    [House Hearing, 118 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                     EXAMINING THE 2024 ANNUAL TRAFFICKING IN
                      PERSONS REPORT: PROGRESS OVER POLITICS

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

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                    SUBCOMMITTEE ON GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL
                HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

                                     OF THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION
                                   __________

                                  July 9, 2024
                                   __________

                               Serial No. 118-124
                                   __________

            Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

                   [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,

                           or http://www.govinfo.gov

                                   ______

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    56-569 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2026

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                       MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Chairman
    CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey     GREGORY MEEKS, New York, Ranking
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina               Member
    SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania            BRAD SHERMAN, California
    DARRELL ISSA, California             GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    ANN WAGNER, Missouri                 WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
    BRIAN MAST, Florida                  AMI BERA, California
    TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee              JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
    MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee             DINA TITUS, Nevada
    ANDY BARR, Kentucky                  TED LIEU, California
    RONNY JACKSON, Texas                 SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
    YOUNG KIM, California                DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
    MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida        COLIN ALLRED, Texas
    BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan              ANDY KIM, New Jersey
    AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,       SARA JACOBS, California
        American Samoa                   KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
    FRENCH HILL, Arkansas                SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK,
    WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio                    Florida
    JIM BAIRD, Indiana                   GREG STANTON, Arizona
    MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida               MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
    THOMAS KEAN, JR., New Jersey         JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
    MICHAEL LAWLER, New York             JONATHAN JACKSON, Illinois
    CORY MILLS, Florida                  SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
    RICH McCORMICK, Georgia              JIM COSTA, California
    NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               JASON CROW, Colorado
    JOHN JAMES, Michigan                 GABRIEL AMO, Rhode Island
    KEITH SELF, Texas                    KWEISI MFUME, Maryland
    RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana               BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
    JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam

                    Brendan Shields, Majority Staff Director

                    Sophia Lafargue, Minority Staff Director

                                     ------

             SUBCOMMITTEE ON GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND
                           INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

                    CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
    MARIA SALAZAR, Florida               SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania, Ranking
    AMATA RADEWAGEN, American Samoa          Member
    FRENCH HILL, Arkansas                AMI BERA, California
    RICH McCORMICK, Georgia              SARA JACOBS, California
    JOHN JAMES, Michigan                 KATHY MANNING, North Carolina

                             C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                                  ----------

                                REPRESENTATIVES

                                                                       Page
    Opening Statement of Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Smith.....     1
    Opening Statement of Ranking Member Susan Wild...................     5
    Opening Statement of Rep. Rich McCormick.........................     5
    Opening Statement of Rep. James Moylan...........................     6

                                   WITNESSES

    Statement of Hon. Cindy Dyer, Ambassador-At-Large to Monitor and
      Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State........     7
      Prepared Statement.............................................    10
    Statement of Jason Tower, Country Director, Burma, United States
      Institute of Peace.............................................    16
      Prepared Statement.............................................    20

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing Notice...................................................    50
    Hearing Minutes..................................................    51
    Hearing Attendance...............................................    52

                            Questions for the Record

    Questions submitted to Cindy Dyer by Rep. Smith..................    53
    Questions submitted to Cindy Dyer by Rep, Wild...................    71

                     EXAMINING THE 2024 ANNUAL TRAFFICKING IN
                      PERSONS REPORT: PROGRESS OVER POLITICS

                                  ----------

                             Tuesday, July 9, 2024

                      House of Representatives,
    Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights,
                       and International Organizations,
                                  Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:08 p.m., in
    room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
    Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Mr. Smith. I have been advised by minority staff that Ms.
    Wild is okay with starting. We usually like to extend that
    courtesy, but she will be here shortly, so thank you.
        This hearing of the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global
    Human Rights, and International Organizations will come to
    order.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CHRISTOPHER SMITH

        Mr. Smith. Today we will turn our attention again to the
    evil of human trafficking and discuss ways the U.S. Government,
    both Congress and the Administration, can combat this abhorrent
    crime more effectively. This is the 43d congressional hearing
    that I have chaired on human trafficking. Unfortunately, there
    is much more to be done. Around the globe, an estimated 28
    million people are enslaved in labor or sex trafficking, with
    traffickers profiting about 236 billion annually.
        Today we will specifically examine the 2024 Annual
    Trafficking in Persons Report, or TIP Report, which the
    Department of State release just 2 weeks ago on June 24. And I
    would just note parenthetically getting the TIP Report
    established, because I wrote the original law, was so hard
    there were people in the Administration that said just put it
    into country reports on human rights practices, make it a part
    D or C or, you know, a subheading somewhere and not its own
    report. And we fought very hard in a bipartisan way to get that
    enacted, but it was very vigorously opposed and then finally,
    thankfully, accepted.
        As I was indicating, almost 25 years ago, I authored the
    historic Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. Once
    again, the TVPA is up for reauthorization. My good friend and
    colleague, Ranking Member Wild, and I have a House-passed bill,
    H.R. 5856, the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims
    Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2023. We will
    have to change that to 2024 when the Senate, God willing,
    passes it.
        It did pass the House this past February by an overwhelming
    margin of 414 to 11. I do call on my friends and colleagues in
    the U.S. Senate to take it up. I have reached out to them
    continually, respectfully but continually and urgently. This
    vital legislation should be enacted without haste to let
    governments, civil society, the bad guys, the purveyors of this
    heinous practice, and especially the victims and survivors know
    that we have not stopped fighting or caring about this vital
    human rights issue.
        The reauthorization of key domestic and international
    programs and funding, including the State Department's Office
    to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, the role of the
    Ambassador-at-Large, and the continuation of the annual TIP
    Report are all contained in the bill. It is time to get this
    bill to the President's desk. It should have been there a long
    time ago, but let's do it now before this session ends and we
    start all over again in the next session.
        The TVPA is a whole-of-government approach, as I think many
    of you know, to combat sex and labor trafficking in the United
    States and around the world. It puts forward a comprehensive
    counter-trafficking in persons strategy that integrated the
    three Ps--protection for victims of trafficking, prosecution of
    the traffickers, and prevention of human trafficking in the
    first place.
        And sometimes we add a fourth for the partnerships as we
    cannot--none of us can do it alone. And if we want to be
    successful, we need those friends and allies across civil
    society, and of course in other governments.
        Among the law's many provisions was the creation of an
    annual TIP Report. It was written by the Office to Monitor and
    Combat Trafficking in Persons at the State Department and
    analyzes countries' efforts to meet certain minimum standards
    for elimination of human trafficking.
        The tier rankings in the TIP Report is a vital tool for the
    U.S. Government to fight human trafficking. It is also a great
    mirror for those--and believe me, I meet with delegations all
    the time who object to parts of it. And when you really get
    down to it, they agree that what we are saying often is right,
    but they don't like to be called out. And it is very important
    that we be willing to speak truth to power in that way.
        It is the gold standard for pushing governments to reform
    their own laws, prosecute criminals, and take strong measures
    to end trafficking in their countries. The TIP Report only
    works when it judges governments strictly based on the minimum
    standards for fighting human trafficking as laid out in the
    TVPA, as amended.
        Political considerations cannot seep into the report. And I
    would note parenthetically there, in the past, we have had that
    happen, where there were Ambassadors and there were others,
    assistant secretaries and regional, who fought hard to keep
    their country or countries off the Tier 3 rating. That is
    totally unacceptable. That sells out the victims, as we all
    know, and I know Hon. Cindy Dyer knows that so well, and very
    often there is a fight.
        Now differences of opinion are inevitable, but when it is
    being done for other purposes and other parts of the agenda,
    absolutely unacceptable. Call it the way it is and then decide
    what is the best application of the prescribed sanctions, and
    the like, in the bill.
        I was glad to see this year that the TIP Report, the
    world's top violators of human rights countries, such as China,
    Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Russia, and Nicaragua,
    rightfully remain ranked in Tier 3.
        I was also glad to see that the TIP Report highlighted
    Cuba's and China's role in state-sponsored forced labor, but we
    can still take this--but we can still take this a step further
    by having the tier ratings take into consideration the
    countries who participate and purchase that forced labor,
    including from Cuba's foreign medical missions.
        Likewise, Laos was rightfully downgraded to the Tier 2
    Watch List, in part due to a human trafficking threat rapidly
    emerging out of Southeast Asia, where Chinese transnational
    organized crime syndicates operate scam centers with impunity.
    Bordering Laos, both Burma and Cambodia remain in the Tier 3
    designation.
        These criminals traffic innocent people from all over the
    world, luring them to prison compounds with fake job
    advertisements and offers. Only once these victims arrive at
    apartment blocks surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire do
    they realize they are hooked. They can't escape.
        Victims are forced to work in these compounds conducting
    elaborate online cryptocurrency scams known as ``pig
    butchering.'' Forced by their traffickers to communicate
    digitally with unsuspecting scam victims, including in the
    United States, scam center workers attempt to strike up a text
    through WhatsApp, or even through phone conversations, to gain
    trust and build relationships.
        Victims are then tricked into depositing money into
    fraudulent so-called ``crypto investment platforms'' controlled
    by the scam center. Once enough money is deposited, the scammer
    withdraws the money, deletes the fake account, and disappears.
    Through this dystopian fraud, innocent Americans are being
    robbed of their life savings. Estimates of money stolen from
    Americans through pig butchering scams are now over $3.5
    billion. And without a whole of-government effort, the problem
    will likely only get worse.
        Yet pig butchering is a double crime. It destroys the lives
    in the U.S. by robbing unsuspecting victims of their life
    savings while it also is destroying the lives of the
    trafficking victims in Southeast Asia through forced labor.
        Most of these scam centers are in Burma, Laos, and
    Cambodia. These countries' governments need to act to shut down
    these vile operations, to help free the forced labor victims--
    over 300,000 of them by 2023--and bring the perpetrators to
    justice.
        Neighboring countries such as Thailand, Singapore, and
    Vietnam also do too little to combat the rampant human
    trafficking occurring on and through their borders, as well as
    the money laundering occurring through their financial
    institutions.
        Unlike the appropriate tier ranking for Laos, Cambodia, and
    Burma, I would argue that Vietnam--and I have been pushing this
    for years. I have traveled there. I have met with human rights
    activists in Vietnam and victims. Vietnam does not warrant an
    upgrade from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2. We cannot reward the
    Communist Party of Vietnam for repeatedly misleading the U.S.
    on its weak efforts to combat human trafficking.
        Civil society organizations have reached out concerned
    about Vietnam's sham upgrade to Tier 2 status due to their lack
    of transparency and accountability for government officials.
    That said, I was pleased to see that under the topics of
    special interest the mention of trafficking for the purchase of
    organ removal and forced organ harvesting.
        I have a bill, H.R. 1154, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting
    Act of 2023. It passed the House 413 to 2 in March--not of this
    year, of last year. Can't get that out of the Senate either.
    This bill imposes property, passport, and visa-blocking
    sanctions on persons, individuals, and entities involved in
    forced organ harvesting or trafficking in persons for the
    purpose of organ removal.
        The Frederick Douglass bill also contains a provision to
    permanently include in the TIP Report information about the
    trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal,
    including cases and steps governments are taking--undertaking
    to prevent, identify, and eliminate such trafficking.
        Before closing, I would like to mention one more troubling
    development. Recent years have seen the rise of a disturbing
    new normalization of so-called sex work, intergenerational
    sexual partnerships, or transnational--transactional, I should
    say, sex. These terms are pushed by certain NGO's,
    international organizations, and governmental organizations
    alike, and they advocate for legalized prostitution.
        Not only do these terms subtly undermine U.S. law in the
    TVPA, which defines ``sex trafficking'' and ``commercial sex
    acts,'' but they also attempt to normalize sex trafficking and
    the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. Let's be clear,
    the TVPA defines the term ``commercial sex act'' as any sex act
    on account of which anything of value--anything--is given to or
    received by any person.
        And any commercial sex act in which the person is induced
    to perform such acts and has not attained the age of 18, it is
    called sex trafficking under the TVPA. And that was a landmark
    change we got in the year 2000 when it was signed into law.
        I was shocked and disturbed to see that Belgium was
    upgraded to Tier 1 after passing a new law in May 2024 on
    legalizing the role of third parties, including pimps and
    madams, and treating exploited women as employees and holding
    them to account for refusing sex acts. Congress must stand
    against this disturbing, ideological trend.
        I agree fully with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence
    Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, who wrote in June 2024
    in her report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, and she said,
    and I quote, ``Prostitution reduces women and girls to mere
    commodities and perpetuates the system of discrimination and
    violence that hinders their ability to achieve true equality.
    Given the immense harm experienced by women and girls in
    prostitution, it is important to use terminology that aligns
    with international human rights law and standards. Terms like
    'sex work' sanitize the harmful reality of prostitution.''
        Prostitution is not a liberating job choice. Sex
    trafficking should not be called ``sex work.'' Responsible
    governments, organizations, and advocates have a duty to fight
    this disturbing and twisted ideological trend.
        Today we will hear--and I am deeply grateful to our
    witnesses--from Ambassador Cindy Dyer, Ambassador-at-Large to
    Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and from Jason
    Tower, Burma Country Director at the United States Institute of
    Peace and an expert in Southeast Asian trafficking scam
    centers.
        I would like to now yield to my good friend and colleague,
    Susan Wild, for any comments she might have.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER SUSAN WILD

        Ms. Wild. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
    convening this. Thank you to our witnesses.
        I am, as always, appreciative of the opportunity to have
    this hearing. As I stated in our last hearing on this subject,
    combating the scourge of human trafficking, especially among
    children but not exclusively, should never be a partisan issue.
        Chairman Smith, I am proud to have worked with you and
    other members across the aisle on this priority, and I look
    forward to continuing that work. The release of the 2024
    Trafficking in Persons, TIP, Report is an opportunity to take
    stock of the progress we have made and the enormous amount of
    work that remains to be done.
        In my view, our priorities remain the same as those I
    articulated in our last hearing, engaging in robust, principled
    diplomacy, both bilaterally and in international fora,
    reporting on countries consistently and without regard to
    political pressure or geopolitical considerations, and being
    willing to take on powerful interests, including very
    profitable corporations, that benefit from the appalling
    reality of child labor.
        To all the advocates and survivors who may be here today or
    may be watching this hearing, please know that we stand with
    you and we will continue working on your behalf.
        And, with that, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
        I would like to recognize Mr. McCormick. Dr. McCormick.
        Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Are we doing questions
    right now?
        Mr. Smith. No, no. Just any opening comments or----

           OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RICH McCORMICK

        Mr. McCormick. I appreciate you all being here. This is an
    extremely important topic. I recently got back from Bangladesh,
    the Cox's Bazar area, which obviously has some issues with 1
    million people in about a 13-square-kilometer area where child
    labor and human trafficking and child trafficking is a massive
    problem.
        But we have our own problems here in the United States, so
    I am looking forward to this discussion.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        Mr. Moylan?

            OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MOYLAN

        Mr. Moylan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Wild,
    as well as my fellow members here. And thank you to the panel
    for attending today. I appreciate your time and explaining to
    us a lot of questions that we may have. Being from Guam, I am
    very interested in the INDOPACOM area and will be asking you a
    few questions. I appreciate your support today.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
        Ambassador Cindy Dyer--and thank you again for being here
    and for your service--serves as the United States Ambassador-
    at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and leads
    the Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Human
    Trafficking.
        Ambassador Dyer is a human rights advocate and lawyer with
    three decades of experience working at the local, national, and
    international levels to prevent and respond to human
    trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
        In December 2022, the Senate unanimously confirmed
    Ambassador Dyer to lead the United States' global engagement in
    combating human trafficking, and they made a very wise choice.
    For 12 years, she was the Vice President for Human Rights at
    Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international NGO
    advocating and advancing women's leadership, where she worked
    to assess, improve, and implement policies related to human
    trafficking and gender-based violence.
        Prior to joining Vital Voices, she served in a
    Presidential--as a Presidential appointment, as the Director of
    the Office of Violence Against Women within the U.S. Department
    of Justice, where she served as the liaison between DOJ,
    Federal, State, tribal, and international governments, on
    matters involving violence against women.
        Ambassador Dyer began her career serving as a specialized
    domestic and sexual violence prosecutor in Dallas, Texas, and
    did that for more than 13 years.
        Then we will hear from Jason Tower, who is the Burma
    Country Director at the United States Institute of Peace, and
    also serves as the Director of USIP's program on transnational
    crime and security in Southeast Asia. Mr. Tower joined the USIP
    in 2019 and has over 20 years of experience working on conflict
    and security issues in Asia.
        Since 2020, he has also conducted extensive research and
    published widely on the rising influence of Chinese origin
    crime groups across Southeast Asia, particularly in Myanmar.
        Mr. Tower is one of the first experts to begin documenting
    the sudden rise that forced labor scamming in mainland
    Southeast Asia. Since early 2022, he has played a key role in
    shining light on this poorly understood but rapidly growing
    incident of human trafficking.
        Thank you for being here today, and I yield to Ambassador
    Dyer such time as she may consume.

                        STATEMENT OF CINDY DYER

        Ms. Dyer. Thank you. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild,
    and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for
    the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the 2024
    Trafficking in Persons Report, or TIP Report, which was
    released on June 24, and the Department of State's efforts to
    monitor and combat human trafficking worldwide.
        The TIP Report, which my office produces annually, contains
    narratives detailing global anti-trafficking efforts of 188
    countries and territories, including the United States. It is
    the world's most comprehensive resource of governmental anti-
    trafficking efforts, including our own, and reflects the U.S.
    Government's commitment to global leadership on this key human
    rights, law enforcement, and national security issue.
        This year's TIP Report includes 19 downgrades, with 17
    downgrades from Tier 2 to the Tier 2 Watch List, including Hong
    Kong, Laos, Malta, Rwanda, and Uruguay, and two countries--
    Brunei and Sudan--downgraded to Tier 3.
        There were 22 countries whose rankings improved, including
    three--the Republic of Korea, Poland, and Suriname--who were
    upgraded to Tier 1, and five upgraded from Tier 3. Notable
    upgrades to Tier 2 include Bolivia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Egypt,
    Malaysia, South Africa, and Vietnam.
        The 2024 TIP Report documented several continuing and
    emerging global trends.
        First, we continued to track forced labor within Cuba's
    medical missions across 53 countries, the PRC's Belt and Road
    Initiative, and other PRC-affiliated projects in 32 countries,
    and DPRK workers exploited abroad in 19 countries.
        Second, the Department newly documented that Russian
    authorities, middlemen, private military companies, or Russian-
    affiliated forces used coercion, deception, and, in some cases,
    force to recruit foreign nationals, particularly Central and
    South Asian migrants, as well as citizens from Cuba and Syria,
    as fighters in support of Russia's war of aggression in
    Ukraine.
        And, third, the report highlights the continued growth of
    online scam operations, with centers emerging in new regions
    and victims recruited from an expanding list of source
    countries.
        While the tier rankings are important, the TIP Report is,
    above all, the U.S. Government's principal diplomatic and
    diagnostic tool to guide relations with foreign governments on
    human trafficking, with the narrative and recommendations
    providing a roadmap to improvement, and the rankings a means to
    encourage governments to increase and improve their anti-
    trafficking efforts year after year.
        In addition to narratives outlining steps governments are
    proactively undertaking to combat trafficking, the 2024 TIP
    Report also implicates additional governments in perpetrating
    the crime itself with a policy or pattern of trafficking, now
    including 13 countries, with Belarus added back to the list and
    Sudan newly added alongside 11 countries that have remained on
    the list, including Cuba, DPRK, PRC, and Russia.
        This year's TIP Report introduction examines the role of
    digital technology in the fight against human trafficking. In
    particular, it highlights how traffickers use digital
    technology in perpetuating and facilitating human trafficking,
    but also how digital technology can be used effectively by the
    anti-trafficking community to monitor and combat this heinous
    crime.
        One example of the nexus of human trafficking and digital
    technology is the phenomenon of online scam operations, often
    run by local PRC national-operated crime syndicates. These scam
    centers have been predominantly located in Southeast Asia,
    primarily in Burma, Cambodia, and Laos.
        The 2024 TIP Report documents the expansion of online scam
    operations from Southeast Asia to countries in the Western
    Hemisphere, Europe, Africa, and the Gulf, ensnaring victims
    from more than 60 countries.
        But digital technology can also contribute to the solution
    as well. For example, digital technology can be used to
    disseminate information to help prevent trafficking and assist
    victims. It can also empower law enforcement to uncover a
    digital trail, helping bring perpetrators to justice.
        Addressing human trafficking in today's world requires an
    understanding and use of digital technology to uncover evidence
    of trafficking, protect victims, prosecute perpetrators, and,
    ideally, prevent this crime. These efforts will require
    governments, law enforcement, technology companies, and civil
    society to work together to develop and utilize innovative
    technologies and approaches to address today's and tomorrow's
    challenges.
        The introduction to this year's TIP Report also addresses
    other areas of interest, including Cuba's coercive labor-export
    program, in which tens of thousands of workers, the majority of
    whom are medical professionals, are sent around the world, but
    often have their wages taken by the Cuban government and are
    not free to leave the program.
        Other topics of special interest include forced marriage,
    trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal, the
    intersection between trafficking and persons with disabilities,
    and the importance of worker empowerment as a tool in combating
    labor trafficking.
        The TIP office remains committed to listening and centering
    the voices of those with lived experience of human trafficking.
    Partnering with survivors in meaningful ways, from drafting
    sections of this year's TIP Report introduction to advising us
    on our programming, is critical to establishing effective
    victim-centered, trauma-informed, and culturally competent
    anti-trafficking policies and strategies that address
    prevention, protection, and prosecution. Survivor input is a
    central tenet of the Federal Government's approach to combating
    human trafficking.
        As a movement, we must engage survivors early and often in
    the development of our policies and programs. Allow me to share
    a few recent examples of State Department survivor engagement.
        This year we were honored to have members of the U.S.
    Advisory Council on Human Trafficking join the U.S. delegation
    at meetings of the Organization of American States and at the
    Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, delivering
    remarks on the importance of survivor leadership in anti-
    trafficking work and other topics, such as prevention
    strategies.
        A Council member again joined the Cabinet officials and
    other leaders from across the government in the February
    meeting of the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor
    and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
        The TIP office has increased funding for locally based and
    survivor-led initiatives through its foreign assistance
    programming. Earlier this year we invited organizations to
    submit applications to provide technical assistance to foreign
    governments, civil society organizations, and public
    international organizations to establish survivor leadership
    and partnership structures around the world.
        While modest in size, our foreign assistance programs,
    which include bilateral and regional initiatives, Child
    Protection Compact partnerships, and our research-driven,
    evidence-based Program to End Modern Slavery projects, punch
    far above their weight in terms of reach and impact. Our multi-
    year, phased approached means that as of the start of this year
    we have more than 100 bilateral and regional projects in 84
    countries totaling over $240 million.
        On the same day we launched the TIP Report, we also put out
    a solicitation for proposals to address recommendations in the
    report. This includes potential new programming touching
    priority issues in every region of the world; for example,
    potential projects focused on online scam operations and
    reducing the reliance on victim testimony in criminal justice
    proceedings in the Western Hemisphere as well as addressing
    human trafficking in the Belt and Road Initiative.
        We are also working to establish Child Protection Compact
    partnerships with several governments. And earlier this year we
    launched the Partnership to Prevent Trafficking in Persons with
    the government of Zambia. This P2P program builds on the
    partnership model of the CPC program but expands the anti-
    trafficking efforts to focus on adults as well as children.
        As long as there is a profit motive to exploit other human
    beings for gain trafficking is at risk of existing. But working
    together, whether across the aisle or across the ocean, we can
    work to end this abhorrent practice.
        So, again, thank you for all of your support and especially
    Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild, and Representatives
    Salazar, Amata, and Manning, as well as House Foreign Affairs
    Committee Chairman McCaul, for shepherding the Frederick
    Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection
    Reauthorization Act of 2023 through the House.
        I very much hope to see passage of a Trafficking Victims
    Protection Act reauthorization this Congress.
        Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Dyer follows:]

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        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ambassador, for your
    testimony and leadership.
        I would like to now turn to Mr. Tower.

                        STATEMENT OF JASON TOWER

        Mr. Tower. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild,
    distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
    invitation to be here to speak to the growing threat that
    forced labor scamming represents to the United States and to
    global security.
        The United States Institute of Peace is an independent,
    non-partisan institute established by the U.S. Congress that
    works internationally on the prevention and mitigation of
    violent conflict and to support U.S. national security
    interests overseas.
        I will be speaking today to the findings of a new USIP
    senior study group report that was published in May 2024 titled
    Transnational Crime in Southeast Asia: A Growing Threat to
    Global Peace and Security, as well as to ongoing research
    undertaken by USIP on issues related to forced labor scamming
    and the role that especially Chinese origin crime groups play
    in this new form of crime.
        Since 2022, a new form of highly sophisticated online
    scamming known as pig butchering has emerged as a growing
    threat to U.S. national and global security, and I would say at
    this point that we really face a global security crisis as a
    result of this new form of criminality. Pig butchering involves
    establishing a relationship of trust with a target over an
    online platform, often this being a romantic relationship
    through which the perpetrator asserts psychological control
    over the victim, and ultimately the victim is compelled into
    investing everything that she or he owns into a fraudulent
    online cryptocurrency platform.
        The perpetrator then disappears with the funds, and in most
    cases around the world victims are not only unable to recover
    their worldly possessions, many of them are often left deeply
    depressed, and we are also seeing growing instances of suicide
    among those who have been impacted by these scams.
        This form of scamming is being perpetrated by transnational
    organized crime groups from the People's Republic of China
    based in Southeast Asia, where they have relocated over the
    past two decades and where they have established a web of elite
    influence, and in some instances have even taken over control
    of territories, establishing criminal zones from which they can
    engage in criminal activity in impunity.
        These PRC origin crime groups have set up thousands of
    compounds to house these pig butchering scams across the
    region, and they are presently spanning out of the Southeast
    Asia region into other parts of the world, notably into Dubai
    and into Africa.
        The U.S. lost over $3.5 billion U.S. to these scams
    perpetrated by the Chinese origin crime groups out of Southeast
    Asia in 2023, and that is only the amount that has been
    reported, noting that the majority of the cases go unreported.
        Globally, USIP found that these criminal groups steal over
    $63 billion U.S. per year from people in more than 100
    different countries. They have powered these scams using forced
    labor, tricking hundreds of thousands of people into cyber
    slavery through online recruitment scams, another form of
    scamming, which involves enticing victims with the promise of
    high-paying jobs, only to traffic them into forced labor
    conditions where they are subjected to torture, often
    threatened to be sold into slavery in other compounds if they
    do not successfully scam or meet very aggressive targets by the
    scam syndicate operators.
        Nationals of 66 countries, including the United States,
    have been trafficked or otherwise tricked into these scam
    compounds. This is happening on an industrial scale in three
    countries--Myanmar, Cambodia, and in Laos--but is also found in
    the Philippines, and again it is spreading further around the
    world with evidence of these scam syndicates having been found
    in several difficult jurisdictions.
        The scams depend on the criminal actors maintaining free
    and open access to a full range of social media platforms and
    recruitment websites. So many of the victims, both of the
    scams, the pig butchering scams, as well as human trafficking
    are targeted over common platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp,
    WeChat, TikTok, or LinkedIn.
        These criminal groups also maintain deep ties in mainland
    China, with much of the infrastructure that houses these scam
    syndicates today actually being built by Chinese state-owned
    enterprises, which accepted lucrative contracts from the
    Chinese crime groups to build the infrastructure where these
    victims of human trafficking and forced labor scamming are now
    held.
        The criminal syndicates have also built deep relationships
    in almost every country in Southeast Asia where they tap into
    key cross-border resources needed to fuel the scam centers.
    This includes using countries such as Thailand and Vietnam as
    transit countries for victims of human trafficking, using
    Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia to launder funds and
    to develop new financial tools and cryptocurrency products that
    are used in the scams, as well as really targeting every
    country in the Southeast Asia region with forced labor
    scamming.
        And we are seeing that actually the region and the
    countries of ASEAN are some of the hardest hit countries, both
    in terms of losses to the scams as well as trafficking victims
    into scam centers.
        This activity now represents a direct threat to U.S.
    interests at home and abroad. According to U.S. authorities,
    Americans are now targeted more than any other group in the
    world by these scams. This is being accelerated by an
    aggressive crackdown that the Chinese government has undertaken
    since 2022 on scams that are targeting Chinese nationals.
        The result is that the Chinese origin crime syndicates are
    adapting. China reported a 30 percent decrease in these scams
    over the past 8 months, while the U.S. reports unprecedented
    losses as many of the criminal syndicates have pivoted to
    targeting more Americans and targeting more of a global
    population.
        These trends also undermine years of U.S. investments in
    countering human trafficking. For the first time, you are
    seeing countries like Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos become
    destination countries of human trafficking. And according to a
    recent report by INTERPOL, anyone anywhere can now become a
    victim of trafficking simply by applying for a job online.
        Another threat to the U.S. stems from China's response to
    these crimes. With many countries becoming more desperate to
    find a solution, China is leveraging this issue to strengthen
    the influence of its police and its authoritarian form of
    policing around the globe, enhancing also its security
    influence, which threatens U.S. investments in democracy,
    governance, and human rights.
        Sadly, the response to this phenomenon to present is
    limited, ad hoc, and uncoordinated. Awareness of the pig
    butchering scams in the U.S. and many other countries around
    the world remains low. Law enforcement is not tooled with the
    technologies and skills needed to trace and seize especially
    cryptocurrency. That is the main form of currency stolen by
    these scams.
        Social media companies are not held accountable when their
    platforms are used to traffic victims or to steal billions of
    dollars from unsuspecting victims. Resources for victim
    response are also limited given the new patterns in victims of
    human trafficking and the traditional organizations that are
    responding not being tooled with resources needed to support
    those victims.
        When it comes to human trafficking into the compounds,
    efforts are also very ad hoc. Recent cases of victims from
    Morocco and Uganda that were trafficked into Myanmar required
    that senior officials from those countries be sent out to the
    region to engage in weeks of negotiations with criminals and
    armed groups in Myanmar controlling these compounds with many
    of the victims being injured or even killed trying to get out.
        In other cases, families have paid large ransoms to extract
    their relatives that have been trapped in these centers, with
    there being instances of people paying up to $100,000 to
    retrieve their relatives from the scam centers.
        Others have been treated as criminals rather than victims
    of trafficking when being brought out, and this is happening
    especially in the People's Republic of China, but then also
    across the region more broadly.
        In our USIP senior study group report on these issues, we
    identify this as a growing threat to global peace and security,
    and we urge that the U.S. considers a whole-of-government
    response to this phenomenon of forced labor scamming.
    Potentially this could be led by the National Security Council,
    which could establish an interagency task force to steer this
    effort both at home and abroad, as well as to assert U.S.
    leadership on this issue internationally.
        The report also looks at other options, including advancing
    much more robust international cooperation, to systematically
    constrain the criminal networks that are behind these scams.
    This may require leveraging sanctions or other punitive
    measures to target the malign actors that are behind these
    scams, including elites in countries that continue to provide
    criminal actors with protection in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos,
    in particular.
        The report also looks to increase investments in the
    gathering and sharing of information on all aspects of the
    forced labor scamming industry, and in the building of the
    capacity of law enforcement and regulatory agencies to recover
    funds, particularly by enhancing capacities to trace
    cryptocurrencies.
        It also suggests engaging in a nationwide public awareness-
    raising program to protect U.S. citizens and also that the U.S.
    support similar awareness-raising programs internationally.
        Other recommendations include investments in prevention of
    new forms of technology-fueled human trafficking focusing
    specifically on mobilizing active involvement of the private
    sector in reversing some of these trends in the social media
    space.
        And, last, we call to hold the PRC accountable given that
    it was in fact the People's Republic of China that played a
    significant role in enabling this current crisis, look at
    demanding that China share intelligence on these issues, and
    take decisive action to prevent Chinese origin crime groups
    from harming the United States, in maybe a similar manner as to
    what we have done around the Fentanyl crisis.
        Thank you for inviting me to testify, and I look forward to
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Tower follows:]

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        Mr. Smith. Mr. Tower, thank you very much for highlighting
    a seriously underappreciated and unacknowledged problem that is
    happening as well as your other work. Thank you for that.
        I would like to ask a couple of questions and yield to my
    colleagues. I have more questions I would like to pose.
        I would like to start off with the whole issue, remember,
    last time, Ambassador Dyer, I asked about the unaccompanied
    minors, the 85,000. That was the generally accepted number of
    those coming across our border who we had lost contact with,
    did not know--I mean, I reached out to Homeland Security, as
    you recommended, and we still don't know what happened to those
    kids. And that number could be far in excess of that now. We
    don't know. It probably is. And HHS as well, but Homeland
    Security is what you had recommended. We reached out to both.
        And I am wondering, you know, what can be done? Are we
    trying to track those kids, find out where they are? I mean, I
    am a great advocate of adoption, and I know how important home
    studies are and how important it is to vet those who are going
    to receive a child and make that child part of their home.
        Well, when the conveyance of that child is occurring en
    masse, and that is what has been happening, those kinds of very
    high bar standards are not even close to being fulfilled. So it
    would be easy for a scammer to get their hands on a kid to
    sexually exploit and/or labor exploitation, but we still seem
    to be woefully ill-informed about--what about those kids?
        Ms. Dyer. The plight of the unaccompanied children who
    have--especially those who have been identified working in
    completely inappropriate workplace environments that has been
    reported in the news, it is heartbreaking. I do recall your
    interest and your passion for this subject, and I am happy to
    report what we have done most recently.
        In particular, the State Department works closely with our
    colleagues at DHS and HHS who share responsibility for
    processing unaccompanied children and caring for them, placing
    them, and discharging them hopefully into loving and
    appropriate homes.
        We know that the increase in the reports of child labor
    violations, especially as we spoke about of migrant children,
    is a--it is terrible in itself, and it is a risk factor for
    becoming a risk of trafficking persons.
        This is something that actually we covered fairly
    significantly in the U.S. narrative of this year's Trafficking
    in Persons Report. HHS is vetting and assessing sponsors, and
    they have in fact expanded their post-release services, and
    they are committed to expanding those post-release services to
    all of the children that have been placed with a sponsor.
        In particular, the Trafficking in Persons Report, as we
    do--as we address this issue globally, we are specifically
    recommending increased funding so that all children have legal
    representation. Having access to legal counsel will provide
    specific security and safety for them.
        Additionally, we--and I think this is something that you
    had brought up--are encouraging and recommending increased in-
    person wellness checks. As we know, the children that you have
    spoken about were individuals. They were with a sponsor that
    did not respond to a phone call. And so our Trafficking in
    Persons Report is, therefore, recommending then in-person
    wellness checks for individuals that don't receive--that don't
    respond to a phone call.
        Mr. Smith. If I can interrupt, is that being done now?
        Ms. Dyer. That is recommended in the report, and I do know
    that----
        Mr. Smith. That doesn't take legislation. That just takes
    executive action. Why won't they do it?
        Ms. Dyer. What we know for sure is that HHS has already
    expanded the post-relief services, and they are seeking funding
    to expand them to all children. I think more specificity--I
    might need to refer to my colleagues at HHS, but I do know that
    they have--and this was reported in the Trafficking in Persons
    Report as a positive development--there was a notable expansion
    of services, specifically post-release services, to children.
        Mr. Smith. Has there been any accountability for the
    85,000? Have any been discovered to have been exploited? Have
    they been brought to a safe haven of some kind, whether it be
    within a family or some government institution?
        Ms. Dyer. I think----
        Mr. Smith. What about those kids?
        Ms. Dyer. I think that the specific circumstances of the
    individual children would be something that maybe we would have
    to refer to my colleagues at HHS. I don't have access to the
    specific identifying information.
        Mr. Smith. Could you make that inquiry? I mean, you are the
    top TIP person, and----
        Ms. Dyer. Yes. And as you know----
        Mr. Smith [continuing]. We believe in our own neighborhoods
    these kids are being horribly mistreated. We don't know. They
    are probably very afraid to come forward. And, you know, in the
    Fiscal Year 2023 amount of 15 million, that was reduced. It was
    18 million in 2022, so it looks like there is even less money
    available for this.
        So, but I don't think it is a matter of money. I think it
    is a matter of prioritization and saying if that were my child,
    heaven and earth would be moved before I would say, oh, that
    person is OK, when you have any kind of doubt whatsoever,
    again, using the model, if I could, of adoption. I mean, we do
    vigorous, vigorous vetting with adoption. Even there there is
    problems, but they are mitigated because of that vetting
    process.
        So if you could get back to us with that, it would be
    extraordinarily helpful.
        Ms. Dyer. Yes. As you know, we work closely through the
    senior policy operating group. And in fact some of these
    improvements that were noted in the TIP Report were discussed
    in those meetings, and we are happy to followup on that.
        Mr. Smith. OK. Thank you. You know, you mentioned the
    senior policy operating group. COVID taught us that many of
    these purveyors of harm to children quickly during COVID-19
    went to using the internet and using it very effectively to
    recruit, groom, and ECPAT did one report after another and
    exposed.
        And we also, you know, like a chorus called out for more
    protection for these kids. And I am just wondering, what do you
    think needs to be done to further protect kids from that kind
    of online exploitation where they are groomed? I mean, we saw
    in one instance there was a grooming that took place within an
    hour. You know, the person befriended this vulnerable young
    girl, and next thing you know she was being exploited. It
    equally goes for the boys, too, where these people are masters
    and very masterful at exploiting people. What are we doing on
    that front?
        Ms. Dyer. As the Trafficking in Persons Report has noted,
    and as you have said, we have definitely seen an increase in
    online sexual exploitation of children, sex trafficking of
    children, and child sexual abuse material in both the U.S. and
    other countries post-COVID, and we absolutely acknowledge that
    social media can be used to lure kids.
        This is one of the reasons that the TIP Report highlighted
    the introduction focusing on technology and its impact on
    trafficking and how it can be used for good and also for bad.
        Specific to your questions, we recommend that parents,
    government, tech companies, and media partner. We believe that
    there should be a prioritization and--on education, so that
    children have online safety tools. Additionally, if kids are
    online, we are suggesting and promoting that--perhaps
    developing and utilizing online tools and meet them where they
    are.
        We also know that technology can be used for good. It can
    help identify victims. It can help victims self-report, and it
    can help victims access service and know about service. There
    are a couple of examples of where technology has been used for
    good that I will flag.
        One is the Trafficking in Persons office has supported the
    International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who
    are using a multilingual virtual training to provide much
    needed training on how to use technology in many different
    languages to thousands of criminal justice professionals.
        I will also highlight the very successful Child Protection
    Compact that was focused on Philippines and specifically on
    online sexual exploitation, which has seen a measurable
    decrease in that crime. So I think that this is an opportunity
    for us to be aware of how it can be dangerous, but also utilize
    how it can be effective.
        And there are a couple of other notes about this that are
    noted in the introduction, including IOM has a counter-
    trafficking data collaborative, which makes data more
    available. And one other one which I think is a good example of
    companies doing good, IBM had a--has a traffic analysis hub
    which uses AI data sets to help us better respond to this
    problem.
        I appreciate your interest, and that was exactly why we had
    the technology focus in our introduction this year.
        Mr. Smith. I will just ask two others, and then in the
    second round I have some additional questions, because out of
    deference to my good friend and colleagues, and I ask them to
    take however much time they would like as well.
        With Cuba, you did mention and we do know that Cuba is a
    situation where they forcibly send healthcare workers to other
    countries, and I am wondering what those recipient countries
    are doing to ensure that they are not receiving a forced
    laborer coming to their shores.
        I remember years ago I had a hearing in 2012 with Dr. Oscar
    Biscet, who was an OB/GYN who was horribly mistreated by Fidel
    Castro, put in solitary prison. He was an OB/GYN, like I said,
    and he was just an amazing man. He actually came to testify not
    here, but on the island of Cuba, through a clandestine means.
    That is how brave this man is. And he talked about that and
    just how foolish the Western world is vis-a-vis Cuba in buying
    into these false narratives.
        And I will give the example myself. I nominated--I was one
    of many, but I led the effort in the Congress to have Liu
    Xiaobo named as the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and he got it. So
    I was there at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, dinner with some
    of the Nobel Peace Prize members of the Parliament that do the
    actual selection, so I asked them all about Cuba. And they
    said, ``Oh, they have a great health system, and they export
    doctors.''
        And I said, ``Do you know those doctors go under duress?''
    And that is putting it mildly, that they do not go voluntarily.
    They are forced. It is not like some benign, you know,
    humanitarian initiative on the part of the Cuban government. It
    is a way of promoting their policies at the expense of these
    men and women who are forced into that service.
        I was amazed that they were so ill-informed about that. So,
    you know, what are these other countries doing to say, if you
    are going to send us doctors, LPNs, nurses, and the like, we
    want to make sure they are coming in an absolute voluntary
    fashion.
        Second, on Vietnam, I have chaired dozens of hearings on
    Vietnam, gone there many times. I remember when CPC was coming
    up a country of particular concern, and the Bush
    administration, in order to curry favor with them to get a
    trade deal, lifted the country of particular concern even
    though the policies were egregious when it came to religious
    freedom, wiped it all out, gave it to them, and they said the
    day that they got the trade agreement that there will be no
    linkage whatsoever to human rights, including religious
    freedom.
        I couldn't believe how brazen they were and how
    unappreciative they were to the kowtowing by George W. Bush,
    which he did, and I argued with them incessantly. I have been
    trying ever since to get that back.
        There is a parallel here, in my humble opinion, with
    trafficking. Because we wanted to curry favor with the
    Vietnamese government vis-a-vis China, for example, as maybe
    like a new China card going back to the old Soviet Union
    mentality, we are willing to overlook very serious human rights
    abuses against journalists, on religious freedom, and torture,
    and trafficking.
        And I have been arguing--I have a bill in right now called
    the Vietnam Human Rights Act. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat, is the
    primary co-sponsor. We really believe it is a bi-partisan
    effort. It has passed three times, gone over to the Senate, and
    holds get put on it because, you know, we are not going to tell
    them what to do on human rights. It is like if they have a good
    human rights policy, we want to applaud them, not hold them to
    account.
        I can't figure out why Vietnam is not a Tier 3 country. I
    follow it very closely. Forced labor is a problem. Sex
    trafficking is always a problem, but forced labor is a problem.
    And even the first prosecution under my law, the Trafficking
    Victims Protection Act of 2000, was against the Vietnamese
    government of all things. They never paid up. They never did
    anything. They just looked the other way and hoisted their
    finger at us in a very disrespectful way.
        So I can't get, how did we--how did they get off or how are
    they not on Tier 3? Those are the two questions.
        Ms. Dyer. I will answer them in reverse order, sir. With
    regard to Vietnam, please know that our staff works all year--I
    know that the TIP Report gets a lot of flurry of attention in
    June, but please know that our staff is working all year long
    to obtain as much information about countries as we can.
        We are working here in D.C. but also our staff in the
    embassies around the world, and we are working to gather
    information from not only governments but also all sources
    available, including NGO's, international organization, open
    sources, and media, and then objectively assessing the
    information that we obtain against the minimum standards in the
    TVPA, and then specifically comparing that information to the
    year before.
        As you very well know, Vietnam was in a situation where
    they could not stay on the Tier 2 Watch List. They had to go up
    or down this year. Our choice was putting them up to Tier 2 or
    down to Tier 3. When we looked at the information that we
    obtained from every different source throughout the entire year
    and compared it to how Vietnam did last year, they had improved
    from how they did last year.
        Specifically, we noted an increase in investigations,
    prosecutions, and convictions. But, as we know, prosecution
    alone is not what we look at. We also saw an increase in victim
    identification and assistance to those victims. So the
    protection measure had increased.
        Specifically, of particular note, is the online scam
    operations. Vietnam repatriated more than 4,000 victims from
    online scam operations, and they also consulted with NGO's and
    international organizations on their amended legislation. Now,
    they absolutely have a big improvement that they need to do,
    and this was very critically pointed out in the narrative,
    specifically regarding concerns about complicity.
        We noted that they closed the investigation and reinstated
    a person who was allegedly complicit in very harmful practices.
    Additionally, we also acknowledged and called out that they did
    not consistently screen and identify victims who were rescued,
    so to speak, from those online scam operations.
        But when we looked at the data that we obtained this year
    and compared it to last year, as required by the TVPA, it was
    more appropriate to move them up than down when comparing those
    2 years.
        I would love to turn my attention now to the first question
    that you asked me regarding Cuba, and I have to say that I had
    a similar situation as what you described. I had the benefit of
    meeting with several survivors of--individuals specifically
    from Cuba's medical missions, and I met directly with these
    amazing heroes.
        Some of them had left that mission years before. Some of
    them had left only 1 or 2 years. So we had a huge age span, and
    it was really that meeting with them that inspired us to have a
    special interest box on Cuba and to more vehemently call this
    out and specifically State that the government of Cuba does
    profit from forced labor in their export program. It is in fact
    a significant revenue source.
        Obviously, as you well know, we have been raising these
    concerns since 2010, and it has been a policy and pattern
    country for 5 years. But what we have done this year is take
    that meeting with participants of this program and worked with
    them to develop survivor-recommended suggestions and
    recommendations for countries.
        For countries who are going to participate in this program
    despite the severe concerns about forced labor, there are
    things that these survivors want them to do, and so we have
    taken that survivor-led recommendation list and shared it with
    every country that we know of who participates in that program.
        I will give you an example of some of the information that
    is included in there, which means investigating the conditions
    regularly of these medical professionals, auditing any numbers
    or reports that the Cuban medical professionals may give you,
    contracting directly with the doctors rather than with the
    government of Cuba, making your agreement public, which is
    currently not done.
        And then the final thing that I will say, just to make sure
    that we were using every opportunity that we had, I spoke
    personally with the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of
    Slavery, Obokata, and the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in
    Persons, Mullally, so that we are organizing our efforts and
    being--you know, coalescing and really presenting a united
    front to address this terrible abuse.
        Thank you so much for asking me about it.
        Mr. Smith. I would just point out that Vietnam, there was a
    June 24th Reuters story----
        Ms. Dyer. Yes.
        Mr. Smith [continuing]. And I am sure you saw it, and the
    questions are being raised about Hanoi's accuracy, honesty, in
    conveying information to us. And, you know, when you have a
    government that is known for abuse in a myriad of areas, you
    know, there needs to be a sense of skepticism, healthy
    skepticism, to accept their numbers. And human rights groups
    have raised that with you, and I hope you take that back.
        And to compare it to last time, last time they should have
    been Tier 3. You know, they should have been Tier 3 for a
    number of times because they are--and I worry that geopolitical
    considerations are crowding out the concern for human rights,
    and trafficking in particular, because of this other part of
    our geopolitical strategy for that area vis-a-vis China.
        So I do thank you for your answer, but if you could just
    keep that in mind.
        And Dr. Thang is here, I just wanted to point out, he is
    with Boat People SOS, that has been a great friend and advocate
    for the people of Vietnam. And just give an example--I am sorry
    to my colleagues, going on. But back when--during the Clinton
    administration they wanted to forcibly repatriate people who
    were part of the comprehensive plan of action, there were
    numbers of people deployed all over Asia, including--and I went
    to different refugee sites, including High Island and Hong
    Kong--and we were forcibly sending people back saying they are
    not refugees. And he came forward, ``he'' being Dr. Thang, with
    credible, actionable, information that they were--that there
    was a corruption rampant in the selection process.
        I did an amendment on the floor that passed that ensured
    that we didn't--that we didn't have somebody else contracted
    out, and 20,000 people came over. But I had four hearings on
    that, and the Administration was adamant that, no, these aren't
    refugees.
        They have repatriation monitors that are waiting. When they
    come to Vietnam, no re-education camp for them. Instead, they
    will--they will be monitored. So I had a hearing with the
    monitor, one of them. There are only seven. And I said, ``Who
    accompanies you when you are in that village or town, or
    whatever it might be?''
        And he said, ``Well, the Secret Police.''
        So do you think anybody is going to say, ``Oh, by the way,
    I am in for a horrible time here'' when sitting right next to
    him is somebody from the Secret Police? Ain't going to happen.
        So, you know, Hanoi has a horrible reputation for
    dishonesty.
        I would like to now yield to Dr. McCormick.
        Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
    all being here today. This is an incredibly important topic,
    one of dire consequences for those people who are involved.
        I think we're all aware of it and we all care very much so.
    So, I would never accuse anybody of anything other than that. I
    think everybody here really cares. And, that's why we're here.
        With that said, I'd also like to take an opportunity to
    recognize Governor Kemp in Georgia and First Lady Marty, for
    their effort to clean up what we believe is a hub for child
    trafficking in Atlanta, which we really tried to tackle and
    take it very seriously in our home State.
        I think it's interesting, Ms. Ambassador, that we're
    currently in the Tier One Category, I believe, correct?
        Ms. Dyer. Yes, sir.
        Mr. McCormick. Have we ever not been in Tier One?
        Ms. Dyer. We have not.
        Mr. McCormick. OK. And, I think the Tier Two Category, I'm
    just going to read off the list of what's defined as, as far as
    what we, because we're researching what defines each category.
        Tier Two is countries whose governments do not fully meet
    the Trafficking Victim's Protection Act minimum standards, but
    are making significant efforts to bring themselves into
    compliance with those standards.
        And, for which the estimated number of victims of severe
    forms of trafficking is very significant or significantly
    increasing and their country is not taking proportional
    concrete actions.
        One thing that disturbs me, and I mentioned before that I
    had just come back from Bangladesh and Cox's Bazar, where they
    have a million people there. And they're in Tier Two.
        And, I'm sure Malaysia is even worse. I didn't see them, or
    sorry, Myanmar. I didn't even see them on the list. But, I'm
    sure they're not doing well.
        You have a million people, but each person has strict
    accountability. We can really keep track of every single person
    there.
        Why? Because they have to subsist on $8.00 per person, per
    month. So, you track that pretty, pretty incredibly strictly,
    right? So, we have a good accountability of the people.
        Here in the United States, we lack the same accountability.
    One thing that disturbs me greatly is we have a southern border
    where we had at least ten million people come across in the
    last few years.
        Of that, at least in the 1921 and 1922 era, we had 85
    thousand children come across, which a significant portion of
    them were handed over to people we have no idea who they are in
    relationship to the children. We stopped the DNA testing.
        We stopped DNA testing which we knew at least around 9
    percent were unrelated genetically. So then, we stopped it for
    some reason, knowing that that's a problem, knowing that the
    coyotes and traffickers of children would use that against
    those children, we stopped testing people genetically.
        Single parents coming across who could be kidnaping their
    children from the other parent, we don't do anything about
    that. We have up to 70 percent of all women being sexually
    exploited as they come across the southern border.
        And, we have two million that got away. We have no idea
    anything about them, including the children that get away that
    haven't even been addressed.
        So, how is it that the United States is doing a good job
    and Bangladesh is doing a bad job in comparison? Because it
    seems a bit hypocritical to me.
        Ms. Dyer. Thank you. And, you actually bring up a really
    good point that I wanted to take the opportunity to sort of
    clarify.
        The Trafficking in Persons Report compares a government's
    efforts during the reporting period to how that government did
    during the previous reporting period. It doesn't actually
    compare countries to one another.
        The way that it was wisely set up is that we have metrics
    and pieces of data that we compare for this reporting period,
    versus how that country did the reporting period before.
        Mr. McCormick. Perfect. So, addressing that, apples to
    apples, the United States to the United States. Before we
    tested people's DNA. Before we had a secure border.
        Before people weren't coming over and unaccounted for.
    Before we didn't have 85 thousand children coming across with
    no accountability.
        How are we not doing worse in our Tier comparison to the
    previous years? That's my question.
        Ms. Dyer. In this reporting period, I'll tell you some of
    the specific pieces of data that we did consider in this
    analysis. One is that more money was spent for services.
        Another was that the Administration deployed the most
    agents and officials ever to the border.
        Mr. McCormick. OK. I'm going to stop you right there,
    because I hear this all the time. Money spent. How's that doing
    for schools?
        Money spent. How's that doing for the border? More border
    patrol agents to do what? Process people. And, that's why
    they're not undocumented migrants, they're very well documented
    illegal invaders, just to make a point.
        Ms. Dyer. Allow me to give a different number. We in--we
    had an increase in the number of Federal prosecutions and an
    increase in the number of convictions for both sex trafficking
    and labor trafficking, as compared to the year before.
        Mr. McCormick. Right.
        Ms. Dyer. We also did----
        Mr. McCormick. How many by numeric standards did you have
    an increase in? How many more prosecutions numerically?
        Ms. Dyer. I do not have that figure in front of me. But,
    I'm happy to followup with you.
        Mr. McCormick. OK. So, I'm just going to make another
    point. When you have ten million people coming across the
    border, you have no genetic testing, you know that people are
    being sexually exploited, you don't know which children belong
    to who, I think that's a severe lack of accountability.
        I think it's hypocritical. And, I think we need to stop
    with the cooking of the books. We need to have accountability.
    We should go back to genetic testing.
        We should not be encouraging people to come across the
    border mass by coyotes who basically exploit child trafficking,
    human trafficking, illegal drug trafficking. This is a
    catastrophe of the southern border that is absolutely
    undeniably affecting children in the most negative and
    egregious ways.
        We should be ashamed of ourselves. And, I just, I don't
    think you're understanding my point when I'm saying, we are not
    doing our job.
        As a Tier One nation who is supposed to be leading the way,
    the United States with all the technologies, all the things
    that we say we stand for, not getting children the right
    representation when it comes to accountability, and making sure
    they are not raped and trafficked and taken away from their
    families, because we just don't know. And, that's the truth.
        And, that's what I want to leave you with. Because, I
    think, unless you can explain how we have better accountability
    than we did 4 years ago, I just don't think it's worth the
    conversation until we can actually get back to that point.
        Ms. Dyer. I think that one of the things is that the
    President independently issued a proclamation which suspended
    irregular entry until the numbers of unlawful crossings had
    dropped. And, he did this independently.
        And, that is something that happened during this part
    reporting period, which was an improvement from the year
    before.
        Mr. McCormick. So, he suspended what?
        Ms. Dyer. He suspended all irregular entries.
        Mr. McCormick. So, there's no--what is irregular versus a
    regular entry?
        Ms. Dyer. The border, in an effort to have a safe and
    humane and protected border, there is a requirement that if you
    want to present for seeking asylum or for some other reason,
    you have to utilize the CBP One app, and use it at a particular
    entry.
        And, they are funneling in an effort to do really what
    you're saying, so that you have a better idea of who is coming
    in, so that people are not coming in without us knowing who
    they are. So, there were efforts made.
        But, I will also point out that this is also, we get our
    information about the government efforts not just from what the
    government gives to us, we receive information from civil
    society organizations, NGO service providers,----
        Mr. McCormick. I've been to the border. I've seen it.
        Ms. Dyer. And, these are----
        Mr. McCormick. And, I'm just going to interrupt you for a
    second, because we're kind of out of time and I want to respect
    Mr. Moylan's time.
        But, let's get real. Because they filled out an app,
    because you said the child belongs to me, because you're a
    coyote or you're whomever and you're maybe or maybe not related
    to a child, doesn't give me any confidence that we've improved
    accountability.
        I think it's all talk. It's all paperwork. It can all be
    absolutely cheated on. We have no better accountability, and we
    don't know who these children are with. We don't know if
    they're related to them.
        I think, we've been actually supporting a farce when it
    comes to accountability, and it needs to stop now. And, I'm
    going to end with that. Thank you.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Doctor. Mr. Moylan?
        Mr. Moylan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Dyer, obviously as
    my colleagues and the Chairman has been discussing, these
    transnational criminal organizations, these TCOs are, they
    present big challenges for us, of course.
        And, most countries just can't adapt to it. And, especially
    in the Indo-Pacific area, which is my greatest concern.
        These groups are indifferent to national borders, as stated
    by my colleague here. And, groups like the Yakuza and the
    Chinese Triad, and Southeast Asia criminal and terrorist
    groups, they just exploit international law to do their
    operations. They don't care. They really don't care.
        So, Ms. Dyer, how can we, as the United States, better
    leverage these resources that we have, and coordinate better
    with global partners and our adversaries, if we have to, within
    the Indo-Pacific on these common issues?
        Ms. Dyer. I think that there are a number of things that we
    can do to improve the situation that you have spoken about. One
    is through the information in the Trafficking in Persons
    Report.
        That Report attempts to highlight the challenges and the
    problems that you have laid out. As one example, knowing that
    the PRC is behind some of these transnational organizations, we
    have specifically called out their treatment of Uyghurs and
    other Tibetans, other minorities.
        Additionally, we have highlighted in the Report the
    treatment of PRC nationals in the Belt and Road Initiative.
    And, of course, we have highlighted the online scam
    traffickers. The online scam operation traffickers often have
    links to the PRC.
        But, some of the things that we are doing to address this
    and actually try to create an improvement, is exactly what
    you're talking about, which is, regional cooperation. One of
    the things that I did when I was traveling, in my travels,
    which I heavily focused on the region that was impacted by the
    online scam operations.
        Last year I actually traveled to Thailand, where I had the
    opportunity to meet with Mr. Tower, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia,
    and Singapore. But, in Singapore, I gave the keynote address to
    the ASEAN governments.
        All ASEAN governments were represented. And, I spoke about
    the issue of the online scam operations and the need to have
    greater regional cooperation.
        This is not something that we're going to be able to solve
    in a silo. It is definitely expanding. And, we've got to have
    greater regional cooperation.
        One additional thing, in addition to speaking to that
    group, I have brought this issue up in my bilateral meetings
    and multilateral meetings, including with the Organization for
    Security and Cooperation and the Organization for American
    States.
        But, one thing that I, we also listened to experts. And, we
    try our best to do what they recommend. Experts like Mr. Tower.
    And, I'm going to give you just four examples of things that
    we're doing to specifically address some of the online scam
    operations and these transnational criminal organizations.
        One, in Thailand, we're investing by assisting
    investigators to better utilize technology, so that they can
    actually hold perpetrators accountable. But, also to help with
    regional cooperation.
        In Laos, we are providing services for victims who are
    repatriated, who have come back from these online scam
    operations. And, specifically training immigration officials in
    Laos to try to prevent victims from going and falling prey to
    these operations.
        Another regional effort that we are doing, is focused on
    the Southeast Asia region, and it is focused on creating
    coordination and cooperation between criminal justice
    professionals so that better identification and referral of
    victims.
        And then, the last thing, which is something that I was so
    happy to hear Mr. Tower mention it, we know that if the
    traffickers are using social media platforms and online digital
    technology, then so should we.
        And so, we have a program specifically to raise awareness
    on social media platforms that the traffickers are using to
    fraudulently recruit, to put correct information out there, to
    flag fraudulent ads, to try to use the sources that the
    traffickers are using themselves.
        Because, you're so right, sir, it's going to take all of us
    working together on this issue.
        Mr. Moylan. I appreciate that. And, Mr. Tower, she just
    handed it over to you. But, I have a specific question for you
    by the way.
        So, more likely than not, that we have our national
    instability directly leads to an increase in domestic and
    transnational crime. In relations to Myanmar, Mr. Tower, what
    does the current situation mean for border nations like China,
    as well as the Indo-Pacific at large, for human trafficking and
    other illicit smuggling?
        Mr. Tower. Thank you for the question. I think, it's
    important to recognize that the February 1, 2021, military coup
    perpetrated by the Myanmar Army has been a key factor in
    enabling a lot of this rise in criminal activity that you're
    seeing in Myanmar. But, also really reverberating across the
    region.
        You saw where before the coup the democratically elected
    government, the NLD, was on a trajectory to really crack down
    on some of this criminal activity. So, many of the casino
    cities, which were the precursors to the scam compounds that
    now line Myanmar borders, they were under significant pressure
    from the democratically elected government.
        And, the NLD government also had called out the role that
    Chinese criminal groups were playing, you know, trying to
    advance some of these large-scale criminal enclaves as a part
    of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
        So, they actually pushed back. By August 2020, you saw
    where the PRC actually openly dissociated the BRI from some of
    this criminal activity in response to the NLD's efforts.
        Following the coup, all of that really was undone. And,
    you've seen where in Myanmar, these casino cities have turned
    into some of the largest places in the region where you have
    really criminal actors perpetrating these online scams, using
    forced labor in impunity.
        The China border was completely lined with these scam
    syndicates. The Thai border, you've seen where they continue to
    grow because of the conditions following the coup where the
    Myanmar military has deployed the country's police to, you
    know, coerce the Myanmar people.
        It's really focused all of the country's resources on
    fighting a war against the population. And so, that has played
    to the advantage of the criminal groups in that country.
        And, in fact, the only way in which you've seen a crack
    down on some of this criminal activity, is when, in the
    northern part of the country, some of the ethnic armed
    organizations actually decided to launch an armed operation,
    referred to as Operation 1027.
        This happened up on the China border in October of last
    year. These ethnic armed organizations claim they have two
    goals. One was to eradicate scam centers and the other was to
    eradicate the Myanmar military dictatorship.
        And, they managed to disrupt roughly 300 of these scam
    centers in northern Myanmar. Unfortunately, most of the
    kingpins got away and relocated to the Myanmar-Thai border or
    pivoted to Cambodia or pivoted to Laos.
        And, I think, that that illustrates both the challenges of
    dealing with these issues in Myanmar under the current
    conditions that have been created by the Myanmar military, as
    well as the ability of these criminal actors to pivot between
    different countries.
        So, if you have these sort of bilateral types of
    crackdowns, or you have a crackdown that really only touches on
    compounds in one particular part of the region, they're going
    to end up relocating to other areas.
        Mr. Moylan. I appreciate that. Just a final question for
    Ms. Dyer. So, for my District of Guam, our proximity to
    countries with higher numbers of human trafficking cases
    represents a hidden threat.
        And, with an increase in fentanyl, which we have a big
    increase on Guam, and illegal entries to the U.S. territories
    and bases in the Pacific, these TCOs' influence is just bound
    to follow.
        So, Ms. Dyer, what programs are in place to mitigate
    against Pacific TCO influence before they reach the shores of
    Guam, U.S.A. and the Northern Mariana Islands of the United
    States?
        Ms. Dyer. With regard to the PRC influence, I think, that
    we have a number of things in place that we are using where the
    Department of State participates with the interagency. For
    example, the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force, we have the
    Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
        I think, if your question is pertaining, and there may be
    specific resources or support to the Northern Mariana Islands
    or to Samoa, that would probably come from the Department of
    Justice or the Office for Victims of Crime.
        My organization, as far as our programming money, can only
    go to countries outside of the U.S. And so, we don't have
    programming in your area.
        But, we do have programming in nearby areas. For example,
    the Philippines that have been really successful. And, we do
    have some regional programming that could be of support for you
    and your compatriots.
        Mr. Moylan. Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you, Mr. Tower,
    as well. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my questions. Thank you
    very much.
        Mr. Smith. Okay. Thank you. So good to see you. Just some
    final questions. First, starting with China, I currently, and
    I've done in the past for years, I chair the congressional-
    Executive Chinese Commission. It's bicameral and includes the
    executive branch individuals.
        It's a very robust, very focused on getting to the bottom
    of human rights abuse of all kinds in China. And, we've had
    numerous hearings.
        And, one of them was recently in October. It was a hearing
    on how forced labor on Chinese fishing vessels and in fish
    processing facilities taints America's seafood supply chain.
        Among our witnesses was Ian Urbina, who was, who has done
    some amazing reporting. It was carried by the New Yorker. And,
    I'm sure you know and have read his stories, on China's deep
    sea fishing fleet and its human trafficking violations.
        One of the most shocking things our hearing reviewed, was
    the role of the U.S. Government in subsiding China's egregious
    labor rights abuses, primarily through procurement by DoD and
    also the Department of Agriculture, of tainted seafood.
        On U.S. military bases, in Federal prisons, and via the
    National School Lunch Program, fish tainted by forced labor is
    being bought with U.S. taxpayer dollars. If you ask these
    government procurers why they would do that, they point to
    price.
        There is an exception to the Buy America purchasing policy
    if prices are deemed unreasonable. And, sure enough, when we
    are competing with seafood caught and processed by slave labor,
    you will be underbid every time.
        So, in ostensibly comply with quote, the law, our DoD,
    USDA, and others violate three laws that I can think of,
    Section 301 of the Trade Act, the Uyghur Forced Labor
    Prevention Act, and the Countering America's Adversaries
    Through Sanctions Act, not to mention the letter, if not the
    spirit, of the law, of the Trafficking Victim's Protection Act.
        My question to you, and we wrote, I wrote, and I was joined
    by Senator Merkley, who is my Co-Chair. I am the Chairman he's
    the Co-Chair and we switch every 2 years, with regards to who
    is the lead. I'm the lead in this Congress.
        And, we jointly did a letter to all the agencies, asking
    why aren't you stopping this? Why aren't you applying the law?
        And, we've got crickets back and no response of any
    meaningful fashion. And, I mean, I'm shocked by it. And, I'm
    shocked.
        My question is, what can you do with your office,
    particularly in those interagency meetings, I mean, our supply
    chain should be untainted by, and again, Ian did an amazing job
    at great risk to his investigators over the course of several
    years.
        They had been deployed to these ships who any day might,
    they could have been thrown overboard, doing this reporting.
    And, they found that the abuse was overwhelming to these, and
    it's all forced. They have no choice. And, some of them are
    Uyghurs and others are people from North Korea.
        Will the President consider signing an Executive Order, for
    example, banning the purchase of tainted seafood and applying
    U.S. law?
        Ms. Dyer. Thank you so much for bringing this up. I find
    the plight of fishermen, especially those that are on these
    distant water fishing vessels, to be particularly
    heartbreaking.
        They have, as you know better than anybody, they have often
    no access to fresh drinking water. They are subject to
    transfers at sea. They spend years and years away from land.
    And, it is rife with opportunities for abuse.
        I will, I too, am a big fan of the Outlaw Ocean Project.
    And, have had the opportunity to speak with Ian Urbina and
    learn from his wise counsel.
        I'll tell you a few things that the Trafficking in Persons
    Office is doing to address the forced labor in the fishing
    industry. One is, we do call it out in the Trafficking in
    Persons Report.
        We call, there are several countries that we are
    specifically not only identifying where it is occurring, but
    also making specific recommendations. For example, sometimes we
    are specifically recommending that countries do not allow
    transfers at sea that make those individuals come back so that
    they have an opportunity to seek care if they need it.
        We are also active participants in the Forced Labor
    Enforcement Task Force and in implementing the Uyghur Forced
    Labor Prevention Act. As you know, we have put many new
    entities on that, the UFLPA Entity List.
        And, I am happy to tell you that just earlier, in late
    June, we included a seafood processing company specifically
    from China, recognizing your excellent point that there is
    abuse in the system.
        Many of these individuals are, as you said, Uyghurs. I know
    that, I believe, Ian Urbina has also pointed out the abuse of
    individuals from the DPRK in some of these secret processing
    companies as well.
        So, we are utilizing the law that Congress gave us. And, we
    have seen that it is working. In fact, the UFLPA is causing
    countries, they are afraid of being put on that Entity List.
        It's enough that I've even recommended when I'm engaging
    with multilateral or bilateral folks at the OSCE, I'm saying,
    you better do this, because it's working, and you don't want to
    be a dumping ground for things that we're not going to take.
        We're also, of course, not exclusively using the UFLPA,
    also, of course, the withhold release orders. Thank you for
    mentioning the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which are
    designed to prevent the import of goods made with forced labor.
        I know that this has come up in some of our Forced Labor
    Enforcement Task Forces. There is now training for individuals
    in order to get certified to be an official under the FAR. The
    FAR you have to have training on a regular basis about
    trafficking in persons.
        I also acknowledge that more needs to be done. This is an
    area, it is difficult to regulate the open seas. We are really
    working on coming up with a concise list of recommendations to
    give to countries, the way that we have done like those that
    are accepting individuals for the Cuban medical missions.
        We need to do a better job. We are certainly calling it
    out. But, it is a challenge to regulate the open seas. And, we
    are grateful for the tools that Congress has given us and
    certainly trying to use all that we have.
        Mr. Smith. You know, just on the Uyghur Force Labor Act,
    I'm one of the four coauthors of it, totally bipartisan. I've
    done a number of oversight hearings and we're finding that we
    have flaws in the very bill that we did.
        One of them is the de minimus amount of $800, where things
    coming out of Xinjiang, everything is under $800. And, it's
    not. But, there's no real effective capabilities.
        So, we're looking at lowering or getting rid of that very
    de minimus standard. Which again, you learn as you write laws.
        The other point that I'd like to make, with regards to
    fishing, and one of the heros recognized by TIP, has pointed
    out amendments to the Thai Fisheries Law. STF issued an open
    letter on June 25, just a few weeks ago, and it basically talks
    about, it's, you know, they say how they want to work with the
    Thai government, but they also want to be very clear, because
    some of the recommendations that are coming forward by the Thai
    government look like they're going to be counter to protecting
    workers' rights.
        Allowing for the return of at-sea transhipments of catch
    and at-sea crew transfers. Allowing children under the age of
    18 to work on these ships, and there's a whole list. I'm sure
    you're familiar with it.
        But, I'm wondering, you know, what the response might have
    been from the Thai government on this, especially since when
    the TIP stars brought this out and has spoken about it so
    strongly.
        Ms. Dyer. I had an opportunity to meet that hero when I was
    traveling this past September. And, the woman I met was just
    truly inspiring.
        I think that I am tracking with your question. We know that
    Thailand had actually put into place some of the strict, some
    more strict laws as the result of sort of outrage and scrutiny
    that they had.
        We understand that they are concerned that their laws are
    stricter and therefore, they are, it's impeding their business.
    And, so, we understand from our NGO colleagues and CSO
    colleagues that there is a consideration of rolling back some
    of the restrictions that they had put into place.
        I can, ironically I actually met with the new U.S., the new
    Ambassador from Thailand to the U.S. and brought up this very
    issue in our bilateral engagements and just flagged it for him.
    Because I know that it is of top of mind for our civil society
    organizations and certainly something.
        These types of changes and laws are certainly things that
    we track and comment on in the Trafficking in Persons Report as
    well.
        Mr. Smith. Where is the Administration on the sex worker?
    You know, when the woman who heads up the United Nations
    Special Rapporteur on violence against women makes such a
    strong statement, which I completely agree with, prostitution
    results in grave and multiple human rights violations such as
    torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, and it violates the
    right of safety, dignity, and privacy, the highest standards of
    health, freedom of movement, and family.
        And, she talks about that artificial distinction. And, I
    have been talking about this ever since we did the original
    TVPA back in the 1990's. You know, the line of demarcation
    between someone who voluntarily is doing this versus a woman
    who is forced through coercion or has not attained the age of
    18, that's simple, that's based on age.
        But, the other is often absolutely blurred. And, she makes
    that very point in her statement. And, she says that terms like
    sex work sanitize the harmful reality of prostitution.
        What say you?
        Ms. Dyer. Like you, I am aware that there are some hard
    felt feelings on both sides of the use of that term. As far as
    the United States and in my office, we do not use it.
        It is not found in our Trafficking in Persons Report. I
    will point to one of the things that I read when I first had
    the opportunity to come on, was the Advisory Council's Annual
    Report from, I think, 2020, where it gave a discussion about
    terms and which terms survivors preferred to use.
        And, they also gave a really thoughtful discussion about
    why. I try to abide by the wise counsel of survivors. And, so,
    we have done that here.
        Of course, additionally, in the United States, we have in
    place, National Security Directive 22, which is still in place.
    Which says that the U.S. Government opposes prostitution.
        That it is not a legitimate form of work. And, it is
    inherently harmful and dehumanizing and contributes to
    trafficking in persons. That's the USG National Security
    Directive.
        You and I both know that a lot of these laws are done at
    the local, at the State level. They're, you know, as far as
    prostitution laws or terms that they use, some of it is done at
    the State level.
        But, that's the position from the U.S. Government.
        Mr. Smith. Could you just, and Belgium's decriminalization,
    what impact, if any, did that have on their Tier rating?
        Ms. Dyer. Belgium passed that law outside of the reporting
    period. That law passed on May 24. Our reporting period ended
    on March 31.
        And so, that law and any impact that that law may have,
    would be assessed in next year's report, because it falls
    within that reporting period.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you for that. And, please assess it very
    vigorously. I mean, I--when the World Cup was in Germany, I did
    a series of hearings about prostitution where it is legalized
    in Germany.
        And frankly, I was shocked how again, that line of
    demarcation between a voluntary so called, and I have to say
    so-called prostitute, because there's no such thing in my
    opinion, certainly not at underage, they don't exist.
        It is a form of sex trafficking, an egregious form. And,
    the justifications that came from the German government were
    outrageous in my opinion.
        And, I actually had women, when we were trying to get the
    TVPA passed, go way back, I had met a number of women in St.
    Petersburg, Russia with my wife. I brought a resolution up at
    the OSCE PA, you know, in 1989 this was.
        So, we were with all these women who had been trafficked
    and Myriad had rescued them and helped them, an NGO. And, they
    even went to Germany. And, they told their stories. And, I was,
    through tears they told their stories.
        When we were having trouble with our legislation, two of
    them came here and told their stories before one of my, before
    my Committee. You could have heard a pin drop.
        So, anyone who has this fanciful, foolish view that somehow
    that is some kind of liberation, it is anything but. It is the
    polar opposite.
        And, those women made it very clear. So, please be very
    vigorous in looking at Belgium during this next reporting
    period.
        And, Mr. Tower, thank you for your testimony. Sorry that I
    haven't had a whole lot of questions for you. But, you're doing
    a great job.
        What is China's complicity in the scam situation? If you
    could speak to that.
        Mr. Tower. Yes. So, there are several different factors at
    play here. One is that the infrastructure where all of these
    scams are taking place inside of was built by Chinese state-
    owned companies.
        You've seen where over the past two decades, many of these
    transnational criminal groups, they've actually built very
    close relationships with many elements of the Chinese State.
    This includes with Chinese state-owned enterprises. And, I can
    cite many examples of this.
        But, there are, just to pick one, in the Myanmar-Thai
    border, starting from 2017, you had a Chinese crime group that
    was headed by a wanted criminal from China that was openly
    associating with China's Belt and Road Initiative. And, that
    gave a $350 million contract to a Chinese state-owned
    enterprise.
        And, that is, that infrastructure that was built between
    2017 into 2019, is now one of the largest scam centers in the
    region. There are tens of thousands of people inside of this
    particular scam center.
        It is similar across the region where many of these
    criminal actors, they masqueraded under China's BRI. They built
    close relationships with Chinese state-owned enterprises.
        In some cases, they even built relationships with Chinese
    planning bodies and with think tanks under those planning
    bodies who designed high level plans for projects that even
    under China's own law are illegal. It's illegal for Chinese
    companies under Chinese laws to invest in casino cities
    overseas, for example.
        And yet, that was happening with Chinese state-owned
    enterprises providing the infrastructure for it. And, with some
    of these planning bodies in China playing a direct role in and
    enabling all of this criminal activity.
        So, in many ways what you saw happen is that China created
    a Frankenstein monster. It's empowered many of these criminal
    actors. It openly collaborated with them.
        And, it enabled them to build this web of influence across
    the region, such that the criminal actors now have been able to
    begin, you know, even stealing money from across China.
        In addition to the U.S. now being one of the main targets,
    or largest countries targeted by scammers, you had many people
    from across China also targeted by the same scams.
        This continues today with many of the criminal kingpins
    that are behind these various networks operating scam centers
    in Southeast Asia. But then, also openly, you know, putting
    information about those scam centers onto platforms like Tik
    Tok.
        And, here I would highlight the example of Wan Kuok-koi,
    also known as Broken Tooth, who is a convicted Triad leader,
    who in 2020 initiated another of the large scam centers in
    Myanmar. This individual lives in China. He seems to launder
    his funds back into China.
        The U.S. Government is actually putt sanctions on this
    individual. And yet, he is still openly, you know, he kind of
    operates as something of a criminal influencer on Tik Tok. Very
    active on that platform.
        So, this illustrates another way in which the PRC continues
    to enable some of this activity. And then, last, you see where
    the Chinese law enforcement approach to this, the crack down on
    this, it's targeting only scammers who scam in China.
        And, this creates incentives where the scam syndicates are
    targeting Chinese nationals less and they're pivoting to target
    others around the world, which is harmful for the U.S. It's
    harmful for the rest of the globe. And, this is another, I
    think, way in which China's approach to this is causing harm to
    other countries.
        Mr. Smith. And, as there are just the two things final.
    Going back for decades and then most recently, I've chaired
    hearings on people who investigate on behalf of a company in
    China, their workplace operations to determine whether or not,
    it may not be ILO standards, but whether or not abuse is
    occurring, whether or not arrearages are occurring in terms of
    paying salaries, workplace occupational hazards and the like.
        And, it turns out that much of it is a big fat scam. These
    people go in, they talk to someone, hey, you over there, you
    over there, tell me, how's it going?
        You think they're going to talk, again, with management
    which could be very illogical, which probably is PRA, you know,
    Chinese Communist Party directed. They're not going to be
    forthcoming because there's no job protection with that. That
    investigator walks out.
        So, we did hearings on it. I did 1 years ago. We looked at
    Apple and some of these other companies. And, it's one big fat
    scam.
        And, I just can't believe that's not being discussed more.
    And, I would encourage you, because that's a form of human
    trafficking of a very high order.
        When all of these products are being made, so many, not
    all, coming into our shores and they're being done at slave
    labor type situations. And, these auditors sit there and go,
    OK, OK.
        And, I've read several auditors' reports, and frankly I was
    shocked at how, you know, when I asked questions about it and
    then we had the hearing on it just recently.
        So, please take a good strong look at that, especially with
    regards to the PRC. Any new sanctions coming toward China?
    Because it's sanctions time now. We got the report on that.
        Ms. Dyer. I'm glad you asked about sanctions. As a former
    prosecutor, I love a powerful accountability tool. And, we know
    that this is a powerful tool to promote both human rights and
    accountability.
        I will tell you that we are looking to support its use
    where appropriate. We even have now on staff, in the
    Trafficking in Persons Office a Senior Sanctions Policy
    Advisor, who is looking at various authorities to target
    individuals and entities.
        Currently, that individual has identified and is examining
    several priority sectors to potentially use this authorization.
    I will look forward to giving you more information.
        Mr. Smith. Who is that?
        Ms. Dyer. We have, it's a Senior----
        Mr. Smith. No, but who is it?
        Ms. Dyer. Oh, his name is John Smith.
        Mr. Smith. I'd love to meet with him and talk with him.
        Ms. Dyer. Yes. He is so smart.
        Mr. Smith. That would be great, yes.
        Ms. Dyer. You would love to meet with him. He is so smart.
    We are really working aggressively on this. Have identified
    several priority sectors and would be happy to give you further
    information in a different setting at a later time.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you. And, the Trafficking Report, for
    decades it has been printed in a very presentable fashion. I
    give it out to every delegation I meet with. I encourage my
    colleagues to do the same.
        As Special Representative to the Overseas Parliamentary
    Assembly, I bring hundreds of copies when I go and hand them
    out. And, it not just singles out the country of the
    participant you're talking to, you're from Germany, you're in
    here too, so are we.
        But, it gives them an idea of just the scope and breadth of
    the work that's being done here. That there is an
    accountability factor.
        When it's just online or in a much more truncated version
    like this one, I mean, the other one is four times thicker with
    lots of very good narrative and information. I encourage you to
    please go back to the other format.
        You know, cost maybe something. Please tell us exactly what
    it is. We'll try to get the appropriators to put it in a line
    item if that is necessary.
        But, it is a very useful tool, you know. People don't
    necessarily go online. I do for this, because it's not sitting
    in a book the way it used to be. But, it's a great source.
        And, again, when somebody is talking to somebody and says
    look, even when Thailand was very upset with Myanmar, not with
    Myanmar, with Burma, no, not Burma. It will come. Because on
    the fishing industry they were getting a very, Thailand a bad
    mark. And, the other wasn't.
        They were getting red-carded by the European Union for all
    of this. And, but it was for one reason, geopolitical. Again,
    it was because of the Trade Partnership Agreement. And, you
    can't be on the list if you, and Malaysia is who I'm talking
    about, and it was just very discouraging.
        So, what did they do? They looked through the book. Yes,
    they could do it online too. But, they're, you know, going back
    and forth. Please, go back to printing it.
        Do I hear a yes?
        Ms. Dyer. I hate making decisions that you don't like, sir.
    As I--I think that as part of the Department's modernization
    efforts, as well as just the trend across government that has
    been going on since 2011, there was an Executive Order that
    told us, print less and presume it's all going to be online.
        As you said, we experimented last year with, the last year
    that was fully printed was 2022. That had the one that you
    liked, with all of the country narratives.
        We experimented last year with just printing the
    introduction. And, we still suffered with significant delays in
    the printing. And, it is partially the cost.
        Mr. Smith. Get a new printer.
        Ms. Dyer. It is, you know, the length and the delays made
    it super frustrating for us. And, right now, we stand out as an
    outlier, we are the only congressionally mandated report that
    the State Department still has done in a print form.
        And, in truth, I know that you use it, truly use it and
    like it. And, I think, a lot of people certainly do. But, the
    demand just isn't there for printed reports as it used to be.
    People don't want to have a heavy book that they have to take
    on the plane when it's available online.
        And, we are trying to make the online version more
    accessible. It's searchable. We'll have a pdf up there so you
    can search Cuban export or whatever it is that you're
    interested in.
        And so, we are trying to, while taking away something that
    I know that you love, hoping to replace it with something that
    you will come to love. And, I appreciate----
        Mr. Smith. Use of this available now, is it?
        Ms. Dyer. It will be if it's not already. It takes a little
    longer to get it formatted. And so, if it's not up yet, it will
    be.
        Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Smith. Anything else you want to add before we conclude
    the hearing? Oh, sanctions. Do sanctions.
        Ms. Dyer. I shared with you the information about the
    sanctions that I have.
        Mr. Smith. You did. Yes, I meant the others.
        Ms. Dyer. Oh, so sorry.
        Mr. Smith. I didn't look at you and talk to them. You think
    we should do it with sanctions that need to be changed?
    Especially with the Treasury Department.

        Mr. Tower. I think one thing that I've observed is that if
    you go back to December of last year, there was an announcement
    made to have some coordinated sanctions that involved the U.S.,
    the U.K., and Canada, targeting some of the perpetrators that
    were behind the forced labor scamming across Southeast Asia.
        The U.K. actually did place sanctions on the
    representatives of some of these Chinese origin crime groups,
    as well as representatives of the Myanmar Army's Border Guard
    Force, as well as some of the other elites across Southeast
    Asia, including in Cambodia that are responsible for the forced
    labor scam syndicates.
        I think, you have not yet seen sanctions put out in quite
    the same way by the U.S. Although, I would note that there were
    some of the same individuals that are involved that are
    targeted by earlier sanctions for other crimes.
        So, for example, in Laos, Zhao Wei has been sanctioned by
    the U.S., right. I mentioned earlier the sanctions on Broken
    Tooth is another key Chinese criminal involved in this.
        But, there are many additional targets, I think, that are
    there. That, you know, for example now that the U.K. has
    targeted, including some of these individuals deeply involved
    in Myanmar and in Cambodia and other parts of the region, as
    well as many of the Chinese criminals and other enablers behind
    these crimes.
        So, it would seem that sanctions could be one tool, whereby
    which additional pressure could be placed on some of those
    involved in perpetrating the crimes and which could also
    potentially be done in coordination with allies and partners.
    This could really, I think, put more pressure on this broader
    criminal industry that is increasingly causing so much harm
    around the globe.
        Mr. Smith. Okay. Well, again, thank you both. And, the
    hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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