[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ACCOUNTABILITY OVER POLITICS: SCRUTINIZING THE TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
REPORT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 12, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-218
__________
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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 BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina KAREN BASS, California
CURT CLAWSON, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee AMI BERA, California
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Susan Coppedge, Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and
Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State........ 5
Mr. David Abramowitz, managing director, Humanity United Action.. 27
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Susan Coppedge: Prepared statement................. 8
Mr. David Abramowitz: Prepared statement......................... 31
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 46
Hearing minutes.................................................. 47
Mr. David Abramowitz: A report titled ``Assessing Government and
Business Responses to the Thai Seafood Crisis''................ 48
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations: A resolution adopted by the OSCE Parliamentary
Assembly on Law Enforcement Co-Ordination to Prevent Child
Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking by Known Sex Offenders..... 51
Written responses from the Honorable Susan Coppedge to questions
submitted for the record by the Honorable Christopher H. Smith. 54
ACCOUNTABILITY OVER POLITICS:
SCRUTINIZING THE TRAFFICKING IN
PERSONS REPORT
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon.
Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order, and welcome
to everyone, especially Madam Ambassador. Thank you for being
here.
As you know, the Trafficking and Victims Protection Act of
2000 launched a bold comprehensive public-private sector
strategy that included sheltering, political asylum, and other
protections for the victims, long jail sentences and asset
confiscations for the traffickers, and a myriad of preventative
initiatives and tough sanctions for governments that failed to
meet minimum standards prescribed by the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act.
It was bipartisan and I know David Abramowitz is here, who
worked very hard, as did others on both sides of the aisle. It
was 3 years in the making. It was not passed overnight. It was
given a great deal of looks by everyone, especially the
administration, which initially opposed most of it, but in the
end was signed into law by President Clinton.
The bill also created the Trafficking in Persons Report and
tier rankings and I, in all candor, while I like much of what's
in the product and I've read through most of it now and I think
it was a very effective effort on country after country--the
number of countries that are on Tier 1 is a record, as you
point out in your testimony, Madam Ambassador, I think that's a
good thing, a number of countries, probably a record again have
actually updated or passed laws that are more responsive
particularly to victims. But there were concerns. I raise these
because to me it's all about the victims and how do we prevent
victimization and how do we assist those who are currently or
in the future going to be victims.
And I remain concerned that both last year's TIP Report and
the current one gave passing grades to several nations with
horrific records of government complicity in human trafficking.
Falsifying a country's human rights record, particularly
when it comes to branding what tier it ought to be not only
undermines the credibility of the report but was especially
dehumanizing to the victims who suffer rape, cruelty, and
horrifying exploitation.
There are several instances, and I'll get to those in a
moment, where you read the report and it inevitably leads to
this ought to be a Tier 3 country and then it doesn't merit
that, for some reason.
The passing grades for failing, done for more than a dozen
governments, was exposed by a series of investigative reports
last year by Reuters, which found that professionals at the
State Department's TIP Office made one set of recommendations
only to overruled at a higher level for political reasons.
Today's hearing will look closely at the newly-released
Trafficking in Person's Report which assesses and ranks 188
countries each year on their records of prosecuting
traffickers, protecting victims, and preventing human
trafficking.
Some of the rankings comport with the records of certain
countries. Burma and Uzbekistan, for example, are designated
Tier 3, as they should be.
The other nations including trading partners Malaysia and
China are given a free pass despite their horrific records of
government complicity in human trafficking.
Cuba, a dictatorship highly-favored by this administration,
is again falsely touted with a passing grade. China was allowed
to keep its Tier 2 Watch List rankings despite the fact that
the reason for their upgrade 2 years ago was found to be a
fraud.
Alexandra Harney, Jason Szep, and Matt Spetalnick of
Reuters authored an expose on China's politicized ranking, find
that, and I quote them, ``Two years after China announced it
was ending the `re-education through labor' system,
extrajudicial networks of detention facilities featuring
torture and forced labor thrive in its place.'' I would note
parenthetically as chairman of the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China we just held another--it's my 60th hearing
on human rights issues in China and we focused exclusively on
the systematic use of torture in China. It is growing, not
diminishing, in its usage, exploiting so many people including
people who are forced into labor.
China has deceived the United States--had deceived it in
2014--and when it became apparent last year we let them keep
their ill-gotten upgrade in 2015 and again in 2016.
I would hope that that would be revisited again at any time
you deem it necessary to make a change; obviously you do have
that capability to do so.
Malaysia, whose ranking was upgraded to the Tier 2 Watch
List last year on the flimsiest of justifications and fears--it
would be disqualified from the TPP--was allowed to maintain its
Tier 2 Watch List ranking despite the fact that Malaysia
faltered in its anti-trafficking progress over the last year.
In fact, Malaysia, a country with 4 million migrant
workers, prosecuted fewer trafficking cases and convicted only
seven traffickers last year. That's less than when it was a
Tier 3 country.
Meanwhile, women from Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, the
Philippines, and Nepal are trafficked to China for forced
marriages and I read with special interest that what you write
in the report about the Philippines and their efforts, maybe
even Herculean efforts to try to mitigate trafficking there and
that's recognized in their significant upgrading.
North Korean laborers worked under conditions described by
experts as forced or slave labor to earn income for the North
Korean Government. Prisoners of conscience and other prisoners
continue to be held in administrative detention facilities
where there are numerous credible reports of prisoners being
trafficked for the purpose of organ harvesting and on that
score just a couple of weeks ago I chaired a hearing on organ
harvesting and it was brutal to hear first person reports and
human rights reports by NGOs about what is actually occurring
there.
The State Department must get the TIP Report right or we
will lose the foundational tool created to help the more than
20 million, maybe more, victims of trafficking and slavery
around the world.
The tier ranking is about protecting vulnerable lives--
lives destroyed or saved by the on-the-ground impact of a
government's action or its inaction.
The easiest case for Tier 3 ranking should be those where
the government itself is profiting from human trafficking such
as in Cuba, where thousands of Cuba medical professionals labor
in dangerous countries not of their choosing, their passports
taken, their movements restricted, their families and licenses
threatened and their salaries heavily garnished by the Cuban
Government.
It is not a coincidence that Cuban law does not recognize
labor trafficking. Maria Werlau testified at our hearing in
March that, and I quote her, ``trafficking is a huge operation
run by the government through numerous state enterprises, with
. . . accomplices, participants, sponsors, and promoters all
over the world.'' Cuba is also known as a known destination
country for child sex tourists and Cuba reports no convictions
for child sex tourism. Yet Cuba, although it had been
previously year after year ranked Tier 3, is ranked Tier 2
Watch List again this year.
We have seen many countries take a Tier 3 ranking seriously
and make real systemic changes and improve their tier rankings,
but more importantly, protect trafficking victims. Countries
such as South Korea and Israel come to mind.
When the Bush administration rated South Korea and Israel
Tier 3 based on their records, both countries--I met with
Ambassadors several times from those countries--who wanted to
get off as quickly as possible, and I would tell them and I
wasn't the only one--the TIP office said it ad nauseam to
them--it's all about performance. It's all about what you do,
not what you say.
Both countries enacted and implemented policies to combat
human trafficking and were given earned upgrades for their
verifiable actions.
But other countries attempt to end run the accountability
system with endless empty promises of action or mostly
meaningless gestures of compliance. China sat on Tier 2 Watch
List for 8 years, each year promising the State Department they
would implement their anti-trafficking plan.
Each year the State Department took the bait until Congress
put a limit on the Tier 2 Watch List, 2 years only unless the
President gives the country a waiver.
Well, China has once again promised to implement a plan and
the President just gave them a waiver to stay on the Watch List
a 3rd year.
Tier rankings are about real prosecutions that are
verifiable. We know they happen. It's not just a list that is
tendered by someone in the government to our Embassy or TIP
official--real prevention and real protection for real people
who are suffering as slaves.
The TIP Report was meant to speak for the trafficking
victims waiting, hoping and praying for relief. While the 2016
TIP Report speaks for many of them, too many are still unheard.
I yield to Mr. Cicilline.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member
Bass, for this important hearing and thank you to our witnesses
for being here today.
As the 2016 Trafficking in Persons report states, and I
quote, ``Despite sustained anti-trafficking efforts, millions
of individuals are bound by mental, physical and financial
coercion and manipulation by traffickers who exploit their
vulnerabilities for profit.''
Human trafficking is modern day slavery. It's horrifying
that there is no place in the world where children, women and
men are safe from trafficking. Despite international and U.S.
efforts to eliminate human trafficking, this centuries-old
problem continues to occur in virtually every country in the
world and contributes to a multi-billion dollar criminal
industry, the second largest criminal enterprise in the world,
according to the FBI.
Trafficking is a global problem. Victims can start in one
country and end up in another and trafficking is a human rights
problem. Victims of human trafficking are deprived of
individual freedoms and suffer through unimaginable harsh,
coercive and heartbreaking conditions.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how
the United States can help prevent the scourge of human
trafficking and we need an effort to end this horrific activity
once and for all.
Thank you for being here. With that, I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Cicilline.
I'd like to now recognize and express my gratitude on
behalf of the subcommittee to Ambassador Susan Coppedge for her
leadership at the TIP office. She is our Ambassador-at-Large to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and senior advisor to
the Secretary of State.
She was confirmed by the Senate, having been appointed by
President Obama in October 2015 and leads the U.S. global
engagement against human trafficking. Ambassador Coppedge
previously served for 15 years as Assistant United States
Attorney in the Northern District of Georgia. She prosecuted
more than 45 human traffickers in Federal cases involving
transnational and domestic sex trafficking of adults and
children and labor trafficking. These prosecutions brought
perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice and assisted
more than 90 victims of human trafficking.
Ambassador, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SUSAN COPPEDGE, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE
TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF STATE
Ambassador Coppedge. I am happy to be here today to discuss
human trafficking in the 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify about his crucial
human rights issue and critical foreign policy issue. The
subcommittee and its chairman have been a consistent champion
of global efforts to combat human trafficking.
We very much appreciate Congress' bipartisan support on
this issue and provision of resources so the department has
both the foreign assistance funds and staff it needs to advance
our shared goals of combating this heinous crime.
Two weeks ago on June 30th, Secretary Kerry released the
2016 Trafficking in Persons Report. The TIP Report demonstrates
the U.S. Government's global leadership on combating human
trafficking and it is our principal diagnostic tool to assess
government efforts across what we call the three P's--
prosecuting traffickers, protecting and empowering victims, and
preventing future trafficking crimes.
The TIP Report reflects a whole of Department effort. It is
the product of a year of research and reporting by my office,
the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons,
regional bureaus, and U.S. Embassies around the world, all
informed by their engagements with foreign government
officials, NGOs, faith groups, and international organizations.
The report provides country-specific narratives for 188
countries and territories and places them on one of four tiers
representing the extent to which they meet the minimum
standards for the elimination of trafficking as outlined in the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or TVPA.
The report also offers recommendations for improvement in
every country. The TIP Report is more than just an analysis of
what countries are doing to combat trafficking. It is, above
all else, an instrument of diplomacy, a means to effect change
and motivate tangible progress in combating the many forms of
trafficking.
And each year, the report and the Department's year round
diplomatic efforts on trafficking do spur further progress.
There are some places where we saw progress in the last year
and other countries where we saw backsliding.
There are some examples submitted in my written testimony.
I will just highlight one and that is the progress in the
Philippines that the chairman mentioned where a strong
coordinated government effort to combat human trafficking
across the three P's earned the government its first ever Tier
1 ranking. The Philippines convicted 42 traffickers, including
complicit government officials, fulfilling the top
recommendation from the 2015 TIP Report.
The Philippines is also an example of successful targeting
of U.S. anti-trafficking foreign assistance. The Department has
funded programs over the last 10 years including grants to
experienced and committed anti-trafficking NGOs to help the
government improve its efforts.
This has led to the creation of a dedicated anti-
trafficking prosecution unit and an increase in the number of
prosecutions and convictions. Unfortunately, there were several
countries that did not make progress this year.
For example, Sudan was ranked Tier 3 this year largely
because the government continued to deny the existence of sex
trafficking of adults and children and they did not report any
efforts to address forced labor.
Another example is Serbia, which went back to Tier 2 Watch
List as there were fewer victims identified and still fewer
human trafficking prosecutions.
The Serbian Government did not afford victims sufficient
protection or provide them with specialized services. We will
continue our year round engagements with all governments to
make clear that progress in combating human trafficking is a
key priority of the U.S. Government, as well as a commitment of
all governments that are a party to the Palermo Protocol.
Globally, we saw some promising trends representing growing
political will. Since last year, there were 30 amendments to
anti-trafficking laws and three states became parties to the
landmark Palermo Protocols: The Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka,
and Singapore, bringing that total to 169 countries.
While many governments reported increase in convictions,
the reported figures still pale in comparison to the global
scale of human trafficking. Further, in some countries, courts
are not imposing sentences on traffickers that are sufficient
to deter future criminal activity or reflective of the heinous
nature of this crime.
In addition to the narratives for each country, the
introduction to this year's report focuses on effective
strategies to prevent human trafficking.
We witnessed a broad range of prevention efforts during the
reporting period from strategic intervention programs to
public/private partnerships that leverage expertise and
facilitate creative solutions.
Those positive examples are also included in my written
testimony. We are extremely encouraged by these prevention
efforts, yet much work remains. As the 2016 report indicates,
two areas of particular concern include the need for stronger
efforts to root out corrupt and complicit officials who are
themselves either engaged in or benefiting from trafficking and
the need for support services and protections for victims so
that they are not penalized for crimes committed as a direct
result of being trafficked.
It is impossible to truly quantify the vast scope of modern
slavery today. It is impossible to describe in words and tier
rankings the full extent of the horror of human trafficking and
what it inflicts on people and families and societies across
the world.
Despite this, I would like to close with a positive and
personal reflection on the TIP Report. I have seen firsthand
that it continues to serve as the gold standard for analyzing
government efforts to combat human trafficking and as a
catalyst for a more humane world.
I am very proud of the hard work that went into the report
this year and I look forward to using it to advance our ongoing
diplomatic efforts to combat trafficking in the months ahead.
I understand there are specific countries the subcommittee
wants to discuss and I'm happy to answer questions on these or
other countries.
Thank you for having me.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Coppedge follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Madam Ambassador, thank you so very much.
Without objection, your full statement will be made a part
of the record.
And I would like to just begin by asking about China. You
know, the tierage of China, obviously, has kept them off Tier
3, which is where I and so many others who work on human rights
in China believe they ought to be.
And I've read very carefully the China narrative but it is
deeply troubling that even where there is talk of the number of
traffickers who have been convicted, there's language that
follows that although it's unclear how many of these victims
met the international definition of human trafficking, there's
talk about the written plan which still defies implementation.
I remember any time a Chinese official would come to the
United States during the 1990s and into 2000 and beyond but for
about 5 straight years there would always be an announcement
before the Premier came here or President that they're looking
at signing and then after they signed it, ratifying the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and they
got a groundswell of good will about the promise and then the
Premier would leave, go back and nothing would happen.
The written plan is still awaiting implementation as far as
I can tell. Maybe you can provide better insight on that. On
the Chinese sex trafficking of women, exacerbated in a huge way
by the dearth of women and girls who have been killed through
sex-selection abortion is we all know the numbers are tens of
thousands of missing females as a part of that heinous crime of
gender, and it is a crime, in my opinion.
They're missing. They are not there and they're not going
to be recovered, the balance or the ratio for generations to
come, even if they turned on a dime tomorrow.
And I'm wondering, when it comes to the magnet that China
has become if there is an appreciation within the TIP office of
how that has so exacerbated human trafficking, sex trafficking
in particular and the exploitation of women.
When I raised this during the Bush administration there was
an effort to look at that and it was when Tier 3 was meted out
to China by the Obama administration that was listed as one of
the criteria.
That has not abated. I was just in China. I gave a human
rights speech over there. I talk to diaspora and especially
human rights leaders in the Chinese community all the time.
There has been no diminution of sex trafficking. It is only
getting worse. It's a worsening, not a lessening situation. So
if you could speak to that as well.
And finally, on the reform through labor which was a
decided reason for the upgrade 3 years ago, the information
that we have clearly contradicts that while they got rid of
what they called reform through labor, and I was in one of
those Beijing Prison Number One where 40 Tiananmen Square
activists were doing labor and exporting the shoes and socks
that they were making and that was back in the early 1990s.
But we know from the Chinese deputy director of Ministry of
Justice who said in November 2014 that most of the reformed
labor facilities were converted into costly drug detoxification
centers, which is a euphemism, and that those individuals had
increased by 29 percent and that these are reform through labor
camps with a different name, a different shingle outside
suggesting what they do inside.
How do you respond to that, all of those questions?
Ambassador Coppedge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me know
if I forget to respond to one of those points.
I want to start by telling you how much we appreciate your
dedication to anti-trafficking efforts and all human rights
efforts in China. It's very important to have that support on
the Hill and we appreciate the work you have done in that area.
I will say that China received, as you noted, a Tier 2
Watch List ranking this year. That means it does not fully meet
the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and
that it did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts compared
to the previous reporting period. So that is not a passing
grade.
If you look at the tier rankings as a pass/fail system,
then China is still failing. It is on a Tier 2 Watch List, and
we continue to urge them to take steps in many of the areas
that your question highlighted.
We did receive this year numbers for the conviction of sex
trafficking and they reported that 714 traffickers were
convicted. They then also submitted that number that you
mentioned that is a little murkier. It's a little harder to
figure out whether that next figure is about trafficking
because it's a crime that's called abduction of women and
children.
And so it is counted in the report under the laws that
China used. There may be some sex trafficking prosecutions in
there. There may not. But as you know, the report says a
country has to report data to us and if the data isn't clear we
include that lack of clarity in the report when we provide the
numbers.
So there was an increased reporting this year and there
were 714 trafficking cases as well as other convictions that we
could not discern clearly what they were.
With respect to the forced labor camps, we continued to get
reports, as you yourself have, that some of those facilities
have been rebranded and may still be used to cause forced
labor.
We hunt down all the leads we get and we include those in
the Trafficking in Persons Report. We are having great
difficulty quantifying the extent of forced labor that occurs
in these centers. But we certainly get reports beyond just from
the government. The government provides reports but we also
talk to NGOs and citizens and people who have left the country.
And individuals like yourself--when you travel I know that
you share the information you gain with us and all of that goes
into the report ranking for any country.
Mr. Smith. On the sex trafficking, if you could speak to
the missing girls phenomena and how that might be impacting
this magnet that China has become.
And again, on the reform through labor, do our personnel in
our Embassies or consulates have access to independently verify
any of this?
And even on the 714 traffickers presumably that were
convicted, is that a piece of paper they convey to us or do we
have a capability to independently verify that this is true?
Because it is the land of deceit by government officials.
There's no doubt about it.
Ambassador Coppedge. It's challenging sometimes when
governments present information including China to understand
what happens behind those statistics and in some countries that
are smaller with fewer prosecutions I know we are able to look
behind the number and see what the trafficking cases were
composed of. In this case, our clearest ability to look behind
the numbers is the different laws that China self-reported it
used to prosecute these individuals.
We do have officers at our Embassy in China and at our
consulates looking at and looking for information there. So we
do try to verify information as best we can. We use independent
reports, human rights reports as well, so we do, to the best of
our ability, look behind those numbers and try to verify them.
With respect to the missing girls, that touches on an area
of fighting trafficking where demand has been created because
there's a problem and this happens in other countries too where
there appears to be heightened demand for commercial sex and
that does lead to an increase in sex trafficking.
And what we have asked countries to do pursuant to the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards is to
report to us what efforts they are doing to prevent the demand
for young girls and adult women who might be engaged in
commercial sex acts against their will.
Mr. Smith. Finally, on China, the report notes that China
is granted a waiver from otherwise required downgrade to Tier 3
because its government had devoted sufficient resources to a
sufficient written plan that, and I quote, ``if implemented
would constitute making significant efforts to meet.''
So, again, it's the promise of implementing a plan that has
not been implemented. They've allocated $8 million in a country
the size and girth of the People's Republic of China with a
problem that is beyond words big. That doesn't seem like much
money for a country of that size.
But you even acknowledge that if implemented and it's like
we've gotten that promise before and with great respect I would
hope that we would not just take that at face value that
they're doing us.
Ambassador Coppedge. As you know, Congressman, there's only
the ability to remain on the Tier 2 Watch List for 4 years and
those last 2 years we do require the national action plan. I
believe this is China's first waiver and so they only have 1
more year where the national action plan would keep them on the
Tier 2 Watch List. After that, they would have to move up to
Tier 2 on their own efforts or down to Tier 3. So that period
of time where they can rely on the national action plan is a 2-
year period.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you, Madam Ambassador, in your
testimony for the Senate this morning you said there were a
handful of cases where J/TIP recommendations on rankings were
opposed by other offices of the State Department. Was China,
Cuba, or Malaysia--and Malaysia three of those countries and
what was the recommendation of the TIP office and who made
decisions to counter that?
Ambassador Coppedge. Well, with respect to the
recommendations my team at the Trafficking in Persons office
works with individuals at Embassies and posts that are
stationed abroad.
We also work with the regional officials at the State
Department and come up with the consensus recommendations we
present to the Secretary.
He approves all of those consensus recommendations or has
the final approval on all of those. With respect to a handful
of countries, there may have been some facts that were missing
that we were striving to reach still from countries seeking
more information.
There was debate on factors potentially pointing in
separate directions. So those were the internal deliberations
and I was able to present arguments to the Secretary on any of
those countries and ultimately the final decision was made by
the Secretary for any that there was not a consensus
recommendation.
Mr. Smith. Again, on the written plan is that the 2013
plan, if that's when it was originally written?
Ambassador Coppedge. It is the 2013 plan. You're correct.
Mr. Smith. So we're still awaiting its implementation?
Ambassador Coppedge. We are. It was a 2013 to 2020 national
plan of action against trafficking in persons.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Let me, very briefly, and then I will
yield to my distinguished colleagues, on the issue of Malaysia
and, you know, David Abramowitz, who served under Sam
Gejdenson, Tom Lantos was always involved with crafting the
best possible bipartisan effort on human trafficking.
In his testimony today he talks about the report. It is not
without its troubling flaws when we start with Malaysia, he
says, and he makes--and not only is it unjustified that
Malaysia is not on Tier 3 which all of us, I think, are deeply
concerned about.
But he makes a point that upgrading Thailand to Tier 2
Watch List was also unwarranted but points to the perils that
the Malaysia upgrade created. In other words, because Malaysia
was to be given a free pass a country like Thailand that had
more convictions--35 last year, for example--that was upgraded
artificially to make it look as if there's a sense of balance.
That's a terrible outcome. Who made that decision? Was it a
TIP recommendation for the Watch List or was that someone
else's?
Ambassador Coppedge. The final decisions are made by the
Secretary and he spoke at the TIP Report release saying that
the conclusions are based on facts and based on analysis that
occurs over the course of the year.
He also acknowledged that he worked with the experts in
this area. I will say that we don't compare countries to one
another. We compare a country to its efforts the previous year.
So Malaysia's efforts were compared to its efforts the
previous year and Thailand to its efforts the previous year.
They weren't compared to each other.
Mr. Smith. And on Cuba, Cuba was Tier 3 from the very
beginning until last year. I read the narrative and I said how
is that not a Tier 3 country, particularly when they claim
labor trafficking doesn't exist?
I can't even get a visa to go to Cuba. I met with the
Ambassador and he said only if I agree to pre-set parameters of
who I meet with would I be given a visa, because I would go and
investigate human trafficking and talk to people in the country
as well as dissidents.
I can't even get in the country and I've been trying for 20
years. I don't know how Cuba escaped the Tier 3 rating.
Ambassador Coppedge. As you know, it is on the Tier 2 Watch
List for the second year, meaning it did not make increased
efforts to combat trafficking.
I did travel to Cuba in January and met with individuals at
the Ministry of Health to talk about our concerns with respect
to the medical missions and people participating in those
missions who don't have their travel documents or personal
identification documents with them when they travel.
So we continue to press the Cuban Government on indicators
of trafficking that may exist. We also press them to reform
their law to address all forms of trafficking. So, certainly,
the problems that Cuba has are highlighted in the report and
they do have a lot of areas with which they need to improve.
They have improved with respect to sex trafficking prosecutions
and to their coordination with law enforcement, both U.S. law
enforcement and law enforcement in the region that they are
working with to prevent sexual predators from coming into Cuba
for sex tourism, but also to share information about any who do
come in to engage in those prosecutions with other countries.
Mr. Smith. So if we notice then, pursuant to the
International Megan's Law, we are confident they will respond
that a convicted pedophile from the U.S. will be watched or
perhaps denied a visa?
Ambassador Coppedge. I believe denied a visa, Congressman.
We spoke with them about cases where they had turned away those
who had been convicted in the U.S. of predatory sexual
practices.
Mr. Smith. You make a great point about human trafficking,
the TIP heroes, including a group or a person fighting with
trafficking, combating hereditary slavery in Mauritania.
For the record--and I'm glad to see that, I think that's a
great award for that person to get--but on March 13, 1996, I
chaired a hearing called ``Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan''
and the State Department told me and my subcommittee, Mr.
Twaddell, who was then the Deputy Assistant Secretary for
African Affairs, that the Human Rights Report for 1995
indicates that such practices as coercive slavery and commerce
in slaves appeared to have virtually disappeared.
I was told that this was a hearing in search of a problem,
that there was no problem there. Matter of fact, one of our
colleagues, former colleagues, who was a paid consultant for
the country of Mauritania, actually testified and said there's
no slavery and he had seen it. I asked him well, how often do
you go there. Twice, every year. Mervyn Dymally had said that.
No slavery.
This is why I get concerned about reports that suggest it's
not as big of a problem or, I mean, we had this and tried to do
something back in 1996 and sitting in that witness chair just
like you I was told go fish. There is no problem in Mauritania,
and there is and there continues to be.
Ambassador Coppedge. You won't be told that by me today. I
can tell you that they are Tier 3 and we were very pleased to
honor those individuals working in Mauritania against heredity
slavery as well as seven other individuals.
And it was very moving to me when they said that this makes
a difference in their fights, in their countries against
trafficking because they can go back and say it is a problem,
it's a documented problem in this report and I have been
honored for my work in it and my own Government should do
better about it rather than relying on me to do this work and
being honored by a foreign government.
Mr. Smith. Well, thank you for honoring them and for your
commitment there. I would like to yield to Ms. Bass.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I actually wanted to follow up little bit on Cuba because
I've actually had a different experience. I traveled to Cuba
many times and saw them grappling with the issue especially of
sex trafficking and prostitution and saw them do a lot of
education.
I also recall a time an individual from California was
deported. He was in Cuba trying to do sex tourism and they
caught him and deported him. And I actually thought that they
were downgraded because of our relationship with Cuba at the
time and when our relationship became more balanced we upgraded
them.
I have some concern about the medical missions and actually
some concern about our behavior because one of the practices
that we had when doctors from Cuba would go over to South
America we would try to recruit them away and offer them
special status here and I'm hoping that that's something that
we're not continuing to do. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Ambassador Coppedge. I do, and the Cuban officials did
discuss that with me while I was down there. I don't think our
policy yet has changed on that.
Ms. Bass. Because some of those folks then, instead of
going back to Cuba where they could practice medicine would be
recruited away, and we've done that in other countries as well
and that concerns me where doctors are needed other places.
Surely we need them here too.
So the focus of my question is actually I wanted to focus
on the United States because when I read the TIP Report and I
wanted to ask actually that you make some changes next year in
how the reporting on the United States has done because when I
read the section on the U.S. it's mixed in, domestic and
international and even the domestic is mixed in with
international people who might be trafficked.
I'm concerned about domestic sex trafficking that does not
have an international connection where the average age of girls
in our country that are involved in sex trafficking is 12 years
old.
Many of them are foster kids. But from the way this report
reads you can't really pull that out. And so if the tier
grading is based on our practice from one year to the next, I
don't know how you judge us. And then, of course, this is us
grading ourselves, correct? I mean, there's nobody else looking
at us to say oh, the United States had done wonderful in the
Tier 1.
So we have passed legislation around sex trafficking and I
would very much like to know where we are with that. So, for
example, in this report on page 391 it talks about how we
provide comprehensive services for all victims of trafficking.
Services, however, were not provided equally.
I sure would like to know where those comprehensive
services are. I don't know where they exist. One of the big
problems that we have with sex trafficking in the United States
is when we rescue the girls we have no place for them to go.
So if there's comprehensive services that are provided by
the United States one of the main things we need is housing and
I don't know where we are providing that.
Some of the people who are involved in the trafficking are
street gangs in the United States. There is no reference to
that unless I missed it. So I think we have graded ourselves
very well and I'm not entirely sure we have done all that well.
Victims are still arrested. That is acknowledged in one
passing sentence here. The victims are still arrested.
Sometimes when they are committing crimes that the pimp is
forcing them to commit, the girls, the 12-year-olds, 13-year-
olds, 14-year-olds, are still taken to jail.
There was a case recently in Oakland where a girl was
rescued by a police officer who then turned around and started
trafficking her and was trafficking her to the other police
officers. So you might have seen in Oakland a couple of weeks
ago I think they fired three chiefs in a week and in part it
was because of this.
You make reference to a national action plan. Do we have a
national action plan in the United States that deals with U.S.
girls and boys?
Ambassador Coppedge. Are you ready for me to start? Okay. I
really do appreciate your focus on the U.S. and it's only since
2010 that we started reporting on the U.S. and that's actually
helped us diplomatically to say that we look at ourselves as
well as other countries.
And we do--as you note, the U.S. narrative is longer than
any other narrative. We exhaustively look at our efforts. We
pull information from various branches of Federal Government.
We don't evaluate what the states are doing. We look at the
Federal effort and that is done thoroughly in the TIP Report.
I think it's important that we look at ourselves and that
we look at ourselves and what we are doing to prosecute and
convict complicit officials so those police officers you just
mentioned in Oakland, they shouldn't just be fired. They should
be criminally prosecuted for that.
Ms. Bass. Absolutely.
Ambassador Coppedge. And that is something we ask other
countries to do and we certainly grade ourselves on those same
standards.
Similarly, with respect to the penalization or
criminalization of victims, I had the opportunity to speak to
the gathering of state attorney generals that was here in DC.
It was a wonderful opportunity to speak to 50 lawmakers
about this very issue, about trafficking victims and how they
need to not be criminalized by the system that is supposed to
help them and many states have made great progress in that
area.
New York was one of the first to offer expungement of
criminal records for crimes committed as a direct result of
trafficking. Florida has gone even further and doesn't look at
just prostitution crimes but looks at any crimes that a
trafficking victim may have been convicted of as a result of
trafficking.
So it's very important that we make our cases victim-
centered, that we make sure that we are helping and assisting
the victims and you were right that housing is one of the key
issues that victims need.
I was a former Federal prosecutor in Atlanta and that was
the first thing we needed to do when we found victims was get
them somewhere safe so they weren't retrafficked, so they
weren't subject to the trafficker finding them and pulling them
back into that criminal activity that they did not want to be
in.
So housing is certainly an area we look at as well as other
services--medical services, education, job training--and all of
these are provided by Federal as well as state agencies and
NGOs.
There's a lot of government funding going to NGOs to
provide these services in our states and the Department of
Health and Human Services can better speak to exactly what is
being done and we do pull a lot of our data for the report from
HHS, from the Department of Justice, and from the Department of
Labor.
Ms. Bass. So my state is California and my city and county
is Los Angeles and in Los Angeles we certainly passed
legislation there that a girl is not ever considered as a
prostitute because if you're under the age of consent how can
you be a prostitute? It's actually rape.
And where I think more attention needs to be paid is also
on the men because the men are called johns. They should be
called child molesters and they should be prosecuted like child
molesters.
And oftentimes they kind of, you know, get off the hook. So
I raise California and Los Angeles because I believe we have
some of the most progressive legislation there. But we don't
have these resources that you're talking about.
I'll follow up with HHS but I also think we need to
highlight that because we might have some of these policies in
theory but I surely don't know where they are and if anywhere I
think they would be in my state.
The national action plan--do we have one?
Ambassador Coppedge. We do have it and we have actually a
Senior Policy Operating Group which comprises of
representatives from all of the Federal agencies that work on
trafficking matters and they meet quarterly throughout the
year.
In fact, we're meeting next week and we hear about what
other individuals are doing, what other agencies are doing. We
get outside our silos of each agency and we share our practices
to make sure we're enhancing each other's efforts and not
competing against efforts.
Ms. Bass. Could I see that? Could you----
Ambassador Coppedge. We could get you the--I'm not sure the
exact title of the document. We will get it for you, yes----
Ms. Bass. Okay.
Ambassador Coppedge [continuing]. From the Senior Policy
Operating Group. And then once a year that group convenes with
cabinet-level officials and the Secretary of State chairs that
and that happened in January of this year. So cabinet-level
officials came together to hear about what other agencies are
doing and to show a combined front against trafficking in this
country.
I will say there was an excellent non-governmental
organization in Los Angeles that you referenced that had the
campaign that there's no such thing as a child prostitute.
Ms. Bass. Exactly.
Ambassador Coppedge. That was a wonderful organization----
Ms. Bass. Absolutely.
Ambassador Coppedge [continuing]. It really changed the way
we talk about this crime.
Ms. Bass. That's right.
Ambassador Coppedge. And I'm very proud of the work they've
done and the efforts they've made to redefine this so that we
understand that the people engaging in these acts are
criminals.
Ms. Bass. It's really important to call it differently
which is why it's important to never use the term ``john.''
Ambassador Coppedge. And in the Federal courts I can tell
you we do require traffickers to register as sex offenders and
I'm pretty sure that most states do follow that practice as
well.
Ms. Bass. So in the Federal system also one of the other
areas is victim's testimony where sometimes the girls are
forced to testify in court and a much more reasonable practice
would be for the girls to testify on video.
And I don't know if that's a standard but I think it is one
that would be helpful.
Ambassador Coppedge. Again, I will defer to the Department
of Justice on the legal standards. I will say that in the cases
I prosecuted, I always worked with victims to obtain their
consent. They were never forced to testify in court.
Ms. Bass. Yes, but even obtaining a consent, when they walk
in and when they see that pimp there, it's very hard even with
their consent to not be triggered to respond in a way that he
could literally control from the courtroom through the
nonverbal communication.
You know, one----
Ambassador Coppedge. It is very hard. But in my personal
experience, it was also empowering for those young women to
come into court.
We're talking women over the age of 18, young women, to
come into court and be able to tell a jury and a judge what
this individual had done to them and to hear that he was
convicted of what he did to them.
So it's also empowering at some level, and there are
protections for juveniles to be able to testify in different
manners if they are in danger.
Ms. Bass. I can certainly understand that, and I was
specifically talking about girls. But I can understand it could
even be empowering for them as well.
So another area that I'm worried about are the
unaccompanied minors which is referenced here. We have been in
such a rush to, one, get them placed back when we were at the
height of that--to get them placed or to deport them.
And so I'm very concerned. When we deported them back, I
don't know what we deported them to. I don't know what we did.
I mean the ones that came with parents, you know, I imagine
they were deported with their parents but I don't know what we
do. What do we do?
Ambassador Coppedge. It's a real problem and certainly----
Ms. Bass. You take a 12-year-old and drop them off in San
Salvador?
Ambassador Coppedge. Certainly, migration crises around the
world have raised awareness of individuals that trafficking
victims are preyed upon during any political or economic crisis
and natural disasters as well.
Anything that causes individuals to migrate can also cause
individuals to be susceptible to traffickers, to the false
promises they make.
Ms. Bass. But when we deport a child who do we deport a
child to?
Ambassador Coppedge. I'm not sure exactly. We'd have to
check with the Department of Homeland Security to see.
Ms. Bass. Okay.
Ambassador Coppedge. I do know that the State Department
has programs ongoing in Guatemala and Honduras to provide
services to children to keep them from becoming victims of
trafficking.
Ms. Bass. Okay. I know one of the other problems that
happened in our country too is when we placed them here some of
them were placed inappropriately and placed with traffickers.
I want to just wrap up my testimony because I hear they're
calling votes, I think. Is that--so I would like to make the
specific request that when the report is done next year that it
is separated out so that you can see very specifically the
section that deals with U.S. children in the U.S., not
international children coming here, and also U.S. trafficking.
Does that make sense?
Ambassador Coppedge. But I will say that for--I understand
your request but I will say that throughout the report for any
country, whether it's the U.S., France, or Germany, we look at
trafficking in that country. We look at whether that country
has a domestic and/or an international component to it. We call
that a transit source or destiny.
Ms. Bass. It's just hard to look at our progress that way
of U.S.--of what the problem is going on with U.S. children.
Ambassador Coppedge. What the report tries to capture is
what the landscape of trafficking looks like and in the U.S.
unfortunately it is both domestic victims and international
victims.
We can certainly, and I think the report does highlight
services and whether those are going to both domestic and
international victims.
There has been a great increase in the time that I have
been working in the anti-trafficking field with services
provided to domestic victims.
Ms. Bass. I want us to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Thank you.
Ambassador Coppedge. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Cicilline.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Madam Ambassador.
I want to begin, you mentioned that the TIP Report relies
on the Federal efforts with respect to trafficking in the
United States and you just mentioned an assessment of the
trafficking landscape.
With what we know is activity at the state level, does it
make sense to consider including in the TIP Report the state
efforts and the success or inadequacies of state efforts as
well? Seems like a rather big omission.
Ambassador Coppedge. Well, the report is designed to look
at countries, to look at the federal, in this case, effort or
centralized government efforts around the world. It doesn't
dwell down in any other countries.
For example, India has multiple states. We don't look at
what the states in India are doing. And so it's consistently
treating the U.S. the way we treat other foreign governments
and evaluate----
Mr. Cicilline. Yes, I guess I would--just following up on
what Congresswoman Bass' point that she just made, to the
extent that we are leaders in this work, we create the report
to shine the light on the activities of other countries, it
seems to me that we that ought to be doing everything we can to
surface all of the trafficking that exists in the United States
and call that out because I think it gives more credibility to
the balance of the reports. So just something to----
Ambassador Coppedge. Well, the report does--and again, the
U.S. narrative is the longest narrative in here and it does
focus on both domestic and international.
Mr. Cicilline. Right. But not--it's happening at the local
level.
Do you think that there are sufficient protections in place
that prohibit the importation of goods and services that have
been produced in whole or in part by trafficked or slave labor?
I know there are a number of examples of goods that have
come into the United States and that there's reason to believe
that were produced by trafficked labor. Do you think we need
additional legislative authority to prevent that?
Ambassador Coppedge. Well, I know that during this past
year Congress closed the loophole to ban products that are made
with slave labor and that the Department of Homeland Security,
through the Customs and Border Protection, now has the
authority to stop products that they believe are made with
forced labor.
So I believe that with that legislative change we should
wait and see if that appears to be sufficient to allow us to
keep out goods that are made with forced labor.
We also at the State Department encourage responsible
practices on the part of businesses to look at their own supply
chains. This is not something that governments can do alone.
It's something we rely on partners and the business community
needs to step up and police their own supply chain as well.
To that end, we unveiled this year a Web site partly funded
by the State Department called resonsiblesourcingtool.org,
which allows companies who have products that may contain slave
labor to be able to go onto that Web site and look where the
issues may be in certain countries and how better to police and
prevent slave labor from being used in the production of goods.
Mr. Cicilline. And just one final question because I know
votes have been called, of the 20.9 million victims worldwide,
the International Labor Organization estimates that 68 percent
of these individuals are trapped in labor trafficking. Yet only
7 percent of the 6,609 convictions reported worldwide last year
were labor cases. So labor trafficking seems to be really
operating with near impunity across the globe in large part
because of the increased resources it takes to recognize,
investigate, and prosecute these cases.
How can the TIP Report and the State Department, and your
office in particular help build this expertise globally and
ensure that more labor cases are identified and prosecuted?
What else could we be doing, since that seems to be such a big
part of this?
Ambassador Coppedge. And this was similar to what happened
in the U.S. We focused on sex trafficking and have started to
increase our focus on labor trafficking and how best to find
it.
So what we are doing is training law enforcement both here
in the U.S. but also through resources from the State
Department. We're training international law enforcement and we
are also allowing organizations like the International
Organization for Migration to train law enforcement on to what
to look for with respect to indicators of forced labor or
trafficking.
And so it's important to train them so they understand what
to look for but also to call for increasing convictions in this
area and stringent sentences that will deter labor traffickers
from engaging in this because it really is a crime of economic
opportunity, right? Cheaper labor means more money for the
people making the product.
And so there needs to be a sufficient consequence and
throughout the Trafficking in Persons Report we note where
there are not sufficient sentences and not sufficient labor
trafficking prosecutions.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you so much. I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Ambassador, we do have 11 votes. I'm not sure
how David Abramowitz--I'm not sure--can you stay? I appreciate
that.
Thank you. And I apologize deeply for that. They're saying
it will take about an hour. Let me just ask a couple of final
follow-up questions.
On Cuba where it's clearly stated there is no reporting on
labor trafficking whatsoever, 84,000 workers from foreign
medical missions. A significant amount of the government
revenue is derived from that.
How is it that that lack of reporting didn't trigger a red
flag, especially since you acknowledge in your report that some
of the people said that they were coerced into that overseas
mission?
Ambassador Coppedge. So those factors do raise a red flag
and as you noted are called out in the narrative. But there are
four minimum standards and the fourth has twelve indicia.
And so we evaluate all of those standards and look at the
totality of what's going on in the country. Cuba has made some
progress, as I indicated with respect to keeping sex tourists
out of the country. They have increased their efforts to
address sex trafficking. We continue to press them to engage
more in labor trafficking and to allow the people involved in
the medical missions to hold their documents when they are
working abroad.
Mr. Smith. Again, just for clarification purposes, when you
receive data from the People's Republic of China, to what
extent do we try to verify that it's accurate?
Ambassador Coppedge. In every case we try to verify that
information.
Mr. Smith. And how do we do that?
Ambassador Coppedge. We have individuals on the ground who
are gathering information from sources other than the
government. We rely on human rights organizations. We rely on
dissidents. We rely on press. We rely on any sources of
information we can to verify that information.
I will say, as I alluded to earlier with respect to Cuba,
that in that case where there's a smaller number of
convictions, we actually have lawyers at the State Department
who looked at the facts in those cases and said yes, these are
sex trafficking cases that we can now count and say this is the
number of prosecutions they had.
It becomes much more challenging and problematic in a
country as large as China to verify every case. We simply can't
do that. But they do in China break out the prosecutions by the
type of law they were convicted under and we did distinguish
those types of prosecutions in the report this year.
Mr. Smith. But we don't have access, we don't have people
in the courtroom. I mean, what kind of transparency is there?
Ambassador Coppedge. We strive for transparency in this
report and that's why there is----
Mr. Smith. No, I mean in terms of the Chinese statistics.
Ambassador Coppedge. It's very hard to get information, as
you know, sir, from China.
Mr. Smith. Because if you look at the numbers from 2010,
there is actually a 55-percent decline in the number of cases
and 62-percent decline in the number of convictions, again,
compared to 2010. Not last year but 2010 when they were Tier 3.
So I have trouble understanding whether or not we have real
numbers even in 2010 and the numbers have actually declined
from when they were Tier 3 when it comes to convictions and
prosecutions.
Ambassador Coppedge. But it's not just the numbers that the
tier ranking is based on. It's based on the four minimum
standards and the 12 indicia.
So we have to look at all of the factors. And I do know
that from last year that China did provide increasing
statistics to us, more information and more transparency than
they had in 2014, for the 2015 report.
Mr. Smith. So on China, your recommendation is comported
with what the Secretary did?
Ambassador Coppedge. So I--certainly support the book as a
whole and the Secretary has the final authority. And so this is
a State Department--whole of Department effort and we were able
to discuss all of the countries of concern to the Trafficking
in Persons office with the Secretary.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Let me just--and for the record, the part
on the United States, which is a welcome depart, and it's good
that we're Tier 1, but I think people tend to forget that there
is an annual Attorney General's report that is 400 pages long.
This is 418 for the entire world.
We do look introspectively and we do it with a different
part of our Government, the Attorney General's office in the
Justice Department. And I think sometimes that goes under
recognized.
We are looking and trying to improve all the time and what
you have here is just a distillation of what other parts of the
government are doing on a Federal level. So I think that's
important to point out.
Unfortunately, we've got votes. I have another 20 questions
but I won't get to them. I'll submit them for the record. And
again, I apologize to Mr. Abramowitz that we have about an
hour's worth of votes. Then we'll reconvene as soon as we
return.
We stand in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will resume its sitting and I
want to apologize again to Mr. Abramowitz and those who have
stayed. Thank you for your forbearance.
I'd like to introduce David Abramowitz who is the managing
director of Humanity United Action overseeing public policy and
government relations.
Previously he served as chief counsel to the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs where he was responsible for
advising the committee of such matters as international law,
justice, global human rights, democracy issues including and
especially trafficking in persons, and promoting democracy
assistance.
He worked doggedly on the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act of 2000 and especially on the reauthorization of the
Wilberforce Act in 2008 among other important pieces of
legislation.
Prior to joining the committee staff in 1999, David worked
in the Department of State for 10 years on arms control, the
Middle East, and legislation relating to foreign relations and
I'd like to yield the floor to Mr. Abramowitz.
STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ABRAMOWITZ, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HUMANITY
UNITED ACTION
Mr. Abramowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to Ranking
Member Bass for convening this important hearing and for
inviting me to testify.
I have a written statement and I ask that it be made part
of the record.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Abramowitz. It's a pleasure to be here today
representing Humanity United Action, a nonpartisan non-profit
organization that along with its affiliated organization,
Humanity United, is dedicated to bringing new approaches to
global problems that have long been considered intractable.
Mr. Chairman, more than 15 years after the Palermo Protocol
and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act at any given time
more than 20 million workers and individuals are still
estimated to be trapped in modern slavery. A strong Trafficking
in Persons office at the Department of State with effective
tools such as the Trafficking in Persons Report is a powerful
catalyst for change.
But the TIP Report is only effective if the State
Department ranks countries honestly. Last year, many of us in
civil society expressed serious concerns that with some of the
State Department's tier placement decisions, especially the
upgrading of Malaysia and Uzbekistan, I would say the 2016
report is a mixed picture with some real disappointments, but
is certainly better than last year.
First, the positive. By placing Burma and Uzbekistan in
Tier 3, we believe that the State Department is starting to
remedy some of last year's misguided decisions. The treatment
of the Rohingya in Burma and the Uzbekistani Government
official policy of forced labor fully justifies these
decisions, as I note in my written testimony.
My testimony also describes how the State Department's
decision to keep Qatar on the Tier 2 Watch List is another
effective way to use the TIP Report to push for real change
that will actually impact workers on the ground.
Unfortunately, this year's report has troubling flaws. Let
me start with Malaysia. The State Department's upgrade of that
country to the Tier 2 Watch List in 2015 was completely
unjustified and remains so today.
More than a year after Malaysian police unearthed the
remains of more than 130 human trafficking victims buried in
mass graves, not a single Malaysian has been held accountable.
This is particularly of concern, given that the mass graves
incident occurred fully within this year's reporting period.
Moreover, recent news reports suggest that top government
officials have been involved in the human trafficking scheme
involving the country's immigration system. Similarly, no
criminal charges have been brought.
As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, earlier convictions may
have gone up slightly from four last year to seven this year,
but that number is still below the number of convictions in
2014 when Malaysia was downgraded to Tier 3 and the report
itself acknowledges that there were fewer trafficking
investigations and prosecutions last year with its pilot
program for victims seeming to be sputtering to a halt.
While the State Department may have believed that an
upgrade to the Tier 2 Watch List would encourage Malaysia to
increase its concrete actions, that simply didn't happen.
Upgrading Thailand to Tier 2 Watch List was also
unwarranted and points to the perils that the Malaysia upgrade
created. I know, Mr. Chairman, that you thought that it was
appropriate to upgrade Thailand but I think that we still have
significant concerns.
Though the Thai Government has taken steps to improve some
of its laws to address international concerns around human
trafficking and forced labor, those reforms have not resulted
in any meaningful improvement on the ground.
Implementation and enforcement of these laws remains a
major weakness. As I indicated in my testimony, quoting from a
Humanity United and Freedom Fund report, implementation of the
new statutes has been inconsistent both in courts and at sea.
Inspection systems are underfunded, plagued by corruption and
constrained by inadequate vessel monitoring capabilities.
More importantly, inspectors have failed to identify
victims of forced labor as they lack the resources and
incentives to check crews and interview workers.
I'd ask, Mr. Chairman, that the full text of that report be
included in the record.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Abramowitz. What's more, we've seen very troubling
developments in the investigation of the discovery of mass
graves on the Thai side of the border, which is concomitant
with the Malaysian case.
The head of this investigation had to flee for his life and
seek asylum in Australia after receiving threats from Thai
police and military officials complicit in forced labor in the
country.
This suggests that high-level Thai Government officials are
involved.
Mr. Chairman, as you mentioned previously, I think we need
to consider that the upgrade of Malaysia last year led directly
to the upgrade of Thailand this year.
It may be that it was simply impossible to upgrade Malaysia
and keep it on the Tier 2 Watch List this year and at the same
time not upgrade Thailand.
Thailand's efforts were plainly insufficient, in our view,
but they were greater than Malaysia's. Having decided to
upgrade Malaysia and keep it on Tier 2 Watch List may have made
it more difficult to keep Thailand on Tier 3 and maybe we can
discuss this more during questions.
Unfortunately, the decision to upgrade Thailand and
maintain Malaysia on the Watch List may deepen the perception
that the Department applies the TIP Report standards unevenly.
I believe that the State Department, particularly the U.S.
Embassies in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpor and the Department's East
Asia and Pacific bureau must significantly increase their
efforts to see real implementation of Thailand and Malaysia's
legal frameworks and press for real impact.
I want to accentuate this point, Mr. Chairman. The
Department's lack of focus on actual impact on the ground in
sensitive countries has reached a point where Congress should
step in.
One way Congress can address this is to require that any
country that receives an upgrade shows concrete actions toward
the implementation of their laws and demonstrate impact of
these actions on the ground.
Developing a program to help survivors that doesn't work or
establishing labor inspections that do not identify trafficking
victims is simply not the impact the United States should
expect.
Similarly, commitments to take action should not be a basis
for having a country remain on a Tier 2 Watch List.
As you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, earlier, we have taken
vague commitments and the promises to implement laws--new
laws--in good faith too often and it is the victims of
trafficking who pay the price for such misplaced trust.
Now is the time for Congress also to step in to ensure that
in the future all governments that direct trafficking in
persons or support forced labor through government policy
should automatically be placed on Tier 3.
And before I close, Mr. Chairman, just addressing some of
the issues that were raised on the United States, I think there
can be no question that there is significant efforts that the
U.S. is taking.
But there are a number of areas, as Congresswoman Bass
pointed out, where we really need to look carefully. For
example, on prosecutions, almost all the prosecutions were on
sex trafficking.
Obviously, those crimes come up and they're easier to
investigate. But we have small number of prosecutions and
convictions on foreign labor trafficking.
As is mentioned in the report, some of the exchange
programs are of concern. This is a potential controversial
issue. But there have been ways in which the summer work
program and some of the exchange programs have had serious
problems.
There are also the issues with the unaccompanied alien
children and the U.S. need to do more to make sure that the
children are protected and also that perhaps we take steps to
ensure that the root causes of some of that is addressed.
And finally, I think this issue of decriminalization is one
that we need to continue thinking about. The Justice for
Victims of Trafficking Act did authorize a diversion program so
that children would not be put into jails.
But I think there are ways that we can think about doing
better and making sure that they are actually not arrested in
the first place. Obviously, that raises certain challenges. But
I think we need to look at that carefully.
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to
testify and for both yours and for Ranking Member Bass'
critical leadership in this issue and I look forward to working
with you in the future and to your questions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Abramowitz follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Mr. Abramowitz, thank you very much for your
testimony.
As you I'm sure observed during my questioning of the
Ambassador-at-Large I used some of your comments, particularly
the idea of the equivalence of Thailand goes up because
Malaysia has gone up in terms of tier ranking, and I think that
was a very valid point.
I didn't really get an answer to that and some of the other
questions and I think hopefully on some of the written
questions we'll get an elaboration on some of the why's of this
because there are a lot of left unanswered and important
questions. I mean, whether or not the TPP had any influence
whatsoever on Malaysia's tier ranking. I think you can't even
look somebody in the face and have a straight face and say it
didn't because I think it's obvious it did because it's not
based on Malaysia's trafficking record.
So I thank you for those points. You know, the yellow card
that the European Commission had put on Thailand, where is that
in terms of its consideration?
Mr. Abramowitz. I think that's a very important point, Mr.
Chairman. In late May, early June the European Commission
extended the yellow card.
I believe it was for an additional 6 months to determine
whether Thailand was making progress on both the illegal
unregulated and unreported fishing aspects which goes to
sustainability as well as the forced labor issues, even though
that is technically not part of the Commission's approach.
My concern is that I think that part of what spurred the
Commission to take this action with respect to Thailand, which
is driving some significant change in terms of at least the new
frameworks, was the yellow card that they put on the
importation of fish from Thailand and with the upgrade from
Tier 3 to the Tier 2 Watch List I think the question is how
will they look at it.
That is, the Tier 3 rating of Thailand, I think, gave the
European Commission additional incentives to try to take action
and now that it's been upgraded to the Tier 2 Watch List what
will the commission do. I'm very concerned that they will also
take the pressure off Thailand, which could lead to a very
unsatisfying response from the Government of Thailand.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Abramowitz, with regards to Cambodia,
corruption of or prosecution of corrupt officials is key to
changing the climate of impunity for human trafficking. We know
there is a lot of cross border trafficking and what a
destination point as well as origination Cambodia actually is.
Your thoughts on what needs to happen for Cambodia to take
this more seriously and to really crack down on the government
officials?
Mr. Abramowitz. Well Mr. Chairman, I think that there are
those of our partner organizations that work in Cambodia and
they believe that there has been some significant progress with
respect to Cambodia and have been supportive of the Cambodia
being raised to Tier 2.
That's primarily based, I think, on some of the success
they have at least in terms of the monitoring they've done on
some of the child sexual exploitation in Cambodia.
Nonetheless, I think that there are some significant
issues. One is the one you just pointed out--corruption. I
think that the--there continue to be challenges there.
A second issue is the question of trying to ensure that
recruitment of Cambodians who work abroad in sort of a semi-
official labor export program is done in a way that it doesn't
create exploitation.
A lot of these problems originate in the sending county
where the recruiters actually require additional fees for
individuals. So there needs to be additional work there.
And I think overall Cambodia has to sustain the efforts
that it's been doing and some of the progress that's been made.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask you with regards to China, you heard
my exchange with the Ambassador-at-Large about the view toward
a written plan that goes unimplemented but the promise of
implementation is dangled like a low-hanging fruit. They
continue to retain their category of Watch List.
Your thoughts on that? Because it seems to me they can
stretch that for years and when do we finally say we're not
convinced?
Mr. Abramowitz. I have to say, Mr. Chairman, that I was a
bit concerned by the Ambassador's response and also I think the
overall framing.
So on one hand, the report--and the Ambassador also
indicated this--suggests that there are problems with respect
to the forced labor and these issues are being raised but it's
not exactly clear what the scale of it, or that's what I heard
was that it's obviously a problem but the scale, et cetera.
But then the number-one recommendation they have in the TIP
Report this year is to end forced labor and government
facilities outside of the penal sector.
So it seems to me that the Department is really recognizing
that this challenge of forced labor, the in-government
facilities pursuant to the government industries is a real
serious problem. It's the number-one thing that should be
fixed.
So I think that's one of the reasons among others that we
have this proposal that's in the testimony to say that if there
is government-sponsored forced labor a country should
automatically be on Tier 3.
How is it that you can have a government that would have a
policy of trying to have forced labor in its facilities,
industries, et cetera, or in private, forcing individuals to go
into private sector areas like in Uzbekistan and that they can
be anything but Tier 3?
So I think that is one issue that I think we need to look
at carefully.
The second is I think that there are difficult
sensitivities with China, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, and
I think that we need to start thinking about additional tools
in addition to the TIP Report that is outside this framework to
try to work on trying to improve their performance. So----
Mr. Smith. Can you list some examples?
Mr. Abramowitz. So for example, as was discussed very
briefly in response to Mr. Cicilline's questions we now have an
improved tool with respect to prohibiting the importation of
goods made with forced labor.
The Tariff Act of 1930 which previously was not available
to really do anything because of this consumptive demand
exception, which I believe you and your staff are familiar
with, now that that's been eliminated you actually have a real
authority to start enforcing the notion that goods that come
into the United States should not be made with forced labor and
our markets should not be open and have access to goods with
forced labor.
Now, this has just been used for the first time in 16
years. Where was it used? Against China. And why? Because it
was prison labor.
So I think that's a good signal to send but I think that we
can expand the use of that authority to other areas where we
know that forced labor is being used.
This would be a way of trying to target our efforts so it's
not trying to undermine the entire relationship or et cetera
but you can target specific wrongdoing by specific companies
and I think that can send a strong message to the Government of
China as well as other governments that they just can't keep on
going with business as usual.
So I think that we have to kind of put the TIP Report in
context and try to figure out where there are other ways that
we can address some of the wrongdoing if some of the issues
here become too difficult.
Mr. Smith. Well, on that import ban it's worth noting Frank
Wolf and I, when we visited Beijing Prison Number One soon
after Tiananmen Square, we actually took socks and jelly shoes,
which, for young girls, was very popular at the time. They were
coming to this country.
Since we knew that there were 40 Tiananmen Square and other
convicts laboring in that place we got an import ban on it. We
asked the customs commissioner to do it. He did it and it held
and we think it may have even closed down that particular
laogai. Of course, they just moved it somewhere else. So it was
not a Pyrrhic victory but at least a step in the right
direction.
Now, you recall that both Bush and Clinton always talked
about the MOU on gulag-made goods and referencing Smoot-Hawley,
you know, the 1930 act. But it always had a gaping flaw to it
in that if we suspected something as far as I know it has not
changed. We tell them, they being the Chinese Government. They
inspect it and 60 days later they come back and tell us whether
or not it was true or not.
I mean, that's like telling a lawbreaker you go investigate
your nefarious enterprise and tell us what you find. It was
absurd at its face then but that was touted for years.
I remember meeting two customs officials in Beijing on one
of my trips to Beijing in the early 1990s and I said, ``What do
you guys do? When do you ever investigate any of this?'' The
bottom line is--you might recall this--they were like the
Maytag repairman. They had nothing to do relative to this issue
and they said, we really don't get any requests.
So we should really be looking, I think, to get an MOU or
something like that that has real teeth to it so that we're
looking for these gulag-made goods and then we take action to
truly, you know, put an import ban on it. So----
Mr. Abramowitz. I would say, first of all, Mr. Chairman,
that as far as I understand it, the situation remains very
problematic with the MOU with China, that if it's not identical
to what it was it's very similar.
We were having a conversation with the customs and border
protection staff about this and there was some indication that
there really needs to be an effort with State to go back and
renegotiate that MOU or try to find some other alternative
channel for obtaining some of this information. And there was
some conversations that we've been having with some of our
Senate friends who are interested in trying to see how the
Tariff Act can be implemented and I would say that Senator
Sherrod Brown of Ohio has a very strong interest in this issue
and could be a good person to talk to you about how to try to
see what we could do.
They have been following up on the task force on prison
labor. This was established I think under an Executive order
that may have come out about that time and my understanding is
that the task force that's supposed to look at these issues
with China in particular has not been very active and that
there is, I think, an effort to try to spur additional
examination of these issues. So that might also be a good way
of trying to see what kind of activity it will generate.
Mr. Smith. Let's work together on that one. Sherrod Brown
and I used to co-chair the Congressional-Executive Commission
on China together so we sat next to each other for years, and I
will follow up with him. I think it's a great idea.
Let me just ask you, with regards to China--one last thing
on China. We know that the North Koreans who are trafficked who
make it across the border and because we ran out of time I
didn't get to ask Ambassador Coppedge that--but it is a
question we'll submit for the record.
That is a clear violation of the Refugee Convention. The
UNHCR has yet to really step up and raise the issue in a
meaningful way with Beijing. But we should and it seems to me
it ought to be a real issue in our bilateral with China that
they send people back to sure prison or they're trafficked, not
100 percent but in a huge percentage of the cases. And your
thoughts on that?
Mr. Abramowitz. Well, Mr. Chairman, this of course has been
an issue that we've been working on for decades now and UNHCR's
difficult relationship with Beijing has really been an
inhibitor to really making progress.
I wonder, Mr. Chairman, whether the existing refugee
challenges that we're seeing around the world might create a
new entry point for these issues. That is, you have these very
large populations in all corners of the world. Human
trafficking issues had become an important issue for UNHCR.
Even with respect to the European space where we know that,
there are challenges when it comes to vulnerable populations.
There has been some new attention on that and I wonder if
there's a way to try to raise those issues and say look, you've
been expressing these concerns in conflict zones and whether
it's the Islamic State in Iraq and so on and their challenges
or whether it's been in Europe where there's these large mass
movements that have shown vulnerable populations where these
trafficking issues--let's look back at China and see how we can
try to make sure that everyone is accepting the same norms.
Mr. Smith. Yeah. No, that's a great idea. We just got back,
a few of us. Allison Hollabaugh and others on the Helsinki
Commission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.
I was the head of delegation. I'm also a Special
Representative for Trafficking, and at it I offered a
resolution that did pass but not without people voting against
it and speaking out against it, particularly the Norweigan
delegation on International Megan's Law. That law is 8 years in
the making, passed the House three times. Finally got through
the Senate, and the argument that was being made by Norway's
delegation was once somebody serves time, that should be the
end of it. Everyone forgets why they're in prison and there's
no follow up and our argument back was this is about child
protection. The proclivity to recommit these crimes is so very,
very high--well-documented that we've got to ensure that for
the sake of children there's at least a noticing requirement
and hopefully becomes reciprocal so we're noticed when they
come here, people who are convicted of these crimes against
children.
I am wondering what your thoughts are on that because we
know that we are trying to get European countries, and it did
pass--the resolution; we'll give you a copy.
Without objective we'll make it a part of this record as
well--and we had good buy-in from our friends from Canada, some
of the others--the U.K. had some of the members of the
delegation there were very supportive. But, again, and the
eastern and central European countries very supportive--not the
Nordic countries and some of the others in that region. It was
very, very disappointing.
I think it presents a real challenge to all of us so your
thoughts on that one.
Mr. Abramowitz. Mr. Chairman, I have been following that
debate in the European space the way you and your staff have.
Obviously, sex tourism is a serious problem, particularly when
it comes with respect to children.
I guess my thoughts on it are limited to the notion that we
do have a situation here in the United States where after many,
many years of efforts you and the other champions who have been
working on this issue have got this legislation passed and
enacted into statute here in the United States and I wonder if
there's a way of trying to really track that data through the
Justice Department and the State Department and others so that
we can build a narrative around how this is having an impact
and the countries' reactions to it.
I do think that it may appear different to Nordic countries
once they're notified of sexual predators who are coming to
their own country and that building up a case after some
experience with the law here, even we have Ambassador Coppedge
indicating that even the Cubans who, you know, their
reservations about their--what they have been doing. I've been
interested in following up on these issues and have been
looking into it.
So I think that perhaps there's a way that over time there
can be a stronger and stronger narrative that can be built and
that the Nordics can see that this is something that could make
a lot of sense and maybe there will be more cooperation.
Mr. Smith. That's a good thought. We do require in the law
reporting. We want to know when the information is actionable,
what do they do so we have feedback on a constant basis. So
you're right, we build a narrative. It's more likely they'll be
persuaded over time.
Mr. Abramowitz. And I think--Mr. Chairman, I think that
they're--you know the statistics are one thing but the stories
are another. I think that my own experience from the outside,
now that I'm in the advocacy world, having left the U.S.
Government is that having the number of times and what happened
and so on is very important, you need the hard information, the
quantitative. But there's a qualitative end to it that, as you
know, is so critical in terms of changing people's perspective.
So trying to marry those up together and trying to devise a
narrative where we can see that there are some individuals who
clearly intended to do these kinds of misconduct when they're
crimes, when they're abroad, and how this helps stop that I
think could make some different in terms of those perspectives.
Mr. Smith. One of the most interesting side conversations I
had in Tbilisi was with a former member of the Royal Mounties
who when Phuket was hit with the tsunami, and I joined the
delegation. We went to Sri Lanka, Phuket, and Banda Aceh. And
Phuket, obviously, has a tremendous amount of sex trafficking
and of children and it was made very clear that many of the
bodies that he was a part of identifying, sadly, were--their
country of origination was in the Nordic area. He was kind of
shocked by that. And so there could be a more systemic problem
that needs to be addressed there as well.
But you're right, we build a narrative and hopefully
they'll be persuaded. One last question and then I'll make a
final comment, and anything else you'd like to add that you
think might be helpful.
You heard the back and forth on Cuba earlier today. I've
read again the Cuba narrative which I think is very thorough.
The point that some--what's the number--84,000 foreign mission
workers are sent abroad. It's a great money maker for the Cuban
Government, and yet--and there's been ongoing decades-long
allegations that there is coercion involved and then our TIP
Report says they took no action to address forced labor which
is the co-equal with sex trafficking where there is also huge
deficiencies, particularly on child sex trafficking.
It makes me wonder and beyond words how they could be on
the Watch List. Seems to me that if there is a rapprochement
going on with Cuba it ought to be done with human rights in
hand, not in the back somewhere or hidden from view. Friends
don't let friends commit human rights abuses. If we really area
getting closer to the Cuban Government which many are doing, I
think it ought to be done with principles that are not
compromised for some political reason.
But your thoughts on the absolute lack of labor trafficking
and then the issue of sex trafficking.
Finally, in the recommendations to Cuba, it calls for
allowing the U.N. Special Rapporteur to visit there. I remember
the last Special Representative that went to Cuba and I was a
part of it.
I didn't play the role. It was Armando Valladares who led
the U.S. delegation during the Reagan administration. I went
over with him, spent a week in the U.N. Human Rights Commission
and he got an investigation into the Cuban prisons.
Everybody was retaliated against when they left. I don't
think there was a single person not, and but at least we began
focusing on Cuba. They wouldn't even let the Rapporteur in to
look at human trafficking.
So I think we're premature at best putting that Watch List
as an issue on there. But I appreciate your thoughts.
Mr. Abramowitz. So Mr. Chairman, I have to say that Cuba is
not a country that we focused on in any detail. I have heard
from those who do follow the Cuban situation a little bit more
carefully, that based on their analysis of last year's report
where they were upgraded from Tier 3 to the Tier 2 Watch List
that there was very little action by the Cuban Government. It
more fell into this category of promises that they were making
and commitments they were making to engage more with this issue
and that was the primary basis, if you just look at the text of
the report itself.
And I think that this goes to this issue of we have to
really think about--and I'm sure you may remember that there
are times where I have raised concerns about reopening
standards within the TVPA for tier placement because, of
course, that's like opening up the Constitution of the United
States--who knows where it would go.
But I think that that's why I really think that Congress
should consider looking at ways to try to focus more on impact,
particularly on that upgrading from Tier 3 to the Tier 2 Watch
List. What are the actions that they're taking and what impact
is it having on the ground, because I don't really see anything
in the 2015 or more specifically to the subject of this hearing
in the 2016 narrative that really shows the kind of actions
that are going to create impact on the ground.
I, myself, was a bit taken aback when I read the Cuba
narrative and leading up to this hearing, knowing that this
might be an issue with respect to really the very clear
statement that for issues around forced labor are just not
dealt with at all in Cuba.
As important as sex trafficking may be and issues around
the tourist industry that may be the case in Cuba, there really
needs to be a framework for addressing forced labor issues.
I will say that as I understand it there are some different
views about the medical missions and even apparently some of
the ways in which Cuba brings younger individuals into the
fields to do some agricultural work and as to whether that is
really forced labor or not and it appears that there has been
an inconsistent view that the State Department has taken from
year to year. I think that was a basis in previous years as to
why they were on Tier 3.
I noted Congressman Bass' concerns that perhaps the Tier 3
status at that time and before the opening that the Obama
administration has led was really political too.
But I think there were some serious concerns that have been
raised in the past regarding those programs as to whether they
amounted to forced labor.
So I think that there may be a role in trying to get some
additional documentation on those programs and get into them a
little bit more to try to clarify whether they really fit into
that category of state-sponsored forced labor because if they
are then, as I said, I think that's a really strong basis for
saying, you know, that Cuba and any country that is involved in
a policy of forced labor or exploitation should only be on Tier
3.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Let me just conclude by thanking you, David Abramowitz, for
your lifelong work on human rights, particularly on human
trafficking.
Thank you that you have amassed a list of recommendations
for reauthorization. I look forward to working with you on
that. My concern is that there will be some of those issues
that will not be acceptable to the Senate, more likely be
acceptable to the House.
Even on the Human Trafficking Prioritization Act, which has
now sat over there for two Congresses in a row without an
action, and it deals with this issue of these downgrades and
the parking lot and which we thought we addressed with the
Wilberforce Act in 2008, which still remains a problem.
But I look forward to working with you on that, going
forward, and I thank you for that leadership. And if I could
just conclude. Are there any other countries that you think we
haven't touched on that bear is some scrutiny and focus?
Obviously, every country in the book, anything on any
country in Tier 3, obviously, but this hearing was to look at
where mistakes may have been made, obviously, congratulate
where good things have been done and basically, the TIP Report
is a good report, but it has some egregious flaws that, again,
the Reuters organization discovered last year, which I have
been saying for some years myself.
So are there any other countries that you think might need
a focus?
Mr. Abramowitz. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think that, you know,
the question of India has been a perennial question that we've
discussed in the past. Clearly, the Indian Government is taking
steps. But should they really be on Tier 2, given the huge
scale of forced labor that's in the country? I've been
particularly concerned about reports with respect to India that
they are not allowing individuals to travel who have been
conferred the T Visas as a derivative of those who are victims
in the United States.
So I think India is a country that we should be looking at.
I think that, you know, Ghana is a country that, while it was
kept on the Tier 2 Watch List this year I think continues to
bear, you know, some examination.
I haven't had a chance to look through all the ratings but
I think that as we go forward as we head toward the 2017
Report, looking at the things that are happening now, these
issues around what are--what are the countries that have been
on the Tier 2 Watch List for 4 years or this is the 4th year,
really do an analysis of those and start early on collecting
information on those countries to ensure that we're prepared to
give the right information and really see whether in this sort
of final year on the Watch List for the 4th year that they're
going to actually take serious steps that really will have
impact.
So I'm going to be doing some analysis with my friends on
that and would be happy discuss it with you and your staff as
to what are some of the key countries we should be having a
special eye on as we go forward.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that, and thanks for raising India.
I met with the Indian Ambassador to the U.S. a few times now
and he assures me that the retaliation against T Visa holders
has ended.
He may not have all the information on that and when Mr.
Modi was in town I raised two issues with him quickly; one was
child abduction and the other was trafficking, and the hope is
that he'll take them very seriously.
I'll never forget IJM's--we actually showed a video that
they had of young Indian girls who were in a cave-like cellar
and they were being, obviously, trafficked for sex
exploitation--very, very young girls.
When they came up out of this hole they removed the door to
it and their eyes were adjusting and it was just a
heartbreaking scene to see and they were down there to evade
the police who were on the search or the hunt but were tipped
off.
So thank you for raising India and some of these other
countries.
Mr. Abramowitz. Well, Mr. Chairman, I just want to say
thank you for your leadership on these issues and raising these
issues. It's not always easy to raise an issue like human
trafficking with the Prime Minister of a major country like
India. But, you know, we really congratulate you on all your
continuing serious work and the way the subcommittee and
Congresswoman Bass has taken this issue very seriously and we
look forward to working with all of you to try to see what
further progress we can make on this issue.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Abramowitz, thank you so very much and the
hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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