[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                     COMBATING GLOBAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
                        AND GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            October 27, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-083

                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
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Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov, 

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                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

                    COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

	       GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York, Chairman

BRAD SHERMAN, California              MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking 
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey                  Member
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia	      CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida	      STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
KAREN BASS, California		      SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts	      DARRELL ISSA, California
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island	      ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California		      LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas	              ANN WAGNER, Missouri
DINA TITUS, Nevada		      BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California		      BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania	      KEN BUCK, Colorado
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota	      TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota		      MARK GREEN, Tennessee
COLIN ALLRED, Texas		      ANDY BARR, Kentucky
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan		      GREG STEUBE, Florida
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia	      DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania	      AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey	      PETER MEIJER, Michigan
ANDY KIM, New Jersey	              NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
SARA JACOBS, California		      RONNY JACKSON, Texas
KATHY MANNING, North Carolina	      YOUNG KIM, California
JIM COSTA, California		      MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida
JUAN VARGAS, California		      JOE WILSON, South Carolina
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas		      
BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois              


		 Jason Steinbaum, Staff Director
               Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
               
                                 ------                                

     Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Global Human Rights

                     KAREN BASS, California, Chair

DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota             CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, 
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota                    Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 DARRELL ISSA, California
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             GREG STEUBE, Florida
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey           DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
SARA JACOBS, California              YOUNG KIM, California
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island        RONNY JACKSON, Texas
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               WITNESSES

Thier, Alex, Chief Executive Officer, Global Fund to End Modern 
  Slavery........................................................     9
Chen, Catherine, Chief Executive Officer, Polaris................    25
Chumbow, Evelyn, Board Member/Survivor, Free the Slaves..........    35
Williams, Peter, Principal Advisor, Modern Slavery, International 
  Justice Mission................................................    44
Thang, Dr. Nguyen Dinh, CEO and President Boat People SOS........    70
Bien-Aime, Taina, Executive Director, Coaliton Against 
  Trafficking in Women...........................................    80

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................    94
Hearing Minutes..................................................    96
Hearing Attendance...............................................    97

                    OPENING STATEMENT CHAIRMAN BASS

Opening statement Chairman Bass..................................    98

            ADDITIONAL STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD ANNE BASHAM

Additional statement for the record Anne Basham..................   104

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Responses to questions submitted for the record..................   111

             ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Additional materials submitted for the record....................   126

 
                   COMBATING GLOBAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING

                      Wednesday, October 27, 2021

                           House of Representatives
 Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Global 
                                       Human Rights
                       Committee on Foreign Affairs
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call at 10:05 a.m., in 
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building and Cisco Webex, Hon. 
Karen Bass [chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Ms. Bass. The Subcommittee on Africa Global Health and 
Global Human Rights will come to order. Without objection, the 
chair is authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at 
any point. All members will have 5 days to submit statements, 
extraneous materials, and questions for the record subject to 
the length, limitation, and the rules. To insert something into 
the record, please have your staff contact the subcommittee 
staff. As a reminder to members, please keep your video 
function on at all times, even when you are not recognized by 
the chair. Members are responsible for muting and unmuting 
themselves and please remember to mute yourself after you 
finish speaking. Consistent with H. Res 8 and the accompanying 
regulations, staff will only mute members and witnesses as 
appropriate when they are not under recognition to eliminate 
background noise. I see that we have a quorum and we will now--
and I will now recognize myself for opening remarks.
    Pursuant to notice, we are holding a hearing entitled, 
Combating Global Human Trafficking. Today we are here to 
highlight and hear recommendations on what Congress can do to 
help combat human trafficking around the world and at home. We 
have a panel of expert witnesses who will give us an overview 
of the new TIP Report, Trafficking in Persons, tell us about 
challenges facing anti-trafficking efforts, and how the COVID-
19 pandemic is being exploited to benefit traffickers.
    As the global community looks to create a comprehensive 
strategy to address human trafficking, we must take a hard look 
at some of its root causes including socioeconomic our 
political limitations that traffickers prey on. One common 
misperception of human trafficking is that it requires movement 
across borders. But anyone can be trafficked anywhere, 
including right here in our own backyard.
    So, today, I want to highlight and ask our experts, 
specifically, around the U.S. I will tell you that when I read 
the U.S. report, I know we grade ourselves as Tier 1, but with 
major limitations. And this report indicates a tremendous 
backsliding in the United States on multiple accounts. One, in 
terms of the situation at our border and people who were 
trafficked. Clearly, sexually trafficked or trafficked for 
labor who were deported or not given an opportunity to even 
make their case. To cases here in the United States. Domestic 
sex trafficking and labor trafficking. And so, the last few 
years, we have had tremendous backsliding. I appreciate that 
the report documents that backsliding, but I think it also 
should raise questions about really the strength of Tier 1. And 
does our current Tier 1 ranking comply with the statutory 
provision of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization 
Act Tier 1 status?
    So, beyond this, I want our experts to expand and answer 
with transparency when it comes to reporting on U.S. 
trafficking cases, U.S. investigative measures and prosecuting 
of labor trafficking cases, and how is our government 
increasing efforts to secure criminal restitution in all human 
trafficking cases? One area of backsliding that the report 
mentions in terms of the U.S. is the prosecution and arrest of 
victims of trafficking, where it is clear that the victim was 
required to engage in illegal activity because of the person 
trafficking them, but yet, they were still arrested.
    I know in many States, in my State and my county, for 
example, in Los Angeles, especially when it comes to minors, we 
say a child, especially under the age of 16, cannot be a 
prostitute. That is inconsistent with the law because if you 
cannot legally consent to sex, how could you possibly be a 
prostitute? So, we do not arrest children. But that is not the 
case, you know, throughout the country. In some States that is 
an issue.
    So, I would like one of the speakers to address the 
backsliding in the United States and what we need to do to 
maintain our Tier 1 status because one could raise a question 
as to whether or not we even deserve that ranking. So, I am co-
leading along with Representative Smith, the Frederick Douglass 
Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Act. And it is a 
bipartisan bill that we are going to work very hard, as soon as 
the infrastructure bill gets done, we are going to work very 
hard to get this bill on President Biden's desk.
    And when I wrap up, let me just say that I really want to 
acknowledge the role of the Ranking Member, Mr. Chris Smith, 
who really is the reason why we have the TIP Report to begin 
with. And every year, we do this report and I wanted to--we did 
not last year, right? Because last year we were all trying to 
figure out how to go on with life. But I just want to 
acknowledge his role in creating the TIP Report. To begin with 
that, Ranking Member, Mr. Smith.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Bass, for 
convening today's very important hearing on a topic that is 
near and dear to both of our hearts, combating sex and labor 
trafficking. And, of course, we have so many other Members of 
Congress, House and Senate, who believe as we do that this is 
one of the most heinous crimes. It is being committed in our 
backyard. It is being committed all around the world.
    You and I have worked closely together on fighting the 
scourge of modern-day slavery with the original Frederick 
Douglass Trafficking Prevention and Protection Reauthorization 
Act of 2018. And what a great partnership that has been and we 
got that bill passed and signed into law. And now we are 
working on the reauthorization which we introduced together 
with Kenneth Morris, the great, great grandson--we had a press 
conference with him that was just extraordinary--of Frederick 
Douglass. And he has helped us write this bill.
    As many of you know, tomorrow marks the 21st year 
anniversary of the signing of the Trafficking Victims 
Protection Act, or the TVPA. A bipartisan law that I authored 
to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society. 
Victims of human trafficking and to hold traffickers and 
countries and groups and organizations, anyone who is complicit 
with these barbaric crimes, accountable for their egregious 
abuses of human rights. The TVPA's decisive condemnation of 
modern slavery reflects our society's recognition that human 
trafficking is fundamentally incompatible with the values of 
any nation that aspires toward the ideals of freedom, human 
rights, and the rule of law.
    The passage of the law marked a significant turning point 
to spark two decades of rapid expansion of U.S. efforts and 
partnerships because countries all around the world now have 
laws that look a whole lot like ours. And as the special 
representative for the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on human 
trafficking, I work with each of the 57 countries, 57 including 
ours, that are trying to combat it in Europe, in Russia, the 
Stans, and but all of Eastern and Central and Western Europe.
    According to the 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report, global 
law enforcement reporting indicates an increase of about 2.5 
times and identified victims of human trafficking worldwide. 
You got to identify them, to help them, to assist them, to 
rescue them. So, there is a major effort underway and that is 
between 2014 and 2020. However, prosecutions and convictions 
experienced an unsteady increase from 2014 to 2019 with a dip 
in 2020, likely from the pandemic. The 2021 U.S. Department of 
State's Trafficking in Persons Report confirms that the COVID-
19 pandemic has resulted in a diversion of resources to combat 
trafficking, while vulnerabilities increase and law enforcement 
and survivor support have significantly declined leading to a 
dramatic increase in trafficking and even re-trafficking of 
victims who had found gainful employment and then that 
employment disappeared and now are, again, vulnerable to the 
traffickers.
    Women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected 
by this crime, while 1 in 5 victims of commercial sexual 
exploitation is a child. Disturbingly, the circumstances 
surrounding the pandemic have led to increases in child 
vulnerability to online child sexual exploitation. To further 
combat this crime and to address these gaps, I am so proud to 
say that Karen and I have introduced the Reauthorization of the 
Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and 
Protection Act. We did it on September 3d of this year, 2021. 
And we did it on the 183d anniversary of Frederick Douglass' 
escape from slavery.
    The bill ramps up prevention and protection efforts against 
trafficking, particularly for children, a population that has 
experienced increased victimization, as I said and as we all 
know, because of the pandemic and the isolation where the 
predators are online grooming these children for exploitation. 
And exploiting them online as well. But there is also a need to 
strengthen the International Megan's Law, and that is embedded 
in our bill as well, to require where feasible, that countries 
participating in the visa waiver program reciprocate U.S. 
efforts and share their list of covered sex offenders to ensure 
that sex offenders returning to the U.S. after living in 
foreign countries, register upon their return. And to require 
sex offenders to have passport identifiers even if they move or 
reside outside the U.S. The bill goes further to create the 
protection of confidentiality for survivors and their families.
    I would note, parenthetically, that the Angel Watch program 
in the International Megan's Law is what that is all about. 
Reports that over 6,000 convicted child sex offenders have been 
denied entry, have been made inadmissible into other nations as 
a result of the International Megan's Law. And about 15,000, 
almost 16,000 have been notified. So, taking the secrecy out of 
these child sex tourism trips is already resulting in 
protections for children and so, hopefully, that number 
increases, particularly as people travel more. It has only been 
in effect for a few years, and we expect travel to spike as 
COVID dissipates.
    Throughout these 21 years, we have seen a growth in best 
practices. More victim-centered trauma informed and survivor 
informed approaches. Our Frederick Douglass bill, Karen and 
I's, is also survivor informed. And as these approaches, while 
removing the sunset on the survivor-led U.S. Advisory Council 
on Human Trafficking, thereby making it a permanent part of the 
U.S. Government's commitment to survivor informed policy.
    In keeping with the legacy of Frederick Douglass, our bill 
also focuses very, very profoundly on education, including 
scholarships named after Frederick Douglass. Educating and 
training children, adults, parents, teachers, and law 
enforcement, healthcare professionals, and social service 
providers to identify and respond to the crime while also 
caring for the victim are key parts of the bill. Situational 
awareness so that our young people in an age-appropriate manner 
will know what it looks like before they become victimized 
themselves. As Frederick Douglass' great, great grandson, 
Kenneth Morris, once said about the importance of education, he 
said, knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. Mr. Morris 
also made very incisive remarks at our press conference that it 
is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men 
and women.
    Frederick Douglass himself escaped slavery when he was 20, 
and spent his entire life, entire life working to abolish 
slavery and then after emancipation, to ending the Jim Crow 
laws while struggling for full equality for African Americans. 
As we all know, he was gifted orator. I read one of his books, 
his autobiography, author, editor, Statesman, and as I pointed 
out at our press conference, he was a Republican.
    Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Protection Act 
further incorporates anti-trafficking activities into foreign 
assistance programs, priorities, and efforts at USAID, in 
project designs, and monitoring, and evaluation. And ensures 
programming and age-appropriate linguistically accessible, 
culturally responsive and survivor and trauma informed. It also 
amends the Foreign Assistance Act to include effective 
countertrafficking in persons policies and programs and ensures 
our provisions do not contribute to increasing human 
trafficking, especially where there are natural and manmade 
disasters.
    It does also improve the minimum standards for the TIP 
Report, which is a focus of today's hearing. This bill 
clarifies the language for countries bouncing between Tier 2 
and watchlists, Tier 2 watchlists and Tier 3, I mean. And back 
again and modifies minimum standards to include the purchase of 
commercial sex, reducing sex tourism.
    Our bill also tries to ensure that entities that are 
complicit in trafficking are always held accountable and are 
sanctioned by the U.S. Government through the Global Magnitsky 
Human Rights Accountability Act. It requires that U.S. 
executive directors at each multilateral development bank vote 
against any Tier 3 country projects that do not include 
countertrafficking strategies, assessments, and mitigation 
efforts.
    There is so much more to this bill. And without objection, 
I would ask that my full statement be made a part of the record 
because I have much more to go, but I would rather that we just 
get to the hearing and to the witnesses. But I would point out, 
you know, these hearings annually and even twice a year, 
sometimes three times a year, on TIP Report, both before when 
it happens as well as after the fact, I think, help, you know, 
it is good that the Administration, whether it be Bush first, 
then, of course, Obama, and then Trump, and now President 
Biden, that they hear from us. You now, we are a good sounding 
board. We do have our ears to the ground. And there have been 
many times in each Administration where there was conflict 
within the regional bureaus, the TIP office, saying, oh, do not 
put them on. Don't put Malaysia on. Remember that hearing we 
had in 2015? Malaysia again was one of those that were 
artificially upgraded. And what does that say to Thailand and 
all the others in that region, especially? We got to be 
absolutely honest, speak truth to power. How we sanction part 
two of our TVPA, you know, is really discretionary at the 
Administration's call, but they should not be in any way 
doctoring the documents. So, we need to have it absolutely 
correct to the best of our ability. So, thank you, Karen, for 
having this hearing.
    Ms. Bass. Absolutely, and I appreciate that quote from 
Frederick Douglass, knowledge makes a person unfit to be a 
slave. In fact, during the 250 years of enslavement in the 
United States, it was illegal to teach anybody that was 
enslaved to read. And I think one of the fundamental 
differences when we talk about modern day slavery versus what 
happened here and what happened throughout the Americas is that 
slavery was actually a legal institution, a fundamental part of 
our economy. And in the Emancipation Hall there is a statute 
dedicated to Frederick Douglass and also a monument dedicated 
to the enslaved Americans who literally built the Capitol. The 
U.S. Government rented enslaved Americans from plantations 
surrounding the Capitol to get the building built. So, I think 
it is important that we make a distinction between what 
happened in the past and what is happening today.
    With that, I want to introduce our panelists and then I 
will have to exit and turn the hearing over to our Vice Chair, 
Representative Ilhan Omar, as I have a markup in another 
committee. So, we appreciate for the witnesses, all of you 
being here today and look forward to your testimony. And let me 
remind the witnesses that your written statements will appear 
in the hearing record and under committee rule 6, each witness 
should limit their oral presentation to a brief summary of 
their written statement. And you will see the clock, which I 
believe that you can see, for 5 minutes. And know that you will 
have opportunities to speak in the Q&A.
    Alex Thier is the CEO of the Global Fund to End Modern 
Slavery, a multi donor fund working to eradicate forced labor 
and human trafficking around the world. Alex was appointed by 
President Obama as the Chief of Policy Planning and Learning at 
USAID where he served from 2010 to 2015. And he was the 
Executive Director of the Overseas Development Institute, a 
think tank in London focused on economic development, climate, 
and conflict.
    Representative--I am sorry--Mrs. Catherine Chen--you want 
to run for Congress? She is the CEO of Polaris, a leading anti-
trafficking organization in the U.S. She is a veteran anti-
trafficking strategist, who has spent nearly two decades 
building innovative social justice programs to address the 
systemic failures and inequities there at the root of sex and 
labor trafficking. Previously, as Polaris' Chief Program 
Officer, she spearheaded their 10-year vision for reducing and 
preventing trafficking at the magnitude of the problem. Prior 
to Polaris, she spent 7 years at Humanity United and led the 
foundation's Human Trafficking and Labor Mitigation team as the 
Director of Investments. Catherine brings a deep commitment to 
racial and gender justice as a first generation Chinese 
American and economic equity and has a long track record of 
building up leaders who have lived experience.
    Mrs. Evelyn Chumbow is a survivor of child labor 
trafficking turned anti-trafficking activist and public speaker 
who focuses her life's work on ending modern-day slavery. 
Today, she works tirelessly to raise awareness in communities 
and to create employment opportunities for trafficking 
survivors. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for 
the Human Trafficking Legal Center and Free the Slaves. She has 
been invited to brief government agencies about human 
trafficking from a survivor's perspective, including the 
Department of Homeland Security, FBI, State Department, and the 
Department of Justice.
    Mr. Peter Williams serves as the International Justice 
Mission's principal advisor on modern slavery. He is 
responsible for the Centers of Excellence in addressing 
slavery, developing globally applicable best practices from 
extensive program experience worldwide. Most recently, he has 
served as the country director in Cambodia where he led the 
development of the new program to address cross-border labor 
trafficking within recruiting corridors in the Greater Mekong 
Subregion, leading to the conviction of more than 30 
traffickers in 3 years. He has also served as the field office 
director in India, where he developed a team of lawyers, social 
workers, investigators, and advocacy professionals to expand 
counter bonded labor programming in the region.
    I want to welcome our witnesses. And at this point, I will 
turn the gavel over to Representative Omar.
    Ms. Omar. We will start with Mr. Thier.

 STATEMENT OF ALEX THIER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, GLOBAL FUND 
                     TO END MODERN SLAVERY

    Mr. Thier. Thank you. I am Alex Thier, the CEO of the 
Global Fund to End Modern Slavery. And I would like to thank 
Chairwoman Bass, Ranking Member Smith, and the members of the 
subcommittee for providing us with this opportunity. Your 
leadership is essential and I am proud to be here with you and 
these other terrific leaders beside me today.
    As we meet here, the global fight to end modern slavery, 
human trafficking, and forced labor stands at a crossroads. In 
one direction, we face a global crisis, over 40 million people 
living in conditions of modern slavery deprived of their 
fundamental rights, dignities, and freedoms. More than 70 
percent are women and girls, a quarter, children. And despite 
significant commitments and investments, I come before you 
today with a stark truth. The number of people living in modern 
slavery is rising, not falling. Pandemic, climate change, 
corruption, rising authoritarianism, all contribute. Despite 
being illegal everywhere, modern day slavery persists almost 
everywhere. It happens on constructionsites and in factories, 
on farms, fishing boats, and private homes. Tens of billions of 
dollars' worth of everyday goods that make up our diets and 
daily routines from coffee to chocolate to cell phones to the 
clothes we wear, are tainted with forced labor. It persists 
because millions of people, due to poverty, conflict, or 
inequality, lack viable alternatives. It persists because it is 
profitable, producing an estimated $150 billion annually to 
organized crime and traffickers fueling corruption and the 
breakdown of rule of law.
    Yet, despite these terrible trends, I am also here to say 
that there is hope. For, in the other direction at this 
crossroads, we see the potential for serious progress. We have 
evidence that we can break the cycles of vulnerability, profit, 
and impunity that perpetuate human trafficking.
    So, what does progress look like? The Global Fund to End 
Modern Slavery is charting a new course. U.S. investment in 
2017 matched by the U.K. and other governments, private sector 
partners and foundations, has allowed us to demonstrate what 
significant progress can look like in a few short years. In the 
Philippines, for example, millions of women leave every year 
looking for decent work as domestic workers and in hospitality. 
Of these, tens of thousands find themselves in bondage, in debt 
unpaid, abused in homes, and forced into brothels. Our 
integrated efforts there have supported legal reform, have 
helped victims and survivors seek justice against their 
perpetrators, including a landmark case where eight traffickers 
were convicted in a Bahraini court and imprisoned.
    Through this work, we have helped thousands avoid debt 
bondage and saved millions of dollars in fees that they can 
provide to their homes and families. This effort demonstrates 
what an integrated systems-wide approach can achieve. Our work 
in Vietnam supporting the first ever reintegration of survivors 
of sex trafficking near China's borders was recently 
highlighted in the U.S. State Department's 2021 TIP Trafficking 
in Persons Report. We have also created an award-winning supply 
chain tracing tool to protect vulnerable workers in global 
supply chains and to help both governments and companies 
identify high-risk factories. We are also working to 
deanonymize cryptocurrency transactions to provide identifying 
information to law enforcement about rising online sexual 
exploitation.
    So, even as the incidence of modern slavery is rising 
globally, I believe that there is a powerful set of trends, if 
harnessed, that could produce significant progress. So, we have 
to ask ourselves what must be done now, today, to create the 
virtuous cycle that will result in breakthrough progress in the 
next few years? We have spelled out seven recommendations in 
detail in my written testimony. But let me just highlight a few 
with the remaining minute I have.
    Our first recommendation is that we must seize the 
opportunity for renewed U.S. and global leadership amidst rapid 
changes. U.S. leadership at home and abroad is critically 
needed to galvanize the world to a new level of ambition and 
action in the global fight. And the U.S. Congress, as we have 
already heard, has a critical opportunity to act to reauthorize 
the program to end modern slavery and to authorize future 
direct participation by the U.S. Government in the global fund.
    Second, we need a coherent global strategy on human 
trafficking to produce real breakthroughs by 2030. The scale of 
this challenge requires comprehensive long-term strategy with 
broad support, burden sharing, and measurable, and achievable 
goals.
    Third, we must increase support for survivors and survivor 
leadership. GFEMS believes that this is essential in the fight 
against modern slavery that survivors are engaged as leaders 
and experts at every level of this endeavor. Fourth, the G7 has 
made new commitments by its leadership to eradicate forced 
labor from supply chains. We must hold those leaders to account 
to follow through.
    I know that I am out of time now, so, I will hopefully 
speak about the other recommendations that we have later in the 
hearing. Thank you.
    [The information referred to follows:]

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Omar. Thank you, Mr. Thier. Now, we will hear from Ms. 
Chen.

 STATEMENT OF CATHERINE CHEN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, POLARIS

    Ms. Chen. Chair Bass, Vice Chair Omar, Ranking Member 
Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you 
for the opportunity to testify today. Your leadership today and 
over the last two decades is critical to preventing and 
responding to sex and labor trafficking in the United States 
and around the world. I want to particularly thank Chair Bass 
and Ranking Member Smith for your continued bipartisan 
commitment to reauthorizing the landmark Trafficking Victims 
Protection Act.
    I am the CEO of Polaris. Polaris' mission is to eradicate 
human trafficking and restore freedom to survivors. We do this 
in two main ways. We provide immediate response to victims and 
survivors through operation of the U.S. National Human 
Trafficking Hotline, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a 
year. The National Human Trafficking Hotline connects victims 
and survivors with services and support to get help and stay 
safe, and is funded, in part, by the U.S. Department of Health 
and Human Services. Additionally, we take the knowledge and 
insight gained over 20 years of operations to prevent human 
trafficking by making long-term structural change to the 
underlying systems that enable it to flourish. Our work is 
survivor-centered, justice and equity driven, and technology 
enabled.
    Informed by Polaris' data driven expertise, I have several 
recommendations to accelerate the next phase of the U.S. 
Government's efforts. These recommendations are described in 
detail in my written testimony. So, I am just going to focus on 
a few areas today.
    First, focus on prevention. The root causes of 
vulnerability are often consistent across borders. They include 
lack of safe and affordable places to live, lack of quality 
employment opportunities, policies and practices that 
purposefully discriminate or mistakenly marginalize certain 
groups, and much more. To truly meet the challenge of reducing 
human trafficking at the scale of the problem, we must address 
these root causes and prevent trafficking before it starts. The 
international community has long prioritized prevention through 
programs that tackle poverty, expand child protection, protect 
women's rights, fight corruption, and more.
    By contrast, the U.S. response has focused on a largely 
criminal justice approach to disrupt and deter trafficking. And 
while successful prosecutions are essential to ensure victims 
get justice, we now have an opportunity to broaden our 
definition of anti-trafficking programs to tackle the 
underlying vulnerabilities that enable it to happen in the 
first place. For instance, migrant workers experience specific 
vulnerabilities to trafficking that can be prevented. Holders 
of H-2A and B temporary work visas are disproportionately 
represented amongst victims of labor trafficking who contact 
the National Human Trafficking Hotline. Our data shows that 
during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 
70 percent increase in labor trafficking victims with H-2A 
visas. And nearly 100 percent of victims reported fraud in 
recruitment. The most effective way to address the 
vulnerabilities faced by migrant workers is to implement 
reforms that protect them from exploitation before it happens. 
And there is consensus in the global business and human rights 
community to end forced labor in supply chains, enforce a ban 
on recruitment fees charged to migrant workers. Congress can 
put an end to labor trafficking in the U.S. temporary visa 
system by regulating foreign labor recruitment, banning 
recruitment fees, and exploring options to allow migrant 
workers to leave abusive employers without fear of deportation 
or retaliation.
    Second, equip the global financial sector and prioritize 
financial inclusion for survivors. At its core, trafficking is 
a commercial enterprise. For this reason, the global financial 
sector is uniquely positioned to play a role. The U.S. anti-
money laundering framework provides a path to decrease 
traffickers' profits while increasing accountability for 
trafficking and supporting survivors to receive restitution. 
Polaris partners with leading financial institutions like 
PayPal and we have seen great engagement from the financial 
services industry in recent years. But for this approach to 
succeed, we need key government actors like the Financial 
Crimes Enforcement Network to be appropriately resourced.
    In January, Congress passed important anti-money laundering 
reforms and assigned a number of additional responsibilities to 
FinCEN. We urge Congress to realize the full potential of these 
reforms and increase FinCEN's budget by 50 percent in Fiscal 
Year 2022.
    Third, commit to survivor leadership. Since 2015, Polaris 
has directly connected more than 17,800 victims and survivors 
to the help they need through the National Human Trafficking 
Hotline. There are now tens of thousands of courageous 
survivors in the United States and around the world who can and 
should be driving the anti-trafficking field forward. If the 
movement is to meaningfully evolve and build on the work of the 
past 20 years, the vision, tenacity, and expertise of survivors 
are critical. That means proactively transforming the anti-
trafficking field so that survivors lead the agenda and the 
organizations driving this movement.
    We must invest now to ensure that survivors are supported 
throughout their recovery and are fairly compensated for their 
expertise. The U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking is a 
Presidentially appointed body of trafficking survivors who 
advise Federal agencies. Last year, Congress passed a provision 
that allowed the Department of State to compensate council 
members and Congress must now ensure that this provision is 
implemented.
    And finally, we urge Congress to work with the 
Administration to ensure a strong experienced nominee is 
appointed as Ambassador at large to monitor and combat 
trafficking in persons as soon as possible.
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    Ms. Omar. Thank you. You all can submit your----
    Ms. Chen. Thank you.
    Ms. Omar [continuing]. Comments for the record as well. 
Now, we will hear from Ms. Chumbow.

 STATEMENT OF EVELYN CHUMBOW, BOARD MEMBER/SURVIVOR, FREE THE 
                             SLAVES

    Ms. Chumbow. OK. Thank you and good morning, Chairman Bass, 
Vice Member Omar, Ranking Member Smith, and members of the 
subcommittee. I am honored to be here to testify about human 
trafficking. I am grateful for the invitation to speak about 
measures to combat human trafficking. You have probably heard 
that human trafficking can happen to anyone. That is true. But 
that is not the whole story.
    Trafficking happen when someone is vulnerable socially, 
economically, and racially. Human trafficking happens too often 
to immigrants and people of color. Africans are still being 
sold into modern day slavery. For example, like places like 
Libya, not long ago there were Africans that were being 
auctioned off. Traffickers use force for deception, coercion to 
prey upon the most vulnerable. That was true 400 years ago. It 
remains true today.
    We face a modern form of slavery. The fundamental 
difference between the illegal slave trade that operates today 
and the legal slave trade more than a century ago is the 
context. The State enforced chattel slavery before the Civil 
rights. Today, is it a crime.
    Today, trickery is the trafficking tool. Deception is used 
to get people to travel voluntarily to America. They arrive 
with the hope and dream that they will be able to create a 
better life for themselves and their family members. But once a 
person is away from their family and their culture, their 
support system, that they discover they have been lied to. It 
happens every day.
    It happens every day at the airports all around the 
country. People come to this country with legal visa but find 
out that they are not going to live the American Dream. 
Instead, they are threatened violence and the abuse. And that 
is why I am here today because trafficking happened to me.
    Again, for me, it was a dream. I wanted to come to America. 
I wanted to marry Will Smith because in Cameroon, I was 
fascinated by so many different television shows like the Fresh 
Prince of Belair, 90210, Cosby Show. So, I thought America was 
just like those, you know, TV shows that I saw. So, when I was 
told that I was coming to America, I got excited. No kidding. I 
definitely wanted to marry Will Smith. That was my reason for 
coming to America. Never once did I think that I will come to 
America and become a victim of modern-day slavery. Something 
that was abolished, you know, in 1865.
    And it was sad. And my trafficker was a woman. I was 
trafficked from age 10 until 17. No school from age 10 until 
17. I did not get to see my family members until age 27, which 
I reunited with them. And it happens to so many. And, again, 
just like we Stated, you know, immigrants. I was an immigrant 
and I did came here illegally. But, you know, regardless of all 
of that, I did manage to obtain my GED, got my bachelor's 
degree, and I am an employee at one of the firm, Baker McKenzie 
law firm as a project assistant, and also an advocate.
    So, just like my colleagues have mentioned, I have six 
recommendations. And the No. 1 recommendation is prevention. 
Prevention is very important. We still have to fight to talk 
about prevention because trafficking goes mostly on time 
unnoticed. You know, it happens next door. And trafficking is 
not only sex trafficking. It is labor and sex. And I am a 
survivor of domestic servitude right here in Silver Spring, 
Maryland.
    And the No. 2 is to invest in survivor trafficking. You 
know, we need to invest more on survivors. By doing so, when I 
mean invest, helping them get jobs. You know, try your best not 
to revictimize them. You know, helping them to get a good 
education. I got an education. But if we could use some of that 
Freddy Douglass scholarship, Representative Smith, you know, I 
will begin my masters right now, you know. So, you know, so, we 
need that.
    And it is a struggle for survivors and I know that I am 
about to run out of time. I have six, but you have it in my 
testimony. It is there in details. And I am running out of 
time. So, I won't talk much.
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    Ms. Omar. Thank you. And now, we will hear from Mr. 
Williams.

STATEMENT OF PETER WILLIAMS, PRINCIPAL ADVISOR, MODERN SLAVERY, 
                 INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION

    Mr. Williams. Thank you, Vice Chair Omar. Thank you 
Chairwoman Bass, and Congressman Smith for your leadership on 
this issue. I particularly want to thank you for your work on 
the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Projection Act 
this year. International Justice Mission looks forward to 
working with you on the bill's passage.
    IJM has countertrafficking programs in Latin America, 
Africa, Europe, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Having led IJM 
programs in South Asia and Southeast Asia for 10 years, I have 
overseen more than 100 trafficking cases. I have repeatedly 
been witness to the power of the U.S. leadership on this issue 
primarily through the TIP Reports and well-directed grants. And 
I extend my thanks to the Government of the United States for 
its continued leadership in combating trafficking in persons.
    Let me set before you a vision of what is possible. In a 
case my team and I worked on in Cambodia a few years ago, four 
Cambodian farmers had been trafficked onto Thai fishing vessels 
and exploited in brutal conditions for many years. They'd then 
been detained in Indonesia as criminals and deported back to 
Cambodia. But when the men arrived home in Cambodia, things 
began to change. They were formally identified as victims of 
trafficking triggering a raft of protective aftercare services, 
which empowered the men to recover from their trauma and 
reintegrate into their communities.
    These protective services wrapped around the prosecution 
process. The men were supported to testify against their 
trafficker at trial in a northern Cambodian court. The judge 
believed their testimoneys and convicted their trafficker. It 
was one of the first convictions in the region of a source-side 
trafficking recruiter. His conviction led to a run of 
subsequent cases that dismantled a trafficking ring that had 
been exploiting Cambodians for nearly a decade, thus preventing 
many future crimes from ever happening. Powerfully, the men 
told me after they had testified, that this was the first time 
in their lives that someone in authority had believed them.
    When government systems respond as they should, word gets 
out. People begin to trust and use the system more. A virtuous 
cycle begins, a flywheel of survivor-centered protection, 
perpetrator accountability, and the prevention of future 
crimes. You see, the State Department's famous three Ps, 
protection, prosecution, and prevention, remain as vital today 
as they were when they were first devised.
    This story bears repeating. The world needs to see cases 
like this repeated time and time again, the three Ps in action, 
instead of these cases being the exception to the norm. As 
governments seeks to build back stronger from COVID-19, there 
are three things the U.S. Government can lead on to help scale 
the most effective interventions in trafficking.
    First, encourage better data. It is unlikely these cases 
from Cambodia were reliably recorded or accounted for by the 
Cambodian government. Governments will never know how effective 
their responses are if they do not commit resources to accurate 
and transparent data capture. We would like to see this 
emphasized in future TIP Reports. An assessment of each 
government's data will encourage a stronger report and more 
importantly, a more informed government response.
    Second, continue to encourage this kind of public justice 
ownership that we saw in this case. Government to government 
partnerships like the Child Protection Compacts are excellent 
models that enable three-way collaboration that includes real 
ownership from host public justice systems, partnership with 
civil society, and the sustainable scaleup of effective 
interventions.
    Third, take this opportunity to lead in technological 
solutions to trafficking. The simple power of video 
conferencing, now ubiquitous in our work lives, allows 
survivors to give evidence from the safety of their home 
countries. We have seen this used in Southeast Asia and 
recently in Romania, increasingly during the pandemic, but it 
is not done nearly enough. Greater investment in this simple 
measure would increase effective survivor friendly prosecutions 
globally.
    Traffickers are using online platforms to sexually exploit 
young children often for profit. And this form of trafficking 
has increased during COVID-19 as has already been shared. We 
must look to technology to prevent the sharing of child sexual 
abuse material online and to discourage this shocking form of 
abuse.
    As I close, my colleagues and I at IJM believe that those 
affected by trafficking deserve the best of what the world can 
offer. They deserve solutions that are proven to bring change 
and hope. But we do not need to speak for these survivors. They 
are speaking for themselves and I acknowledge the statement of 
Ms. Chumbow this morning. And in closing, I commend to you the 
statement that we have submitted to this committee from the 
Global Survivor Network, which says, and I quote,``A system 
that will protect survivors is one that will benefit everyone 
in the community.'' Our goal should be to create a system where 
survivors have the ability to secure justice and protect 
themselves and their families from past, current, and future 
exploitation. Thank you.
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    Ms. Omar. Thank you all for your testimoneys. I will now 
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Williams, I do agree with you. We do have to listen to 
survivors. And it is really such an honor to hear from Ms. 
Chumbow. I wanted to give you some time to talk about an op-ed 
you cowrite in June that I found really interesting about 
racism and the anti-trafficking movement. And I am especially 
interested in the way those dynamics impact what we as 
policymakers hear about and work on. Could you tell us a little 
bit about your findings in that survey and the op-ed and what 
you think the implications are for policymakers here in the 
United States?
    Ms. Chumbow. Thank you, Vice Omar. Yes, so, the survey that 
we did--so, I have been in this movement for a long time, you 
know, after I got out of my situation. And being in the 
movement, I realized that, you know, racism was such a big 
issue in the movement. And it is sometimes we go unnoticed. We 
do not talk about it, you know. And when people think of 
trafficking, most of the time they usually just think of sex 
trafficking. And if you look at images when you type human 
trafficking on Google, you mostly going to see young, you know, 
White women that are blonde, you know, in chains. And it does 
not portray that trafficking is a diverse issue and affects, 
you know, people of color a lot. You know, it is never talked 
about.
    So, doing this survey was something that was so powerful. 
My colleagues and I from the Human Trafficking Legal Center, I 
did the survey. I reached out to all the survivors that are in 
the movement how they felt. And they did feel that there that, 
you know, racism is a big issue in the movement. It is never 
going unnoticed. You know, and during the former 
Administration, I just also noticed that when they were asked 
to talk about trafficking, they only brought up, you know, 
young White women, you know, that are blonde. And especially as 
African, it is for me I feel that it is very hard for the world 
to understand that Africans are still being, you know, sold 
into slavery. That this issue is affecting them a lot.
    And I gave in my testimony I talked a little bit about how 
Africans were being auctioned in Libya and in the Middle East 
and the world kind of turned their back on it. The world just 
shut down. Was it because they were Africans? What was the 
reason, you know? And we also have to hold the African 
government accountable of taking responsibility for their 
citizens.
    As an African woman, I was very disappointed that my 
situation happened and, you know, they did not really handle 
the situation that it was supposed to. I came to the country 
illegally. I did not know, again, like I mentioned, my goal was 
to marry Will Smith. You know, never once did I think that I 
would come to the U.S. and be a victim of modern-day slavery. 
And people of color are being affected every day and it is 
going unnoticed. And it is something that needs to be 
addressed. Thank you.
    Ms. Omar. I really appreciate that and I think it is 
important even, you know, the international cases that we do 
read about in Bahrain or the Emirates or Saudi Arabia. We might 
hear about the Filipinos or the Pakistanis but we do not hear 
about the Ethiopian, the Somalian, the Sub-Saharan Africans 
that are being enslaved in domestic destitute. And so, it is 
important that we really do understand that there is an element 
of racism and an element of recognizing certain people for what 
is happening to them in that.
    Mr. Thier, despite significant attention paid to 
transnational human trafficking, the U.N. Office on Drugs and 
Crimes Global Report on Trafficking Persons in 2020 found that 
globally, most detected victims are citizens of the countries 
they are detected. How if all should anti-trafficking 
approaches differ when addressing trafficking that is contained 
in one foreign country as opposed to when it is transnational 
form of trafficking?
    Mr. Thier. Thank you so much, Representative Omar. And I--
--
    Ms. Omar. And if you could be brief, that would be good.
    Mr. Thier. Yes, absolutely. You know, I think that the 
point that you are making is fundamentally important as several 
of the stories here have indicated. The work on law 
enforcement, the work on making sure that information is shared 
between agencies that this is done both at the national level 
and at the subnational level is absolutely critical. We 
actually have a dramatically important and effective program 
working on combatting sex trafficking in India with IJM that we 
are working on together. And the thing that we have found, the 
breakthrough that we have achieved, is by getting the local 
government, the local law enforcement, and the local community 
all working together on the same side. And that is something 
that can only be done by building trust, by having effective 
law enforcement, not ineffective law enforcement, or harassing 
law enforcement, and by making sure that it is ultimately the 
communities where people are coming from that are actually the 
ones that are engaged ultimately in the solutions. It is not 
just about the prosecution that is critical. It is also about 
supporting those victims on a sustainable path out of slavery.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you. I now recognize Ranking Member Smith 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. All of your 
testimoneys are outstanding. The recommendations are very, very 
helpful. Survivor and victim-based input and leadership 
couldn't be more properly Stated. I think we have--you know, 
when we were having trouble with the original Trafficking 
Victims Protection Act--pardon me--in the 1990's, and there was 
a lot of opposition to it, more indifference than opposition, I 
brought over some--two women that I had met in St. Petersburg, 
Russia, along with my wife, who MiraMed had saved, an NGO. And 
they told their stories and that was when we started to see a 
pivot where people were saying this is a problem and these 
women talked about how they had been raped every single day, 
night after night, several times a night. And you could have 
heard a pin drop when they presented their testimony.
    Gary Haugen testified in 1990--let me get this right,--
September 14th, and helped us write the bill. And I am always 
appreciative for his work. He came at one of our hearings and 
brought pictures of young girls from India who had been, sadly, 
enslaved. And before the attempt could be made to rescue them, 
the police were tipped off and moved to another location. So, 
one of the important parts about TIP and holding governments to 
account is that wherever that, whether it be law enforcement or 
judges or politicians, you name it, they need to be sanctioned. 
And that is why if we bring in Global Magnitsky more 
effectively into this effort, we will hold police chiefs and 
others to account. Because I remember when these young girls 
came up out of a cellar and all their eyes were adjusting to 
the light, and it was heartbreaking beyond words to see how 
they were about to be further exploited and, of course, the 
police helped to end a rescue and it just--it was just 
heartbreaking.
    You know, with regards to Africa, I have been all over 
Africa in shelters, several in Nigeria, and I remember going to 
Rome, Sister Eugenia has a shelter there, and there were a 
number of Nigerian women and young girls that were there. And 
one particular woman named Elizabeth told her story as I sat 
there, again, near tears, how she had been trafficked for 5 
years, sex trafficked. She was on the streets in Rome before 
Sister Eugenia came and rescued her with her van. And she had a 
little kid, 2 years old, running around, 2-1/2 maybe. And she 
goes that baby saved my life. You know, I was ready to commit 
suicide except now I had. So, it just underscored the 
brokenness and for her, it was a faith journey that helped her 
get over all of this and certainly the psychological and other 
helps that she got from that shelter.
    So, shelters continue to be extremely important. We need 
more of them. But just a couple of very quick questions, if I 
could. And that is, you know, Mr. Thier, you talked about 
Vietnam. I have been one of those, you know, the first 
conviction under the TVPA was out of Odawa in American Samoa. 
And the Vietnamese government never--because they are the 
complicit in those crimes of forced labor--they have never come 
through with acknowledgment, but more importantly, with 
assistance.
    You know, Mr. Williams, you talked about and I appreciate 
you reminding everybody of this of the right of private action 
that we put into the 2003 act. I wrote the 2003 act, the 
reauthorization. And everything we missed in the original one, 
we tried to put in there and in the 2005 act. But the idea of 
getting that tax free, if there is a successful--maybe you can 
elaborate on that. Because I think it is so important that the 
right of private action gives, empowers victims to get into 
court and to sue the person that has, or persons, or the group, 
that have so horribly mistreated them.
    I know I do not have a whole lot of time, but I just on 
China, you know, Xinjiang continues to be--I love the way the 
State Department put it--in Xinjiang, the government is the 
trafficker. And what they are doing to Uighurs Muslims is 
genocide. And it is part of that genocide is concentration 
camps where they make goods for export.
    Parenthetically, Frank Wolf and I back in the right after 
Tiananmen Square, got into Beijing prison No. 1 where they were 
making jelly shoes and socks for export. How we got in there is 
still bewildering to me and to him. But we asked for it. We got 
in. We took those exports and we got, you know, with their 
exporting samples, and there was a customs action taken. And 
that gulag actually closed down. But they continue, the 
Chinese, all across China to utilize forced labor, but nowhere 
is it more barbaric than against the Muslim Uighurs. What 
further should we be doing on that, you know?
    And finally, I know, again, there is not much time here, 
but we need a TIP Ambassador at large. We need that person no 
matter who she or he turns out to be as soon as possible. And I 
say that for the leadership, but also for the leadership inside 
the building. You know, every TIP Ambassador has told me here, 
at hearings, as well as privately, and they have told you as 
well, that fighting those interests, Ambassadors and others who 
do not want their country put on the TIP Report as a Tier 3 
country, is--so, we need a very strong individual to take up 
that effort and we need it now. So, I know if I could get just 
a little bit further to get some answers to those questions, I 
appreciate that. Thank you.
    Mr. Thier. Maybe I can just briefly respond to the point 
about China and more broadly. We have been involved with a 
large number of anti-slavery, anti-trafficking organizations in 
the last 6 months advocating strongly for the G7 to take action 
against forced labor, which would certainly affect the 
situation in Xinjiang, as well as globally. And I think that 
there is a really important movement afoot. Europe right now is 
considering creating a tariff ban like the U.S. has to block 
goods. They are considering something called mandatory human 
rights due diligence, which would put an emphasis on companies 
having to know whether there is forced labor in their supply 
chain. Whether it comes from Vietnam or China or wherever it is 
coming from, they have an obligation to stop it. I believe that 
a lot of the genesis of these ideas, of course, came from the 
U.S. The legislation that you have passed, that others have 
passed, that governments, bipartisan governments, have begun to 
enforce, and I believe what is needed now is that the U.S. 
needs to first of all help to fulfill these commitments. Just 
passing the laws, whether it is in the U.S. or in Europe, is 
the start of the solution. It is not the end of it.
    We need to have enforcement regimes, information sharing, 
so that when we ban a Malaysian glove manufacturer as we did 
the other day, that the U.K., also has access to that 
information so that they can do the same because they rely on 
those gloves as well. We need to share that information.
    We also need to support our partners. We want Bangladesh to 
succeed. We want Kenya to succeed. We do not want them to fail 
as a result of enforcement. We want them to come up to 
standard. And that means we have to support them to become 
better at enforcing their own laws at having the information 
that we have access to and making sure that the private sector 
is also doing its part to detect the forced labor so that we 
can all make sure that it is eradicated.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you, Mr. Thier. The gentleman is out of 
time. We will do, hopefully, a second round of questioning. I 
now recognize Mr. Phillips of Minnesota for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Madam Chair, and heartfelt 
gratitude to all of our witnesses today to discuss this 
terribly important topic. I think it is fair to say that human 
trafficking is analogous to modern day slavery. And it 
represents the very worst of humanity all around the world. 
Nobody, absolutely nobody should be forced to enter or remain 
in unsafe situations against their will, period. And that is 
exactly why I fought for an amendment to the VAWA, that was 
passed by the House. My amendment would ensure that no one is 
forced to stay in a relationship, an abusive relationship, 
because of their immigration status. Instead, victims of 
domestic abuse could apply for independent immigration status 
and give them the opportunity to escape their abusive 
arrangements and relationships, unlike so many of the 
trafficking victims that we have heard about today.
    So, my question to you, Ms. Chen, is what other legislative 
tools can Congress pursue and consider to help protect current 
and potential trafficking victims and survivors around the 
world?
    Ms. Chen. Thank you, Congressman. I think that there are 
several areas that could be of interest to this committee as 
well as to the larger Congress. First of all, I think when you 
are talking about the control that abusers have had over 
victims, I think that there is a really important parallel to 
the way that labor trafficking victims are treated in the 
United States. I have raised in my testimony as well as in the 
written testimony the issue of the temporary guest worker visa 
in the United States. What we have seen is that a huge 
proportion of victims who are labor trafficking victims coming 
into the U.S. are coming from Central America and Mexico. And 
that the overwhelming majority when they do come in on a 
temporary guest worker visa, are bound to the control of their 
employer. So, if they try to leave an abusive employer, they 
lose their immigration status. And that is an area that we 
strongly hope that Congress will focus on is to look at whether 
or not there are new and creative ways for workers to not be 
tied to their employers. And also, so that any employer that is 
using the threat of immigration deportation as a mechanism for 
control of a worker, is held to account for that.
    The other area that we continue to want to hope to see 
happen is ongoing funding for the Department of Labor's Wage 
and Hour Division. Because truly to end labor trafficking of 
migrant workers and labor trafficking of anyone in the United 
States, it is a three-pronged approach. We need to be changing 
the way that people are recruited. We need to make sure that 
recruitment fees are banned and labor recruiters are regulated. 
We need to make sure that enforcement is actually funded. The 
U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division is not 
sufficiently funded to be able to enforce labor violations. And 
so often, when people are in trafficking situations, their 
labor trafficking situation showed up first as a wage and hour 
violation.
    And last, like I said, we need to remove employer control 
over workers. Overwhelmingly, what we see with labor 
trafficking victims is that when we examine the data from the 
U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, the way that workers 
are forced, defrauded, and coerced is through threats of 
immigration enforcement, even though they are here legally on 
legal working visas. Thank you.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Ms. Chen. Very helpful and I 
appreciate that. Mr. Thier, a question for you. You know, we 
know that experts have identified the lack of rule of law, and 
political oppression, and corruption as common precipitators of 
human trafficking around the world. As a member of the Counter 
Hypocrisy Caucus, I am working with colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle to tackle these very kinds of practices worldwide. 
So, my question is, what tools are most effective in your 
estimation to address the root causes of human trafficking and 
try to reduce its prevalence around the world?
    Mr. Thier. There is no question that corruption, profit are 
drivers of the persistence of modern slavery and human 
trafficking. And it is ultimately in our experience, political 
will, working directly with those authorities, as well as 
providing the public pressure that is necessary that will get 
people to act. Where we have found success has almost always 
been when we have been able to bring together a coalition of 
government actors, constituencies for reform, those who are 
pressing to make change together with communities that are 
affected, together with survivors, together with the private 
sector. It is that coming together of people that builds 
pressure, that builds understanding, and that can ultimately 
make progress. There is not a silver bullet to the problem of 
corruption, unfortunately. But I think that we have 
demonstrated the ability to change laws, to get those laws 
enforced, and to have companies move in the right direction by 
bringing those forces all together.
    Ms. Omar. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you.
    Ms. Omar. We now recognize Mr. Malinowski of New Jersey for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to the 
witnesses. Ms. Chen, I wanted to engage you a bit on why an 
anti-trafficking organization is so interested in seeing an 
increase in the budget of an obscure agency of the Treasury 
Department, namely FinCEN. I completely agree with you, but I 
would like to try to get into a little bit greater depth on 
that. And I guess, you know, to begin with what you were 
talking there is that this is a money-making enterprise, human 
trafficking. And the traffickers then need to hide the profits 
of this illicit activity. One of the ways in which they do so 
is through shell companies. Is that correct?
    Ms. Chen. Thank you, Congressman, yes, that is absolutely 
correct. For about 2 years now, Polaris has been working very 
closely with PayPal to develop a financial intelligence unit. 
And what we have been able to do is to take the data from the 
National Human Trafficking Hotline, combine it with open-source 
information, and figure out how human trafficking is showing up 
in bank records.
    And this is vitally important because from our perspective, 
if there is additional tools that do not require survivors to 
have to testify in front of courts and face their traffickers 
in court, it is a more survivor-centered way of pursuing 
justice. The data does not lie and when there are anti-money 
laundering investigations that show that there has been 
trafficking, that is another tool that is useful for everyone.
    Ultimately, it also changes the dynamic of how criminal 
justice is enforced because it takes--money laundering 
investigations take the burden off of street level policing and 
start to look at the data and look at the pathways and look at 
the money flows that are actually happening. For that reason, 
you know, what we have seen is that the Financial Crimes 
Enforcement Network, FinCEN, which sits inside of treasury, is 
a vital partner. It is a vital partner for all forms of anti-
money laundering enforcement. It is a vital partner as 
cryptocurrency becomes the currency of du jour. And being able 
to make sure that money laundering is not continued to be used, 
making sure that human trafficking is not continuing to be a 
high profit and low risk enterprise that this really strikes at 
the core.
    And earlier in 2021, through the National Defense 
Authorization Act, Congress asked for FinCEN to have additional 
responsibilities, specifically around creating and maintaining 
a new national beneficial ownership data base. And establishing 
national anti-money laundering priorities of which in June, 
FinCEN said human trafficking was one priority. And so, we 
really just want to make sure that the agency itself has the 
kind of funding that it needs. Treasury has asked for a 50 
percent increase in FinCEN's budget for Fiscal Year 2022. And 
that is because I think at last count, we have seen the number 
of reports going into FinCEN that flagged suspicious activity 
quadrupled. And funding has not followed. And so, there is a 
really clear need for FinCEN's capacity to grow. And so, yes, I 
agree it is obscure, but I think for us, it is an essential 
partner in making sure that trafficking cannot continue to be 
high profit.
    Mr. Malinowski. Yes, it is super, super important and we, 
you know, we gave them the new responsibility of being able to 
crackdown on shell companies used for illicit activity. We need 
to give them the resources to do it.
    But there is, I think, more that needs to be done. I mean, 
we saw, for example, in the latest Pandora Papers release that 
those engaged in illicit activity including human trafficking 
have now moved away from the regular banking system and are 
using real eState investments, the help of law firms, 
accounting firms, to try to set up these vehicles. Whether it 
is a shell company or a trust or other means of hiding their 
assets. We have a bipartisan bill, the Enablers Act, that would 
impose due diligence requirements on those kinds of entities. 
Is that something, based on your research, that would be 
helpful in the fight against human trafficking?
    Ms. Chen. Yes, absolutely. And I know we are out of time, 
so, I really look forward to learning more about the 
legislation that you are working on and we would love to be 
part of it.
    Mr. Malinowski. Fantastic. We will be in touch. I yield 
back.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Jacobs of 
California for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you, Madam Vice Chair. And thank 
you all for being here. And, Ms. Chumbow, thank you for telling 
your story and continuing to advocate. You shouldn't have to 
keep telling our story over and over again for us to do 
something, but I am very grateful that you are doing it. And I 
am also very grateful that so many of you have talked about how 
to make sure we have a comprehensive approach to this issue and 
look at the root causes.
    I wanted to get at kind of a particular group that we know 
is vulnerable, and that is refugees. Often coming from 
instability or lack of opportunity to a new environment without 
strong ties tend to be vulnerable to labor exploitation and 
sexual exploitation. So, for any of you, but Ms. Chen, I was 
hoping you could start, how can we make sure refugee programs 
in both camps and other settings are better positioned to 
provide the necessary services to prevent exploitation? How do 
we make sure we are providing these services and resources in 
an empowering way? And also, making sure that the very people 
in charge of providing those services are not participating in 
the exploitation.
    Ms. Chen. Thank you, Congresswoman. I mean, I think that 
the way to protect recently arrived refugees is the same way 
that we protect anyone who has recently arrived in the United 
States. So often, people who are just coming here are not yet 
connected to support services may not be super clear about what 
laws apply to them, what rules, what rights they have 
available. And so, I would certainly start with a fundamental 
thing which is economic equity and making sure that people who 
come to the United States as refugees have the right to work. 
And I would just really kind of stop--start and stop there. I 
think that there are many services that can be strengthened, of 
course. But the fundamental thing is that people need the 
ability to participate meaningfully, legally, and fully in the 
economy.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. Anyone else have thoughts on 
refugees? Ms. Chumbow?
    Ms. Chumbow. Thank you. Thank you. I would just like to add 
that, you know, educating them. Again, because if we do not 
know our rights as a refugee, if you do not understand even if 
you are in that camp, it is good to have someone that can teach 
you about your rights. Because knowing your rights helps you to 
understand what you are going to face, you know. Especially 
when it comes--I will also add that we need to talk to 
embassies to educate people that are coming into the country to 
understand their rights.
    You know, for my case, if I knew what I was going to face 
here, I do not think I would have wanted to come. And all these 
embassies need to educate people on that issue. And we also, I 
think I mentioned earlier, we also need to start holding other 
country governments accountable for their citizens, you know. 
They need to help educate their citizens about, you know, the 
issue of human trafficking. That will also help with the TIP 
Report. Thank you.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. Mr. Williams?
    Mr. Williams. Only to add globally, obviously, the issue of 
trafficking can mirror the migration flow of people and 
refugees as well. And what is important is actually cross-
border collaboration and mechanisms between countries to 
support when things do go wrong, to provide that really 
collaborative joint investigations, joint responses across 
cross-borders. The work of International Organizations for 
Migration, IOM, has been phenomenal in this area and IJM has 
partnered with them globally. But to really understand that 
actually that dynamic flow of people is challenging for States 
to address because of State sovereignty, because of borders. 
And so, there can be networks that arise to combat networks. 
And so, looking to civil society, looking to international 
organizations, to help governments to join up their efforts 
together is a strong response to trafficking within the refugee 
population.
    Mr. Thier. I will just add quickly to reinforce what my 
colleagues have said and particularly Evelyn's statement, three 
things. Digital identity. It is absolutely fundamentally that 
people on the move have the ability to identify who they are 
and to get access to services and everything as a result of 
that. The second is access to finance and financial inclusion. 
We find with the huge numbers of migrants and refugee 
populations that we work with that when people have access to 
banking, access to finance, it enables them both stronger 
connectivity often back home but also to be able to 
participate.
    And the third one, and it is absolutely essential--and this 
is what Evelyn was saying--is education, is empowering people 
who are on the move to understand their rights. To understand 
the decisions that they are making to help their parents and 
their families understand the decisions that they are making. 
One of our most successful programs in this regard is working 
with large-scale population of Bangladeshi migrants and 
refugees who are leaving and going to the area. And what we 
have found that digital inclusion, provision of information is 
enabling them to make much better and stronger choices for 
themselves and ultimately if they have to access back to law 
enforcement and government if they get in trouble.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. I think my time has expired. So, I 
will yield back.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you. I think we will do a second round of 
questions. Thank you all for your patience. I would like to 
ask, Ms. Chen, I think you touched on this a little bit in your 
testimony. Obviously, there is a significant debate around 
whether the prohibition of sex work helps or hurts victims of 
human trafficking. One of the significant worries is that it 
makes criminals out victims and preventing government 
regulation that could help prevent trafficking. So, I just 
wanted to see if you would elaborate a little bit more. Do you 
support or oppose prohibition and why? And do you think the 
United States should be pushing prohibition in other countries?
    Ms. Chen. Thank you, Vice Chair Omar. I am going to be 
honest that this is a super fraught area in the U.S. anti-
trafficking movement and also globally. And I think it is 
fraught not only because it is people on all sides and all 
dimensions of the spectrum that feel very strongly about the 
issue, but also because people who have experienced 
prostitution and sexual exploitation are not themselves 
uniformly in support of one position or another.
    Polaris takes the view of support for what we call partial 
decriminalization. We think that there is a set of impacts that 
the criminal justice system often has had on survivors who are 
criminalized as part of their victimization. We have heard from 
hundreds of trafficking survivors who have experienced 
limitations to being able to access social services as a result 
of having interacted with the criminal justice system. However, 
we have also heard from hundreds of trafficking survivors who 
say that they want the people who have purchased their services 
for sex to be held accountable for the exploitation they have 
faced. And that they see no daylight between the conversations 
about Me-Too and the rising conversations about holding people 
accountable for sexual assault with this conversation as one 
conversation.
    And so, I think for us, we are perpetually kind of stuck in 
this challenging position of very much wanting to be in 
solidarity with trafficking survivors on what it is that they 
want to see. And at the same time, recognize that folks are not 
yet necessarily seeing it from a consistent and uniform 
perspective. And may not, right? Because I think everyone's 
exploitation experience is really different.
    The last thing that I will say is--and because you asked 
the question of Ms. Chumbow about the intersection between 
racial justice and trafficking is that we also know that 
overwhelmingly people who are criminalized for sex trafficking 
are often Black women and girls who are in situations of sexual 
exploitation and that is something that has to be addressed in 
the United States.
    Ms. Omar. And I do wonder maybe if you would go a little 
farther, do you think that there is more focus and maybe that 
leads to more exploitation on the ones that are exploited and 
criminalizing them rather than there being a penalty of those 
that are benefiting from that exploitation, say the johns or 
the ones that are, you know, doing the trafficking?
    Ms. Chen. Yes, I mean, I think--and this is of course 
speaking about the U.S. context, right? I think that we have 
had a focus on criminal justice sort of productivity when it 
comes to anti-trafficking enforcement. So, we have been 
equipping vice units and intelligence units for some time now 
to be able to identify trafficking situations and enforce those 
trafficking situations. I would say about even back to like a 
decade ago, the method by which people often tried to prosecute 
traffickers was to arrest trafficking victims so that they 
could work with them to pursue cases. And so, I think that that 
is one of the places where certainly Polaris has been taking a 
lead. We are also very interested in seeing criminal record 
relief for trafficking victims who have already been charged.
    Ms. Omar. Wonderful. Thank you. Mr. Thier, in your view, 
which governments are failing to combat human trafficking? Do 
you believe that the Tier 3 ranking on the State Department's 
annual Trafficking in Persons Report accurately reflects these 
countries? Do you find that foreign governments' failure to 
combat human trafficking more often relates to lack of capacity 
or insufficient political will and prioritization? And how 
effective is the State Department's tier ranking process in 
combating anti-trafficking efforts? It is a lot of questions, 
but.
    Mr. Thier. No, it is a great list of questions. And first 
of all, given the prevalence of human trafficking and modern 
slavery in the world, it is almost all of them, right? We do 
not have enough time to list the countries that aren't doing 
enough, including our own. This is a global crisis and we do 
need to step up global action on these issues. Maybe I will 
just answer the question by speaking to one specific example 
which I think is very powerful and that is of Malaysia because 
it was mentioned before in this hearing. And Malaysia was 
downgraded to Tier 3 this year. And we have seen multiple, I 
believe, four enforcement actions by the U.S. Government 
preventing goods from Malaysia coming in. One as recently as 
this week, blocking--in a pandemic mind you, which I think is a 
great sign of political will. In a pandemic blocking medical 
gloves, which also happened last year.
    And the reason that I cite this example is because first of 
all, I think that the question of Malaysia, as was mentioned, 
has been fraught. Second, I am certain as we expand our work 
now into Malaysia, I am certain that this ranking and that the 
enforcements actions that the U.S. Government has taken are 
raising global awareness of the problem, are putting pressure 
specifically on the Government of Malaysia and in private 
sector organizations in Malaysia. In other words, it is 
working. The pressure is working. The recognition is working. 
And that is causing us and other entities in the Malaysian 
government and, of course, in the private sector to actually 
take action so that we see when we align political will with 
effective action, recognition of the problem, and enforcement 
alongside actually dealing with the real problem. We are 
working with Bangladeshi migrants who are the ones that are 
going to these factories who are being abused. When we work 
with the survivors and those most affected as well as the 
governments and put that kind of political pressure, then I 
think we can see change. But the type of change that we are 
going to have to see is going to continue that. It means more 
enforcement of the laws. It means other governments also 
enforcing these laws and not turning away their eyes. It also 
means the financial sector. Ultimately, who is financing these 
businesses that are responsible for carrying on forced labor? 
They have to also do the due diligence to see where that forced 
labor is in their investment portfolios, is in their supply 
chain.
    And I think as we strengthen all of those steps, we will 
see that the markets will respond, governments will respond, 
and we will have the potential for meaningful impact.
    Ms. Omar. And maybe I will give the rest of the panel to 
piggyback on that. You know, what approaches do you all believe 
are most successful in gaining government buy-ins in combating 
trafficking? I know that it is a source of shame for a lot of 
countries, including ours. It is hard to even have this 
conversation. I know that when we are in diplomatic settings, 
when we are visiting countries, it is hard to bring up the 
topic. So, what, you know, I am just curious. We will start 
with Mr. Williams.
    Mr. Williams. Thank you, Vice Chair. Building trust is 
essential obviously in this global response. And nothing really 
beats being on the ground and actually working collaboratively 
side by side government officials as they seek to first--as the 
first responders are seeking to address the issues, but also as 
government leaders are prioritizing budgets and setting 
infrastructural changes. To be actually there and investing 
time and resources alongside governments in a collaborative way 
builds that trust over time. And it does take time.
    I would say that on the macro scale, the TIP Report itself 
is an incredibly valuable tool to prompt governments to look at 
their TIP response in a really, really directed way. It 
motivates change. It definitely drives policy decisions, action 
plans on the ground. So, that can be a very powerful tool. It 
can be misused on the ground. It can be misunderstood, 
misinterpreted. Responses can be window dressing to try to get 
an upgrade. So, it is important that there is that deep 
collaboration. At the same time, we have now as Mr. Thier has 
mentioned, kind of the imposition of these trade bans through 
the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
    So, this also helps to direct attention to resources that 
government needs to actually strengthen its justice system 
response. And brings corporations into the conversation. So, 
then you actually have large multinational corporations 
motivated in the same way as host governments can join up with 
civil society to respond and you create these structures that 
actually develop sustainable change. So, I think that is, in 
brief, kind of some of the motivations that exist. Thank you.
    Ms. Chumbow. Thank you, Vice Chairwoman Omar. So, for me, 
it would be three things, you know. And the No. 1 like Mr. 
Williams mentioned, is collaboration. We need to collaborate 
especially with other countries. And as I mentioned, and 
particularly countries in Africa, you know. We need the 
collaboration with that. And No. 2, it would be 
accountabilities. We need to start holding people accountable 
for the crime they commit. You know, there are cases and I 
highlighted in my testimony on diplomats. You know, they need 
to be hold accountable for bringing domestic servitude here and 
we need to work, you know, on the visa when you are bringing, 
you know, a worker to the U.S.
    And No. 3, would be, you know, other countries should be 
encouraged to have survivors like me. You know, one thing I am 
very much grateful is the fact that the U.S. does allow us 
survivors to speak and to work on reports. I am here talking to 
you guys. We are making changes, you know. We need to encourage 
other countries to have survivor leaders on board. You know, I 
was very grateful during the Obama Administration to have 11 
diverse survivors to be served as advisory council to educate 
the Administration on trafficking. I think that it would be 
great if we have other countries follow that suit. Thank you.
    Ms. Chen. Evelyn said it better than anyone can. But I 
would say the moral leadership of survivors I think that she is 
absolutely right, that the United States has done this 
exceptionally well. And in great part because of what is penned 
in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. And so, I would very 
much encourage that as a first step.
    The other thing I would say is I think we have to, as a 
movement, stop thinking of trafficking as a separate thing. 
Trafficking is the outcome of every other system failing, 
right? It is the natural thing that happens because we are not 
protecting migrant workers, because we are not protecting 
refugees, because we are not protecting the most vulnerable 
among us. And so, being able to think about trafficking 
interventions both internationally, as well as domestically, as 
a target in mind as opposed to a separate set of programs, I 
think is one way to go about helping other governments also 
understand that it does not need to be a different wing of an 
agency.
    Ms. Omar. Did you have anything to add?
    Ms. Chumbow. I forgot one last important thing.
    Ms. Omar. Go ahead.
    Ms. Chumbow. We need to stop separating the issue of sex 
and labor. Because a lot of the times when you talk about 
combating human trafficking, the focus is always sex. And it 
hides away from victims, you know, like me, myself, you know. 
So, separating the issue, I feel, causes more problems and 
hides the other issue. Human trafficking is labor and sex. But 
most of the times we only hear about sex trafficking.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you all. And I will now yield to Ranking 
Member Smith.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Ms. Chumbow, 
you had mentioned in your testimony and talked about the 
impunity that you had faced during your 7 years of captivity 
that nobody seemed to recognize you were hiding in plain sight, 
so to speak. Then you did, I guess, you initiated a 
prosecution. Who did you go to to get that prosecution begun? 
And second, you also point out that while the trafficker went 
to prison, you never got the restitution. And where does that--
why has that not happened? And maybe, you know, Mr. Williams, 
you might want to speak to that. I mean, we are talking about 
going the next step and making sure it is tax free and all of 
that. But if the restitution never materializes in the first 
place, you know, you are so disadvantaged and further hurt.
    Ms. Chumbow. Thank you, Ranking Member Smith. I appreciate 
that especially the part on restitution. You know, again, my 
trafficker was sentenced and my case was in Maryland.
    Mr. Smith. Right.
    Ms. Chumbow. You know, it was in Maryland. And when my case 
came to court, my trafficker was also known for embezzling 
money. And, of course, this is the money--now, they took her 
money. They took--the government took the money but I was never 
given a restitution. And that happens a lot. So, you know, to 
victims, to survivors, they never really get their restitution. 
And, again, as I mentioned earlier, we do not understand that, 
the education. Are we supposed to get the restitution? It is 
never--that is something that we need to strengthen when it 
comes to the restitution. Explain to us why we cannot get the 
restitution. Because the order was there.
    And just to also give an example, not recently, I was very 
disappointed because my trafficker was out and I was never 
notified, you know. And that scares a lot of victims to want to 
come out and testify or tell their story because they are not 
sure of their safety. If me, as a survivor leader, I am out 
there. I am speaking. And my trafficker was released from 
prison and I was never, you know, informed. That really makes 
it very painful for a lot of victims to want to want to come 
and testify. But we definitely need to strengthen more laws 
when it comes to the restitution because those restitutions do 
help us. I am sorry, it probably would have helped me to pay 
off my student loan, you know. So, because I did go to school 
and I am still paying for that student loan. And we need to 
find better laws and ways to help enforce this restitution to 
be paid.
    Mr. Smith. What triggered the prosecution? Was it a larger 
embezzlement issue and then they found out you were being? And 
second, did you ever contact Polaris or any other--were you 
aware of the hotline that is available? Because they, 
obviously, connect law enforcement to--as well as to support 
services when somebody reaches out.
    Ms. Chumbow. Oh, no, so, I have been in this game for a 
long time, Rep Smith, OK? So, my case came in the 90's. So, 
back then there wasn't a lot of laws.
    Mr. Smith. Right.
    Ms. Chumbow. You know.
    Mr. Smith. No laws.
    Ms. Chumbow. I came to the U.S. in the early 1990's, you 
know. And I got out of my situation at age 17, going on 19 in 
the early 2000. So, I went to a church, you know, and that is 
when I met with a priest. And I shared by story and from there 
the church--and it was Catholic Charity. You know, they did not 
have hotline back then. I am one of the people that said, hey, 
we need numbers. We need a number to call so it was so great 
that we finally got a hotline number. You know, I was one of 
the survivors that was advocating in having the hotline number. 
But back then, we did not have that.
    You know, it was very difficult. So, I went to a church. 
From the church, you know, law enforcement. And I believe my 
case, if I am not mistaken, my case was probably the one to be 
investigated all the way back to Cameroon, you know. I shared 
my experience how I got here. And my trafficker, I believe, 
used one passport and brought six of us into the United States. 
So, when we are talking strengthening the borders and illegal 
immigrants, we definitely--because you cannot talk about 
trafficking without talking about immigration. You know, it is 
just there.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you. Mr. Williams?
    Mr. Williams. Thank you, Congressman Smith. Impunity can 
change very rapidly. Perpetrators are not brave or persistent 
in the trafficking world. If you increase your convictions, 
trafficking reduces. It is a simple equation. However, 
survivors need to be held at the center of that process. They 
need to be accompanied through that process. It needs to be 
survivor friendly. And so, the experience expressed by Ms. 
Chumbow is regrettable in that she wasn't communicated with 
about what was happening in her case. And that needs to change. 
There needs to be survivor-centered prosecutions. When that 
happens, you actually get substantial results in geographic 
locations.
    What I would say second about social protections and 
restitution, which you have mentioned several times, I agree 
with you, Congressman. This is very, very important. There are 
two points to know about restitution. The first is this and 
other forms of social protection should never be contingent on 
participation in criminal proceedings. This is a separate 
matter. Someone who is a victim of trafficking is entitled to 
those social protections. We should lower the barriers to entry 
for this. It is not a criminal standard of proof that you need 
to get these social protections. And the best countries are the 
ones that have actually instituted survivor funds that can be 
accessed by those who are identified at a early stage as 
victims of trafficking, completely separate from the court 
process. That enables the economic empowerment. It supports 
survivors through the journey. It shows them that the 
government's on their side that they are there with them 
through the journey. Incredibly powerful and I really do think 
that this is something that should be combined with the 
approach to survivor-centered prosecutions but know that this 
is a separate thing. Survivors are entitled to these social 
protections regardless of their participation in criminal 
proceedings.
    Mr. Smith. Mr. Williams, thanks for bringing that up 
because when we did the original Trafficking Victims Protection 
Act, that was one of the key issues that held up its passage 
including when we got into Congress with the Senate. There were 
those who felt that there had to be a full-scale participation 
with the prosecutors, which I and others argued, you know, we 
want to put those, the bad guys, the purveyors, behind bars for 
as long as we can possibly get them behind bars, but not at the 
expense of the individual person who has been victimized.
    So, a balance was worked out. It took a long time. It held 
up the conference for weeks and we finally got it resolved that 
they needed to be helpful to prosecution. But frankly, I have 
always believed that we want to get the people away from 
further victimizing, so prosecution is key. But, again, it 
should not be contingent on the victim being put at further 
risk of them coming back to say you are the one. I am going to 
come after you. Or retraumatizing them as they go through the 
horrific details of what they have been through. So, thank you 
for that. It is a very, very difficult balance. I believe we 
prevailed to a large extent, not fully. But there were some who 
wanted it to be, you know, quid pro quo. Participate in the 
prosecution or else there is the door. And that is not, in my 
opinion, humane.
    You know, I would ask you if you could, any of you have 
thoughts about what countries that are trending negatively 
particularly those that are on the watchlist that need very 
serious scrutiny about being dropped to Tier 3 during this next 
cycle? Which, obviously, the TIP Report will come out some time 
in late spring. But I think it is not too soon to be putting 
countries on notice.
    And I say that also, you know, one of the more courageous 
things that George W. Bush did, he put two of our closest 
allies, Israel and South Korea, on Tier 3. And when he did it, 
you know, it enforced the sanctions part could inhibit military 
and other kinds of aide and cooperation between any country 
that is on Tier 3 as pursuant to the TVPA. And I met frequently 
with Ambassadors from both of those countries during that year 
when they were worried about, well, what happens when the other 
shoe drops and the penalties are meted out? And they did 
amazing things to change the situation. The South Koreans 
passed new laws that looked a lot like ours, but they had some 
great ideas that they came up with that we could borrow from. 
And Israel in like manner, began enforcing the huge numbers of 
women who were being sold into slavery in Tel Aviv and 
elsewhere and got off Tier 3 the old-fashioned way. They earned 
it as did South Korea.
    I am one of those, and again, I will ask the new 
Administration as well, please do not pull your punches. You 
know, make sure you call it out. Because for the victim who is 
being raped or forced into labor or whatever it might be, or 
both, because you are right, Ms. Chumbow, about very often the 
two are closely interrelated. They do not want to say, oh, that 
is an ally of the United States or not an ally. Who cares? 
Friends do not let friends commit human rights abuses. And we 
should be speaking out with equal fervor to both. And that has 
not happened--the worst time was in 2015 and 2016 as I 
mentioned earlier when the Reuters reporter said that they 
politized the process. And, frankly, there was bipartisan angst 
against that. I had four hearings on it. I was so angry about 
it I said, please do not do that. What you do on the sanctions 
part is purely your prerogative. But what you do in speaking 
truth to power, again, should in no way be swayed by the 
political equation and who we want to curry favor with.
    So, are there any countries in your views or do you want to 
get back to us on that? I do not know if you want to give it 
some further thought that I happen to believe Vietnam should be 
dropped down to Tier 3 mostly because of labor trafficking. You 
know, without objection, I would ask the distinguished chair if 
she could include in the record Dr. Thang's testimony from Boat 
People SOS, who has testified before on these issues. As well 
as----
    Ms. Omar. Without objection.
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    Mr. Smith. I appreciate that so much. As well as the CEO of 
the Anti-trafficking International, Taina Bien Aime, Executive 
Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women as well, 
as part of the record here today.
    Ms. Omar. Without objection.
    [The information referred to follows:]

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    Mr. Smith. Thank you. But if there is any countries you 
think that we need to be really highlighting, you know, this 
far out. Yes, Ms. Chumbow.
    Ms. Chumbow. It is in my testimony. I would say, Malawi, we 
mentioned, you know, countries like East Africa. So, because, 
yes, Malawi, would be one of the countries, I think we should 
look into. And I know it is even in the TIP Report this year 
they mentioned Cameroon. You know, that was good, but I think 
they should follow the same suit when it comes to countries 
like Malawi.
    Mr. Williams. Thank you, Congressman. The power of the TIP 
Report as you know varies from region to region in the world. 
In Southeast Asia, I believe, it is particularly powerful from 
my experience. And I note that there are a number of countries. 
You mentioned Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia, and Thailand all 
either at the watchlist or the Tier 3 level. So, there are 
really two things to note there. And first is the importance as 
you already alluded to, that the U.S. Government rely on the 
experts in the TIP office to drive the content of the report 
and politicizing that process is going to discredit it. And we 
know this. So, that is really the first thing is to trust the 
experts in the TIP office. We have had a great relationship 
with them over many years as you know. And they do fantastic 
work every year to collect these reports.
    And I do think it will have a powerful influence on the 
labor trafficking flows in Southeast Asia and we hope to have a 
joined-up response between these countries. I would say one 
thing to note is whether the TIP office could consider limiting 
the practice of adding these extra exemption years, which keep 
countries on the Tier 2 watchlist beyond what the intended 
timeframe is. Again, this goes to credibility in terms of the 
tool it is as a diplomatic tool to motivate change. And so, 
these continued extensions that can harm the credibility and 
that is a dynamic that we are seeing in some of these countries 
in Southeast Asia. Thank you.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Williams.
    Mr. Thier. Thank you for the question. I do not have a 
specific country recommendation to give to you at this time. 
But I might list two or three things that we are very concerned 
about. One is, of course, around the pandemic impact and the 
pandemic recovery. One piece of work that we have been doing in 
Bangladesh has been looking at informal apparel factories, 
which is a relatively understudied problem. And one of the 
things that we have found is a much higher level of child labor 
in those factories than we had even anticipated based on the 
standards of the apparel industry at this time. And some of the 
reflection for that was because of children out of school, 
because of families who had lost livelihoods, and we are deeply 
concerned about the increasing vulnerability of those families 
and the likelihoods that we are going to see increases.
    The second one, of course, is Afghanistan. There has been a 
lot of concern raised about the extent of out migration of 
Afghanistan because of the Taliban takeover and lack of 
protections for very vulnerable migrants. And so, we have a 
particular amount of concern about that now just because the 
numbers have gone very rapidly through the roof. And so, I 
think that looking at those places also in East Africa and Ms. 
Chumbow also mentioned Libya. The rise of conflict whether it 
is in Ethiopia, Libya, and other places, are creating a 
pressure on migration and out migration that I think is 
creating increased vulnerability. And these are all situations 
that we are quite concerned about.
    Mr. Smith. Let me just ask a question. You know, we often 
here in the news that traffickers are streaming across our 
southern border. I have been to all the countries in Central 
and South--not all in South, but all in Central several times. 
We know that traffickers and cartels move women. We have had 
women from Mexico show up trafficked in my district. We have 
had women from Honduras show up trafficked in my district. This 
is not that recent, but we have had very serious problems 
usually it was affiliated with gangs. And these women were 
brought against their will. Thankfully, they were rescued and 
repatriated with their families.
    But I get concerned sometimes when, you know, kind of like 
a forced migration or a cartel bringing people over when they 
are paying, but it is not for sex or labor trafficking. It gets 
conflated with the term trafficking. We have written the TIP 
office and we have asked them what is the situation on the 
ground? Aren't people women and men, children being trafficked 
in this huge flow that is making its way across the southern 
border? Do any of you have any insights as to what is happening 
there? I mean, there are so many unaccompanied minors. We know 
that they become easier prey for these predators. Do we have 
any data on this? We haven't gotten word back from TIP on this, 
TIP office I should say. But, you know, again, I do not care 
what the politics are. If children and women are being 
exploited into sex and labor trafficking and they are using the 
cover of an open border to facilitate that, we need to be 
hardnosed about it and very, very strong in protecting those 
innocent people from that cruel exploitation. Do you have 
anything on that, any of you? Ms. Chen.
    Ms. Chen. Congressman Smith, thank you for raising this. 
You know, I actually went back in preparation for this 
conversation today to look at the data in the National Human 
Trafficking Hotline. At this point, we do not see an increase 
in trafficking specifically on the southern border.
    Mr. Smith. Could I ask you just as you answer that?
    Ms. Chen. Yes.
    Mr. Smith. How would those people coming across the border 
have any idea that there is a hotline, Polaris, for them to 
call?
    Ms. Chen. And you took the words right out of my mouth. I 
was going to say, there is, of course, a limitation, right, on 
reach. But I do want to raise again that the data that we do 
have is that of the--so, we went back and looked at 5 years of 
labor trafficking cases onto the hotline, 2015 to 2019. Eighty-
seven percent of the labor trafficking victims came to the 
United States on legal temporary guest workers visas on the H-
2A and H-2B. Eighty-seven percent. And so, I recognize that, of 
course, there is a much larger or more complex conversation 
about immigration, but I do want to raise for this subcommittee 
that there is a solvable problem that we have, which is that we 
can actually end labor trafficking in the migrant guest worker 
system by re-regulating the H-2A and H-2B.
    Mr. Smith. Let me just I have one final comment I would 
like to make and I would like to express my gratitude to the 
Department of State for making some critically important 
corrections to the 2021 TIP Report. The Bangladesh section of 
the original publication was corrected from its statement that, 
``Brothel owners forced them into sex work when they were 
children.'' As we all know, both under U.S. Federal law and 
international law, any person under the age of 18 in the sex 
trade is a sex trafficked child. And matter of fact, if they 
are below 14, they can get up to live imprisonment if you do 
it. Eighteen, you know, it is 20 years or so. But I mean that 
is how serious the crime is. And I think labeling the child sex 
trafficking as sex work normalizes abuse and the exploitation 
of children. To be clear, sex trafficking is not a job. It is 
exploitation. It is enslavement and an attack on the dignity of 
the human person.
    And I would just conclude, you know, when we passed the 
Frederick Douglass law a couple of years ago, again, with great 
input from A21, and all of you, as well as Frederick Douglass' 
great, great grandson, Kenneth Morris. A big emphasis was on 
devising curricula that could be used in an age-appropriate 
manner for elementary and secondary schools and even colleges 
so that the signs could be noticed both by educators, 
administrators, teachers, and the students themselves. And that 
rollout was in some degree stymied by COVID. Obviously, people 
weren't going to school. But we are hoping that with the 
enhancement that is in our, Karen Bass' and I, new bill, that 
that will rollout as quickly as humanly possible so that all of 
our young people are empowered to know what is lurking right 
around the corner for them or for their best friend or their 
acquaintances in school.
    I think we need to aggressively push this not just here. I 
brought it to the attention of the OSCE and the OSCE 
Parliamentary Assembly, and got a resolution passed. I invited 
Frederick Douglass' great, great grandson to come and do a 
presentation along with a few other very talented people in the 
curricula area. And we had well over 100 lawmakers from Europe 
and Russia come to that, take the materials, and we were saying 
do likewise. Protect your students and your young people from 
this exploitation. And I think knowledge is power and that will 
help. So, please help us get the bill passed. And thank you so 
very much for your leadership.
    Ms. Omar. Well, thank you all for your incredible 
testimoneys and for being so generous with your time. I want to 
thank Chairwoman Bass for convening this hearing. And just 
express my gratitude to Ranking Member Smith for so 
passionately advocating on behalf of the world's most 
vulnerable people. It means a great deal. I think too, you 
know, to your testimoneys as we address human trafficking and 
the criminal aspects of it, we have to also think about 
holistically what it means for us to have humane immigration 
systems. What it means for us to be, you know, siblings of one 
another and help countries that are economically struggling to 
invest in the education of young girls across the world so that 
they are not being exploited for the hopes of getting that 
education. And we have to critically address the conflicts that 
contribute whether it is, you know, conflicts around resources 
because of the climate crisis or, you know, the persistent 
conflicts that exist around terrorism and wars and fight around 
power in some of these countries that contributes to human 
trafficking especially on the continent of Africa. And we have 
to address this with an intersectional lens. And understand 
that there are people who are vulnerable that we do not often 
get to see or acknowledge their humanity and dignity. So, I 
thank you all and thank other committee members for their 
incredible questions today.
    And with that, the Subcommittee is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                APPENDIX
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                    OPENING STATEMENT CHAIRMAN BASS
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            ADDITIONAL STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD ANNE BASHAM
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            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
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             ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
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