    [House Hearing, 113 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

      REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING

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

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                NOVEMBER 4, 2013

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 113-88

                                   __________

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                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                     EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
    CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey     ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
    ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida         ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
    DANA ROHRABACHER, California             Samoa
    STEVE CHABOT, Ohio                   BRAD SHERMAN, California
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina           GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
    MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas             ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
    TED POE, Texas                       GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    MATT SALMON, Arizona                 THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
    TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania             BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
    JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina          KAREN BASS, California
    ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois             WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
    TOM COTTON, Arkansas                 ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
    PAUL COOK, California                JUAN VARGAS, California
    GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina       BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
    RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas            JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
    SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania                Massachusetts
    STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas                AMI BERA, California
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida                ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
    TREY RADEL, Florida                  GRACE MENG, New York
    DOUG COLLINS, Georgia                LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
    TED S. YOHO, Florida                 JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
    LUKE MESSER, Indiana

         Amy Porter, Chief of Staff      Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director

                   Jason Steinbaum, Democratic 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..........................................................     7
    The Honorable Tony Rackauckas, district attorney, Orange County,
      Office of the Orange County District Attorney..................    22
    Ms. Kay Buck, executive director and chief executive officer,
      Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking.....................    27
    Ms. Angela Guanzon, survivor of international trafficking,
      Member, CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus and National Survivor
      Network........................................................    33
    Ms. Carissa Phelps, chief executive officer, Runaway Girl, FPC...    37

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    The Honorable Luis CdeBaca: Prepared statement...................    11
    The Honorable Tony Rackauckas: Prepared statement................    25
    Ms. Kay Buck: Prepared statement.................................    29
    Ms. Angela Guanzon: Prepared statement...........................    34
    Ms. Carissa Phelps: Prepared statement...........................    39

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing notice...................................................    52
    Hearing minutes..................................................    53
    The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign
      Affairs: Department of Justice statement for the record........    55

      REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING

                                  ----------

                            MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013

                           House of Representatives,

                         Committee on Foreign Affairs,

                                Washington, DC.

        The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:17 a.m., in
    the Titan Student Union Building, California State University-
    Fullerton, 800 North College Boulevard, Fullerton, California,
    Hon. Edward R. Royce (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Chairman Royce. This hearing will come to order. I am going
    to ask everyone, if you could find a seat and we will begin on
    our Human Trafficking Field Hearing.
        Let me also say that we are pleased to be joined today by a
    number of organizations here in Orange County that have been
    very involved with a task force that I put together some time
    ago in order to try to bring organizations in the community
    together with law enforcement--some representation from the
    bench to try and come up with some solutions to the trafficking
    problems. This time we will just mention that we have some
    people in the audience, who will go nameless, who work with the
    Federal Bureau of Investigation, but we appreciate their good
    service.
        But some of the others I am going to ask to stand for a
    minute and be recognized: Bob Smith with F.A.C.E.S.S.; Cheryl
    Pittluck from Vineyard Anaheim Human Trafficking Ministry;
    Chris Bauer, Saddleback Justice and Trafficking Initiative;
    Claude Arnold, Special Agent in Charge with ICE; Guido Hajenius
    with iEmpathize; Je'net Kreitner with Grandma's House of Hope;
    Joyce Capelle with Crittenton Services, Children and Families--
    been around since the 1880s helping girls; Kimberly Yim, San
    Clemente Abolitionists; Leigh Dundas with A21 Project; Linh
    Tran of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force; Marji
    Iacovetti, ZOE Children's Home; Paula Daniels, Forgotten
    Children; Chief Raul Quezada, Anaheim PD; Sandra Morgan, Global
    Center for Women and Justice; Sherri Harris from the Salvation
    Army--their network that works with human trafficking; and
    Stephanie Pollaro and Wendy Dailey, co-founders of
    International Sanctuary.
        We thank them for their help on the legislation that we
    have authored. And I also thank my colleagues, who I am going
    to introduce in a minute, for their trip out here to
    California.
        But we must thank California State University, my alma
    mater here, today as well for making this venue possible, and
    our acting ranking member, Congresswoman Karen Bass. Many of
    you know that she is the former speaker here in the Assembly in
    California. She has been a leader on this issue.
        [Applause.]
        Chairman Royce. And we are working with her on this
    bipartisan legislation. We appreciate her trip out here. Randy
    Weber, we appreciate you coming all the way from Texas. Dana
    Rohrabacher, Congressman, we appreciate you and all your work
    as well.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. All the way from Costa Mesa.
        Chairman Royce. All the way from Costa Mesa. [Laughter.]
        And Alan Lowenthal will be here shortly all the way from
    Long Beach.
        But I am proud, I must say, of the work the Foreign Affairs
    Committee has done over the years, and all of these members
    serve on the committee with me, on human trafficking. In 2000,
    our committee put forward legislation that was focused on what
    we could do to force other countries around the world to put in
    place standards and to start to combat human trafficking. The
    consequence of that legislation is that we now we have 130
    countries around the world over that period of time that have
    strengthened laws on their books. And the reason they do it is
    a simple one: They try to stay out of a report that the State
    Department now does every year that shames them for their
    failure to comply with efforts to try to stop the trafficking
    of underage girls and try to stop the trafficking with respect
    to labor trafficking.
        And so, we have these tier rankings that we do, and part of
    our efforts in Congress has been to increase the pressure,
    increase the standards. And as we are traveling and meeting
    with foreign heads of state, this does come up. This does come
    up. They complain about the report, but they try to comply with
    it. And we think that continued vigilance is what is called for
    on that front.
        We appreciate that our top point person in the world is
    here, who has the role of traveling, and he is headed to
    Algeria a little later after his appearance here in California.
    But he is Ambassador CdeBaca, and many of you know he has had a
    rather prominent role in forcing this issue internationally,
    and we are pleased that he is with us today. Thank you,
    Ambassador.
        Trafficking is a global problem, but unfortunately for us
    it is not a far-away problem. And I mentioned here in Orange
    County some of the statistics, some of the things that the
    District Attorney's Office has shared with me. We have had a
    doubling of trafficking in underage girls every year for the
    last 3 years that those working in community-based
    organizations offering services have noticed in the community.
    And it is because of the expertise established by some of these
    criminal syndicates in the use, for example, of Romeos to find
    underage girls, to find a girl maybe 14 years old, convince her
    to leave her State, come to California, leave her ties with her
    family, and then begin the process of moving in with them. And
    before they know it, they are being beaten and trafficked.
        And as the District Attorney will tell you, it is those
    beatings which establish something of a Stockholm syndrome-type
    situation where that child is now afraid to testify against the
    individual who has done it. And now he sells her into a
    criminal syndicate that deals in these underage girls.
        We especially appreciate the work of the police
    departments, including the Anaheim PD--they are represented
    here today--in their efforts across this county and in southern
    California to try to prosecute. And for that reason, many of
    the organizations that we mentioned here today were involved in
    the passage of a Statewide initiative in California, Statewide
    proposition, which went into effect this year. And as a result
    of that law, we have our first conviction of an individual who
    was trafficking underage girls. In this case, he had taken her
    from Bakersfield to Sacramento, a 13-year-old, and he received,
    as I recall, some 32 years in prison for that act.
        This new legislation has teeth, but in talking to the
    prosecutors, what they say is they also need additional
    legislation not only to attack the problem of trafficked
    underage girls and labor trafficking out of countries in the
    United States, and we have legislation to do that, but also
    additional legislation to try to make it easier for
    prosecutions to go forward by creating an environment for
    underage girls especially to have an element of safety and be
    able to come forward and testify. So we are going to discuss
    some of those issues.
        But we held a committee hearing in May on this issue and
    had one of the supervisors from Los Angeles County, Don Knabe,
    tell about his experiences and the discovery that girls 10, 12
    years old were being trafficked in Los Angeles County and some
    of the steps that the county took.
        Well, going forward, we want to build on that work. The
    Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force has assisted 250
    victims. Ninety-three percent of them are women. Eighty of them
    were from foreign countries. A third of them are recruited in
    foreign countries by unscrupulous labor recruiters. Our
    legislation, the legislation that I have introduced, the
    Fraudulent Overseas Recruitment and Trafficking Elimination
    Act, requires that foreign workers be given accurate
    information about the terms of employment and anti-trafficking
    protections under U.S. law. It prohibits recruitment fees or
    hidden charges used as coercive leverage over workers. No
    longer can you get them into debt bondage. It requires the
    foreign labor recruiters to register. They have got to remain
    in good standing with the Department of Labor.
        Why do all of this? Because it gives us a ground for
    prosecution when people are involved in bringing trafficking
    into the United States. And it provides new incentives for law
    enforcement to ensure that recruiters and employers fall under
    a series of penalties and fees and consequences.
        So I look forward to the input from our expert testimony
    here today. And as my chief of staff can tell you, based on all
    her volunteer work with underage girls trafficked in India and
    in Cambodia, and there the average age when girls are
    trafficked is 11. She says you do not see the harm of human
    trafficking most clearly in numbers or statistics. You see it
    in the eyes of the individual person whose life is being stolen
    and whose dignity is being assaulted for the profit of someone
    else.
        We will hear today thankfully that in southern California,
    some of our organizations are on the cutting edge to fight
    trafficking and rescue and protect victims. And I want to thank
    our witnesses, but especially in closing I want to thank our
    courageous survivors who will testify, for being here to share
    their insights, share their expertise with our committee. And
    your message will be heard loud and wide, and certainly taken
    back to Washington, DC.
        We will now go to Congresswoman Karen Bass from Los
    Angeles.
        Ms. Bass. Well, thank you very much and good morning,
    everyone. I want to thank Chairman Royce for convening this
    hearing and in general for his leadership on the Foreign
    Affairs Committee, as well as his commitment to eradicating
    human trafficking. I know he is your congressional
    representative, but you should know that all of us are very
    honored to serve under his leadership on the committee.
        Although trafficking impacts every country across the
    globe, it is far too often unspoken and in the shadows. It is
    my hope that today's hearing will shed light on both the global
    statistics as well as the local trends right here in southern
    California. By learning more about the regional strategies
    utilized to stop this exploitation, we will surely be better
    prepared to strengthen our prevention, protection, and
    prosecution efforts both here at home and abroad. I look
    forward to sharing the solutions discussed here today with our
    colleagues back in Washington.
        In 2012, according to the International Labor Organization,
    nearly 21 million individuals worldwide were subjected to
    conditions of human trafficking. Unfortunately, the U.S. is not
    immune to this problem. The State Department's ``Trafficking in
    Persons Report'' outlined that the U.S. is a source, transit,
    and destination country for labor and sex trafficking of men,
    women, and children. While the assessment has been helpful in
    highlighting certain types of trafficking, it does not include
    raw new data recently reported about the domestic minor
    victims.
        In 2013, 60 percent of the child sex trafficking victims
    recovered as a part of an FBI nationwide raid from over 70
    cities were children from foster care or group homes. This
    issue is very close to me personally because it greatly impacts
    Los Angeles, and our Nation's foster youth are a vulnerable,
    yet resilient population that we remove from their homes and we
    pledge to keep them safe. In fact, in Los Angeles County alone,
    hundreds of youth are commercially exploited each year. In 2012
    in Los Angeles, 78 percent of the girls identified as victims
    of trafficking were current or former foster youth.
        Despite these statistics, few child welfare employees have
    been adequately trained or are prepared to respond to child
    victims of trafficking. And fewer still have incorporated
    policies, protocols, and case management techniques to serve
    this population appropriately. It is absolutely unacceptable to
    allow the continued victimization and abuse of a population
    that we have vowed to care for and protect.
        That is why my fellow colleagues on the Foreign Affairs
    Committee and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Foster
    Youth, Representative Tom Marino, and I have introduced the
    Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act. Our bill will do
    three things. It would ensure that child welfare agencies
    create plans to prevent the exploitation and provide
    appropriate services to victims. It would create a best
    practices toolkit for child welfare agencies. And it would
    provide accurate State-by-State and national statistics in a
    comprehensive report to Congress.
        As Federal legislators, we have a tremendous opportunity to
    ensure that local plans to prevent exploitation are in place,
    as well as collect the necessary national data to inform future
    Federal strategies. While many of the social services needed to
    properly serve trafficked youth may require a monetary
    investment, these first steps do not require additional Federal
    funding.
        But congressional action is not enough. We must undertake a
    whole of society and a whole of government approach that works
    to ensure the safety and dignity of trafficking victims and
    acknowledges that human trafficking affects U.S. citizens and
    foreign nationals as well as millions of adults and children,
    men and women worldwide.
        I look forward to hearing the testimony today, and I, along
    with my colleagues, really want to thank you for being willing
    to come forward and share your stories. I know that it might be
    painful, but it is just extremely important that people
    understand exactly what happens and how we need to help. Thank
    you very much.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congresswoman Bass. Randy Weber
    came all the way from Texas for today's hearing. He serves as
    vice chair of the subcommittee dealing with Global Human
    Rights, and his commitment to these issues extends back to his
    days in the Texas legislature where he offered landmark
    legislation there to combat human trafficking and to protect
    trafficking victims.
        Mr. Weber. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start
    out by thanking you for calling this important hearing, and my
    colleagues for taking out the time to come all the way from
    California [laughter] which is a little bit closer than Texas,
    I will tell you. I frequently joke as I leave DC to go back to
    my home State of Texas that I am returning to the land of
    sanity. Yet there is some real truth. I think it is important
    that we leave the Beltway behind and all the politics and we
    come back into the trenches to actually hear from those who are
    dealing with these treacherous realities of life as some of our
    witnesses have been through firsthand. And again, I want to
    echo my colleagues' comments in saying thank you for being
    willing to come and share your story.
        We need to be back in the land of reality, as I call it, to
    hear these kinds of stories and to deal with these kinds of
    atrocities so that when we go back to DC, we realize how our
    decisions impact those who are out in the real world, as I like
    to call it, how our decisions affect them. Sometimes it is the
    decisions that we do not make, Mr. Chairman, the things that we
    will not take up, that we will not address. So I think it is
    important that we come back and we come to these kinds of
    events and we learn from those who are here on the ground.
        Mr. Chairman, you alluded to the journey I started nearly 5
    years ago in the Texas legislature when I got involved in human
    trafficking issues. And at that time, I had absolutely no idea
    of the prevalence of participation in the industry, the
    magnitude of profit, the horror, absolute horror, faced by
    those trapped in this life. I instinctively knew immediately
    then it was not right, and I had to pitch in and stop this
    madness. Since then we have been privileged to be a leader in
    the Texas State legislature in that fight against this
    abhorrent slavery. We created the very first Statewide human
    trafficking prevention task force in the Texas legislature,
    House Bill 4009. We added criminal enhancements for those who
    buy and sell humans as if they were commodities. And we
    included even those who assist in the trade and benefit from
    it. We added them to the criminal list. And as I said to a
    number of groups when we spoke back in Texas, that we would
    like to catch those perpetrators and put them under the
    jailhouse.
        We strengthened the penalties. We increased the definition
    of ``human trafficking'' so that it included a lot of these
    extraterritorial, extraneous criminals, I guess I should say.
    We added significant protections for minor victims. We wrote
    the Code to simplify criminal prosecution.
        And then we began to tackle the demands. I was encouraged
    reading today about one set of comments. They do not call them
    ``johns.'' They call them ``purchasers of sex.'' We tackled
    that demand. We changed the law to allow the creation of the
    First Offender Prosecution Prevention Program in our State.
        And the deeper involved I got into the fight, the more
    horror stories I heard. The larger the number grew of those
    impacted, and I think, Karen, you are exactly right when you
    say it is not the numbers that you have to look at, or maybe it
    was you, Mr. Chairman. It is the eyes. When you look into the
    eyes of the victims and you realize the pain and the suffering
    and you hear the stories, it just causes us to want to redouble
    our efforts.
        We must not let those numbers be so large that we become
    desensitized. We have got to keep this in the forefront, got to
    educate, got to make this a priority, and got to make sure that
    we make the public aware of it. The magnitude of this industry
    can literally be overwhelming, unbelievably overwhelming.
        We must focus in one individual at a time. Now, there were
    some statistics in the reading today and a lot of the comments
    made, I think, were 17,000--I forget. It was 17,500 victims in
    a particular State or county or area, I forget. And I am
    thinking 1 percent, 175 lives. If we change and help 1 percent,
    what a great number that would be. Think if it was 10 percent.
    What a great number that would be. So one person rescued, one
    life saved, one more person on the road to restoration. It is
    worth it. It is absolutely worth it. All of those stories, all
    of your stories, all of those individuals add up to
    encouragement, hope, and keep us motivated to continue this
    fight.
        I thank you for this holding this, Mr. Chairman. I yield
    back.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
        Congressman Rohrabacher, who represents the 48th District
    of California, is chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe,
    Eurasia, and Emerging Threats. Mr. Rohrabacher, would you like
    to make a statement?
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I would just like to thank the
    chairman, Chairman Royce, for the leadership that he is
    providing as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and
    those of us who are on the Foreign Affairs Committee. We
    obviously have a very wide view of the problem.
        Can you hear me now? All right. Should I repeat what I said
    about Ed Royce? [Laughter.]
        Mr. Rohrabacher. I would just note that those of us on the
    Foreign Affairs Committee have a very wide view of what is
    going on in the world. And there a lot of evil things that are
    happening in the world, a lot of things that threaten our
    national security, a lot of things that demand our attention
    for the immediate safety of our country and our people. And I
    applaud Ed and the other members of this committee for what we
    are trying to do to meet those challenges.
        But, you know, it is really easy when you have got these
    grandiose visions of an army of terrorists who want to blow up
    buildings and murder our people and how we are trying to thwart
    that. And it is really easy to overlook maybe something that is
    right in our own neighborhood and is an evil that we need to
    pay attention to. In this case, that evil does have ties to
    things that are happening in foreign countries, for young
    people who are being exploited and brought here. And I really,
    again, want to applaud our chairman for taking the time to look
    at that and to look at this and see what we can do about this
    issue that deserves our attention.
        Thank you very much.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congressman.
        We are going to now turn to our witnesses. And as I shared
    with you before, your full prepared statement will be part of
    the record. And without objection, all members may have 5 days
    to submit statements or questions.
        And I would like to submit for the record the collection of
    one-page information sheets provided by the members of the
    Human Trafficking Congressional Advisory Caucus that I work
    with, and I mentioned them earlier. And that has been a very
    welcome resource for the committee.
        And with that, we will introduce our first witness. For 4
    years now, Ambassador CdeBaca has served as Ambassador-at-Large
    and Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
    Persons at the United States Department of State. Before that
    he served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee following
    a successful career as a Federal prosecutor, during which he
    received the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award for
    his role as lead trial counsel in the largest slavery
    prosecution here in the United States.
        Mr. Ambassador, we thank you for being here in Orange
    County today and for the work that your office does every
    single day.

     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, and thank you,
    all of the members of the committee, Ranking Member Bass and
    everyone else. Good morning.
        Chairman Royce. Ambassador, will you pull the microphone
    just a little closer?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. Of course. Thank you for the invitation
    to testify and for your commitment to the fight against
    trafficking in persons. The work of Congress on this issue has
    sent a clear message that the U.S. rejects modern slavery and
    that responding to this crime wherever it exists is a priority
    for our country.
        Now, trafficking in persons is the umbrella term that we
    use for all of the conduct involved in reducing a person to, or
    holding a person in, a state of compelled service, whether for
    sex or labor. And there are a lot of legal ways to skin that
    cat. There are a lot of euphemisms and different terms that get
    used. But I am glad that Mr. Rohrabacher named it so plainly
    for all of us: It is evil. And that evil, to really illustrate
    what that means, I think we have to look to the survivors. We
    have to look to the victims.
        It is the man who boarded the fishing boat with a promise
    of a good job, instead was forced to work 20 hours a day for
    months on end, beaten, starved, and told he could keep working
    or lose his life. It is the woman who left home for better work
    as a maid in a foreign country, who instead found herself cut
    off from the outside world, never given a day's rest, passport
    confiscated, wages withheld, abused, and then the knock on the
    door at night: The sexual assaults. It is the child prostituted
    in a brothel, enduring unspeakable exploitation. It is the
    teenager aspiring to a different life, manipulated by promises
    of love and opportunity.
        These are people we know, who we have met, whose stories we
    seek to tell at the State Department. They are from abroad and
    they are American. They are men, women, and children. They are
    migrants, and they are people who have never left home. They
    are in remote countries, and they are in the communities in
    which they were raised. And the estimates, as we have heard,
    range from 21 million to 28 million of them.
        That is why today's hearing is so valuable. It reminds us
    that this is not simply a crime that happens over there, that
    the efforts to deal with this challenge are not just carried
    out from Washington. This crime must be dealt with in every
    town hall, courthouse, and police precinct across this country
    because modern slavery undermines the rule of law and justice.
    It tears at the fabric of our families and our communities, and
    it is an affront to all of our most dearly held values of human
    rights, freedom, and dignity for all people.
        Today I would like to talk a little bit about the way
    partnerships are an essential tool in the struggle. Because
    trafficking in persons is first and foremost a crime, it also
    touches many other areas: Labor, immigration, health,
    agriculture, and transportation. This is why we need to spread
    understanding about this crime and how it intersects with
    different various areas of concern and jurisdiction. Much like
    the work, Ms. Bass, that you are doing with the Child
    Protective Services around the country, that notion of
    preexisting jurisdiction, preexisting systems that were set up
    not thinking about human trafficking, how they need to
    incorporate it into their work.
        To do that, we need to share information and practices, and
    to cooperate on efforts to protect victims and prosecute
    traffickers. We have to think about how to go up the supply
    chain to those who profit, who do not care where their fish or
    fiber comes from, the hotel managers who, with reckless
    disregard, look the other way when the pimp sets up business on
    their property.
        At the Federal level, partnerships are the center of our
    antitrafficking efforts, and part of that is because of the
    President's Interagency Task Force that Congress set up in 2000
    through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This Cabinet-
    level body meets every year to review progress across the
    administration and to chart our path forward.
        And in doing that, we have seen that we have made a great
    deal of progress in recent years, but we are clear eyed about
    the fact that there is so much to do, and that government alone
    cannot solve this problem. And that is why our Federal
    partnership approach tries to bring together a wide range of
    activists and advocates. We are working with partners in the
    survivor community, the public sector, the private sector, the
    faith community, civil society, academia, everyone who cares
    enough to join this fight.
        Looking ahead, we know that the next step in this struggle
    is confronting this issue at the local level. After all, right
    now a trafficking victim is likelier to come into contact with
    a local patrol officer than an FBI or an ICE agent. Right now,
    they are more likely to encounter a prosecutor in a specialized
    domestic violence unit than they are one with experience in
    human trafficking cases. So in the years ahead, we hope that
    more and more local level partnerships will emerge to help
    drive this effort forward.
        Now, the partnership model that we have adopted at the
    Federal level will not be the right fit for every community.
    But there are elements of effective partnerships that we hope
    that State and local leaders will look to. For example, we need
    to make sure everyone that could have encountered a trafficking
    victim knows what they're seeing and has the information about
    what to do next. We need to make sure that justice and law
    enforcement officials work with caregivers and activists so
    that survivors can get the support and resources they need--
    rehabilitation, restoration, jobs, and restitution--and knowing
    that their abuser will not hurt them or anyone else anymore,
    seeing their abusers held to account.
        Here in California, we have seen excellent examples of
    that, and we are very happy that the members of the Orange
    County Task Force and the Los Angeles Area Task Forces are able
    to join us. These partnerships work. They work here and they
    work abroad. In India, NGOs are helping victims leave the brick
    kilns, and the newly-formed anti-human trafficking units at the
    State level are starting to take those cases up. In Nigeria,
    the NAPTIP organization is co-locating special social workers
    and specially-trained police together for when a victim comes
    through the door. In Canada, Native American leaders are being
    brought into the fight, and hotel operators are stepping up in
    Mexico with job training. Partnership is the solution, whether
    in California or Cameroon, whether in Texas or Tunisia.
        In conclusion, I want to make to clear to the committee
    that the Obama administration will partner with you and anyone
    who takes this crime seriously because slavery cannot be
    tolerated whether in history or in the 21st century. My former
    boss on the Judiciary Committee perhaps said it best when John
    Conyers said that ``Emancipation was not a 1-day event; it was
    a promise, a promise written in the blood of all who lived in
    bondage and all who died to end it.''
        Today we hear the voices of the survivors of the past and
    of the present. We cannot--we will not--shirk our duty to make
    good on the promise of emancipation. And I am confident that by
    working in partnership, our shared goal is within reach--a
    world free from slavery. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ambassador CdeBaca follows:]

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        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ambassador. Let me ask you one
    or two questions, and then we will move down the panel with
    some questions on this.
        One of those questions I was going to ask is we had the
    reauthorization of the Traffic Victims Protection Act this
    year. We put it into the larger bill of the Violence Against
    Women Act. And as part of that, we had language that was
    focused on what we would do on ranking countries overseas to
    try to ramp up the pressure. And some of those countries have
    been entering into these agreements, antitrafficking
    agreements, that are called partnerships, that to quote from
    the agreement, ``have resulted in concrete and measurable
    outcomes.''
        What I wanted to talk to you about is how do you get those
    outcomes to be something truly measurable? How do you
    promulgate perhaps regulations to say it is going to depend
    upon the number of prosecutions or it is going to depend upon
    the number of victims who are assisted, something tangible that
    allows us more than a judgment call when you do the assessment
    on compliance?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. I think, Mr. Chairman, that goes to the
    heart of how we are looking at this requirement from the
    Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. What we do
    not want, just as at the same time that we are saying that
    partnerships are emerging as the fourth P from the three-P
    paradigm of prevention, protection, and prosecution, that
    partnerships are the way to effectuate that. But partnerships
    for partnerships sake are not a panacea, and they should not be
    a refuge for a country that is doing nothing on human
    trafficking.
        And so, we are working right now with the rest of the State
    Department as we ramp up for this coming year--it will be the
    first year of the report--where we are taking those
    partnerships into account. And one of the things that we are
    talking about internally is that notion of weighting those
    partnership efforts, and I think that just as you yourself have
    expressed and just as the legislation has as its touchstone
    that notion of concrete and measurable.
        Concrete and measurable comes back to the things that are
    in the other minimum standards: The number of prosecutions, the
    number of victims held, whether the sentences are actually in
    line with kidnapping, extortion, et cetera. Those are the
    things that I think that we are going to be looking to. So we
    are trying to make sure that we will not have strategic
    behavior on the part of countries around the world to enter
    into empty partnership agreements that do not have time-bound
    goals and structures put in place.
        Chairman Royce. Well, we want to work with you on something
    concrete where you can show exactly what are the prosecutions,
    you know, what are the programs out there to assist underage
    victims and so forth.
        The other question I was going to ask you is, the Orange
    County Anti-Trafficking Task Force has reported that nearly 90
    percent of the labor trafficking victims that they assist are
    foreign citizens. We will hear from one such victim here on the
    panel today. But how significant a factor is fraudulent
    overseas labor recruiting in international human traffic in the
    United States in your assessment?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. Mr. Chairman, we think that this is a
    big factor in the exploitation of the workers. And this is one
    of the reasons why in the executive order that President Obama
    issued for Federal contracting, the standard that we put in
    place and that is currently in the Federal Acquisitions
    Register, which is open for public comment right now, is the
    notion that no recruiting for fee is appropriate. Now, we
    understand that that's something that we can do by executive
    order for Federal contracts, and that those who do not want to
    abide by that can choose not to apply for a Federal contract.
        It is something, though, that we see across the globe, that
    when people have to buy a job, they end up going to either the
    labor recruiters themselves for the loan, or they have to go to
    a loan shark in their home village. And so, they owe so much
    money that they are almost already in debt bondage before they
    even show up at work.
        And so, when we are looking at this through the executive
    order--we know that there is some legislation out there on this
    as well--we very much want to be moving the conversation both
    in the U.S. and globally to confront this, because we have seen
    in country after country where it is not the stereotype of
    illegal immigration that is fueling the trafficking. It is, as
    we saw in this year's report, the advertisement in the paper
    that said ``Indonesian maids for sale,'' perhaps more honest
    than they should have been. In that country, the way that they
    were bringing in those Indonesian maids was through labor
    recruiters.
        And so, I think that that's what we see time and time again
    is it is not simply the underground economy. It is in labor
    recruiting. It is in the places where the vulnerable are
    brought in to do the types of dirty and dangerous jobs that
    others do not want.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ambassador. My time has expired.
        Karen Bass?
        Ms. Bass. I actually want to follow up on what you were
    saying in terms of the labor recruiting, and a couple of
    things. One, I wanted to ask you which countries are involved
    in recruiting labor to the United States. And then in terms of
    the fees, you know, I recently learned about au pairs and how
    they are recruited into the United States. And a person who
    wants an au pair pays a fee and does not realize that the
    person who wants to be an au pair pays a fee.
        So is there something that we could do about that since it
    is directly coming here and there are businesses that I imagine
    that are U.S. businesses?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. As far as the biggest countries that
    are sending folks into the U.S. through labor recruiters, we
    have just been looking at the cases that have come to light. We
    have certainly seen folks coming from India. We have seen folks
    coming up on some of the agriculture visa programs from Mexico.
    And we have ended up seeing a lot of eastern European labor
    brokers, who will end up in perhaps nontraditional visa
    categories. The abuse that has been seen, for instance, in the
    Summer Work and Travel Program is something that the State
    Department has been looking at issuing new rules as to what
    those students can be put into in the first place.
        So I think that it is something that we are seeing that
    places that unfortunately have trafficking problems at home,
    and that have trafficking problems when they are sending their
    people to other parts of the world are also sending their
    people to the U.S.
        Ms. Bass. Do they come over here legitimately and then they
    fall out of status, and then they wind up being----
        Ambassador CdeBaca. A lot of times they fall out of status
    because the labor recruiter is putting them into a job that
    they did not get approved for, so they will bring them over. I
    think, for instance, a good example is a case that I prosecuted
    when I was at the Justice Department where the girls had not
    been taken to Virginia Beach to work in the retail stores that
    they were supposed to under their visa. Instead they ended up
    in Detroit in a strip club. Now, at that point they were out of
    status because they were not working at the place.
        Now, of course, the second that they were out of status,
    the traffickers started telling them----
        Ms. Bass. Right.
        Ambassador CdeBaca [continuing]. You know, you cannot go
    for help because they will turn you over to immigration. So it
    is an out of status situation that is created by the fact that
    they have been exploited by the traffickers.
        Ms. Bass. So are these U.S. companies? And then if you
    could answer the au pair question because I guess I am trying
    to get at the same thing that the chairman was mentioning, is
    like how can we tie it down to do something specific. If they
    are U.S. companies, can we not do something about that?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. Some of them are U.S. companies. For
    instance, if you are looking at the au pairs, if you are
    looking at Summer Work and Travel, et cetera, they are
    companies that exist to facilitate those things. Some of them
    are overseas companies where you will have labor recruiting
    companies that are, for lack of a better term, flagged in other
    countries.
        So there was a situation a few years ago with a company
    called Global Horizon, which is actually owned by an Israeli.
    There are situations with folks from Bangladesh and India that
    are bringing people in, whether it is training visas or
    otherwise. So it is, I think, something that we have seen in
    both U.S. and foreign companies, but all of those end up going
    through the process. And so, there is very much a Federal
    jurisdictional hook, whether it is through immigration law or
    whether it is through regulating these American companies.
        As far as the au pairs are concerned, I think, you know,
    what we have seen is that this notion of double dipping by the
    recruitment fees is a problem around the world. And I was
    talking recently to a now former president of Manpower Group,
    who said that he told the folks from the Bangladeshi Recruiters
    Association, Manpower does not require the applicant to pay
    because the employer, the potential employer, pays all of their
    costs. And they are very reputable, the largest sourcing
    company in the world, and they have done that profitably not by
    shipping the costs over to the workers.
        And one of the things that he certainly has seen was that
    not only was the exploitation higher, but the ability of those
    recruiting companies to get the right workers into the right
    jobs is less because they do not care about that. The only
    thing they care about is, is this person willing to mortgage
    themselves to me so that I will then be able to profit from
    placing them?
        So I think that making sure that the model that we have
    seen successfully in the marketplace of the employer pays for
    recruiting as opposed to employee pays kickbacks to get the
    job, moving toward that would be, I think, revolutionary.
        Ms. Bass. Thank you.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congresswoman Bass.
        So we go now to Congressman Weber.
        Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me follow up on
    something, Mr. Ambassador, if I may. You said you were speaking
    to, was it a former executive of Manpower? Okay. And you said
    he was from Bangladesh, and they have a recruiters association?
    Are we able to get in touch with those associations and say,
    look, we would like to see an outline, a format, whereby we can
    track this? Do we have that capability?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. We certainly have the ability to meet
    with the folks from BAIRA, for instance, in Bangladesh. I think
    that what we have seen is that the pressure that was being put
    on BAIRA both by the U.S. Government, by some of the other
    destination countries, but also by the Bangladeshi Government
    in the wake of them passing their new trafficking law about a
    year and a half ago, may have lessened a little bit as so much
    of the attention now has moved over toward the tragedy at Rana
    Plaza with the collapse of the building, coming as it did after
    another tragedy involving a fire.
        I think that right now, a lot of the energy in the
    relationship with Bangladesh around workers' treatment and
    safety is being seen through that lens of the garment sector.
        Chairman Royce. Mr. Ambassador, you are going to have to
    pull that microphone closer.
        Ambassador CdeBaca. Sorry about that. So I think that what
    we have seen is that the focus on the garment sector in the
    wake of the Rana Plaza tragedy and others perhaps has taken a
    little bit of heat off of BAIRA, the Bangladesh Labor
    Recruiters Association. But it is something that we continue to
    look at, and we are certainly trying to work with the
    Bangladesh Government to put pressure on it.
        Mr. Weber. Well, I was unaware--forgive me, Mr. Chairman,
    for taking so long. But I was unaware that there were those
    kinds of associations. I guess my question is, if we went
    country by country, and I know there are 180 or whatever number
    of countries it is. And we have got the good guys who will sign
    up with an association, trying to do it the right way, and, of
    course, the bad actors are not going to do that. But can we
    give them an incentive in each of those countries, those
    associations, in order to turn over to us the names of the bad
    actors, because I am sure they would like to do away with that
    competition as well. We have a little competition incentive for
    them. Have we tried that, to your knowledge?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. That specifically I do not think that
    we necessarily tried, and I think we will definitely take that
    on board.
        I think that one of the things that we are very interested
    in, and we are seeing this with the supply chain work, it
    really first came out of the California Supply Chain
    Transparency Act that I know a lot of folks here in the room
    worked so on. And that is that notion of the companies that use
    these recruiting companies, the companies that are using those
    factories, such as the Rana Plaza and others, having to now
    publicize their anti-slavery and their antitrafficking
    policies. That is something that is only here in California. It
    does not have a lot of penalties. It does not look to how good
    those policies actually are.
        I know that our cousins over in the UK are looking at
    legislation that would be more akin to the Dodd-Frank work on
    the conflict minerals where companies are going to have to
    start certifying the conflict minerals----
        Mr. Weber. Yeah, I saw that----
        Ambassador CdeBaca [continuing]. Come this spring. And so,
    that is something to look at. I am not sure if she has
    reintroduced it, but I think Ms. Maloney may have some
    legislation on that for trafficking and slavery as a whole.
    That may be a way to look at this to be able to drive that
    change such as the Dodd-Frank legislation did with eastern
    Congo.
        Mr. Weber. That is something that I hope you will look at.
    And one final question. I know that we have tiers set up--Tier
    I, II, and III--and we have countries that wind up getting bad
    grades, and we wound up actually having to sanction them. It
    seems like there has been a new category established, an
    automatic downgrade. How did that come about, and was that
    because we were sensitive to foreign diplomacy? I mean, if we
    have a bad actor, do we somehow try to soften that blow? How
    did that come about?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. Well, I was on staff at the time, and I
    know that a lot of the members had the concern as we were
    looking at the 2008 reauthorization, a concern that a number of
    strategic countries had been on the tier 2 watch list for many
    years. And there was a term that we bandied about at the time
    at both the staff and member level, was this notion of the tier
    2 watch list parking lot, the idea that a country might be so
    important that you just had them on the tier 2 watch list
    rather than actually having them fall into tier 3.
        The way that the auto downgrade works is that over the
    course of several years, the country can avoid falling
    automatically if it has an action plan and resources to
    effectuate that action plan. Some countries were able to do
    that, and other countries fell to tier 3. This last year, the
    waivers for the action plans were no longer available, and we
    indeed saw Russia, China, and Uzbekistan fall to tier 3 on the
    Trafficking Persons Report.
        And we have seen, I think, certainly the downgrading of
    those countries having as good result as far as conversations
    that we have been having since then. I am going to be going to
    Moscow soon. I was meeting with the Uzbek Ambassador a couple
    of days ago. So I think that it is something that we are
    getting these countries' attention.
        Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
        Chairman Royce. We will go to Mr. Rohrabacher.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Can you give us some just two or three
    specific recommendations of where local officials and local
    authorities can work with the government and vice versa with
    the Federal Government where you would like to see an expansion
    of cooperation or doing a better job?
        Ambassador CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. I think
    that the places where we would like to see a better job done I
    think is in the notion of the longer-term, more proactive
    investigations. Right now, there is kind of a divide between
    feds do long-term investigation and local first responders are
    doing kind of, you go to a hotel, you see something, you charge
    it, and then it gets referred up to the prosecutor's office.
    And that first police officer kinds of hands off the case.
        There are phenomenal detectives in State and local law
    enforcement around the country, and they can do that type of
    longer-term, more proactive investigation. They can only do
    that, though, if they are cut loose from some of their other
    responsibilities. It is a bit of a zero sum game right now. If
    you take somebody off of looking at drugs in biker gangs so
    that you can then go after the pimps, then the biker gang
    problem can end up getting out of control.
        So I think that that's one of the things that we want to
    look at, but recognizing that this is a time of austerity. This
    is not necessarily a time of new federally-funded task forces
    as we have seen in some other areas in the past. So I think to
    me one of the things is that notion of moving away from
    responsive law enforcement and moving toward proactive law
    enforcement, harnessing the power of the local detectives to
    really make cases.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Royce. We have been joined by Congressman Alan
    Lowenthal, who represents the 47th District in California, and
    he serves on the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation,
    and Trade. Thank you very much, Alan. Did you have any
    questions at this time?
        [Nonverbal response.]
        Chairman Royce. Okay. We are going to go now to our second
    panel, and we will begin with Tony Rackauckas, who is in his
    fourth term as district attorney here in Orange County. He
    served as judge and presiding appellate judge of the Orange
    County Superior Court, also as a municipal court judge, and as
    a social worker in Los Angeles County. He is a former U.S. Army
    paratrooper. He is a graduate of the Loyola University School
    of Law in Los Angeles.
        We also have Ms. Kay Buck, CEO and executive director of
    the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking--that is
    CAST--in Los Angeles. During her 20 years of human rights work,
    Kay Buck as served as director of the Rape Prevention Resource
    Center of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. And
    she spent over 5 years in Asia working with nongovernmental
    groups on anti-slavery projects there.
        We have Ms. Angela Guanzon, a survivor of international
    trafficking who, while attempting to help support her family,
    was lured from her home in the Philippines to Long Beach,
    California. Now a certified nurse assistant, she is a member of
    the National Survivor Network and the CAST Survivor Advisory
    Caucus. She was honored with their 2012 Seeds of Renewal Award
    for her advocacy and her leadership.
        Ms. Carissa Phelps is founder and CEO of Runaway Girl. She
    is a survivor of child sex trafficking and an abusive life on
    the streets as a runaway youth. I think at the age of 12 this
    challenge began for her. And she later earned her JD and MBA
    degree from UCLA School of Law and the UCLA Anderson School of
    Management. She was named one of her alma mater's top 100
    inspirational graduates in 2010.
        We welcome all of our panel, and we will be begin with Tony
    Rackauckas. Five minutes of testimony if you want to summarize,
    and then we will go to questions from there.

    STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TONY RACKAUCKAS, DISTRICT ATTORNEY,
      ORANGE COUNTY, OFFICE OF THE ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY

        Mr. Rackauckas. Thank you. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
    Bass, and other distinguished members of the House Committee on
    Foreign Affairs, thank you for convening this hearing on one of
    the most significant abuses that is plaguing us locally and
    globally. It is a $32 billion enterprise, second only to
    narcotic sales and profitability. And, Chairman Royce, thank
    you for your continued leadership in this fight, including the
    recent introduction of the new bill, H.R. 3344, the FORTE Act,
    which is the Fraudulent Overseas Recruitment and Trafficking
    Elimination Act of 2013.
        A hundred and fifty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln
    signed the Emancipation Proclamation and declared that all
    persons held as slaves henceforth shall be free. Today, 150
    years later, we have been given a new mandate by State and
    national legislation. More than two-thirds of the commercial
    sex victims in the U.S. are American citizens, while a third of
    them are trafficked from foreign countries. It is time that we
    abolish modern-day slavery, including the commercial sexual
    exploitation of women and children.
        Human exploitation and trafficking generally comes in two
    forms: Forced labor, which we believe are highly under
    reported, and commercial sexual exploitation. Unfortunately,
    the things that make our county so great and such a tourist
    destination with our mild weather and available wealth also
    make our county one of the circuit stops for these sex
    traffickers and modern-day slave owners.
        The most concerning cases are the children who are being
    prostituted on the streets in strip clubs and brothels, and
    child pornography also that is being produced and traded on the
    Internet and around the world just simply with a click of the
    mouse. No child grows up hoping to someday be sold for sex.
        Shockingly, the average age of a child being trafficked in
    this county is 12, a little girl who has not even reached her
    teens. These victims are being isolated, coerced, seduced,
    threatened, and beaten into turning profits for individuals.
    These people have absolute disregard for other human beings.
    One of our defendants made a $25,000 profit in 2 weeks off just
    one trafficked victim. One defendant denied medical care for a
    young woman who was begging to see a doctor for her burning
    pelvic region. Another refused a shivering girl from coming
    inside from the cold. When one of the victims pleaded by text,
    ``I can't keep anything down, you don't care,'' the defendant's
    response was, ``(Expletive), eat crackers.''
        Career criminals and gang members have decided that
    exploiting humans is cheaper and safer than trafficking drugs
    and guns. A typical modern-day slave owner is Berneal Holman,
    who was convicted of pandering a 16-year-old victim in Orange
    County. Before he perpetrated this crime, he had previously
    attempted to rape a 10-year-old girl and tried to use a 13-
    year-old girl to turn tricks for the 10-year-old.
        Like the slaves of the past before they were emancipated,
    modern-day sex slaves are branded with tattoos of their owners'
    names. They are being bullied and beaten into selling their
    bodies, some over 10 times a day. For many of these victims,
    the slave owner is the only family they have, and they are
    forced to call these people ``daddy.'' Some of these victims
    are foreign women who are lured with the promise of earning a
    lot of cash to work in a legitimate job, and then they are
    stripped of their passports and forced instead to work in
    brothels. Some of these brothels are located in luxury
    apartments in upper class neighborhoods in Orange County.
        In order to protect these victims, the Orange County
    District Attorney's Office has responded to the mandate of the
    people by formalizing our efforts and launching a new vertical
    prosecution unit named HEAT, Human Exploitation and
    Trafficking. The HEAT Unit scrapped the conventional and
    traditional ways of law enforcement and took a fresh, more
    comprehensive approach to solve the problem using a tactical
    plan called PERP, Prosecution, Education, Resources, and
    Publicity. With the new weapons provided by Proposition 35,
    these defendants are going away to State prison for multiple
    years and even life terms. We have been educating police
    officers, prosecutors, students, community members, and we want
    to produce webinars and videos to take the message directly to
    parents and to children.
        The human trafficking victims need to be rescued, and we
    need to have resources to do that. They need a place to go or
    they will end up back on the street with their abusers. The
    Orange County public-private partnership, made up of
    corporations, non-profits, faith-based groups, law enforcement,
    and victims' rights groups, work hard to rescue these girls off
    the street. But sadly, we need a lot more resources.
        We are working hard now. Our HEAT unit has been in
    operation for about a year, and maybe a little more than a
    year, and we have many open cases. We have cases involving
    victims who are from other countries, involving victims who are
    from the United States. We have quite a number of felony cases.
    Five of those defendants are facing life counts, and many
    others are facing mandatory sentences of several years in
    prison. Like I said, we have some victims who are foreign
    nationals also.
        Our HEAT unit is here, and I am very proud of the work that
    they have been doing. And the police you can see also from
    Anaheim Police Department are the head of the Orange County--
    not HEAT, but the Orange County victims group that we have and
    working to reduce this kind of a problem. I think they have
    done a magnificent job in Orange County. In fact, I think I can
    with some pride say that we have a defendant, for example, who
    is in prison, and he has been grumbling that if he was in
    another county he would be out by now. So with legislation, and
    prosecutions, and the kinds of sentences that get their
    attention, I think that we can make some inroads.
        And thank you again for conducting this forum so that we
    can end this modern-day slavery now.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Rackauckas follows:]

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        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Rackauckas.
        We go now to Kay Buck.

        STATEMENT OF MS. KAY BUCK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CHIEF
     EXECUTIVE OFFICER, COALITION TO ABOLISH SLAVERY & TRAFFICKING

        Ms. Buck. Thank you, Chairman Royce, and the committee
    members for holding this forum today. As the chairman
    mentioned, my name is Kay Buck, and I am the executive director
    of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, also known
    as CAST. We are located in Los Angeles, California.
        Since 1998, CAST has been providing specialized services to
    survivors of human trafficking, while informing the movement to
    prevent modern-day slavery through our evidence-based
    approaches. CAST has worked directly with over 1,000 survivors,
    children and family members from over 58 countries around the
    world, including a growing population right here from the
    United States to provide emergency response, shelter, case
    management, and legal services, as well as a high-level
    leadership development program for survivors.
        CAST works closely with other nongovernmental
    organizations. We are a coalition of pro bono attorneys, law
    enforcement agents, as well as both Federal and local
    government agencies. We were the founder of the Los Angeles
    Metropolitan Task Force on Human Trafficking many years ago,
    and were the first to do that in the country.
        However, despite ongoing efforts to leverage existing
    resources, CAST acutely feels a gap in services because of the
    shortage of resources that are currently available for
    survivors of human trafficking. And I want to thank the
    chairman for pointing out all of my coalition partners in
    Orange County earlier in the hearing. They are the human rights
    defenders of our time, and they do so with very little
    resources.
        Last July, a report showed that that the U.S. Government
    spends approximately $100 million annually to combat the 9-
    billion-dollar--and growing--industry of human trafficking.
    Compare this to the approximate $15 billion that we spend
    annually on the war against drugs. Clearly, efforts to prevent
    trafficking and assist more and more survivors need more and
    more support. This is evidenced in our numbers. Three years in
    a row, our numbers in serving new cases, new people coming to
    us for help, have doubled 3 years in a row. And I am sure my
    colleagues in Orange County have similar statistics.
        Victims of human trafficking are enslaved not only through
    physical means, but also through coercion, through fear and
    intimidation. In today's global economy, workers can be
    enslaved by threats of deportation, lack of viable
    alternatives, and especially death. We often think of
    undocumented immigrants as vulnerable to human trafficking, but
    almost 50 percent of our cases at CAST include individuals who
    come to the United States on lawful visas.
        Human trafficking thrives when immigrant workers are forced
    to pay labor recruiters high fees. And what we saw as maybe
    $2,000 as a fee 10 years ago is now upwards of $30,000. They
    are often charged very high interest rates, most of the time by
    the loan shark from a community, which puts the families at
    risk, and they do this in order to work lawfully in the United
    States. So these workers actually become vulnerable to debt
    bondage, one of the most pervasive forms of modern-day slavery
    today.
        CAST believes that one of the most important policy changes
    we can make is better regulation of foreign labor recruiters
    through the following four-pronged approach. First, the
    elimination of fees. Foreign labor contractors should not be
    allowed to assess any fees to the worker. Such fees may be
    borne by the employer. Second is disclosure. Foreign labor
    contractors must disclose all of the terms and conditions of
    the work in writing in both English as well as the worker's
    native language. Third is registration. Employers must use
    foreign labor contractors who are properly registered with the
    Department of Labor. And last, but not least, is enforcement
    and accountability. The Department of Labor should establish a
    process for receiving, investigating, and adjudicating
    complaints against either foreign labor contractors or
    employers.
        CAST commends Chairman Royce for his leadership in
    introducing H.R. 3344 in the House. This piece of legislation
    takes the comprehensive four-pronged approach I just outlined,
    and this bill is such an important one that will help prevent
    human trafficking and protect more workers. In addition to the
    protections already mentioned in the legislation, I would like
    to recommend also the inclusion of J-1 visa holders so that au
    pairs and nannies will receive the same protection as other
    workers coming to the U.S. from abroad.
        Finally, CAST believes that the business community must be
    an integral partner in combating modern-day slavery. CAST was
    an original co-sponsor of S.B. 657, the California Transparency
    and Supply Chain Act, that the Ambassador mentioned earlier. It
    requires companies to publicly reveal the steps they are taking
    to eradicate modern-day slavery from all supply chains. Today,
    over 400 goods in 352 countries are produced by either child or
    forced labor. Given how prevalent modern-day slavery is in the
    global supply chain, CAST now hopes that measures similar to
    the law that we have in California, S.B. 657, can be adopted
    federally. We call for the House to reintroduce the Business
    Transparency in Trafficking and Slavery Act.
        Thank you for your attention today and for the invitation
    to testify before all of you. And I also want to commend you
    for including survivors not only to speak of the suffering that
    they endured in the course of human trafficking, but as the
    experts they are to really help us find the policies that will
    eradicate modern-day slavery. Thank you so much.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Buck follows:]

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                                  ----------

        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Kay.
        Angela?

      STATEMENT OF MS. ANGELA GUANZON, SURVIVOR OF INTERNATIONAL
    TRAFFICKING, MEMBER, CAST SURVIVOR ADVISORY CAUCUS AND NATIONAL
                            SURVIVOR NETWORK

        Ms. Guanzon. Good morning, and thank you, Chairman Royce.
    My name is Angela. I am from the Philippines. I came to the
    United States with a lawful visa and a promise to have a good
    job. In the Philippines, coming to the United States is like
    winning the lottery. I was so excited to go that I did not even
    ask many questions. When I got my visa to go to the United
    States, my passport was taken away from me, and I was told it
    would be held for me until I got to the United States. I
    traveled with about 10 workers to the United States.
        When I got to the U.S., things were very different than I
    thought. I was told I owed $12,000 for my transportation and
    visa and have to work for 10 years to pay it off. I was then
    forced to work in a retirement home for elderly care located in
    a suburb in Los Angeles. I worked 18 hours a day, 7 days a
    week, and we had to sleep on the floor in the hallways. My co-
    worker and I, Jayson, were threatened that if we tried to
    escape, we would be deported by calling the police and telling
    them that we stole something from her. And my situation,
    trafficking is not only for women. It is also for men. And this
    went on for 2\1/2\ years.
        Finally I was rescued by the FBI through the neighbor who
    noticed that we did not get a day off. I spoke to the FBI about
    what happened to me, and eventually I testified against my
    trafficker in a criminal court, and she got a 5-year sentence.
        Now, I am a certified nurse assistant and a member of the
    CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus and the National Survivor
    Network. CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus is a group of survivors
    who are learning leadership and advocacy skills to raise
    awareness of human trafficking and to influence policies to
    help better protect and help the survivors of human
    trafficking. National Survivor Network, this consists of, like,
    58 or 60 survivors around 18 States here in the United States.
        I do not believe what happened to me, what happened to
    other people. Because of the work that I do in CAST, I have
    learned that what happened to me happened to a lot of survivors
    that I met in National Survivors Network and CAST Survivor
    Advisory Caucus. I have met a lot of workers that came with an
    H-2B visa and were supposed to work with an H-2A visa. I have
    learned that they came to work in agriculture, but ended
    enslaved on farms all over the United States here with armed
    guards keeping watch. And some have an H-2B visa and a promise
    to have a good job like I was told, but ended up working in a
    hotel under threat of police.
        I am very thankful to Chairman Royce for making such a big
    step to introduce the H.R. 3344. And I feel that he is really
    listening, and he is really listening about the issue. And I am
    so proud that I am here today to participate in this H.R. 3344
    on behalf of the survivors so we can speak and we can be in a
    world that is free of abuse. Thank you.
        [Applause.]
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Guanzon follows:]

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                                  ----------

        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Angela.
        Carissa?

       STATEMENT OF MS. CARISSA PHELPS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
                           RUNAWAY GIRL, FPC

        Ms. Phelps. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity to be
    here and to speak about strength in survivorship.
        At 12 years old I thought I was born free. I thought that I
    could do anything and be free. But when I was kidnapped by a
    trafficker, kidnapped by a pimp in the town that I was born in,
    people looked the other way. Law enforcement looked the other
    way. Social services looked the other way. And I was blamed for
    what was done to me.
        It took me over 15 years earning my education, graduating
    from law school and business school, connecting with community
    members, to be able to embrace my story, to be able to share
    it, and to be able to speak to this difference that we see
    today, this movement that we see today to end trafficking for
    domestic minors of sex trafficking.
        The work that I do is not just based on my story from the
    past. It is my story of advocacy. I found out as I was becoming
    an advocate that survivors who were sitting alongside of me did
    not have financial means to be there. They were not being
    compensated. They had day care issues. They had transportation
    issues. And they were being asked to come in to share their
    stories, asked to influence policy, asked to make policy, write
    policy, inform policy, and yet they were not being treated as
    experts in the sense that they were not being compensated.
        At one very high profile and federally-supported event,
    survivors were separated from the experts and taken to a
    basement room and asked to share their horror stories to
    complete strangers. I was told at that event that I was not an
    SME, a subject matter expert, and so that is why I was left
    out. I informed that person that I, in fact, was an attorney,
    and did hold an MBA, and was an expert, but I realized at that
    moment that we needed a united front. We needed to connect with
    each other and to stand up for each other in these instances.
        And since then I founded Runaway Girl as a flexible purpose
    corporation. And what that means is that we have a charitable
    purpose in our articles of incorporation. It is a way for us to
    create a platform and lower barriers to entry for survivors who
    are speaking out and educating. It has no borders. It does not
    see international and domestic as any different. The more
    united we are, the stronger we are.
        Slave owners knew that when Willie Lynch wrote his infamous
    letter to his colleagues who were slave owners and told them
    that they needed to lower the self-esteem, to basically demean
    their slaves and to divide them and have them fight against
    each other, the light-skinned against the dark-skinned, the
    house against the field. And when he did that, he knew what he
    was doing. He was dividing them. He was keeping slavery in
    existence. In order to end slavery, we need to unite. We need
    to build up each individual survivor and support them and unite
    them across any borders globally together. And I believe that
    we are going to end slavery for good.
        In this next step as we look at this legislation that was
    survivor informed, I do have recommendations. I do believe that
    anyone who is receiving any type of support or a corporation
    needs to look at and figure out if someone has been a victim of
    human trafficking. They should never be arrested for
    immigration issues. They should never be charged, held in a
    prison for being a prostitute for solicitation or even for a
    runaway violation if they, in fact, have been recruited and are
    being trafficked. As long as we arrest and we hold people
    criminally accountable for what has been done to them, we are
    allowing slavery to exist.
        We need to address demand. We need to arrest demand--
    literally arrest demand. We need to treat demand as part of the
    trafficking equation. So trafficking in arms and trafficking in
    drugs we know requires sellers and buyers and that they are all
    traffickers. But for some reason we have excluded buyers from
    our trafficking work and what we do. We will no longer protect
    the buyers who allow this to happen.
        As a survivor group and as a survivor voice, I hear that
    loud and clear from my colleagues and from my friends. And we
    must end the demand for trafficking by going after those people
    who allow it to happen from the very top to the very bottom in
    our society. We have people who buy children, and who buy
    labor, and who are enslaving, and we need to hold them
    accountable as buyers as well with more than 5-year sentences,
    with more than 13-month sentences--with real sentences for what
    they have done, which is taking away someone's freedom.
        [Applause.]
        Ms. Phelps. My final recommendation is to invest in
    survivors individually and in groups. We need to see to the
    longevity of survivors. What is it that they are offering as
    they are growing, and learning, and becoming a part of our
    community? Once again, how can we in the long run expect
    survivors to be there if we are having them pay their own way
    to be there? It just does not make any sense. So investing in
    survivors individually and in groups, and supporting their
    global leadership, and supporting them supporting each other is
    something that I would highly recommend.
        And I thank the people who are here today that are doing
    the work. And I know that here, I know there is a group who is
    part of the FACT Alliance and the fight against child
    trafficking, and that does not have borders, does not see
    international and domestic differently, that supports freedom
    for children in all areas of the world. So thank you so much
    for your support today.
        [Applause.]
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Phelps follows:]

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                                  ----------

        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Carissa. Thank you, Carissa, for
    that testimony. And I was going to ask Tony Rackauckas, the
    district attorney, a question along those lines. Your
    circumstance, the fact that, as Tony shared, the average age
    for teen underage girls now is 12 when we are bringing these
    cases. Under the new law, under Prop. 35, I guess one of the
    advantages is a focus on those involved in the criminal
    syndicates and those participating as pimps, and more focus on
    those who create the demand as well. But the fact is that we
    have that new prosecution with the result of 32 years for an
    individual who is involved in trying to recruit underage girls,
    and this particular girl was 13 that he tried to lure up to
    Sacramento, and he was caught doing it.
        Let me ask you, if I could, Mr. Rackauckas, are there any
    common factors that increase the susceptibility, the nature of
    the risk, for a 12-year-old, 13-year-old, being vulnerable to
    being trafficked? If you would give us some insights on that.
    And what strategies have our panelists found to be most
    successful in addressing that particular problem?
        Mr. Rackauckas. Well, those are certainly great questions.
    I think that as far as the vulnerability is concerned, what
    seems to happen mostly is that they wind up meeting somebody,
    and this person appears to be somebody who looks fine and
    appears to be upstanding, and gets them into a car or some kind
    of a compromising situation, and then just takes them off. And
    we have seen quite a number of cases where a young girl would
    willingly get in the car with somebody or go off with somebody,
    and then, of course, once that person gets control, he winds up
    taking her quite far away. It is not usually just in the local
    area, but it might be to another State, and then gets control,
    dominates her, beats her up a few times to let her know that
    she cannot disobey anything that he has to say. And then he
    starts trafficking her.
        So as far as what would be the common thing, you know, I do
    not know if I can put my finger on it except to say that, you
    know, just being out on their own, not being supervised, and
    winding up being in the hands of a stranger. It is not usually
    a kidnapping off the street where somebody jumps out of the
    bushes and grabs a young girl and throws her in the car. It is
    usually a cooperative sort of a thing.
        Chairman Royce. Kay, let me ask you that question, too, or
    any of the other panelists.
        Ms. Buck. The same question?
        Chairman Royce. Yes, just the factors that, in your
    opinion, make girls of that age at risk for being recruited
    into or kidnapped into this type of situation.
        Ms. Buck. Well, there are definitely factors, and certainly
    socioeconomic status is one factor. That said, we have served
    clients, served survivors, here in LA who have had university
    degrees. So I think we need to look at, you know, there is a
    domestic population, yes, that have been survivors. There is
    also a foreign national population. And I really want to credit
    Carissa that the similarities are more than the differences.
    And as a movement, we need to look at this more when we are
    looking at the factors of vulnerability.
        So what I am saying is that the foreign labor contractor
    who drives into a community in a foreign country and looks, you
    know, nice, drives a nice car, says come with me, or, let me
    take your children, they'll be given a really great education,
    is not that different from the pimp who seeks out one girl in
    the same fashion.
        So when we are talking about vulnerability factors, and I
    do want to say that we are really proud to be working with
    Representative Bass' office on the child welfare system. And we
    are doing some really innovative things in LA working with the
    county board of supervisors to address the vulnerability
    factors, which can be everything from socioeconomic status to,
    you know, to the traffickers going in and being allowed to do
    recruitment in the way that they are doing that.
        So I think there are a lot of vulnerability factors is what
    I am saying.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. I was going to ask one last
    question of Angela, and that is if during the visa application
    process you had been given information about antitrafficking
    protections under U.S. law or maybe the number to that
    antitrafficking hotline, do you think that that would have
    helped you escape sooner, Angela? Angela, if you had had
    access----
        Ms. Guanzon. I am so sorry.
        Chairman Royce [continuing]. To the antitrafficking hotline
    at the point that you----
        Ms. Guanzon. No.
        Chairman Royce [continuing]. Had the visa application----
        Ms. Guanzon. No.
        Chairman Royce [continuing]. Would that have helped you if
    that had been given up front, or if you had been given
    information about antitrafficking protections in the United
    States, would that have assisted you?
        Ms. Guanzon. Yes, it would be helpful, and I am just going
    to show this one, the Survivor Advisory Caucus that we have, a
    member, she worked as a nanny. And they were based on--and when
    they came, when she went through the immigration, somebody
    handed her the information about the hotline, and that is how
    she got help. And when she got to the hotel, she called the
    number, and that is how she got help from CAST.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to go to
    Representative Karen Bass.
        Ms. Bass. Thank you. Well, once again let me just thank all
    of the witnesses for your testimony. And to Carissa and Angela,
    I really appreciate you coming forward and being willing to
    share your story. And Carissa is just amazing because I met her
    years ago and back when you were a student, and to see progress
    and what you have done is just really incredible. And I
    appreciated that you pointed out the demand side, and also that
    you talked about how those of us who are well meaning have to
    make real sure that we do not re-assent or exploit your time in
    the way that you described.
        But we mentioned the demand, and I wanted to go to our
    witness from the DA. One of the things that I do not
    understand, and especially on the underage side, I do not
    understand, and maybe I am wrong, but that the men are not
    charged with rape, and also that I do not think you can use the
    word ``prostitution'' for a child because if you are below the
    age of consent, then how can you be considered a participant?
        So the question is, are people charged with rape as opposed
    to soliciting?
        Mr. Rackauckas. Yes. Yeah, the answer to the question is,
    of course, yes. Any time that we would have a case where the
    child who is so young, that person would definitely be charged
    with rape. But, you know, this Proposition 35, by the way, has
    been very helpful. Even since 8109 went into effect, and so
    many people in California do not go to prison. Under Prop 35,
    we are sending a lot of these traffickers to prison now for a
    long time period.
        Ms. Bass. But the solicitors, the johns.
        Mr. Rackauckas. If we can show that the john knows or
    should know that this young lady is under 18 years of age,
    then, yes, we would, of course, charge that person at least
    with statutory rape.
        Ms. Bass. Right, because anybody is supposed to know that.
    I mean, that is statutory rape, right? Because what I
    understand, this is what the LA FBI told me, is that guys
    specifically ask for age. I mean, apparently there are places
    in LA where you can go on this one street, and that is where
    they are between 12 and 13, and so people are specifically
    doing that.
        It is raising the issue of really going after the demand,
    obviously the traffickers, but----
        Mr. Rackauckas. Absolutely. And we are not calling them
    ``johns'' anymore. We are not using that kind of a euphemism.
    Now, they are being referred to as sex purchasers.
        Ms. Bass. Or if they are under age.
        Mr. Rackauckas. Right. And if they are under age, we are
    going to prosecute them on the rape charge, and if the victim
    is not under age, then, of course, we are still going to
    prosecute them for soliciting, and we are going to publicize
    their names as well.
        Ms. Bass. Good. Now, are the girls, when they are arrested,
    which I do understand sometimes that is an important thing to
    do. But what are they charged with? They are not charged with
    soliciting, right?
        Mr. Rackauckas. Well, in the past it has always been a
    soliciting to commit prostitution. But we are taking a much
    different approach on that now because looking at
    circumstances, and we are treating them like the victims that
    they are, and we are trying to work with them to develop the
    case because we need them to give us the information that will
    take us to the person who is trafficking them.
        Ms. Bass. I know, and I will bet you that is a huge
    challenge because it is probably very difficult for them to
    actually do that. And I think it is part of the community
    education to not view an underage child as being capable of
    prostitution, you know what I mean? Changing that.
        Mr. Rackauckas. It is a huge challenge, and that is one of
    the reasons we are talking about resources because we are
    committing, of course, resources from the DA's office, and the
    Anaheim Police Department has resources committed for the
    county-wide committee. But a lot of the police departments do
    not have that kind of resource.
        Ms. Bass. Right.
        Mr. Rackauckas. And it requires a good deal of
    investigation. It is not just a quick thing. It requires a
    serious investigation that is going to take place over time to
    get the job done.
        Ms. Bass. Exactly.
        Mr. Rackauckas. So that is an issue with us, too.
        Ms. Bass. Thank you. And then just one further question, if
    you do not mind, Mr. Chairman. Carissa, if there was one type
    of social service that would be most needed for the girls, what
    is that?
        Ms. Phelps. I think the number one protective factor that
    has come up is information and education. It is empowering
    those young women, and boys, and foreign nationals, people that
    are vulnerable. It is giving that phone number and that
    information at a very early age in the early stage because not
    everyone who even has a mom and dad at home has protection and
    information about what is going on out on the streets. And I
    think with more education, that would lead to greater
    prevention.
        Chairman Royce. Mr. Weber?
        Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am really glad that
    our district attorney is present. He was telling us not to call
    them johns. We have fought that fight in Texas. You know, we
    have a term for them, but since we are being recorded and maybe
    broadcast, so I will not tell you what that is. [Laughter.]
        I said earlier we would like to put them under the
    jailhouse, you know. The City of Waco had a great program where
    they actually posted their pictures on billboards throughout
    the city, and I would love to see every city doing that.
        And one of you cited--Carissa, maybe it was you--a study by
    a lady that said the ``purchasers of sex,'' POS. That is what
    we call them. [Laughter.] They pretty much agree that if they
    had paid a $1,000 to $2,000 fine or spent a month in jail that
    they would not be out looking for it. And I was shocked when I
    did some research on her. She has actually done research all
    the way back to '94 along these lines. I do not know how you
    followed her. It is really interesting. It is really good
    stuff.
        And the thought occurred to me, and, Mr. District Attorney,
    you might be able to tell me, you know, we have sexual offender
    registries, and we put them online, and they are precluded from
    living near schools, and it varies by State. But how about
    this? What if we put that on their driver's license so that----
        [Applause.]
        Mr. Weber [continuing]. So when they have a habit--and it
    gets better, so just stay tuned. [Laughter.] When they have a
    habit of being POSs, it goes on their driver's license and
    their credit report. People need to know what they spend their
    money for. Has anybody ever thought--I mean, I am talking from
    a policy making standpoint. Have you ever heard of any
    legislation like that?
        Mr. Rackauckas. I have not. I have not.
        Mr. Weber. We will get to work on that. [Laughter.]
        [Applause.]
        Mr. Rackauckas. Maybe it would be helpful if you would come
    and work with our California legislature on that particular
    idea. [Laughter.]
        Mr. Weber. Okay. And then another question I have. It seems
    to me that we are talking about education and helping our
    victims with what they need the most, and I appreciate Member
    Bass' question, what do they need the most. Are we going down
    into the junior high and middle schools, and are we saying,
    ladies, guys, this is what is out there in store, you need to
    be aware of it. We are doing that in the local school
    districts, are we? One is saying yes, the other is saying no.
    We are having a disagreement here.
        Ms. Phelps. We want to. We definitely want to, and we want
    to bring more survivor leaders in for that preventative work
    because we know it is personal stories that make that impact.
    So it is definitely something we are looking at in partnership
    with school districts. Some have reached out and been very
    proactive about it. Others will need some mandates to get it
    done.
        Ms. Buck. Yeah.
        Mr. Weber. Okay. Well, I would just encourage you to do
    that. Any help we can give, and I know you all have very
    capable members here in California who would help, too. So, Mr.
    Chairman, I will yield back.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. We will go now to Mr.
    Rohrabacher, and then we will finalize with Mr. Lowenthal.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. So I assume by the last answer that
    perhaps we need to be more proactive in our schools at an
    earlier age and giving as much warning to our young people.
    That is something we need to do more of?
        Ms. Phelps. Yeah. I cannot remember the name of the study,
    but I will provide it to you later. There is a study for
    overseas victims, and it was about positive deviance. So when
    all of these vulnerable factors are in place, when all of them
    are in place and when they are living in poverty, when
    trafficking is all around them in their community, what was the
    difference for the people that were not trafficked, the
    positive deviance. It was information and education, and that
    is true empowerment. And it says, you know, we can inoculate
    and prevent this from happening with information and education.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. And, Tony, our district attorney, I have
    noticed in your testimony about the recent 24 defendants that
    went to State prison. And you have 40 active felony cases or 5
    defendants facing lifelong counts and there are other major
    accomplishments in terms of law enforcement.
        You interact with your fellow district attorneys because
    your report says one of the fellows that you picked up was in
    county jail said that he would have been out if he was in
    another county. So how do you rate, and I will not ask you to
    rate them specifically by name, but how do you rate the way
    district attorneys around the country are doing on this issue?
        Mr. Rackauckas. I think that district attorneys' offices
    are not uniform, that there has been, I think, an awareness or
    an awakening that has developed just in the last couple of
    years. And so, it is in the process of developing at this
    point.
        I know that in the last Statewide district attorney
    conference that we had, the California attorney general and
    some other district attorneys made a lot of effort to present
    information, particularly the Alameda district attorney, but a
    lot of effort to present this kind of evidence and the sort of
    things that we are talking about here for the DAs on a
    Statewide level. And I think that it is improving a great deal.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Was that giving them a good assessment or
    a bad assessment for your fellow DAs? [Laughter.]
        I think that is what we are supposed to do at hearings like
    this. I mean, is law enforcement--number one, I am satisfied
    that you are doing a great job. I would not back you for
    election otherwise. I am satisfied of that. I am not
    necessarily satisfied that law enforcement around the country
    is meeting that same standard.
        Mr. Rackauckas. You know, I can just relate more to Orange
    County, and I can tell you that police departments are having a
    tough time trying to keep resources in this kind of an area.
    For example, one of our large police departments has a number
    of people who are in the vice squad who may have been paying
    attention and doing these investigations for the last 1\1/2\ or
    2 years and doing some pretty good work. But now with the
    cutting of resources and the difficulty of keeping resources in
    an area like this, they probably are going to take those
    resources away and just put them in the more general kind of
    police work. So it is tough to get good local investigations to
    bring these cases forward.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Well, obviously this is not a job
    just for local police, and it is obviously more than just our
    local school teachers. And Mr. Royce is pointing out the
    national and international aspect of this challenge to our
    society. And so, obviously we have from the administration a
    commitment to all of us working together, and I think that is
    what this is all about.
        Thank you very much, Mr. Royce, and all of the witnesses.
        Chairman Royce. Mr. Alan Lowenthal?
        Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I have a
    question for Ms. Buck, but really the question will be a follow
    on to really all the panelists. I really want to compliment you
    for advocating for victims of human trafficking. Your work
    obviously here today and with all the panelists really sheds
    light on this egregious offense which affects the dignity of, I
    think, worldwide more than 20 million people. And I noticed
    that CAST provides, in looking through and listening to you,
    many critical kinds of services, such as legal services, and
    emergency response, shelter, and case management.
        But I am interested in a particular subset in terms of the
    healing of people that have gone through this. As a mental
    health professional in the Congress----
        Ms. Buck. Yes.
        Mr. Lowenthal [continuing]. I would really like to
    understand from you and from the others about how we really
    deal with some of the long-range healing of people who have
    been subjected to this kind of abuse, really long-term abuse.
    And if you could shed some light on what we should be dealing
    with in terms of long-term mental health issues. And then I
    would like to ask the rest of the panelists also about really
    where mental health really fits into this.
        Ms. Buck. Absolutely. That is a great question because I
    think as both Carissa and Angela pointed out, empowerment is
    really necessary. Sometimes the traditional modalities of
    mental health are not necessarily provided through an
    empowerment program or an empowerment approach. And so, what
    the field is really moving toward is what is called trauma
    informed care.
        And so, actually even our legal services program at CAST,
    we train our attorneys in trauma informed care so that not only
    are mental health services delivered in that fashion, but legal
    services, shelter, and emergency response. And that has been
    the number one indicator for us of success where, you know, we
    work very closely with survivors. Most survivors stay with us
    on average about 2 years.
        So, you know, we have the opportunity and really the
    privilege of following them through their healing process. And
    what we know works is a variety of options, so it is not one
    modality that people have to stick to through that whole 2-year
    process. It is really using the arts and music, mentoring as
    well as something that is very helpful.
        When you think about it, most of our clients, whether they
    be a domestic client or a foreign national client, come to us
    with a very small support system. Sometimes they do not have
    any support system at all. So by empowering them and helping
    them connect with other survivors, that begins their social
    network, and then going into the community do that more, we
    have a lot more success.
        We are doing something or piloting something that is new in
    the coming weeks where it is called ``Open Table.'' And it is
    actually a modality that is used, and the first one has been
    very successful in Arizona in a faith-based context and for the
    homeless population. We are adapting it to serve human
    trafficking survivors where they can meet every Sunday with a
    group of community members who can mentor them, who can become
    their social network for 2 years at a time. And they open up
    jobs for them. They connect them to other community resources.
    That is the kind of services that are really necessary. So it
    is not a traditional modality, but rather other progressive
    modalities that we know work.
        Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you. And I wonder if other panelists
    might want to comment about the healing process, and how we
    empower people, and how we even change the, what I have just
    heard, is the very nature of the delivery of all services, that
    this empowerment model has to be included in the training of
    all folks, including law enforcement. And so, I am just
    wondering how that is being played out in your experiences and
    what you can add to that, because I am convinced that
    frequently we overlook mental health as one of the critical
    issues to deal with.
        Ms. Guanzon. I am just going to speak for myself. I lived
    in a shelter for 1\1/2\ years, and through the CAST Survivor
    Advisory Caucus, we have this, like, every week or once in a
    month we have this potluck. Before I was too scared to get out
    from the shelter because I did not know anybody. I am so scared
    that if I go out, am I going to be, like, with anybody else, or
    am I going to be, like, somebody knows that I am different.
        But through the CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus, they make me
    feel that even though I have been in that situation, I have a
    family. And CAST staff, they are so good for making us feel and
    teaching the proper way of--we can say no. ``No'' is not a
    light word for us, but from the CAST staff, we are taught that
    at every step or every decision that we are going to do, you
    are entitled to say ``no.'' It is up to you.
        So with that, we learn. And in the Caucus, I have learned
    that being outside the shelter is like just regular people that
    you can be mingled and talk to, and there is no, like,
    situation between us and the people outside.
        Ms. Phelps. When I initially came out with my story, I
    would be introduced at events that had nothing to do with
    trafficking as here is Carissa Phelps, a former child
    prostitute. And it became the fixation of people when they met
    me. And so, education in our communities as well is critical.
    And with sexual assault, any type of victimization, educating
    your community about how to receive people, whether they are
    law enforcement, education, mental health providers, is
    critical.
        Susan Draper from West Coast Clinic, she is in Alameda
    County, and she is the leading expert for child sex trafficking
    response, mental health response. She is, I think, getting
    ready to retire, so we could, like, find a job for her to lead
    the way and educate other communities about the mental health
    approach, because it is critical that the team of mental health
    professionals are also not just educated, but supported because
    there is a level of trauma and victimization that they are
    learning about, and hearing, and taking in.
        In order to make that job sustainable for them, they really
    need a strong, supportive network themselves. And I think Susan
    is the lead expert in that right now.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. Well, in summation, let me just
    thank our panelists for helping us to understand not only the
    challenges going forward, but also the important work that is
    being done out in the community today. And especially we want
    to thank my Human Trafficking Congressional Advisory Committee
    for their input.
        As we go forward, we are going to be working with members
    of the Panel and members of the community to try to strengthen
    legislation.
        I want to thank my committee members who are here as well.
    This will be a committee product, and so we thank them for
    their participation. And out there in the audience, we thank
    the members of the community that came forward in order to hear
    more about this issue, to be involved. And we appreciate the
    activism from so many who are supporting some of the community
    groups that are dealing with the survivors, those who are
    involved in these situations of sexual slavery of children that
    were pressed into this, or for those overseas who have been
    trapped with respect to labor trafficking.
        And lastly, thank you very much to you, Ambassador CdeBaca,
    for coming out.
        And I shall share with you all that today's video, and
    testimony, and legislative info are available online at
    foreignaffairs.house.gov. Thank you very much.
        [Applause.]
        Chairman Royce. We stand adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

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         Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.

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     Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Edward R. Royce, a
    Representative in Congress from the State of California, and chairman,
                          Committee on Foreign Affairs

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