[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DATA CHALLENGES IMPACTING HUMAN
TRAFFICKING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
OF ANTI-TRAFFICKING TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 8, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-43
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-714PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma,
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin MIKE CAREY, OHIO
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
C O N T E N T S
February 8, 2022
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 8
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 9
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Dr. Gretta Goodwin, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S.
Government Accountability Office
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Dr. Louise Shelley, Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Endowed Chair and
University Professor, Director, Terrorism, Transnational Crime
and Corruption Center, George Mason University
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Written Statement............................................ 31
Ms. Theresa Harris, Interim Program Director, Scientific
Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program, American
Association for the Advancement of Science
Oral Statement............................................... 44
Written Statement............................................ 46
Ms. Hannah Darnton, Associate Director, Ethics, Human Rights, and
Technology, Business for Social Responsibility, Secretariate of
Tech Against Trafficking
Oral Statement............................................... 50
Written Statement............................................ 53
Discussion....................................................... 71
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Gretta Goodwin, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S.
Government Accountability Office............................... 102
Dr. Louise Shelley, Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Endowed Chair and
University Professor, Director, Terrorism, Transnational Crime
and Corruption Center, George Mason University................. 105
Ms. Theresa Harris, Interim Program Director, Scientific
Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program, American
Association for the Advancement of Science..................... 107
Ms. Hannah Darnton, Associate Director, Ethics, Human Rights, and
Technology, Business for Social Responsibility, Secretariate of
Tech Against Trafficking....................................... 109
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Documents submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives
``Hearing on `Data Challenges Impacting Human Trafficking
Research and Development of Anti-Trafficking Technological
Tools,' '' Catherine Chen, Chief Executive Officer, Polaris 114
``Statement for the Record,'' Ms. Kayse Lee Maass, Director,
Operations Research and Social Justice Lab................. 117
DATA CHALLENGES IMPACTING
HUMAN TRAFFICKING RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT OF
ANTI-TRAFFICKING TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2022
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., via
Zoom, Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson [Chairwoman of the Committee]
presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. The hearing will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at any
time.
Before I deliver opening remarks, I want to note that,
today, the Committee is meeting virtually. I want to announce a
couple of reminders to Members about the conduct of the
hearing. First, Members should keep their video feed on as long
as they are present in the hearing. Members are responsible for
their own microphones. Please also keep your microphones muted
unless you are speaking. And finally, if Members have documents
they wish to submit to the record, please email them to the
Committee Clerk, whose email address was circulated prior to
the meeting.
Good morning, and thank you to the witnesses joining us
today. This Committee held its first hearing on the role of
science and technology in combating human trafficking a year
and a half ago. It coincided with the World Day Against
Trafficking in Persons. As we are in the wake of the National
Human Trafficking Prevention Month, now is a good time to
discuss the data challenges that stymie advances in anti-
trafficking research and technology development.
Human trafficking is a major issue in Texas. And just days
ago, a raid in Dallas resulted in the arrest of two
traffickers. This crime preys on the most vulnerable and it
knows no borders, it is not gender-specific, and it crosses
socioeconomic barriers. In the 20 years of policymaking on this
issue, what progress has been made? What's working, what isn't,
and why?
Unfortunately, some of the data needed to address these
questions is too often siloed across various data bases, is
nonexistent, or is inconsistent. The amount of peer-reviewed
academic literature and robust advanced research on human
trafficking is disappointingly low. Standardizing data and
improving data collection can provide a basis for more and
better research, analysis, and ultimately improved outcomes for
the survivors.
Bringing together multidisciplinary teams of researchers
with survivors; nonprofits; Federal, State, and local and
tribal governments; private sector and international partners
will be critically important. We need more Federal coordination
of research and technology development that will lead to
evidence-based, victim-centered, survivor-informed, and
culturally informed anti-trafficking strategies. Increasing
data-sharing and making use of machine learning and other tools
will help bring the crimes out of the shadows.
As we continue to tackle this issue, we must also move
toward more equitable data collection. To understand the full
scale and scope of this issue, we must ensure that Black,
Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender
and queer or questioning), and noncitizen survivors of human
trafficking are included in the data. I hope that this
Committee will support a strong role for federally supported
science and technology and a whole-of-government effort to
combat human trafficking for a safer and more secure America.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Good morning and thank you to the witnesses for joining us
today.
This Committee held its first hearing on the role of
science and technology in combating human trafficking a year
and a half ago. It coincided with World Day Against Trafficking
in Persons. As we are in the wake of National Human Trafficking
Prevention Month, now is a good time to discuss the data
challenges that stymie advances in anti-trafficking research
and technology development.
Human trafficking is a major issue in Texas and just days
ago, a raid in Dallas resulted in the arrest of two
traffickers. This crime preys on the most vulnerable and it
knows no borders, it is not gender-specific, and it crosses
socio-economic barriers.
In the 20 years of policymaking on this issue, what
progress has been made?
What's working, what isn't, and why? Unfortunately, some of
the data needed to address these questions is too often siloed
across various databases, is non-existent, or is inconsistent.
The amount of peer-reviewed academic literature and robust
advanced research on human trafficking is disappointingly low.
Standardizing data and improving data collection can provide a
basis for more and better research, analysis, and ultimately
improved outcomes for survivors.
Bringing together multidisciplinary teams of researchers
with survivors, nonprofits, Federal, State, local, and tribal
governments, private sector, and international partners will be
critically important. We need more Federal coordination of
research and technology development that will lead to evidence-
based, victim-centered, survivor-informed, and culturally-
informed anti-trafficking strategies. Increasing data sharing
and making use of machine learning and other tools will help
bring this crime out of the shadows.
As we continue to tackle this issue, we must also move
toward more equitable data collection. To understand the full
scale and scope of this issue, we must ensure that black,
brown, Indigenous, LGBTQ, and non-citizen survivors of human
trafficking are included in the data. I hope that this
Committee will support a strong role for Federally-supported
science and technology in a whole-of-government effort to
combat human trafficking for a safer, more secure America.
Chairwoman Johnson. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lucas for
an opening statement.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding
today's hearing to explore the role of science and technology
in disrupting human trafficking. And thank you to your expert--
to our expert witnesses for your participation. I look forward
to your testimony to learn more about how we can use research
to improve anti-trafficking practices.
And thank you, Ms. Darnton, for testifying before us again
today on this very important topic. I look forward to building
off what we learned from you during a hearing we held 2 years
ago on this same topic. We're glad to have you back and--with
us here today.
Human trafficking is a crime that is often described as
``hidden in plain sight'' as it can be difficult to detect the
warning signs, and many victims are afraid to come forward.
Often, human trafficking criminals operate in public places
such as airports and hotels, as well as public forums online.
While these victims cannot be shackled--they may not be
shackled, I should say, human trafficking is a form of modern-
day slavery.
Human trafficking is a global problem, and it affects every
State, making it difficult to address. And each State faces its
own challenges. In my home State of Oklahoma, the increase in
crime has become particularly problematic, including among
Oklahoma's Indigenous populations. In recent years, Oklahoma's
Indigenous populations have been affected by concerningly high
rates of human trafficking, murder, and abduction. We also face
challenges from illegal cannabis-growing operations, which have
been linked to suspected human trafficking networks. I'm hoping
some of the research we address today can touch on how to
handle these challenges.
In 2014, the International Labor Organization estimated
that human trafficking was a $150 billion industry worldwide.
Eight years later, this outdated estimation is still being
widely cited to describe the current State of human trafficking
impacts around the globe. This is in part due to a lack of new
data and coordinated data-sharing. But without updated and
accurate data, it is difficult to understand the full extent of
the problem.
One of the reasons I enjoy serving on the Science Committee
is our ability to come together and focus on solutions to some
of the world's biggest challenges. And combatting human
trafficking is just that. It is an issue that cuts across
multiple jurisdictions and Federal agencies. And research and
scientific analysis have an important role to play.
As Members of the Science Committee, we can help target
investments to address research gaps and advance technologies
to help law enforcement, industry. And NGO (non-governmental
organizations) research can ensure that we are most efficiently
and effectively utilizing data and collaborating with
stakeholders.
Strategic investments in new and emerging technology tools
such as artificial intelligence (AI) transform how we approach
this problem. AI can perform large-scale data analysis to
detect suspicious financial trends and utilize facial
recognition technologies to match victim identities with
missing-person notices. Continued investments into AI basic
research innovations is just one example of how technology can
be deployed to fight this deplorable crime.
It is vital that we do not turn a blind eye to human
trafficking in our own communities and around the globe. We
develop--we must work together to support research and
technology development to end human trafficking for good.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]
Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding today's hearing
to explore the role of science and technology in disrupting
human trafficking. And thank you to our expert witnesses for
your participation. I look forward to your testimony to learn
more about how we can use research to improve anti-trafficking
policies.
And thank you, Ms. Darnton, for testifying before us again
today on this very important topic. I look forward to building
off what we learned from you during a hearing we held two years
ago on this same topic. We are glad to have you back with us
here again today.
Human trafficking is a crime that is often described as
``hidden in plain sight'' as it can be difficult to detect the
warning signs and many victims are afraid to come forward.
Often human trafficking criminals operate in public places such
as airports and hotels as well as public forums online. While
these victims may not be shackled, human trafficking is a form
of modern-day slavery.
Human trafficking is a global problem and it affects every
state, making it difficult to address. And each state faces its
own challenges. In my home state of Oklahoma, the increase in
crime has become particularly problematic-including among
Oklahoma's Indigenous populations. In recent years, Oklahoma's
Indigenous populations have been affected by concerningly high
rates of human trafficking, murder, and abduction. We also face
challenges from illegal cannabis growing operations, which have
been linked to suspected human trafficking networks. I'm hoping
some of the research we address today can touch on how to
handle these challenges.
In 2014, the International Labor Organization estimated
that human trafficking was a $150 billion industry worldwide.
Eight years later, this outdated estimation is still being
widely cited to describe the current state of human trafficking
impacts around the globe. This is in part due to a lack of new
data and coordinated data sharing. But without updated and
accurate data, it is difficult to understand the full extent of
this problem.
One of the reasons I enjoy serving on the Science Committee
is our ability to come together and focus on solutions to some
of the world's biggest challenges. And combatting human
trafficking is just that. It is an issue that cuts across
multiple jurisdictions and federal agencies. And research and
scientific analysis have an important role to play.
As members of the Science Committee, we can help target
investments to address research gaps and advance technologies
to help law enforcement, industry, and NGO efforts to fight
human trafficking. Further investments in research can ensure
we are most efficiently and effectively utilizing data and
collaborating with stakeholders.
Strategic investments in new and emerging technology tools
such as artificial intelligence transform how we approach this
problem. AI can perform large-scale data analysis to detect
suspicious financial trends and utilize facial recognition
technologies to match victim identities with missing person
notices. Continued investments into AI basic research
innovations is just one example of how technology can be
deployed to fight this deplorable crime.
It is vital that we do not turn a blind eye to human
trafficking in our own communities and around the globe. We
must work together to support research and technology
development to end human trafficking for good.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you. If there are Members who
wish to submit additional opening statements, your statements
will be added to the record at this point.
At this time, I'd like to introduce our witnesses. Our
first witness is Dr. Gretta Goodwin. Dr. Goodwin is a Director
of the Homeland Security and Justice team at the U.S.
Government Accountability Office (GAO). In this role she leads
GAO's work on justice and law enforcement issues. She has
directed reviews on virtual currencies use to facilitate human
and drug trafficking, law enforcement efforts to combat online
sex trafficking, the crisis of Missing or Murdered Indigenous
women, and human trafficking, among others.
Our next witness is Dr. Louise Shelley. Dr. Shelley is the
Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy and the
Director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption
Center at the George Mason University. She is a leading expert
on the relationship among terrorism, organized crime, and
corruption, as well as human trafficking, transnational crime,
and terrorism. She also specializes in illicit financial flows
and money laundering. Dr. Shelley was an inaugural Andrew
Carnegie Fellow and is the author of several books.
Our third witness, Ms. Theresa Harris. Ms. Harris is the
interim Program Director of Scientific Responsibility, Human
Rights, and Law Program at the American Association for
Advancement of Science (AAAS). In this role she manages the
program's projects on science and human rights, including On-
Call Scientists, a volunteer referral service that provides
technical support for human rights organizations, as well as
activities that promote greater understanding of the human
right to science and a new project on artificial intelligence
and human rights.
Our final witness, Ms. Hannah Darnton, Ms. Darnton is the
Assistant Director of Ethics, Human Rights, and Technology at
the Business for Social Responsibility (BSR). Her work focuses
on the intersection of human rights and new disruptive
technology and she leads the Tech Against Trafficking
collaborative initiative. Prior to joining the BSR, she worked
with the Skoll Foundation and also spent 6 years working in
anti-human trafficking in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and the
Bay Area.
As our witnesses should know, you each will have 5 minutes
for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be
included in the record for the hearing. When you have completed
your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions. Each
Member will have 5 minutes to question the panel.
Now, let's start with Dr. Goodwin.
TESTIMONY OF DR. GRETTA GOODWIN,
DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND JUSTICE,
U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Dr. Goodwin. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and
Members of the Committee, I am pleased to be here today to
discuss the usefulness of data, as well as the challenges
policymakers and law enforcement encounter when protecting
vulnerable populations or in combating illicit activities when
data are not readily available.
We have reported on issues affecting a variety of
vulnerable populations, the need for additional data, and the
opportunities to help ensure that relevant data are accessible
and of sufficient quality. For example, we noted that human
trafficking is occurring in the United States and that
trafficking may be facilitated by the use of virtual
currencies. We've also noted that the incidence of violence
committed against American Indian and Alaska Native women in
the United States constitutes a crisis and that various Federal
officials and tribal stakeholders have raised concerns about
the lack of cross-jurisdictional cooperation and comprehensive
national data when it comes to the Federal response to this
crisis.
My statement today discusses our prior work examining the
extent to which the number of missing or murdered Indigenous
women in the United States is known and the use of virtual
currencies for human and drug trafficking and the extent to
which agencies collect data on these topics.
Last October, we reported that data on the total number of
missing or murdered Indigenous women is unknown because Federal
data bases do not contain comprehensive national data. Due to
differences in the characteristics of these data bases,
including their intended purposes, specific contents,
organization, and applicable statutory requirements, they
cannot be combined together for the purpose of providing
comprehensive information. We reported that the Department of
Justice (DOJ) has taken some steps to analyze data in the
Federal data bases, including publishing more detailed single-
year statistics on missing persons by race, age, and gender.
This type of information could help DOJ and other stakeholders
better understand the nature of the crisis.
There is no reliable estimate on the number of trafficking
victims in the United States or about the money generated by
this crime. The quality and quantity of the data are often
hampered by the hidden nature of the crime, challenges to
identifying individual victims, gaps in data accuracy and
completeness, and significant barriers regarding the sharing of
information. Adding the use of virtual currencies into this
mix, which can be used to purposely conceal illicit
transactions, makes it tougher to develop reliable estimates.
A 2020 report by Polaris, a nonprofit organization
knowledgeable about human trafficking, found that virtual
currencies were the second-most commonly accepted method of
payment on 40 platforms in the online commercial sex
marketplace, which has been used to facilitate sex trafficking.
Also, the number of times virtual currency and human
trafficking appeared in Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)
filed with Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(FinCEN) nearly doubled between 2017 and 2020. We have reported
that data from selected Federal agencies on virtual currencies
use for human and drug trafficking may not be consistently
captured. So agencies may not have complete data when assessing
or reporting on the illicit use of this currency. We've made
recommendations designed to address data challenges, and
agencies have taken some steps. And we will continue to monitor
their efforts.
An effective framework or structure for capturing and
reporting data can help ensure that an agency is providing
useful and transparent information to the public. Such data and
statistics from the Federal Government and researchers provide
the foundation for policymakers to make informed decisions.
Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of
the Committee, this concludes my remarks. I'm happy to answer
any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Goodwin follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you so very much.
Our next witness is Dr. Louise Shelley.
TESTIMONY OF DR. LOUISE SHELLEY,
OMER L. AND NANCY HIRST ENDOWED CHAIR
AND UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, DIRECTOR,
TERRORISM, TRANSNATIONAL CRIME
AND CORRUPTION CENTER, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
Dr. Shelley. Thank you for this invitation, Chairwoman
Johnson, Co-Chair Lucas, and the Members of the Committee.
Last month, Attorney General Garland released a strategy to
address human trafficking. In it, it said, ``Reliable
prevalence estimates have been difficult to ascertain. Greater
support and funding for research and data collection are
needed.'' But the problem is not just one of understanding the
prevalence of the problem. It is much broader. What is the
nature, the scope, the diversity, and the finances of human
trafficking or the role of facilitators from the legitimate
economy? And even though we have spent and invested large
amounts of money, money will not get you to a strategy that is
effective unless we have a better understanding of the complex
and diverse aspects of the phenomenon.
So I am asking not only for improved data collection but
the need for much more basic research to understand this
phenomenon. There has been much more money invested in
understanding the problems of the drug trade and drug
trafficking and the persons who are affected by the sale of
drugs. And some of those insights into that blatant and
criminal phenomenon could also be applied to the field of human
trafficking.
As has been mentioned previously, there are limited
available data sources in the United States, and all of them
have existing limitations, as I present in my written
testimony. But important opportunities exist for increasing or
improving Federal data collection, and data-sharing among
Federal agencies in between the public and private sector is
key. As I will discuss later in another project I have funded
by the NSF (National Science Foundation), we are having
valuable data-sharing with the private sector that is giving us
enormous insights.
But part of what we need to do to fund this--to have
successful fundamental research is to anonymize data that we
have and information such as on T visas that would help us do
the AI analytics that were mentioned earlier to address this
problem of human trafficking. There are many tools that were
available if we began to focus on the basic research.
I was asked to discuss a research project I have now that
has been funded by the National Science Foundation on
disrupting illicit supply chains. And as was mentioned in the
introduction, hotels are a key element of human trafficking.
This has been found in research done in Texas. It has been
found in the survey of Federal trafficking cases. And to do
this, we began to do an inventory of these using Federal
criminal cases, and then we focused on analyzing this data in
terms of its demographic distribution.
The insights from this research are not only basic research
that can inform strategy and inform allocation of law
enforcement resources and also help us understand how we must
mobilize the private sector to address this phenomenon. But we
also need to be using data not only from hotels but tech
companies, rideshare companies, and others that are deeply
involved in facilitating human trafficking.
The insights of this research that we've done for NSF are
not just scholarly articles. We have been targeting them to
reach different communities concerned with the hospitality
sector, concerned with constructing algorithms for the
financial services sector, and we've been told that this
research is useful in finding out how to target this
phenomenon.
So what we need to think about is how we can better
structure this research to work with an organization like NSF
that is responsible for basic research, that is responsible for
developing cutting-edge AI tools and help coordinate with
existing mission agencies. Together with a larger effort, we
could be achieving results that would advance our gaps in data
and provide the insights that we need to address this
phenomenon. But we also need to be focusing not just on the
illicit side of this but the facilitating role of the
legitimate actors. And we need to, as was mentioned, develop
data and tools.
The need to combat human trafficking is an issue that
unites much of American society, civil society, different
diverse communities, and we need more basic research, more
willingness to share data, and the development and application
of more sophisticated data analytics to address this problem
that has grown enormously in the virtual world, as was
previously mentioned in the last decade and unfortunately has
grown significantly during the pandemic.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Shelley follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
Ms. Theresa Harris.
TESTIMONY OF MS. THERESA HARRIS,
INTERIM PROGRAM DIRECTOR, SCIENTIFIC RESPONSIBILITY,
HUMAN RIGHTS AND LAW PROGRAM, AMERICAN
ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE
Ms. Harris. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today. I'm Theresa Harris, and I'm the interim Director
of the Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights, and Law Program
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or
AAAS. AAAS is the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific
society and publisher of the Science family of journals. Our
mission is to advance science, engineering, and innovation
throughout the world for the benefit of all people to advance
science and serve society.
At AAAS, I direct our science and human rights projects.
One of those is On-Call Scientists, a volunteer program through
which AAAS connects volunteer scientists, engineers, and health
professionals with projects where their research can have a
positive impact on human rights. I help human rights
organizations reframe their information and technology needs as
scientific research questions. Then I identify volunteers from
the scientific community who have that information or
experience. In many instances, these are pretty straightforward
research questions that boil down to sharing scientific
information and knowledge and applying them to a specific human
rights situation.
However, the information gaps related to human trafficking
are much more complicated than many of the other questions we
receive. For example, for estimating prevalence, there is no
one algorithm or sampling method that can solve all of the
missing data problems. In every labor sector where human
trafficking happens, there are different recruiting practices,
different types of laborers who are sought after, different
payment methods, and different types of supply chains, just to
name some of the distinctions.
Then in each location there are cultural differences
regarding work expectations. All of this means scientific
researchers studying human trafficking need data from public
agencies and private companies; from sampled surveys and
ethnographic research; and from health, social services,
business licensing, transportation records, education, law
enforcement, and so much more. And this is just to assess the
prevalence of human trafficking.
Understanding vulnerability, criminal network operations,
and what kinds of support are most effective for survivors
involves similarly complicated but different data sources and
technological tools to collect, analyze, and interpret the
data.
These are not the kinds of questions volunteer scientists
in our program can take on by themselves in their spare time.
These are research questions that require cooperation across
teams of quantitative and qualitative researchers in the
mathematical, behavioral, and social sciences; companies that
are collecting data about their supply chains to prevent human
trafficking; human rights experts who work with survivors;
government officials at the local, State, tribal, and national
levels; and organizations like the International Labor
Organization.
The involvement of Federal science agencies to support
research and development (R&D) to address human trafficking is
critical. There is much more detail in my written testimony,
but with my remaining time, I want to emphasize three points.
First, advocates against human trafficking are in need of the
scientific research to inform their efforts, but too often that
information is unavailable. Addressing the research gaps will
require coordination across sectors, data sources, and
scientific disciplines.
Second, technology development for data tools that can be
used by both scientists and human rights professionals in the
field is a much-needed area of emphasis. This development must
involve coordination across scientific disciplines and across
sectors, government, academia, not-for-profits, and industry.
Third, data collection and sharing need to be done in ways
that respect and do not violate human rights. That should
always be the case in scientific research of course, but
there's a heightened scientific responsibility because of the
vulnerabilities inherent in any data that is collected or
shared regarding human trafficking. Scientists' ethical and
human rights responsibilities must be central to every decision
made about what data are collected, how the data are stored,
and the circumstances under which they are shared.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harris follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
Our final witness is Ms. Hannah Darnton.
TESTIMONY OF MS. HANNAH DARNTON,
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ETHICS, HUMAN RIGHTS,
AND TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY,
SECRETARIATE OF TECH AGAINST TRAFFICKING
Ms. Darnton. Good morning, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member
Lucas, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the
invitation to participate in today's discussion. My name is
Hannah Darnton. I'm here today representing the industry
collaboration Tech Against Trafficking.
Tech Against Trafficking is a coalition of technology
companies, including Amazon, BT, Microsoft, Salesforce, and
others, that are collaborating with global experts to help
eradicate human trafficking using technology. A large part of
our work is focused on bringing the anti-trafficking field
together, supporting the creation of tools and systems that
will allow for increased sharing, collaboration, and impact
across the sector.
Through the Tech Against Trafficking Accelerator program,
we work with organizations hoping to utilize and deploy
technology to advance and scale their work. We then leverage
the insights and learnings gleaned from these partnerships to
think strategically about how to capitalize on the use of data
and technologies and create open-source assets and tools that
will advance the field as a whole.
A large part of our focus has been on enabling data
collection, aggregation, and the generation of useful insights
and analysis for stakeholders in ways that do not compromise
the safety and security of the individuals whose information is
contained within the data. However, through our engagements,
we've noted that data is often discussed in isolation without
consideration of the underlying technology infrastructure or
the broader anti-trafficking ecosystem of service providers and
victims.
To ground our discussion today, there are five things I
recommend keeping front of mind as the field pursues new
advancements and exploration in human trafficking data. First,
we need to consider what will data help achieve. The anti-
trafficking field frequently cites the need for more data
without specifying the questions that need to be answered to
build strategic programs capable of delivering systemwide
impact. As a field, we need to ask what key questions will data
help answer? What will the data be used for? And what will it
enable practitioners to achieve?
We have a largely extractive approach to data collection
and use. Researchers, policymakers, technologists developing
new tools or solutions often ask nonprofits, direct service
providers to provide sensitive information and data about their
beneficiaries without an explanation of how it will be used,
aggregated, stored, shared, or how it will benefit them.
There's a need to reframe our approach to data to ensure that
organizations and individuals providing the data understand and
consent to how it will be used, that the appropriate privacy
and protection measures are in place to protect sensitive
information, and, importantly, that we consider how the data
collection and use of their data will help advance their work.
Second, how can we ensure fit-for-purpose tools? Research,
data, technology all need to be translated or adapted for the
specific context in which it will be used. Large data sets,
off-the-shelf tools, and broad research questions are often
unable to answer specific questions or meet the needs of
policymakers, law enforcement, or service providers operating
on the ground. Researchers, data scientists, and technologists
will need to work closely with these groups to ensure that they
are appropriately integrating the considerations and needs of
stakeholders who will be translating their work into real-world
applications.
Third, we need to support a well-funded, well-resourced
collaborative data ecosystem. This means funding. The process,
systems, and infrastructure for data collection, aggregation,
analysis, and storage have ongoing operating costs and fees
that require specific skill sets and expertise to maximize
their utility. Direct service organizations are best positioned
often to collect and share data. However, restrictive
philanthropic and government funding criteria often make it
difficult for organizations to secure sustained funding that
will allow them to set up these systems and technical
infrastructure, cover ongoing operational cost, or hire
individuals with the expertise to maintain them.
Furthermore, increased collaboration is needed across the
ecosystem. Human trafficking data comes from victims' lived
traumatic experiences. It's not typically captured and
collected through large institutions but through organizations
that have established relationships and trust with victims and
survivors of human trafficking.
To advance data capture and collection, larger institutions
need to identify groups on the ground and invest in supporting
and developing relationships with these organizations. Data
scientists and technologists can help aggregate and analyze
data once collected. Much of the data collected on human
trafficking is messy, it's unstructured, unorganized, biased,
observational, and private, and expertise is required to help
develop high standards of evidence from data.
Fourth, as my fellow panelist Ms. Harris was mentioning, we
need to conduct due diligence. Despite best intentions, data
research technology solutions collected or created for socially
beneficial uses may still be misinterpreted, mismanaged,
misused, or abused in ways that result in human rights harms.
Due diligence must be conducted on research, data collection,
and use and technologies pursued by government, law
enforcement, companies, and service providers to identify,
avoid, prevent, and mitigate all potential adverse human rights
impacts in accordance with the U.N. guiding principles on
business and human rights.
And finally, fifth, we need to invest in flexible solutions
and support systems that can adapt and evolve in tandem with
the ever-shifting nature of human trafficking, the needs of
organizations on the ground, and societal trends. Structures
and systems for collecting data are often not reflective of the
ways in which direct service providers on the ground collect
data. We need agile tools that can be used and deployed in a
range of contexts or by practitioners with varying levels of
expertise that can incorporate new and emerging ways in which
human trafficking can take shape in the future.
Through the Accelerator program, Tech Against Trafficking
has partnered on new tools such as new privacy-preserving
mechanisms, the human trafficking case data standard, and
others that we hope embody these five considerations. And I'd
be happy to go into greater detail on those tools today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Darnton follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
At this point, we will begin our first round of questions.
And the Chair recognizes herself for 5 minutes.
Let me pose this question for all to comment on, all our
witnesses. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or the TVPA,
guides the Federal response to human trafficking in the United
States and defines it as a labor or commercial sex act induced
by force, fraud, or coercion. Many NGO's and others have
contributed greatly to the protection of survivors and
prosecution of the traffickers. But more needs to be done,
especially with the addition of cyber-enabled trafficking. Can
each of you briefly describe the risk to society at large if we
all fail to better understand the phenomenon of human
trafficking and develop better tools to prevent or disrupt it?
Dr. Goodwin. Chairwoman, I will speak briefly to that, and
I'll reference the work that GAO has done looking at online sex
trafficking. And some of the concerns that we note are the
concerns that are being noted here as well. You know, it's
difficult to go after these bad actors online. Some of the work
that GAO has been doing is looking specifically at law
enforcement's ability and preparedness to go after these bad
actors online.
Another issue that we brought up in our online sex
trafficking work was the fact that you might have a platform in
one location and then the trafficking happening somewhere else,
so it can be really challenging to address these issues.
And I'll yield my time because I know that other panelists
have things they want to say.
Chairwoman Johnson. Yes, Ms. Shelley?
Dr. Shelley. I think that what we've seen in the last 2
years is a tremendous growth in human trafficking and also many
survivors without support systems have returned to human
trafficking. One of the things that we've noted in our research
is with this online movement, we have much more involvement of,
for example, hotels near highways because you can have all of
this going on in a very impersonal world in which it is hard to
detect where the exploitation is going on, and it is very hard
to find the victims of trafficking. So we have many different
problems that we need to--that we see coming as a result of
this enormous growth of online trade.
And I will point out that the largest network that was ever
found in the United States and prosecuted, which had 350,000
websites associated with it, was run out of China and operated
in over 50 different cities in the United States.
Chairwoman Johnson. Ms. Darnton?
Ms. Darnton. Thank you so much. I'd say that trafficking
manifests in a variety of different ways, and we need the data
and information applicable to those various scenarios to help
us understand how it takes shape and respond appropriately with
interventions that are actually impactful. Over the course of
the past few years, we've seen COVID-19 drive many individuals
online just as one example, and we needed the data to better
understand where exploitation, abuse, and eventual trafficking
were connected to those online points, how we could actually
see the breakdown of trafficking occurring across this new
ecosystem in these new societal trends. And with that--without
that information, it would have been very difficult to actually
be able to address it, to take the actions necessary to raise
awareness, to create prevention mechanisms that were effective,
and to have actors across the system respond. So, in short, to
answer your question, I think that without the data, we risk
creating mismatches--mismatched approaches or responses that
don't actually address the issue at hand.
Chairwoman Johnson. Ms. Harris?
Ms. Harris. In addition to what my fellow panelists have
said, your question about the risk, the research that is
available suggests that there are connections between human
trafficking and other forms of trafficking, other forms of
organized crime, and so all of that needs to be understood with
the data, and the approaches need to be informed by the best
scientific evidence on those issues.
Chairwoman Johnson. Ms. Harris, can you elaborate on why
AAAS and those you work with in the scientific community
prioritize human rights work such as human trafficking?
Ms. Harris. Sure. Years ago, decades ago, the American
Association for the Advancement of Science recognized that
human rights was central to our mission of advancing science
and serving society and that there are so many connections
between science and human rights, both the applications of
science to solving human rights concerns but also human rights
as a value that is central to science and a responsibility of
scientists.
And so we have had a human rights program for decades now,
and the On-Call Scientists project in particular is a way that
we have made it possible for many in the scientific community
to get involved, not just work that's happening at AAAS.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. I'd like to ask
unanimous consent to enter a letter into the record from
Polaris, which operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
Without objection.
I now ask Mr. Lucas to take his 5 minutes.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Darnton, Tech Against Trafficking has done great work
to advance technology to help combat human trafficking, and as
we've already learned through witness testimony today, there
are instances where technology has enabled bad actors but also
instances of where technology advanced efforts to identify and
stop criminals. Could you discuss how the Committee can further
support innovative technologies to combat human trafficking?
And while you're thinking about that, my second question
will be are there certain research activities you recommend
Congress support to encourage the adoption and utilization of
those technologies and the techniques?
Ms. Darnton. Thank you so much. Yes, I think there's a
number of ways in which the Committee can help to support
innovative technologies. I think many of the ways that that can
occur are actually supporting, as I mentioned in my initial
statements, the ecosystem in which the technology will be used.
We've found that many of the partnerships, the collaborations
across the sector are historically underfunded, and so even
when we have wonderful solutions that are promoting new
advancements in research and science best practice or state-of-
the-art technologies, they aren't supported in a way that makes
them fully effective and impactful.
I think TellFinder is a wonderful example of this. Launched
in 2014, TellFinder really did use new advancements in
technology, best practices, researchers and technologists
across the field to create new systems, new operating models,
and new tools for the field. But unfortunately, it shut down
toward the end of 2021 because it lacked funding.
And so being able to not just test these new innovative
solutions through accelerated programs like Tech Against
Trafficking but also others, but then to support both the
funding, the collaboration, and the use of those technologies
over time. There's often a cliff, and once that cliff of
support drops off, those technologies are unable to be
effectively deployed and utilized across the space.
So I'd say that's one main way in which the Committee could
support, but it's also being able to socialize what
technologies are already in existence. We initially did a
mapping of technology tools used across the tech--the
trafficking space back in I think it was 2018. And we found
over 300 technology tools that were already in existence, many
of which do the exact same thing. There were approximately 70
tools that identified victims of trafficking or traffickers
themselves. And individual organizations looking to deploy
these technologies weren't aware that these tools existed, so
they were just recreating the same type of tool again and
again. And this is just inefficient in terms of funding and
sharing best practices and what could be deployed or lifted and
shifted to be used in new contexts. So being able to create a
mechanism that can share best practices and learnings across
this field to actually advance the use of innovative
technologies to new actors that can help adapt them to their
own context would also be helpful.
In terms of your second question on research activities
that you should support, I think all of my co-panelists on
this--in this discussion today are running wonderful activities
that could be supported. But I think that we also need to
consider the landscape of research out there today and how it
actually translates to on-the-ground initiatives and
interventions. Research has really helped us understand the
prevalence rates, as well as the work that's currently going on
in the field, how this crime is manifesting, but we need to
make sure that research is also going toward dedicating time
and energy to understanding how the overarching understanding
of how the field is actually manifesting is being conducted on
how things are working on the ground, so what's effective,
what's impactful, and how will it actually be taken up and used
by actors closest to the problem.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you. Dr. Goodwin, in October 2021 GAO
reported data on missing and murdered Indigenous women is
unknown because Federal data bases do not contain comprehensive
national data. I'm deeply concerned about this as Indigenous
populations in Oklahoma are affected by these crimes, including
human trafficking. What steps can be taken to improve data
collection and analysis to better understand and identify these
trends of crimes?
Dr. Goodwin. Thank you, Congressman. So in the report, we
also mention the existence of two laws that had recently
passed, Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act. In those laws
there are requirements for the Attorney General to report to
Congress on the numbers of missing or murdered Indigenous
women. And if that information isn't readily available, then
the Attorney General is required to offer up suggestions or
recommendations on how to better gain information on those
numbers.
So we think that those are two main ways that can help
inform and enhance the information that we get about this
crisis. But of course the report noted that because there's not
a lot of data, it's just really challenging to get a handle on
how deep the crisis is. But we think that Savanna's Act and the
Not Invisible Act are important and helpful ways to get there.
Mr. Lucas. With that, Madam Chair, I think my time is
expired. I yield back.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. The Clerk will
take over from here.
Staff. Ms. Bonamici is recognized.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much. And thank you to
Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas, and thank you
especially to our witnesses. I appreciate the work that you're
doing, along with so many others who are shining a light on
this, you know, often hidden and often overlooked reality of
human trafficking and exploitation.
You know, each witness identified in similar but sometimes
different ways the challenges around the standardization of
collected data or the lack of reliable systems in place to
facilitate data-sharing. And those challenges hinder the anti-
trafficking efforts, including the effort to measure the
prevalence of human trafficking and also implement prevention
or demand reduction strategies. Even within the Interagency
Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, for example, many
of the agencies that collect human trafficking data and carry
out some research often have a mission-focused approach, and
that can result in siloed data and research rather than a
coordinated approach to understanding how to combat human
trafficking.
So I want to start by asking--well, first, I want to thank
Ranking Member Lucas for bringing up the missing and murdered
Indigenous issue and was a strong supporter of Savanna's Act
and look forward to seeing it implemented in a strong way.
But I want to ask first Dr. Shelley, what are the
challenges and possible solutions to supporting more
information-sharing through secure yet interoperable systems,
and how can the Federal Government work internally but also
with external partners to better coordinate victim
identification and data collection standards?
Dr. Shelley. I think that there are many sources of
information. For example, as I mentioned in my statement, we
have T visas in which individuals who agree to cooperate with
law enforcement issue detailed statements on their
exploitation. We have never anonymized this data so that we
could understand how much of this trafficking is affecting
different communities in our society. That's just one example
of where to start. It was also mentioned that the SARs
reporting to FinCEN has increased, but we have not done enough
analysis of what is behind this data and how we could use that
in combination with other insights and with the business
community that is being very aggressive in trying to mine their
data to find this. So----
Ms. Bonamici. Well, why did we not--I don't mean to
interrupt, but why have--why has that not been done? Is it
simply a funding issue?
Dr. Shelley. In part, it's a funding issue, and in part
it's an absence of funding basic research on this subject.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Ms. Darnton, same question from
your perspective, what are the possible solutions to supporting
more information-sharing through secure yet interoperable
systems? And how can the Federal Government work internally and
with external partners to better coordinate victim
identification and data collection standards?
Ms. Darnton. One of the ways is that we actually need to
build trust between the entities sharing their data and the
larger ecosystem. So in 2019 we actually worked on a new
privacy-preserving mechanism with the Counter-Trafficking Data
Collaborative out of the International Organization on
Migration that allowed us to generate synthetic data sets which
represent statistical properties of sensitive data sets rather
than actually intentionally identifiable individuals and
precompute them in a way that doesn't reveal small or precise
data counts, thereby creating a data interface which allows for
users to explore the structure of data without actually
revealing personal or identifiable information. And that's just
kind of one way in which we can innovatively think about
privacy-preserving mechanisms that protect individual
information and allow for wider data-sharing without the same
concerns of the ramifications of data-sharing. So I think
building up and exploring those types of new, innovative
solutions is one way in which we can promote the data-sharing.
And the other----
Ms. Bonamici. I don't mean to cut you off, but I really
want to get a question in for Ms. Harris.
Ms. Darnton. Of course, sorry.
Ms. Bonamici. I have a brief period of time left.
Ms. Harris, your--in your testimony you shared a very
interesting example of researchers developing a labor safe
digital certificate to combat forced labor among foreign
fishing vessels. In considering the unique labor conditions of
the fishing industry that you highlighted, are there lessons or
best practices arising from that work that can apply to other
sectors?
Ms. Harris. I think that the main lesson from that work is
how difficult it is to pull the different types of data
together in order to develop something like that and how many
collaborators are needed from the private sector, from NGO's,
people who are on the ground who understand the dynamics of
what's happening, and the people who are collecting the data,
and also some of the sources that aren't usually thought of for
that information such as the internal information that
companies are collecting simply in the process of business--of
doing business.
Ms. Bonamici. Great, thank you so much. And I see my time
is expired. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Posey is recognized.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Chairman.
Ms. Darnton, the hearing charter mentions a 2019 report by
the Department of Transportation (DOT) Advisory Committee on
Human Trafficking. It states that data collection, analysis,
and information-sharing are critical to inform the
transportation industry regarding the nature and the severity
of human trafficking. There's a lot of good work being done to
combat human trafficking by the Federal Government, private
sector, and nonprofit organizations. Yet there seems to be some
obstacles in making sure these entities are effectively working
together regarding the nature and severity of human
trafficking. How is the Federal Government currently working
with the private sector to address those obstacles?
Ms. Darnton. I think the government is working with
individual private actors quite frequently, but those are often
not necessarily at a global level or at a systematic level. And
so I believe that we could do this more systematically to
create collaborative approaches where entire industries are
coming together with government to think through the way that
trafficking is manifesting and data is being shared and
collected across the space. So I--my key recommendation there
would be that government could come into the rooms and be at
the table with larger industry collaborations rather than one-
off relationships with different companies. That is a first
step, but I think we could do it more systematically.
Mr. Posey. Thank you. Do any of the witnesses have further
thoughts on that?
Dr. Shelley. Yes, I do. Research done by the financial
community in data mining has shown that rideshare services are
key expediters of human trafficking, and yet there's not been
enough pressure put on the rideshare services to partner with
the research community, the data could be anonymized to
understand the patterns of human trafficking and how these
rideshare services facilitate it. So it's not just--we've had
great efforts by the airplane sector but not by this sector.
And also by the trucking sector we've had progress but not
rideshare.
Mr. Posey. Thank you very much. Any other witnesses have
comments?
All right. We'll go back to Ms. Darnton again. What
suggestions do you have to improve collaboration?
Ms. Darnton. I think that if we promoted a universal human
trafficking case data standard, that that would be extremely
helpful in being able to create a similar language structure
and standard that allowed for data-sharing across the board. As
many of you know, the way that organizations, companies, and
other actors within the system collect data is different. The
terminology they use is different. The larger kind of holistic
story of a victim or survivor is different. And it makes it
difficult to actually share across systems. So by utilizing
universally applicable case data standards that can be used at
all levels and all types of actors would really help facilitate
information exchange and large-scale data aggregation.
Mr. Posey. Do you see any government programs or mandates
that might be hindering these groups, especially the trucking
industry, from their efforts to combat human trafficking?
Ms. Darnton. I think some of the other panelists may have
responses to that one specific to trucking.
Mr. Posey. Panelists?
All right. That's all I've got here, Madam Chairman. I
yield back.
Staff. Ms. Stevens is recognized.
Ms. Stevens. Great. Thank you so much to our Chair and our
witnesses for today's hearing. I think it's very evident from
what we've heard from our witnesses and from our Chairwoman and
our Ranking Member that what is taking place with human
trafficking is oftentimes not just a couple of isolated
incidences or one-off individual actors, but this is part of a
systemic, more holistic engagement that involves a multitude of
industries and broader stakeholders, which is why we're having
a conversation today and why we're having today's hearing about
data and in particular the research and development tools that
could combat human trafficking.
And last year in Michigan the Michigan Human Trafficking
Commission focused on analyzing federally funded data sets
collected from southeastern Michigan. This is, you know, a
border destination. We're the only place in the country that
goes south of Canada right there in southeastern Michigan and
Wayne County. And their data collection had provided services
to victims and survivors of human trafficking. And the Michigan
Commission's review of the data proved frankly just to be
challenging. The Commission concluded that there is a pressing
need to create a standardized data reporting framework
specifically for victim service providers with categories for
victim typology and services provided.
So sort of pinpointed at Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Shelley, and Ms.
Harris, since a lack of standardization of the data has been
shown to hinder progress in anti-human-trafficking efforts,
could you share any efforts from Federal research agencies to
develop data standards to combat the existence of human
trafficking at a national and global level. And to preface that
in terms of standards, you know, we are the Committee that
works really closely and oversees the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, so we spend a lot of time talking
about standards.
Dr. Goodwin. So I'll talk briefly about some of the work
that we've done looking at human trafficking in Indian Country
and some of the recommendations we made to ensure that the data
were collected. So when we did that work, we found that it had
been really difficult to actually put a number on the number of
human trafficking victims who were Indigenous women because at
the time, the Department of Justice wasn't collecting data on
race. And so it would have been really difficult to tell
anything about that number when you're not even collecting data
on race or ethnicity. We made a recommendation in our report,
and DOJ has since done that.
And then moving forward, as we talk about the crisis of
missing or murdered Indigenous women, we know that they are
also collecting and providing data on race, gender, and age to
provide a broader picture for what's happening. But it's been
really challenging to get at one number for a number of reasons
that I'll talk about briefly. One of them, when you're talking
about law enforcement, is having law enforcement understand
what human trafficking is when they're looking at it. Some law
enforcement officers had not received the type of training that
they would need to identify human trafficking when they showed
up to a particular scene. But I think that the Department of
Justice has been making efforts to address this and to provide
additional data.
And then if you go back to Savanna's Act and the Not
Invisible Act, if the comprehensive data aren't out there, the
Attorney General and some of the other agencies have to explain
why and then come up with recommendations to ensure that that
information is readily available.
Ms. Stevens. Yes, and I know Ms. Darnton just chimed in on
the chat and I appreciate that because in her written testimony
she shared the Tech Against Trafficking--human trafficking's
case data standards to encourage consistency across the field,
and so, obviously, I'm kind of--this is a question for
everybody, but Ms. Darnton, if you want to get in, that would
be great.
Ms. Darnton. Yes, happy to share more on that. I think that
the--we have created this human trafficking case data standard
in partnership with organizations on the ground to create a
common language and ability to be able to share data back and
forth between different organizations. But to your point,
Representative Stevens, I think that these are often difficult
to integrate on the ground, and so the purpose of this specific
toolkit was to meet service providers where they're at with the
capabilities that they currently have and enable them to
integrate it into their existing systems without too much
overhead cost. And so I think that is an area that we can
continue to explore, to not just create new standards and
systems that will allow for data collection and sharing but to
ensure that it actually works based on their current
capabilities and expertise.
Ms. Stevens. Yes. And I'll--I'm out of time, but we'll stay
on. There's a lot of brilliant people on the Science Committee
who are going to be continuing to ask questions, and so thank
you to Ms. Harris, Dr. Shelley, and Ms. Harris as well. We'll
yield back the time.
Staff. Mr. Babin is recognized. You're on mute, Mr. Babin.
Mr. Babin. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman Johnson
and Ranking Member Lucas, for holding this important hearing.
And thank you to our witnesses for being here with us today.
I believe this issue is one of dire importance and
something that demands immediate action. I'd be very remiss if
I didn't mention one surefire way that we can curb the evil
practice of human trafficking, and that is by securing our
southern border. In the United States immigrants, especially
immigrant women, make up the largest portion of human
trafficking victims. In 2016 the Department of State estimated
that 57,700 victims were trafficked into the United States
annually. However, as we've discussed today, we have
insufficient data collection and so that we know the true
number is much larger and in fact impossible to determine.
And it's not just traffic of immigrant women. Sophisticated
transnational organizations are notorious for using children to
get single adult males not just across the border but through
border patrol processing. Studies done by the Latin American
branch of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women estimate
that at least, at least 60 percent of Latin American children
who set out to cross the border alone or with smugglers have
been caught by the cartels and are being abused in child
pornography or drug trafficking. However, we know that that
percentage is far greater today given our current state of
crisis along the southern border. The forms of exploitation,
sex trafficking, forced labor, and domestic servitude that
constitute human trafficking are antithetical to everything--
all of our principles of human dignity that Americans hold
dear. And while previous Federal Government ventures have been
relatively unsuccessful, I'm very hopeful that we can work
together to provide the right tools, personnel, and
partnerships to defeat this growing menace.
With that being said, my question is for any of the
witnesses is this. Do you believe that securing our southern
border would disrupt these evil human trafficking networks and
prevent the abuse, the rape, the smuggling of migrants into the
United States, any of you witnesses?
Dr. Goodwin. So, Congressman, the GAO hasn't done work
looking specifically at that issue, but what I can do, I can
take it back to my agency to see if we have anything that might
be useful to you, and I'll circle back to your staffers.
Mr. Babin. Thank you so much. And question No. 2, in what
ways can modeling and accurate data collection be utilized by
the Federal agencies to better restrict human trafficking along
our borders?
Ms. Darnton. To answer your first question, Representative
Babin, I do believe that closing our borders in such a way
would force the issue further underground and make it more
difficult to identify. It would also be violative of a range of
other human rights, so that would need to be considered and it
would only prevent our ability to help individuals experiencing
exploitation.
Mr. Babin. Yes, ma'am, thank you. Anybody else?
Dr. Shelley. As was mentioned earlier, we have a
convergence of many different forms of transnational crime. And
unfortunately, we have very sophisticated transnational crime
that constructs tunnels and finds other ways to operate
successfully. What we need to be doing is finding an overall
strategy of how to address these problems, but the problems of
human trafficking are not just problems of transnational crime,
of which I've written much, but there are many more
facilitators in our society that we need to be working on. And
some of that of exploitation of labor victims is that we need
to go after some of the people who are exploiting this labor so
that we are not providing, you know, opportunities for people
to be exploited.
Mr. Babin. Absolutely, thank you. Anyone else?
OK. Well, I--Madam Chair, I think that's the end of my line
of questioning. I just want to say thank you, and I just will
yield back. Thank you, witnesses.
Staff. Mr. McNerney is recognized.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chair, and I thank the
witnesses. This is an important topic and a difficult one.
Ms. Darnton, you discussed how machine learning can protect
the privacy of human trafficking victims while maintaining data
structure. How can AI and machine learning enhance the privacy
of human trafficking data sets?
Ms. Darnton. I think there's a range of highly technical
methodologies that we can deploy in order to be able to protect
the privacy within data sets. So the one that I mentioned
earlier was creating synthetic data sets that represent
statistical properties of a sensitive data set rather than the
actually potential identifiable information on individuals. So
that's one way that we can do it, but there's a range of other
new and emerging technologies that we could explore in order to
make sure that this is being considered within large-scale data
sets.
My one kind of additional comment there would be as we work
to continue developing testing, utilizing these new models,
that we also have to make sure that we are taking appropriate
action to also avoid, prevent, and mitigate the other human
rights harms that can come along with new and emerging
technologies.
Mr. McNerney. Well, hopefully AI can be helpful in
developing that.
Tech Against Trafficking participated in Code 8.7 of the
U.N. sustainable development goals, the eradication of human
trafficking, by bringing together an international group of
research institutions using computational science and AI to
understand and find solutions to the trafficking problem. What
are some of the high-level recommendations from the Code 8.7
workshop?
Ms. Darnton. I'd have to go back and look at my notes on
that. The workshop was quite productive and brought many actors
throughout the sector together, and I think that was one of its
real strengths is there is not often times where you can get
service providers, researchers, practitioners, and companies at
the same table discussing the issues at length. And that was a
major win for the field, and I'm happy to share further
information on the more detailed recommendations to follow.
Mr. McNerney. Well, that's great. Could you make that
available to the Committee then?
Ms. Darnton. Yes, happy too.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. And how can the U.S. Government
and the research entities assist in adopting AI as a solution
to human trafficking?
Dr. Shelley. I think that there's a lot we could do with
the data that we already have. For example, there are now more
than 2,000 Federal cases of human trafficking that have been
prosecuted, and yet we have not used AI to go through these
cases and try to extract patterns, financing patterns,
geospatial relationships, recruitment. There's a huge amount of
data that we have not used, and that's because those files were
extensive, but AI could help us enormously. And we've used some
of this AI in the reviews that we've done to try and get out
certain elements of this problem. But the data is sitting
there, and with AI, much advances could be made in analyzing
where we are.
Mr. McNerney. Great. And so you brought up--Dr. Shelley,
you brought up developing algorithms. Is that kind of what
you're referring to right now?
Dr. Shelley. Exactly. The financial community has developed
algorithms, and you can also develop other patterns that you
want to see of the locations of where it's occurring, the
recruitment patterns, the ages of people. There's much data
that can be obtained.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Dr. Goodwin, to your knowledge,
has the U.S. Government taken any steps to adopt AI technology
to address human trafficking? And if so, what was the outcome?
Dr. Goodwin. Not to my knowledge, Congressman, but I can
certainly check our notes and circle back to you. I do think
that this is a promising practice or something that should be
more closely examined. And then the issue about the data, you
know, a gentle reminder that there are a lot of data out there,
but some of the data are sensitive. Some of the data, as I
mentioned earlier, are for specific purposes in those data
bases, and so a challenge that all face is trying to find ways
to enhance that data-sharing or just basically to get at some
of that data, particularly the data that's more sensitive.
Mr. McNerney. Right. And that was the point of my first
question, how do we protect people's privacy, especially the
victims of this crime? Is there sufficient expertise in the
U.S. Government work force to deploy and manage AI technology
aimed at human trafficking? Dr. Goodwin?
Dr. Goodwin. That's not something that GAO has looked in on
a broader, deeper scale, so I think the other panelists are
probably better suited to respond to that one.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I don't have enough time for another
question, but I just want to leave you with this. How can AI be
used to help track digital currency used in human trafficking?
But I've run out of time, and I'm going to yield back.
Staff. Mr. Waltz is recognized.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you so much, and I actually am interested
in that question to follow up with my colleague. How can AI be
used to--for--on the digital currency side that's being used
for human trafficking?
Dr. Goodwin. So I'll touch on it briefly from the work that
we've done on virtual currencies used. We didn't specifically
look at how AI could be helpful, but one of the things that we
do talk about, like when you're using those virtual currency
kiosks or those Bitcoin kiosks, one of the challenges that law
enforcement has had is kind of identifying where they are so
that when transactions are occurring, maybe they could find a
way to get to those places where those illicit activities might
be happening. And so I could see where AI might be useful in
terms of just identifying the people who might be at the kiosk
or just doing some kind of geospatial testing or geospatial
location to actually see where those kiosks might be.
Dr. Shelley. That's being done also by the financial
community. That's one of the things they are plugging into
their algorithms at the present time.
Mr. Waltz. Right. No, that's great, and I know there's a
number of software solutions, you know, on the market now that
can go through the ledgers and really kind of track that
metadata and pull some meaningful conclusions.
Dr. Goodwin and Ms. Darnton, you know, we've talked a lot I
think already today about the lack of appropriate data, and
that's a problem that I face in trying to legislate. I've
introduced H.R. 4070, the Stop Human Trafficking Act of 2021.
And the bill will direct the Attorney General to conduct a
study in coordination with the President's Interagency Task
Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to look at
the prevalence and instances of human trafficking at adult
entertainment clubs and establishments across the United
States. And specifically, the study would examine how victims
are trafficked, the demographics of the victims, if the victim
was an employee of the adult entertainment establishment, and
the methods of fraud, force, coercion used by traffickers at
these venues specifically is what we're looking at to then look
at potential legislation.
Locally in Florida, a number of measures have been
introduced to actually raise the age to 21 that's--that--where
it's acceptable to have young girls at these establishments.
So, you know, how can Federal agencies and NGO's coordinate
on--and I know you've talked to it a bit, but if you could
emphasize specifically for these adult information venues on
gathering data from cases specific to a certain trafficking
hub, location in a way that allows and applies these methods
and findings to other trafficking hubs.
Ms. Darnton. I'm happy to respond first. I think one of the
ways which we could further collaborate would be to actually
utilize the information and existing research by groups such as
Polaris. Polaris has mapped the typologies of trafficking. My
information might be slightly out of date, but last I heard
they had identified 26 different typologies of trafficking and
been able to narrow down in exactly how it was happening in
places like massage parlors or nail salons and being able to
really paint a picture of the exact activities, the data that
would need to be captured to better understand how trafficking
was manifesting in those scenarios and then provide that intel
to law enforcement and others to be able to take direct
approaches to address it. And so I think working with groups on
the ground that have done that research already would be a
first step.
And then the second would be ensuring that we're working
with victims, survivors that have been in these different
settings and scenarios to help us better understand what to be
looking for, how to do it in rights-respecting ways, and making
sure that we are taking appropriate action to address it.
Mr. Waltz. Yes, thank you. Well, I know we've interacted
with Polaris quite a bit, but we'll reach out and look at
specifically that typology and specifically how it applies to
adult entertainment venues.
And, Dr. Shelley, in the 40 seconds I have remaining, you
noted that many victims of trafficking do not have access to
the telephone number of the hotline. I'm in the final stages,
we're drafting a bill that will require the Department of Labor
and the Department of Homeland Security's Blue Campaign to
create a human trafficking awareness resource poster that
includes the hotline number, and it would be required in
employers of all types of businesses that have higher cases of
human trafficking. Do you think that will be helpful and
beneficial in victim reporting?
Dr. Shelley. I think it may be helpful, but I think that so
many victims of human trafficking are held in closed
facilities. One of the things where you should be focusing a
lot on is on hospitals and medical facilities where often
victims of human trafficking come, and there is not sufficient
training for personnel and not enough outreach being done. And
that's a key place that we need to be thinking about.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you so much. I have run out of time, but I
think that's very helpful, Dr. Shelley. And we'll take a hard
look at that as we finalize the legislation. And I yield my
time.
Staff. Dr. Foster is recognized.
Mr. Foster. Thank you. I'm audible here?
Staff. Yes, you are, sir.
Mr. Foster. OK. Well, now, a recurring theme in all of your
testimony here has been the rise of anonymous or pseudonymous
cryptocurrencies for human trafficking and as it is being used
for money laundering, ransomware, and a whole raft of criminal
activities. So in response to this, many countries have simply
banned cryptocurrencies or cryptoassets generally, which I
believe is neither necessary, nor advisable. And I believe that
what we need instead is to move away from this system we have
of purely anonymous or pseudonymous cryptoassets, that with
maybe occasional blacklisting of the wallets of bad actors as
they may be identified to a system of controlled anonymity
where crypto transactions are only possible and legal between
white-listed and legally traceable participants who can
nonetheless typically remain pseudonymous. And so what this
would mean in practice is that, under most circumstances,
cryptoassets can be used anonymously like cash, and government
will not have access to all the transaction information for
surveillance purposes, as, for example, it has in China.
But when you have evidence that a crime has been committed,
you can go before a judge in a court system you trust, convince
the judge that a crime has in fact been committed, and the
court can then order the deanonymization of the participants
and, if necessary, to extradite them. And if the court is
convinced that a participant is in fact a bad actor, it can
order all transactions of that participant deanonymized, you
know, very much like you can do with a gangster's bank
accounts.
Now, while this won't provide the kind of blanket
surveillance of crypto transactions that might be most
effective in preventing human trafficking, but wouldn't this
sort of court-controlled anonymity be a significant step
forward? Let's see. Yes, Ms. Darnton, do you want to grab onto
that or anyone else that has comments on how we deal with the
tension between surveillance and, you know, criminal activities
in crypto?
Dr. Shelley. I'd like to say that one of the things that
you're talking about is something that is very heavy and
demanding in time. And one of the concerns that we have with
human trafficking is the rapidity with which this phenomenon
goes on. And so often the kind of procedure that you're talking
about takes hours and hours of law enforcement time. And often
when you're dealing with the expansion of cryptocurrency, some
of it which is going on in the dark web today, you're dealing
with a problem that is very time-intensive, and therefore,
we're looking at problems that cannot be easily resolved. And
so, therefore, I think you need to be thinking about the kind
of resource allocations it takes to do the kind of analysis of
the cryptocurrency that you're talking about right now.
Mr. Foster. And so what I was trying to describe there was,
you know, a system whereby when you're thinking of buying a
cryptoasset, you can inspect it or have your software inspect
it, make sure that all of the--everyone who has ever owned that
is a white-listed participant and a--someone who's legally
traceable so that you actually will--you know, will not be able
to--well, you could purchase a cryptoasset that has been handed
between questionable individuals, but unless everyone on that
who has handled it has been--you know, is on the white list,
you know, then the cryptoasset would essentially be trash and
would not be legal to bring into the--you know, converted to
cash or brought into the lit financial system.
Ms. Darnton. I have less experience and expertise in this
area, but I would recommend speaking to the FAST initiative,
Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking, as I believe they've
explored this at some level.
Mr. Foster. OK. And I think the key element here is
producing a list of authorized participants to be white-listed.
And, you know, I think--I believe that is really an essential
government job. You have to provide a secure digital ID. And
fortunately, the National Institute of Standards and Technology
has produced really useful standards for--in what are called
digital drivers licenses, or mobile IDs that allow anyone to
use their modern smartphone to prove they are who they say they
are and associate it with a REAL ID-compliant driver's license.
And this will really, I believe, provide the necessary legal
traceability online. And States like Oklahoma, Arizona,
Louisiana, and others are adopting these NIST standards with
great success. And I think that requiring that for
participation in a crypto transaction would be a huge step
forward.
Anyway, I believe my time is up here, and any further
thoughts you have on that would be appreciated for the record.
Thank you all.
Ms. Darnton. I'd love to respond to that if there is time,
but I wasn't sure.
Mr. Foster. Oh, is 30 seconds OK?
Staff. Yes.
Ms. Darnton. Thank you. So I just think that one quick
comment there would be that that could potentially bring up
discrimination and bias issues into who was permitted to be on
that list of individuals. And so something to consider would be
how do we ensure that there are not inherent discriminatory
practice built into who could access and how could the use or
pervasive use of phones, for example, as a key portable ID
actually disenfranchise other communities and populations. So,
for example, nowadays many individuals don't have access to
smartphones. We're also seeing families share a single phone,
so how would that impact certain communities and vulnerable
populations would be something you would want to consider.
Mr. Foster. That's right. And the bipartisan infrastructure
bill is a huge step forward in ensuring that everyone in this
country, no matter what their means, will have access to a
basic internet connection and a mobile device. So--and thank
you, Ms.--I thank the Chair for the time here and yield back.
Staff. Mr. Baird is recognized.
Mr. Baird. Yes, thank you. And I want to thank Chairwoman
Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas for holding this hearing. And,
you know, I especially appreciate the expert witnesses for
their sharing their expertise with this Committee so we can
make informed decisions.
My question really to begin with really goes back to what
Representative Waltz and Representative Foster were referring
to. And, Dr. Goodwin, you mentioned in your GAO report that
cryptocurrency is often used as the preferred currency in the
dark web to finance human trafficking transactions. And like
many technologies, evolution in cryptocurrencies have taken
steps forward as a positive innovation. But unfortunately,
criminals have exploited cryptocurrencies for their own uses as
well.
So, Dr. Goodwin, I want to start with you. Are there any
other areas that the government should be looking at to better
understand and counter these types of crimes with the
continuing evolution of currency technologies in the financial
system?
Dr. Goodwin. So thank you for that question. Yes. And so,
as you mentioned, we reference in our report the fact that some
of these transactions are happening on the dark web. I will
say, Congressman, that GAO actually issued two reports on this
topic. One is a law enforcement-sensitive report, and I cannot
go into that report in this setting. But my staff and I will
happily circle back to you to have a more in-depth conversation
there.
Another issue that we brought up in the report, when we
talk about the use of cryptocurrency or virtual currencies,
particularly as--on the online sex marketplace, what we were
finding with that work was maybe the virtual currency was used
to pay for ads, and those ads themselves would direct you to
where you could engage in kind of the sex trafficking. So
that's another concern that we raised in the report. While you
might be able to track the currency up until the point where
you're purchasing the ad, then once that ad is purchased, that
ad might direct you to more illicit activities. So those are
concerns that we have raised.
Mr. Baird. And continuing on with that, do you think
there's a place for public-private partnerships to play a role
in this endeavor?
Dr. Goodwin. We do. And so, as we've talked about earlier,
just the need for maybe law enforcement working with advocacy
groups or nonprofits, maybe government, getting information
from some of these organizations who are, as we talked about,
on the ground kind of more engaged with efforts to combat these
types of activities, I think there absolutely is a role here.
Dr. Shelley. I would----
Mr. Baird. Thank you. Go ahead.
Dr. Shelley. Can I add something? In a----
Mr. Baird. Yes.
Dr. Shelley. In another NSF grant that I have now, we have
a partnership with one of the major private organizations that
is working on following the use of cyber currencies online and
has worked on the issue of human trafficking or
cryptocurrencies. So there is a possibility and a willingness
of private sector actors to work with researchers.
Mr. Baird. Well, thank you for that answer, Dr. Shelley.
Any of the other witnesses care to make a comment in that area?
Ms. Harris. Private and--private-public collaboration is
going to be absolutely essential for this and not just in the
way that was mentioned. From the government's perspective, it's
acquiring information but also the specific research questions.
There's so much information out there that it's actually
identifying what information is most useful to answering what
questions are going to be most immediately helpful to the--to
preventing trafficking and helping survivors. And so it's also
about creating equitable collaborations between the service
providers, that they are getting as much out of the
collaboration as the researchers and government officials are
getting out of it. That kind of collaboration is what's needed
to make breakthroughs in this area.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. And I see I only have about 20
seconds left, and so, Dr. Shelley, any quick comments in the 20
seconds about what we might have to address the data gaps we
have?
Dr. Shelley. I think that we need to be working together
across agencies and working with the cyber--with the online
community and with the business community that has large
amounts of data. And there is possibilities of data-sharing.
And I don't think we've talked enough about the insights that
are coming from the business community.
Mr. Baird. Thank you very much. I see my time is up, and I
yield back, Madam Chair.
Staff. Ms. Moore is recognized.
Ms. Moore. Thank you so much. And really, I want to
appreciate not only our brilliant witnesses that have been here
today, but I want to thank the Chairwoman and the Ranking
Member for pulling this together. I have been really interested
in this particular topic, which the hearing charter identifies
the data challenges impacting human trafficking. And I do have
a bill that I'm introducing, along with Representative Beyer,
which would really, I believe, address many of the issues that
we've talked about here today.
I was really inspired to push forward in this work by
someone that you may know, Dr. Brook Bello out of Florida, who
was trafficked as a tween and got her Ph.D. and, as a matter of
fact, owns one of these platforms. She was the advocate of the
year, victim advocate in 2019, DOJ, Google next-generation
policymaker. And so this bill would be the Counter Human
Trafficking Research and Development Act. And this hearing is
right on point for gathering the information that we need.
I want to ask a really scary question. We've had really
great information here today. One really frightening question
that I have, given your testimony, I guess I'll start with Dr.
Goodwin and Dr. Shelley. Are the bad guys ahead of us on
cyber--on using social media platforms, Bitcoin? Are they ahead
of us? If we're looking at pulling a bill together, what is our
timeline, and really, what is the financial gap that we're
facing in terms of getting all of this stuff coordinated? I
notice, for example, Dr. Shelley, you talked about how big the
network is. I mean, it's not just that it's a strip club. It's
every hotel, it's rideshares, and so on. So that would be one
question.
And then the second question I would have for Ms. Harris
and Ms. Darnton, I think we've beaten this horse almost to
death regarding security, but I--could you give me some
examples, for example, of what Facebook could do or Uber or one
of the rideshares could do specifically or we could require
them to do specifically to close some of these gaps and to help
us with it? And so I would yield for those answers in that
order. Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Shelley, Ms. Darnton, and Ms. Harris.
Dr. Goodwin. I'm sorry, can you hear me?
Ms. Moore. Yes.
Dr. Goodwin. So I'll start the latter part because I don't
quite remember the first part of the question. So the work that
we're currently doing looking at of online sex trafficking or
like the online exploitation, we know that some of the media
companies are engaging in this space trying to find ways to
ensure that that's not happening in their marketplaces or on
their sites. But because the technology is so prevalent and
it's advancing quite rapidly, it has been very difficult for
law enforcement to keep pace.
So you asked about whether the bad actors were winning. I
don't know that I would say that they were winning or losing. I
would say that because the technology is rapidly expanding and
rapidly being used, it has been challenging for law enforcement
to keep pace.
Ms. Moore. Dr. Shelley?
Dr. Shelley. I think we've seen an enormous growth of human
trafficking, including the size of the networks because of
their ability to work online together. As I mentioned, we have
research already 5 years ago that $250 million were spent on 60
million ads online. And the networks for these are just
enormous.
Ms. Moore. Wow.
Dr. Shelley. And yes, we've used AI, but we're dealing with
problems. And you asked about like Uber. One of the things that
was found a few years ago by the financial community is that
they had a warning that if someone spent money on 13 Uber rides
a day, that was highly correlated with human trafficking. But
I'm not aware of that kind of data being anonymized to look at
these patterns. And this is an enormous insight into
understanding the geospatial operations, the modus operandi of
human traffickers. How do you allocate resources if you don't
know where the problem is and how it's operating within your
community?
Ms. Moore. All right. I think I've run out of time. I think
I better slow down my ridesharing because I do it a lot. I
yield back.
Dr. Goodwin. Representative Moore, I will--if I could just
say this. One of the things we also looked at and we've been
paying attention to is where the opportunities are to better
train particularly law enforcement personnel to go after these
bad actors and to engage in different hiring practices to
ensure that the law enforcement folks you have onsite actually
understand the technology and can kind of get in there and find
ways to address it in a different fashion. And the use of AI is
really promising here.
Ms. Moore. Thank you so very much, so much to ask, so
little time.
Staff. Ms. Bice is recognized.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you so much. I appreciate the witnesses
for being here this afternoon.
Let me ask you, with the pop-up nature of dark web
marketplaces, what are some of the challenges in tracking data
from these anonymous sources, and do you know of any software
or technology that's out there that's helping us navigate that
environment? And this is for any of the witnesses.
Dr. Shelley. Yes, I do. For example, there was a major
study done by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
that I alluded to, and there were some tools that came out of
this. And in our research at the research center, we've used
some of these research tools in the dark web to monitor and try
and find behavior. So that has already been funded by the
government and used successfully. And then a project that we're
doing now funded by NSF, we're looking at some other forms of
illicit trade that are going on using tools on the dark web.
And they are revealing--they're proving quite successful.
Mrs. Bice. Great, thank you for that.
Ms. Darnton. Oh, sorry, just to respond to that as well,
Representative Bice, I'd say that we put out a paper with the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, I
think it was last year, entitled ``Leveraging Innovation to
Fight Trafficking in Human Beings: A Comprehensive Analysis of
Tech Tools.'' And it has a list of technology tools that are
being utilized across the anti-trafficking space, which
includes some of the tools that you referenced, so happy to go
deeper there as needed.
Mrs. Bice. Perfect, thank you for following up with that.
And I want to follow it up with this. What are some of the
existing efforts and opportunities for improved data-sharing
among NGO's, State, local law enforcement? What are we doing to
sort of bring all of that data together to analyze that? Is
there one sort of repository for this--all of that data, or are
we sort of fragmented?
Dr. Shelley. Everything is fragmented unfortunately.
Ms. Darnton. I'd say that the Counter-Trafficking Data
Collaborative does have one of the largest data sets on human
trafficking cases, and it's not enough. We're still not pulling
in data sets from a lot of the service providers, the companies
that could be sharing data on the ways in which trafficking is
taking place. But it is a relatively good start. And in August
2021 the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative and Microsoft
actually released the largest public data set that can be used
to fight human trafficking representing data from over 150,000
victims and survivors of trafficking across 189 countries and
territories. So I think that's a good starting place, and we
can use that as a springboard hopefully for further data
collection in the future.
Mrs. Bice. Excellent.
Dr. Goodwin. And one thing that I will add is that what we
know from the virtual currencies work that we did, certain law
enforcement agencies are partnering with data analytics groups
and other groups to gain a little more information about how to
spot these types of illicit activity and to become more
knowledgeable on the topic. So there are partnerships that are
occurring with law enforcement and some of the business or
analytic groups.
Mrs. Bice. It sounds like we need to be maybe more
thoughtful from a holistic perspective that when bringing all
of these groups together because we would be able to sort of
glean more insight into being able to prevent human trafficking
if we had all of this data collected in one repository. So
thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Staff. Ms. Ross is recognized.
Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, and thank you for holding
this hearing, Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas. And
thanks to all the witnesses for being with us today.
I'm from the State of North Carolina, and in 2020 we had
260 reported human trafficking cases, but we know that that
number is much higher. And there even have been human
trafficking cases in the suburbs in my district. And this is a
very, very serious problem. And, as you've said, we have kind
of a hodgepodge approach, and we need to consolidate and get
much more granular both with the data and with the solution.
I want to talk a little bit about how we can partner with
research institutions and nonprofits. So the Research Triangle
Institute in North Carolina recently got a grant from the
National Institute for Justice to work on this issue, find
data. And then we also in my district--or in North Carolina
have a nonprofit called Project No Rest, which is dedicated to
increasing the awareness and prevention of human trafficking,
particularly in young people.
And so I wanted to ask first Dr. Shelley but then anybody
else. How can research institutions benefit from nonprofit
expertise to develop targeted technological solutions and share
that information in combating human trafficking?
Dr. Shelley. I think it's important that we need to have a
whole-of-society approach, so we need nongovernmental
organizations, we need the business community, we need
government. And we need all of these collaborating. And one of
the things that we need to do is to be able to verify the data.
The question was asked about these data bases, but sometimes
this data is unverified, and sometimes it's incompatible and
can't just be combined.
A few years ago, I was in a remarkable conference in North
Carolina that was talking about how much of human trafficking
was going on along Route 95.
Ms. Ross. Yes.
Dr. Shelley. And I think we need to be taking much more
focus on the transport sector and not just looking at what is
going on--I mean, it is your problem in North Carolina and
you're representing your constituency, but also, how we are
part of a hub and a network and there are not Federal cases
that have been prosecuted in North Carolina even though there
has certainly been very serious investigations involving hotels
there, as I learned when I was at this conference.
Ms. Ross. Yes, and truck stops, as we've talked about.
Dr. Goodwin, my next question is for you. We understand
that there are a lot of vulnerable populations, particularly in
the immigrant community. And sometimes people's worry about
immigration enforcement keeps them from providing information
to both law enforcement and researchers. How can we overcome
some of the hesitancy, which is legitimate because people care
about their immigration status, to be able to collect the data
that we need to collect to solve this problem and then protect
people who may have even been brought here against their will
in violation of our immigration laws?
Dr. Goodwin. So I'll answer that and reference some of the
previous work that we've done on trafficking. I haven't done
the work looking specifically at the border, but I think that
this applies, right, in terms of victims coming forward. So one
of the things we found is having service providers available,
having NGO's--other--people who aren't law enforcement, right,
having those individuals available to talk to people who we
suspect have been trafficked, that goes a long way. You need to
build the trust. You need to make certain that it's a
comfortable, safe, and secure environment so that they feel
comfortable coming forward.
Coming here to a new country, there are a lot of other
concerns that they will have. But I think having victim service
providers available, and I think that Professor Shelley has
talked earlier about like the T visas. So there are ways to
kind of insure that people who are coming across the border
into this country, if they are being trafficked, I think that
there are ways to ensure that they are protected and that the
information is gotten and that the folks who are trafficking
them are caught.
Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. And, Madam Chair, I yield
back.
Staff. Ms. Kim is recognized.
Ms. Kim. Thank you. Thank you, Chair and Ranking Member,
for holding this hearing. And I also want to thank all of our
witnesses for taking the time to join us. I think your efforts
and research make it very clear there is a need to improve data
collection and research on human trafficking. And it is my hope
that we can act during this Congress from what we learn from
our conversations today.
My first question is to you, Dr. Shelley. You make note in
your written testimony that existing research has not yielded
data for analysis that allows us to examine comprehensively the
rapid evolution of human trafficking over the past decade as
traffickers have exploited online technology and social media.
You know, social media is used by everyone now more than ever.
And traffickers not only use social media to recruit victims
but to control them. The question is, is there any reliable
data on human traffickers use of social media, and what can be
done to improve the reliability of this data?
Dr. Shelley. There is some data, some research that's been
done on, in fact, that I'm assigning in my class on the role of
technology in this area. But this is one area in which there
needs to be much more funded research and analysis, and this is
where AI, in collaboration with social media, but--could help
find much more in human trafficking. Also, you can mine Twitter
and many other forms of social media, and there's good research
methods that have been developed. So this is an area which is
underfunded and which should be encouraged.
Ms. Kim. All right. Thank you for that answer. Funding, as
always, is the biggest area where we need more help on I guess.
Dr. Shelley, continuing with the questioning to you, you
make note that more research into illicit supply chains is
needed to understand the true extent of human trafficking
operations. And prior to your research that--there has been
little research to illicit supply chains. So how has your
research on illicit supply chains inform the efforts to combat
human trafficking, and what areas and sectors of the illicit
supply chain need more research and data to help guide the law
enforcement efforts to crack down on human trafficking?
Dr. Shelley. I think you can summarize it in the following
ways. We need to be looking at the locales and the
facilitators, as the last Congresswoman asked about, of truck
stops. And we haven't done enough research on how this is a key
part of supply chains. We need to be working, as I said, with
Uber and car-share services. We need to be working with data
and the financial community. When I finish this research that
I've been doing, I've been doing webinars for the financial
community trying to get the research out to people who are
informing the hospitality industry on what they can be doing,
ideas on how to expand T visas to include protections for
vulnerable individuals to be reporting.
All of these are part of it, and we also need to be
increasing our intersection with--and data collection at the
point of treatment in medical centers. And as one of my
students was saying to me last night, that during the pandemic
this effort has certainly diminished as healthcare workers have
been so focused on saving lives that they haven't been looking
at the human trafficking that they often see in front of their
eyes.
So we--these are all key points on supply chains that we
need to be mapping that we're not sufficiently paying attention
to and of which there is almost no research.
Ms. Kim. I know in the chat room that you had with--to all
of this, you had written the need to expand the T visas to
include people who are reporting on what they have seen on
human trafficking but otherwise they are afraid to come
forward. I would love to see some more of your writing there,
too, so if you can share that with the rest of us, that would
be great.
Dr. Shelley. I couldn't be more honored.
Ms. Kim. Yes. You know, I have one last question to Ms.
Harris. Can you please elaborate on the role that modeling can
play in assisting in understanding where, when, and what and
how human trafficking can be prevented? And then any other
panelists, if you want to jump in after Ms. Harris speaks.
Ms. Harris. Thank you for the question. Modeling is one way
where the whole ecosystem that we've been talking about,
understanding the mechanics of how trafficking happens, how
people are vulnerable, what vulnerabilities are being preyed
on, what--how the system is able to sustain itself through
time, what are those points of interventions, as have been
mentioned in different points in the testimony here, and
network science, modeling, projections, there are a lot of
tools from different areas of scientific research that could
help us better understand that and thus be able to figure out
ways to intervene.
And so my recommendations are to think beyond the kinds of
research that are simply documenting what is happening but also
thinking ahead to problem-solving and thinking about the
systemic issues that are involved in human trafficking. That's
the kind of research that is needed to really support the work
of everybody in the different sectors who are trying to combat
human trafficking.
Ms. Kim. Thank you. It looks like my time has run out. If
anyone wants to provide extra responses and if you maybe would
contact my office with that, that would be great. Thank you so
much.
Staff. Mr. Beyer is recognized.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you very much. First of all, Professor
Shelley, I was friends with Nancy and Omer Hirst, so I'm so
thrilled that you have their chair at George Mason. Thank you--
--
Dr. Shelley. I am thrilled, too.
Mr. Beyer [continuing]. For all of your research.
So to Hannah Darnton, a few years ago, we had a very good
hearing in SST (Science, Space and Technology) on this subject,
and one of the things that came up was the whole idea of what
they were calling digital trafficking signatures and that there
needed to be a repository within law enforcement for these,
that so much could be used if we could figure out the digital
trafficking signatures. Can you comment on that or explain more
what we should be doing?
Ms. Darnton. Apologies, Mr. Beyer, I believe that may have
been one of the other panelists that went deep on that, so
happy to connect with I believe it was MIT (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology) or Polaris on their thinking on that
and send over more.
Mr. Beyer. OK. OK, that would be great because it was
fascinating to try to get ahead of the curve on that.
And then back for Ms. Goodwin or Dr. Goodwin, you know,
there are a number of bills in--before Congress right now on
cryptocurrency. Probably the most comprehensive one we
introduced to establish who was going to regulate, which were
the securities, which were the commodities in between the SEC
(Securities and Exchange Commission) and the CFTC (Commodity
Futures Trading Commission) because it's widely recognized that
there's an extraordinary amount of fraud and terrorism and
rogue governments. But you've put your finger very clearly on
the role that it plays in human trafficking. Is there the sense
that with SEC and CFTC regulation that it can make enough of a
difference to help regulate or minimize the human trafficking
that's going on right now?
Dr. Goodwin. So, Congressman, there might be some
opportunities there, and I don't have the information in front
of me now to fully respond to that question, but I will circle
back to you and your staff on that.
Mr. Beyer. Great. And we will get you a copy of the
legislation also.
Dr. Goodwin. Oh, thank you. That would be very helpful.
Mr. Beyer. This is very much in play right now with the
heads of the respective agencies.
Dr. Goodwin. OK.
Mr. Beyer. And, Professor Shelley, you know, we're so
excited that the COMPETES Act passed and the USICA Act passed
in the Senate with big bipartisan majorities. You know, you
mentioned how the National Science Foundation research has made
a real difference. How do we make sure that with this
unprecedented increase in basic research that the appropriate
amount or enough amount is going to human trafficking?
Dr. Shelley. I think that's part of the role of Congress,
to make sure that it reaches its intended target. I mean, this
area that we've been working on, I don't want to say, but we've
done amazing work over 3 years for about $250,000. It's not
that much. So much--you know, an order of magnitude greater
than this could help enormously in doing the kind of data
analytics and work that's needed. But you need the kind of
interdisciplinary teams that the NSF brings together. I'm a
social scientist, data analytics people, supply chain people,
people with experience in the dark web and AI, which is
something which a research organization like the NSF can do.
And it also has lots of experience in working with the business
community. So it should have, I think, significant resources
that would allow the kind of sensitive, thoughtful research.
Ours is having some of the most direct impact, but others--
people are also doing thoughtful research in other areas as
well.
Mr. Beyer. Yes. And, Professor Shelley, I know one of the
things that my friends at the National Science Foundation will
tell me, too, is that the grants were made on the basis of the
grant requests that are made. So I encourage you and the people
working in your sphere in academia to just get as many requests
in as possible so that they can be funded. And thanks for doing
that.
And I just want to--and just a quick shout-out to all four
of you for being brave enough to take on one of the ugliest
sides of human nature. I--it's almost hard for me to imagine
getting up every morning to work on an issue where people are
being so brutalized and their lives so destroyed, so thank you
very much for doing that, and thank you for the difference that
you make. And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Feenstra is recognized.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson and
Ranking Member Lucas, and thank you to all our witnesses for
your testimony and sharing your extensive experience and
knowledge on this important subject.
Human trafficking, as we know, is a crime that is hidden in
plain sight in our neighborhoods, our airports, and online.
Because of the difficulty of detection to fighting trafficking,
a multipronged effect is needed with collaboration from all
involved. In Iowa, local law enforcement and State Department
public safety collaborate to find leads and root out despicable
human trafficking predators. They utilize recently developed
software to gather points of data on the internet and find
trafficking victims and help streamline investigations to focus
on rescuing victims and stopping traffickers. The State also
works with private industry to increase recognition and
prevention on the road and at lodging locations that
traffickers may utilize.
Ms. Darnton and Dr. Shelley, the Iowa Office to Combat
Human Trafficking filed a free online human trafficking online
prevention training and certification program for hotel and
lodging owners and staff to complete in order to receive local
and State public funding. Additionally, Iowa DOT border vehicle
enforcement officers have partnered with Truckers Against
Trafficking to provide vulnerable information to professional
drivers so that they can assist in recognition and reporting.
These are private citizens that can help be the eyes and ears
on the road and in lodging locations that traffickers traverse.
How can widespread awareness like this increase and improve
data collection on human trafficking?
Dr. Shelley. I just want to say that maybe 5 years ago or
more I was in Iowa helping to set up and work with some of your
Attorney General's office and others working on this issue, and
they brought in wonderful NGO's. So what you've done in Iowa is
so thoughtful and should be copied by many other States. So
you've put a lot of thought into this process before you
started it, and I think that's absolutely key. And I think your
involvement of the transport sector because you're such key
hubs and involvement with the private sector is the kind of
example that needs to be replicated.
Ms. Darnton. I'd say one thing that could also help build
out our current understanding and the data on human trafficking
would be ensuring that the individuals identifying cases of
trafficking or potential behavior that would indicate human
trafficking share it with repositories such as the National
Human Trafficking Hotline, Polaris, and others. Oftentimes,
information collected is partial in nature, and we need a more
comprehensive understanding of the situation or scenario in
order to really buildup our overarching understanding of how
this crime is manifesting. And so ensuring that the stories are
getting to centralized repositories, experts on human
trafficking that can help unpack this data can really help
advance our understanding and the overarching system.
Mr. Feenstra. Yes, I agree. And I really appreciate your
comments. I fully agree with what you're saying.
Ms. Darnton, you've recommended consideration of privacy
and implementing tech-based solutions. The nature of human
trafficking crimes means that survivors' privacy and
confidentiality is of the utmost importance even if that means
case data has to be withheld for their personal safety. Could
you offer suggestions on how the Committee should be thinking
about protecting privacy and confidentiality as we consider R&D
investments in this technology?
Ms. Darnton. Yes. And my written testimony includes a few
examples here. I think our exploration of new privacy-
preserving mechanisms through the Accelerator program is one of
the ways that we really suggest future explorations take shape.
But I think also one of the things we often talk about in the
human rights field is considering how we're counterbalancing
different rights. There is individual safety, and there's
privacy, and those are both human rights. And we need to make
sure that by looking to protect individual safety, we are not
compromising privacy on the other hand. So taking a balanced
approach that considers preventing, avoiding, mitigating human
rights abuses of all kinds is really necessary. And I think
that Europe has been putting out some great recommendations and
regulations on this, on mandatory human rights due diligence,
on privacy and security of data, and we can work with our
partners overseas to look at best practices and trends and
actually tackling the issue to ensure that we are considering a
base of exploration of things that's already been done, tested,
and tried.
Ms. Harris. I would add to that----
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you so much, Ms. Darnton, for those
comments. I greatly appreciate it. And my time has run out, and
I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Casten is recognized.
Mr. Casten. Thank you, and I appreciate all our witnesses
being here. The--I'm hopping back and forth here with Financial
Services and, interestingly enough, we're talking about crypto
over there, which all seems to be tied into this.
Dr. Goodwin, I'm curious if you have some estimates, you
know, when all our financial institutions are required to file
the SARs
[inaudible] if they have reason to believe that there's
something that needs to come to the attention of the Financial
Crimes Enforcement Network. Do you have any sense from your
data how often are digital virtual currencies used in human
trafficking?
Dr. Goodwin. So, Congressman, what we do know from the work
that we've done is that from the time period from 2017 to 2020
the number of SARs reports that were filed with FinCEN, those
doubled over that period. I can get you the actual numbers. I
don't have them in front of me right now, but I can certainly
get you the actual numbers. But we did see an increase in
financial institutions filing SARs reports with FinCEN.
Mr. Casten. OK. So I think you've sort of intimated at my
follow up question, which is do you trust the data, right,
because the--there's an increase in the filings, but if
somebody is--you know, if--if I'm using dollars, there's all
sorts of know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering rules
that are going to be triggered, so--and I realize that you--
this is an unanswerable question, but I'll defer to your
wisdom. Do you have reason to believe that there is more or
less slipping through the system with the rise of digital
currencies?
Dr. Goodwin. You know, based on the work that we've done,
we know that the numbers are probably not complete, and so I
would suspect that those numbers are much higher. And, as I
mentioned earlier, we also know that crypto virtual currencies
are the second highest form of payment from the report that we
looked at for Polaris for this online trafficking, and so I
would say that it's probably much higher than the numbers that
we know right now. And this is another reason why it's so
important that we get more information and have more data, so
that we can get at the actual numbers.
Mr. Casten. OK. So now if you take the--recognize that we
are getting into ever-smaller pieces of the actual sort of
piece of the crime, if you flag through FinCEN the--you know,
the SARs gets filed, you tie--this is a digital currency, and
so now it's been flagged, we know that's happened, FinCEN has a
reporting, do you have the authority without violating all
sorts of civil liberties laws to actually go in and look at the
blockchain on that digital currency to know what happened?
Because in theory--you know, and we've heard some of the crypto
advocates say this, well, it's great because all the
transactions are recorded, but of course in order to do that,
you've got to decrypt it and you've got to get into all sorts
of civil liberties issues. So when you find these, do you find
that the presence of the blockchain on something like a Bitcoin
gives you better ability to track, or are you precluded from
actually looking at the blockchain and seeing that history of
transactions?
Dr. Goodwin. You know, Congressman, I remember this
conversation when we were doing this work, but I'm not
remembering the response. So what I will do is I will circle
back to your staff to provide the response because this is
something that we asked about and looked into, but I'm not
remembering a thorough response right now.
Mr. Casten. OK. Well--and, you know, as I'm sure I don't
need to tell you, this is as much a technical issue as a civil
liberties----
Dr. Goodwin. Absolutely.
Mr. Casten [continuing]. Issue. And, you know, as we sit
there and say how are we going to regulate this space, I have
this ongoing conversation with Chairman Gensler with the SEC
that the two problems with the Wild West is that in the first
instance there's no sheriff, and in the second instance when
the sheriff shows up, lots of people want to shoot him. So
we're trying to make sure----
Dr. Goodwin. You know--oh, I'm sorry.
Mr. Casten. Go ahead.
Dr. Goodwin. Yes, one last thing I will say. When you talk
about the Suspicious Activity Reports for human trafficking,
when we looked at just the SARs related to virtual currency in
general, not just for human trafficking but when financial
institutions file SARs, we saw that quadruple over that time
period 2017 to 2020. And I will circle back to you about the
specifics on that as well.
Mr. Casten. OK. There's only 30 seconds left but do any of
the other witnesses have any other--any thoughts on this
general question of how to--how we make sure that the
appropriate technical and regulatory tools are in place for
these emerging digital currencies?
Dr. Shelley. I think we need to also, as was mentioned
earlier, work with the platforms that are posting this because
that's the compounding factor. You put advertisements on the
website, and it draws customers. And many of these
advertisements are being paid for with cryptocurrencies and,
you know--and the platforms are not requiring enough
identification of the people who are posting these ads. So
that's a very important entry point into the whole process and
builds on what Dr. Goodwin was saying earlier.
Dr. Goodwin. Yes, that's absolutely true, Professor
Shelley. And, you know, in the virtual currencies report we
talk about that, the fact that the currency is used to purchase
ads. The ads themselves are kind of what is facilitating the
trafficking, and so you might be able to see the ads being
purchased, but what happens once the ads are out there? And
that's one of the ways the trafficking is being facilitated,
through the use of the virtual currency.
Mr. Casten. Thank you. I appreciate the Chair letting us go
little bit over. I yield back my absence of time.
Staff. Mr. Gimenez is recognized.
Mr. Gimenez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman--Madam Chair. The
question--I want to go back to basics. The folks that are being
trafficked, where are they coming from?
Dr. Shelley. In labor trafficking, we believe that a lot of
them are foreigners, but we don't know absolutely because
there's no data. But there's many cases in this country where
human smuggling turns into human trafficking. On human
trafficking for sex, the majority of the victims are American
citizens. We're the only advanced democratic society in which
our citizens and often disproportionately minorities, Black,
Hispanic, Native American are victims of human trafficking. The
exact data we don't have, but if you put the research together,
that's what it's showing. And we have so little research on
labor trafficking that we do not know, you know, the countries
of origin. There is some American citizens who are being labor
trafficked, but it's a small part of the problem as far as I
know.
Mr. Gimenez. The--on the labor-trafficked side, would you
say--because you have--apparently you have very little data.
Would you say that the majority of those are--don't have legal
status here in the United States, or do they have legal status
here in the United States?
Dr. Shelley. They sometimes have a legal status in that
they come under an H-2A visa to work in the United States, so
they have a legal right to be working, but then there are
problems in the way the employers treat them under these visas,
and they may be labor-trafficked.
Mr. Gimenez. Are they--do you think that there's a sizable
number that are--that don't have a legal standing here in the
United States?
Dr. Shelley. I think that exists, too, but we really don't
know the extent of it, and I think that's one area in which we
really need more research. That's why I'm saying that a lot of
the T visas that are issued are for people who are victims of
labor trafficking, but we've done no analysis to understand how
they arrived and the circumstances of whether they came under
some legal status through recruiters and then were exploited.
There's so much more that can be found in the data analytics if
we could--in the data if we could analyze it.
Mr. Gimenez. OK. The--in that regard, is there something
that--is there something that we can do with our Customs and
Border Protection people to try to filter those that they
believe or could be there for--to be trafficked or, in other
words--I mean, I'm getting information--and we have information
that sometimes some of the folks that are being pushed, let's
say, through the southern border, they have to pay the cartels
X number of thousands of dollars in order to get through, and
that in order to pay back the cartels, that they become, in
essence, slaves. Are you hearing that, too?
Dr. Shelley. It's not just hearing it. I mean, there is
research that's been done in Mexico. I have one colleague who's
a specialist on this. And this is where my colleagues who've
been testifying have noted the convergence between different
forms of criminality. And that's why I'm saying that human
smuggling, often when the cartels come and extract money from
the people in transit, they wind up into a traffic situation.
And that's one of the things that we really need to be doing
research on. And I noted that in my statement.
Mr. Gimenez. Fair enough. Also, I think that we need to do
also research on how we can combat--it appears that there is
some kind of a network where you can actually, as a business
owner, actually contract with the cartels to push somebody into
the country, claim that individual as some kind of relative or
something, and then end up having that individual work in your
company. Have you heard that also?
Dr. Shelley. I've heard of every kind of variation. We've
had some investigations of what's gone on with networks
facilitating trafficking of Guatemalan youth to egg farms in
Ohio, for example. There is data in these cases that one can
see. We don't need to be relying so much on rumor. We could be
relying much more on what we're finding through investigations
that have been held and understanding the processes. But that's
not been done.
Mr. Gimenez. And how would you go about doing that?
Dr. Shelley. Just the way we've been going through some of
the State--Federal investigations, State investigations.
There's a lot of data that just has not been used and subject
to data analytics. That's what I've been doing under my NSF
research is trying to understand----
Mr. Gimenez. All right. Would it be helpful then to create
something, some kind of a joint--a national data base where all
the data is then put together and analyzed so that we can find
out how we can stop this problem from starting, I mean, from
getting here and being utilized? Do you think that would be
helpful, a national kind of data base?
Dr. Shelley. I don't think there--this data cannot easily
be combined so that what you have of an NGO reporting to
Polaris has not been verified by law enforcement as opposed to
what a Federal investigator finds out. But you can have
separate data bases that you could begin to look at patterns
across that. And that's--could be done.
Mr. Gimenez. Fair enough. I see that my time is up. Thank
you so much for your answers, and I yield back.
Staff. Ms. Stansbury is recognized.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you. And thank you, Madam Chair, for
convening today's panel. As the Congresswoman from New Mexico's
1st Congressional District, the crisis of human trafficking and
particularly of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives and
women is one of my top priorities. And I want to say that this
crisis is felt so deeply in our communities and across our
State. Each case number represents a life and a story and a
tear in the fabric of our communities. And I want to take a
moment this morning as we're discussing these difficult issues
to honor those lives and to honor those families who are
survivors.
As a State with one of the highest incidence of MMIW&R
(missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives), the
issue is a crisis that is affecting all of our communities. And
as we know, this is a crisis not only in New Mexico's
Indigenous communities but across the United States and across
the world in fact.
In my previous role as a State legislator, I was proud to
work alongside State representatives Andrea Romero, Derrick
Lente, Wanda Johnson, and our State Indian Affairs Office and
Secretary Lynn Trujillo to pass legislation to create a task
force to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous
women and relatives. And this last year, that task force
published its findings. And one of the most important
recommendations that came out of that work was about data and
cross-jurisdictional sharing of data. In fact, one of the
biggest challenges for our tribal, State, and Federal law
enforcement is that cross-jurisdictional coordination and
tracking because, as Indigenous people go missing, especially
in nonindigenous communities, it's rare that our law
enforcement notifies and shares that data with other
authorities so that there can be appropriate follow up.
So as many of the witnesses have stated today, accurate
reporting, coordination between agencies, and of course seeking
justice is crucial to addressing this crisis and finding and
bringing to justice individuals involved in this challenge.
Ensuring that our communities also have the resources to help
those who are in crisis, to support their survivors and their
families, and to bring individuals to justice is also crucial.
So for those of you that don't know, I am fortunate enough
to serve in this role as Congresswoman after Secretary Deb
Haaland. And, as many of you know, she helped to shine a
national light on this issue and champion the Not Invisible Act
while she was serving in this congressional seat and has
continued that work as Secretary of the Interior and is helping
to lead that work in the Federal Government today. So I am
extremely honored to have the opportunity to continue that work
here in Congress in partnership with our tribal communities and
Federal and local authorities. And I'm especially proud that
our President, President Biden, as well as the Governor of New
Mexico, have elevated this issue of missing and murdered
Indigenous women by executive order.
And here in Congress it is absolutely crucial--and I know
there's been some discussion today about this--we have to pass
the Violence Against Women Act. And so I urge my colleagues in
the Senate to pass that bill urgently. We need the statutory
language and the tools and the resources that are in that bill
to address this crisis.
So I want to just take a moment here to ask Dr. Shelley and
others here, the National Academies recently in 2020 met to
discuss human trafficking and the mobility of missing and
murdered Indigenous women. And one expert stated that in 2016
there were over 5,000 cases and reports of missing American
Indian and Alaska Native women and girls to the FBI (Federal
Bureau of Investigation), but the Department of Justice's
missing persons data base only logged 116 cases. So clearly,
there's a mismatch and even across our Federal agencies in how
data is being reported.
So I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the
data, tools, and research that's needed to track these cases,
but most importantly, how do we use that information to help
survivors and people who are living in crisis to get help and
support before these tragedies occur?
Dr. Shelley. I mean, if we don't understand who are the
victims, who is suffering, then we can't target the assistance
programs. And so, so little of this, this mismatch that you've
described of 100 to 5,000 is important, and we're not getting
the information from healthcare workers, and we're not getting
information from morgues as we need to of suspicions of human
trafficking. And that's been a huge hole for years.
Then we need to be able to do a geospatial analysis to
understand where this is and where resources more need to be
deployed. Last year, I was speaking to the nursing community of
deans of nursing schools on how to implement this in
curriculum. So because young girls and women don't just die,
usually, there is violence and calls to medical authorities
before this ultimately happens, we need these communities to be
much more integrated into the data collection and in the
service delivery activity.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Doctor. I know we're out of time
for my particular questions today, but I just want to thank all
of you for the work that you do, and I very much look forward
to working with this Committee and my colleagues to get the
Violence Against Women Act passed in the Senate and also to
addressing this crisis and ensuring that we are providing the
resources and tools to address this in our communities. So
thank you very much. And with that, I yield.
Dr. Goodwin. Congresswoman, this is GAO. So given the work
that we've done on MMIW issues, we will circle back to your
staff to discuss some of the data bases because we talk about
four main data bases that DOJ has, although none of them are
set up, are designed to identify victims of trafficking. So
I'll circle back to your staff on that.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Ms. Goodwin. Thank you. Madam
Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Beyer [presiding]. Thank you, Congresswoman Stansbury.
Our Chair has migrated off to another Committee hearing, so
I'm authorized to bring the hearing to a close. So let me first
just thank all the witnesses for testifying before the
Committee today. It's been a long 2 1/2 hours on a difficult
subject with many good ideas.
The record will remain open for 2 weeks for additional
statements from the Members and for any additional questions
the Committee may ask of the witnesses.
And with that, the witnesses are excused, and the hearing
is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
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