owners, and they were there with
    the hope and dreams that they earn at least $200 a month; but
    instead of that, their dead body came back to Nepal. And it was
    only because they were illiterate. They did not know where they
    were going, and they were very much--very easy to educate by
    the companies who took them. That is why we are trying to put
    so much emphasis on education of the girls. And we have found
    that if the girls can be stayed in schools, and if she will
    know that if she will go somewhere, that this is without
    knowing what she is going to do, without knowing which place
    she is going, she can be the victim of sexual abuse, forced
    labor and be the victim of HIV/AIDS.
        That is why we and many of my friends are trying to raise
    the issue in international labor as well as in the South Asian
    countries and with the strong lobby of our [unintelligible] And
    the media, Nepalese Government has started to bring some good
    things, and one of that is to raise the issue in the national
    labor. They have made Special Rapporteur of Human Trafficking
    in the Mumbai edition, and they now publish every year what are
    the problems and how it can be handled.
        And we have also started working together with the police
    force in the border area. If they find that there are some
    women and girls who look innocent and who don't know where they
    are going, to stop them and find out what they are doing, where
    they are going. And if they are not satisfied with the
    questions and answers, they give them back to their parents.
    And this has really made some progress, and we are proud to say
    that it has really helped us in some ways.
        But still we have a long way to go, because when we talk
    about forced labor and sexual trafficking, there is a big Mafia
    with the international organization, as well as lack of
    political commitment from our government, has really made this
    program in some way weak. We totally are trying hard, we are
    trying our best, but not all the time political people and
    members of Parliament listen to us, and they think it is not
    that big a problem.
        But we think that in the 21st century it is slavery. And if
    a woman, if a girl is victim of sex labor and if she is
    trafficked, it is sinful for our country. It is sinful for our
    mission, and therefore we are trying our best to do that. And
    we have found that those girls who are trafficked, they are
    mostly--they are from the indigenous group and from the Dalit
    communities.
        And from the literacy tests, we found that Dalit
    communities are where the girls and women have literacy rates
    low as 3 percent in women. It means that they are very easily
    lured by the beautiful dreams. And that is what we are trying
    to, with the help of the American Himalayan Foundation, to give
    education to the girls so that they will be in the schools and
    they would learn about the problems, they would learn about
    schools, about their lives. And we have found that we have been
    successful in some cases. Though, as they say, a thousand
    lives, a thousand lives--a long journey has to start with a
    single step. We are trying our best to start this long journey.
        And we feel that international organizations and American
    Government really can do a lot to prevent this. And one of that
    is to make the STOP Girl Trafficking program very effective. It
    has to go through the community and not only in the
    [unintelligible], but in the villages, in the subs where it is
    for the people, specifically for the trafficker, who can go
    very easily, but for the people, it is difficult to go there.
    Because sometimes we have to walk about 2 to 3 days to reach
    those places, but traffickers are so smart that they can go
    very easily.
        But we have to make sure, we have to make plans and
    programs that we also can reach it and make aware people about
    this issue of 21st century, the problems, the challenges which
    they have to face if they will be lured by those beautiful
    dreams.
        So, Mr. Chairman, I am very happy to be here to give
    testimony and I certainly hope that you will help us, the U.S.
    Government and other international organizations, will help us
    combat this problem.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Uprety follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Berman. Thank you very much. Ms. Misra.

      STATEMENT OF MS. NEHA MISRA, SENIOR SPECIALIST, MIGRATION &
             HUMAN TRAFFICKING, SOLIDARITY CENTER, AFL-CIO

        Ms. Misra. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
    committee for this opportunity to present to you the Solidarity
    Center's view of human trafficking from a labor perspective. My
    very proud immigrant mother thanks you.
        The Solidarity Center is an international NGO that promotes
    and protects workers' rights around the world, working in over
    60 countries last year. As a workers' rights organization, the
    Solidarity Center has seen firsthand how violations of workers'
    rights and lack of labor standards and protections for workers
    make them vulnerable to human trafficking.
        Human trafficking is a labor issue because it is often
    linked to the various forms of labor exploitation, and it is
    one of the worst forms of worker abuse. In 2010, a slave is not
    necessarily a person in chains or shackles; slavery is not
    simply ownership of one person over another.
        Modern-day slavery can be much more subtle. Trafficking
    victims toil in factories that produce products that are
    exported to the United States. They harvest vegetables and
    process food that ends up on our dining room tables. They pick
    crops or mine minerals that are raw materials in the products
    we buy. They make the clothes and the shoes that we wear. They
    clean people's homes and take care of the young, elderly, and
    the sick. They are enslaved, not only through physical
    restraint, but also through coercion, fear and intimidation. In
    today's global economy, workers can be enslaved by threats of
    deportation, lack of viable alternatives, and especially debt.
        There are many facets that make labor trafficking thrive
    around the world, and I just want to mention a few of these.
    One of them is the particular vulnerability of immigrant or
    migrant workers to human trafficking. Unsafe migration
    processes and the lack of labor or legal protections for
    immigrant workers make them easy targets for traffickers in the
    form of unscrupulous labor recruiters and employers.
        Migrant workers are specifically excluded from the
    protection of labor laws in many countries simply because of
    their foreign status or because of the sector that they work
    in, including in the United States, such as domestic work or
    agriculture. Traffickers take advantage of this exclusion and
    the failure to monitor and enforce laws in sectors where
    migrant workers or immigrant workers work, and this increases
    the vulnerability of these workers to human trafficking.
        It is not just undocumented immigrant workers that are
    vulnerable, but we are increasingly seeing in the United States
    and around the world legal immigrant workers being trafficked
    under what are called either temporary or guest worker
    programs. There are inherent structural flaws in temporary
    guest worker programs around the world that increases the
    vulnerability of foreign or immigrant workers to trafficking,
    such as being tied to a particular employer that doesn't allow
    you, if the employer is abusing you, to leave. If you do try to
    leave, you face deportation.
        A common theme for both documented and undocumented migrant
    workers, Mr. Chairman, is what you mentioned in your opening
    remarks which I would like to highlight, which is the world of
    labor recruiters and debt bondage. Increasingly around the
    world, we are really seeing the use by employers and by workers
    who are seeking to find work outside of their homes, they are
    using labor recruiters; and these labor recruiters are charging
    thousands of dollars to workers for the privilege of laboring
    for somebody else. And it is really these fees and these
    charges that are being placed on workers that is creating the
    situation of debt bondage.
        The other area that I would like to emphasize where labor
    trafficking is thriving is within supply chains. It is
    difficult to quantify the exact number of trafficking victims
    that work in global supply chains, but as supply chains reach
    down to smaller and smaller suppliers, the chances increase
    that trafficking victims are part of the labor force.
        The Solidarity Center believes the most effective way to
    eliminate forced labor, debt bondage, and other forms of
    slavery in supply chains is by empowering workers to have a
    voice in their workplace and supporting the right to organize
    and join unions.
        The existence of codes of conduct in multinational
    corporation policies have failed to curtail trafficking
    practice in a number of sectors, including garment, textile,
    agriculture, and seafood processing. There is no easy solution
    to this problem, but we know that a key deterrent is the
    ability of unions and labor rights organizations to shine a
    light on these practices through on-the-ground investigations.
        We believe that it is important for Congress and the
    administration to support such monitoring efforts and the
    efforts of workers to monitor their own workplaces. In order to
    get rid of trafficking in supply chains, we have to focus on
    corporate accountability and not just corporate social
    responsibility.
        Governments also must play a major role in eliminating
    slavery in supply chains. There are examples around the world
    of governments' reluctance to hold employers accountable for
    trafficking in the workplace. When they do address trafficking
    for labor exploitation in the supply chain, they often blame
    the labor recruiter and don't hold the end-user, the employer
    who is exploiting the worker, liable for that trafficking. When
    cases are prosecuted, they also result in just small fines and
    no jail time for the perpetrators, which is barely a deterrent
    for exploitative employers.
        I would also like to emphasize the importance of the
    Trafficking in Persons Report in highlighting labor
    trafficking. I have dealt with a lot of governments around the
    world who have complained to me about the Trafficking in
    Persons Report, but I have to tell you that it has been
    extremely important in Solidarity Center's work in being able
    to leverage and push governments to address issues of labor
    trafficking. Without this report, without being able to point
    to it and having cases of, such as in the Gulf, where legal
    migrant workers are trafficked for forced labor, it would be
    very difficult for us to get these governments to move.
        So just in closing, in the interest of time, I would just
    like to highlight a few key initiatives that I think we need to
    focus on to address labor trafficking. These include reforming
    labor and other laws to include and protect immigrants and
    domestic workers.
        Also, we have to pay equal attention to not just passing
    better laws but also implementing, monitoring, and enforcing
    these laws. This includes a greater role for labor inspectors.
    Labor inspectors must be engaged in and be an integral part of
    law enforcement initiatives to combat human trafficking. I have
    been to countries where literally there have been 5 to 10 labor
    inspectors for an entire country to monitor the situation for
    migrant workers, and that is just not going to help us solve
    this problem.
        In addition, labor inspectors have to be given special
    training to know how, when they go into workplaces, what are
    the questions they need to ask that go beyond just the initial
    questions to find trafficking in the workplace.
        We need to ensure that victims of labor trafficking not
    only participate in criminal prosecutions, but are also given
    access to civil suits where they can get withheld or back
    wages.
        As I said earlier, we have to ensure that employers are
    held accountable for their role in labor trafficking and that
    they are held accountable not just for what they do but also
    for what the labor recruiters that they hire and the
    subcontractors that they hire, the abuses that they commit in
    their supply chains.
        We have to place greater emphasis on safer migration
    processes for workers. And we have to have increased scrutiny
    of imports and exports to ensure that goods made from slave
    labor are not allowed into the marketplace. This also includes
    reviewing and reworking the role of ICE in overseas
    inspections.
        We have to have strict regulation of labor recruiters in
    employment agencies, and we must have a strict policy of no
    fees being charged to workers, period.
        We have to extend meaningful whistleblower protections to
    trafficked workers which allow workers and their
    representatives to sue to enforce all State, Federal, local,
    and employment laws, as well as the conditions in workers'
    contracts, without having to face deportation or removal.
        And, finally, we need to put increased pressure and
    monitoring on States to include trafficking for labor
    exploitation into anti-trafficking laws and regulations and to
    increase prosecutions of labor traffickers, including
    employers, as the perpetrators of human trafficking.
        Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Misra follows:]

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        Chairman Berman. Well, thank you very much. You talked
    about a lot of issues that I have been interested in for a long
    time.
        Dr. D'souza?

      STATEMENT OF BERYL D'SOUZA, M.D., MEDICAL DIRECTOR AND ANTI-
       HUMAN TRAFFICKING DIRECTOR IN INDIA, DALIT FREEDOM NETWORK

        Dr. D'souza. Thank you, Congressman Berman, for organizing
    this most significant hearing and inviting me to appear today
    with this prestigious panel.
        I would like to speak about India's progress in combating
    human trafficking, the challenges looming ahead, and four
    approaches to the crisis that are seeing success.
        Of the 28 million people around the world that the U.N.
    considers human slaves, the U.N. recognizes that most live in
    India and most are Dalits. Today, Dalits are the largest number
    of people categorized as modern-day slaves. So we really cannot
    have a discussion about human trafficking and not look at India
    and regard the problem of the Dalits.
        Because of their poverty and the resulting desperation and
    lack of options, trafficking is not simply a problem the Dalits
    face, it is an atrocity that has swept Dalit culture in all
    parts of the nation. Debt bondage is the Dalit destiny most
    feared. It is inherent in every Dalit religion and the life of
    every Dalit person. Their lack of access to education, health
    care, and a living wage leaves most Dalits resigned to a
    hopelessness that, without an intervention, will not change.
        The 2010 TIP Report placed India on the Tier 2 Watch List
    for the 7th year and defined it as a nation in which the number
    of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant
    or is significantly increasing.
        I am the daughter of a Dalit woman. I have dedicated my
    life to joining others in my country to end Dalit trafficking.
        Despite the bleakness of the situation, especially for
    India's 250 million Dalits, India is making progress in
    combating human trafficking. First, and most notably, the
    country's top leaders have spoken into the public record that
    human trafficking is India's number-one social problem, with
    estimates of 100 million people involved----
        Chairman Berman. Who has said that?
        Dr. D'souza. This has been----
        Chairman Berman. The government you say?
        Dr. D'souza. Yes, our home minister.
        Chairman Berman. Thank you.
        Dr. D'souza [continuing]. A crisis that should be dealt
    with by all stakeholders with a stern and iron hand.
        Second, there are committed individuals using their
    position to end this crisis. The 2010 TIP Report recognized Mr.
    Sattaru Umapathi as one of the nine global heroes. An anti-
    human-trafficking officer, he led rescue operations,
    contributed to multiple convictions, forged partnerships with
    NGOs, and educated his state law enforcement community about
    victim rights. He is a true champion for victims everywhere.
        Third, dedicated NGOs are combating trafficking through
    rescue and restore, as well as preventive and preemptive
    programs. The NGO with which I am affiliated, the Dalit Freedom
    Network, and all its India partners are driving into the
    problems from both on-ramps and seeing results.
        But there are still major challenges looming ahead for
    India. As we anticipate the publication of the 2011 TIP Report,
    we recognize that India is at serious risk for demotion to Tier
    3 if significant efforts at improvement are not initiated and
    registered in the next 6 months.
        Only 7 percent of India's police personnel have received
    anti-trafficking training. The government's anti-human-
    trafficking units lack sufficient personnel and funding. The
    existing laws, while substantive, do not focus on the rights
    and needs of victims. There are a low number of prosecutions
    and convictions of known traffickers.
        Due to lack of time, I will conclude with four approaches
    that are gaining traction and can serve as a template for other
    nations.
        First, we are seeing that the end of trafficking begins
    with education. Education changes a nation. The education of
    India's most vulnerable children becomes the most significant
    means of preventing the selling and exploitation of these
    children into the workforce and the sex trade.
        We educate Dalit children so they are worth more than the
    meager income they can make in the factories employing them. To
    date, there are 100 of these schools and nearly 25,000 children
    enrolled. Approximately 30 percent of the children are children
    of bonded laborers. They are studying hard, learning English,
    and preparing for a higher education and a future that does not
    know desperate poverty.
        Education is a preemptive strike in any nation in which its
    most vulnerable children are at risk of being trafficked.
        Second, the end of trafficking draws near when we
    economically empower marginalized populations. No longer are
    prostitution and debt bondage the only options for the poor.
    Dalits are being trained in marketable skills, finance
    management, and being offered micro loans to establish their
    own businesses and earn enough income so that they do not fall
    prey to fraudulent money lenders that demand exorbitant
    interest so that even a small loan can never be repaid. We
    cannot underestimate the horrors that follow when poor parents
    are forced to sell their own children in an attempt to pay down
    their debts.
        Third, human trafficking is deterred when societies pursue
    health care for all its citizens. Preventative health care,
    health hygiene, HIV and AIDS education, and safe labor
    practices all promote healthy communities and produce healthy
    economic factors. Most Dalits are forced into debt bondage
    because of a medical crisis that could have been avoided
    through proper health care.
        Finally, we find that advocacy efforts in India and abroad
    are yielding positive results and should continue to be
    specific and targeted, beginning with internal advocacy before
    the Indian Government and extending to our international allies
    who seek to stand with us before their own government in our
    united efforts to end Dalit trafficking.
        Thank you, again, Congressman Berman and this committee.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. D'souza follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Berman. Well, thank you all very much. It was
    fascinating and important.
        I am going to yield 5 minutes to my colleague, Mr. Royce,
    to begin the questioning.
        Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
        And I will ask Dr. D'souza a question.
        In your written testimony, you mentioned Prime Minister
    Singh's statement. His statement was, ``Even after 60 years of
    constitutional and legal protection and support, there is still
    social discrimination against Dalits in many parts of our
    country. Dalits have faced a unique discrimination in our
    society that is fundamentally different from the problems of
    minority groups in general.'' That was his quote.
        How important was his statement, and how has it affected
    the treatment of Dalits as a consequence of that statement?
        Dr. D'souza. Yes, I think Prime Minister Singh deserves an
    accolade for his bold statement and being bold enough to
    address the issue of human trafficking and the relationship to
    the Dalit atrocities and the Dalit situation in India.
        I think the entire issue of Dalits has been a political
    issue in the Indian Government ever since we have had our
    independence. And by boldly declaring that as an issue, it has
    led to more preemptive measures, both from within the
    government as well as with the nongovernmental organizations,
    to deal with this significant problem.
        Mr. Royce. Do you think it has changed in any significant
    way the perception and maybe led to a situation where Dalits
    are less susceptible to human trafficking? Do you think it has
    an impact among Dalits and amongst society in general that has
    assisted?
        Dr. D'souza. Absolutely. I think Prime Minister Singh
    addressing and accepting the issue of Dalits from the Indian
    Government stance has been seen very welcomed by the Dalit
    community. The fact that they are being quantified, the fact
    that they are being addressed and their rights are being
    discussed has been very significant.
        Mr. Royce. The TIP Report recognizes certain heroes. One
    that they elevate you mentioned, Sattaru--do I say
    ``Umapathi''?
        Dr. D'souza. That is right.
        Mr. Royce. Okay. He is the anti-human-trafficking officer
    in Andhra Pradesh. His work, of course, has led to multiple
    convictions of human traffickers. A lot of NGOs now across
    India have formed a partnership as a result of his activity and
    in Tamil Nadu, as well.
        Aside from highlighting his good work, how can we export
    some of the lessons? How do we expand on what is being done in
    those states and get other states involved? What are some of
    the ideas that might suffice to build the momentum on this?
        Dr. D'souza. Well, again, I would like to appreciate what
    has been discussed by Ambassador CdeBaca in the initial part
    about how trafficking should not be seen as a boutique issue
    but more a basic primary human-rights issue. And how, by
    accolading Umapathi, we are actually encouraging various law
    enforcement agencies within our country, different states
    across the country, to look at it as the significant issue it
    is and to encourage behavior, to exchange information, to
    exchange resources, to exchange best practices. That is the way
    to go ahead.
        Mr. Royce. We find that some of the answers here in the
    United States, too, are training of law enforcement. What was
    the percentage you gave on training today in trafficking?
        Dr. D'souza. It is about 7 percent of our police personnel.
        Mr. Royce. Yes.
        Dr. D'souza. It is only 7 percent of our police personnel
    that have had adequate training in regard to dealing with
    victims of human trafficking.
        Mr. Royce. Your point is, if that became a focus, along
    with the education of young women and young people and their
    equal opportunity through education, that that, more than
    anything else, would----
        Dr. D'souza. That is right.
        Mr. Royce. What are some of the ways that we might be able
    to promote the advocacy for education for everybody in society,
    including Dalits?
        Dr. D'souza. Again, access. Advocating for education and
    making sure it is accessible to everybody. In our country or in
    other different countries where you have so many social
    injustices all connected and so intertwined that it seems
    impossible to actually do any progress, you have to work
    together in a concerted manner to ensure equal opportunity,
    whether it is access to education, whether it is access to
    universal health care. Because these are the really critical
    roots that will actually ensure development happening.
        Mr. Royce. Thank you very much, Dr. D'souza.
        Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Berman. Well, thank you.
        And I yield myself time. We are approaching this moment
    where I have to leave. I would love to stay. The great thing
    about being the last person to question and the chairman is
    that if I had the time, there are threads here that I would
    like to pursue for the next half hour with you, and I am not
    going to be able to.
        But there was an interesting connection between much of the
    testimony that all of you gave in a certain way, even though
    different things were focused on. So, Ambassador Lagon talks
    about the focus on the prosecution side of it and raises the
    implication of, are we doing enough in the area of both
    protection and prevention?
        And then Dr. Uprety describes a very specific situation of
    young Nepalese women and girls lured by their dreams, and there
    is nothing in their education at home or in school that points
    out the dangers of what could befall you, and how many people
    could avoid being victims of human trafficking by just focusing
    on that aspect of making people aware of the pitfalls of doing
    some of the things that they are enticed to do at a point where
    they still are not in harm's way.
        And then Dr. D'souza adds the notion that maybe you also
    need a component of other alternatives, not just the warnings
    of what could befall you, but the notion that there are other
    opportunities, other avenues.
        And then Ms. Misra spoke. I have been very interested in
    the issues of migrant labor and how to deal with the
    exploitation that comes from it. But the point that all of you,
    and particularly Ms. Misra, have driven home is that
    exploitation turns into a slavery, trafficking kind of--is a
    fairly thin line between getting shorted on your paycheck and
    in the end being held, in a sense, in bondage.
        And we have talked about, how do you get through some of
    this? If you are going to have guest-worker programs to deal
    with labor shortages in certain areas, like farming, to what
    extent could Mexico, as a government, be the source of
    selection, protection of the workers who would be coming over,
    rather than private recruiters working on behalf of grower
    interests here, but charging the person more than, in effect,
    the grower for bringing them in. If you could turn it into a
    bit of a government-to-government thing, you could avoid many
    of those issues.
        And the notion that you are stuck in that situation with
    one employer and that your alternatives are staying there under
    what could be horrid conditions or going back to your home
    country, rather than that person knowing that he could lose the
    worker to another grower or employer who isn't engaging in
    those kinds of practices could be a great deterrent.
        So these are very interesting things.
        I want to ask Mr. Abramowitz one question, though. You
    talked in your testimony about urging us to focus on the
    importance of the administration's implementation of the new
    features of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization
    Act of 2008 relating to moving countries from Tier 2 Watch List
    to Tier 3, where the sanction would apply, and the question of
    Presidential waivers.
        Spell that out a little bit. What should we be concerned
    about here?
        Mr. Abramowitz. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think this came up in
    several of the other testimonies, including Ambassador Lagon as
    well as Dr. D'souza. As was referenced, the TVPRA of 2008
    amended the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 so that,
    rather than countries being able to stay on the Tier 2 Watch
    List forever--which has been the situation with a number of
    countries, including India, China, and Russia--after 2 years,
    they are going to have to go down to Tier 3 if they haven't
    been able to move up.
        I think that this is going to cause a lot of hydraulic
    pressure on the Trafficking in Persons Office to try to find
    ways, for example, as Mr. Royce suggests might have happened to
    Cambodia, to move them up from the Tier 2 Watch List up to Tier
    2 so that they can avoid that, because this is the second year
    for a number of those countries.
        The alternative to that, though, is, if it is determined
    that there is no real progress being made, let's say within
    India because it goes from 7 percent to 7.1 percent of the
    number of police officers trained, then those countries are
    going to fall down to Tier 3 and, therefore, be subject to
    sanctions.
        I would rather have an honest assessment, have the
    countries fall down, and then the President make a
    determination as to whether assistance needs to be cut off or
    not. However, I do think that there is some risk that, if a
    number of countries do go down to Tier 3 and there is a wide
    range of waivers that the President then implements--because,
    in India, we need to continue cooperation, or Russia, we need
    to continue democracy assistance, whatever the national
    interest is--then I think there is a possibility that the
    officials in foreign countries will say, Oh, this is not a big
    problem because the President will just waive for us.
        I do think that the name and shame issue remains something
    that is a very, very powerful motivator. It is not just because
    of the threat of sanctions, but Ambassador CdeBaca said today
    that the threat of sanctions is a component of that.
        So my own view is that we need to try to see if the
    administration will not only continue on its assessment but
    also will look at maybe, perhaps, targeted waivers of
    assistance that really go to pushing forward rather than just
    wholesale waivers in the national interest.
        Chairman Berman. My time has more than expired. I didn't
    realize the gentlelady was here. Could I invite the gentlelady
    to take over the questioning and the chair? Because I have to
    go someplace where you may be joining me very soon.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, in light of that, can I just
    take 3 minutes or so and not hold you?
        Chairman Berman. All right. The gentlelady is recognized
    for 3 minutes.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Okay. I did not want to miss this hearing,
    Mr. Chairman, because I think the issues before us are so very
    vital. And I had an overlapping immigration hearing that,
    likewise, is facing a number of concerns.
        So let me say that human trafficking is the most dastardly
    attack on human dignity and the values that one holds for the
    respect we have for humanity. We cannot describe it any way
    other than that it cuts off and extinguishes the life of
    someone without killing them, and particularly women who are
    vulnerable and with great--women and children, in particular.
        We were holding a hearing in the Judiciary Committee on
    human trafficking in the United States. So none of us are
    immune from this. And I want to thank the chairman for this
    hearing. Coming out of the shadows is very important.
        Let me ask two questions. And I am just selectively--David,
    because we have worked together--to highlight the vileness of
    it. But what should our first aim be if we want to take the
    high goal of extinguishing human trafficking around the world?
        And then, if I could ask Aruna, if you would, likewise,
    tell us the lowest ebb that victims fall into and what we
    should do for those victims.
        David?
        Mr. Abramowitz. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee.
        It is very hard because there are so many different
    interventions that we need to consider. I think what Dr. Uprety
    is doing in terms of trying to educate women and girls, in
    particular, and also offering, as was said, some hope for the
    future, through talking about additional educational
    opportunities and so on, is an important part of the prevention
    piece.
        I think that in terms of trying to ensure that we use our
    diplomacy to try to make sure that discriminated populations,
    like Dr. D'souza said, are really highlighted, I think that Mr.
    Royce, one of the things that we should think about is trying
    to see if the President can raise the issue of the Dalits in
    some way. I think if the First Lady were to meet with Dalits
    while she was in India, that would have an amazing----
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Raise the issue--I am sorry?
        Mr. Abramowitz. Of Dalits--that is, the discriminated
    populations in India that have historical social discrimination
    against them. If she were to meet with a Dalit population and
    talk about the importance of education, those kinds of steps
    can have an important impact on raising issues in ways that are
    difficult to quantify but I think could have a real impact.
        I will just leave it at that and turn it over to Dr.
    Uprety.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much.
        Doctor?
        Dr. Uprety. From my discussion with the police officers
    before I came here, we have found that girls below 12 had also
    been trafficked. And, from my personal experience, when I had
    been in some places where children are trafficked for circus, a
    9-year-old girl had been trafficked from a district of Nepal to
    India. And later on, after 2 or 3 years, she came back, and now
    she is one of our students.
        So, if you will look at that, children below 10 can also be
    trafficked, and 12, 13 also can be trafficked. And that is the
    saddest part of this human trafficking.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. So, we need to, in conclusion, Mr.
    Chairman, take this to the highest level of our psychic, be as
    hostile against it as possible, and let people know that, when
    you are trafficked, you are also sexually violated and abused.
        And I join you--I know the First Lady has many issues. She
    is an eloquent spokesperson. And so I would like to join in
    that effort and join, also, as raising my voice against this
    dastardly deed.
        Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Berman. Thank you.
        While I would really love to pursue some of the things
    more, we can't. We are going to rush off to something else; I
    think all three of us have to do that and we are very grateful
    you came. We are going to follow up on your testimony and your
    suggestions and take it very seriously and maybe even raise
    this issue in our next meet meeting.
        Thank you very much.
        Mr. Abramowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

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         Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

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    Material submitted for the record by Mr. David Abramowitz, Director of
                Policy and Government Relations, Humanity United

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    Material submitted for the record by Aruna Uprety, M.D., Founder, Rural
       Health Education Services and Trust, Partner, American Himalayan
                   Foundation's Stop Girl Trafficking Program

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