[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 28, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E124-E125]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




INTERNATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING AT MAJOR SPORTING EVENTS INCLUDING THE 
                            2014 SUPER BOWL

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 28, 2014

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, a hearing that I held yesterday 
focused on the preparations for the upcoming Super Bowl to prevent 
human trafficking and strategies employed by airlines, busses, trains, 
and hotels designed to mitigate human trafficking.
  In less than a week, New Jersey will be hosting the Super Bowl, and 
along with welcoming enthusiastic fans, the state also is preparing for 
a likely influx of both domestic and international traffickers.
  Sadly, but almost certainly, they will bring with them sexually 
exploited trafficking victims--many of them from abroad--in an attempt 
to cash in on the Super Bowl crowds. We know from the past that any 
large sporting event--especially the Super Bowl--acts as a sex 
trafficking magnet. The National Center for Missing and Exploited 
Children reports that more than 10,000 exploited women and girls were 
trafficked to Miami for the Super Bowl in 2010.
  This must not happen again. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has 
put in place a robust anti-human trafficking plan. For example, his 
Department of Homeland Security and Preparedness has stepped-up efforts 
to combat trafficking at the Super Bowl, distributing flyers to 
emergency medical services, fire department, law enforcement, and other 
emergency care professions so that these front line professionals will 
know when to be concerned that someone is a trafficking victim and how 
to respond appropriately. The transportation and hospitality training 
concept has proven straightforward, effective--and it is catching on.
  On her way to yet another assembly and community awareness conference 
at St. Elizabeth's College in Morristown, NJ Assistant Attorney General 
Tracy Thompson, who is spearheading the Christie administration's anti-
human trafficking effort, told me that they have trained 10,000 people, 
including a train-the-trainer initiative. She noted that the Super Bowl 
creates an increased ``breeding ground'' for sex trafficking.
  She said, ``Today's victims can be any race, age or gender. Victims 
are exploited for prostitution, pornography and forced labor.
  Traffickers control victims through force and fraud utilizing 
physical and psychological abuse, threats and isolation.
  Know it. See it. Report it.''
  According to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Super Bowl can 
be described as ``the single largest human trafficking incident in the 
United States.'' Capt. Doug Cain, Louisiana State Police spokesman, 
said after the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans, ``Any time you have a 
large influx of tourists in town and they're spending a lot of money, 
there's a criminal element that moves in to take advantage of that.''
  Greece, which hosted the Olympics in 2004, saw a 95% increase in 
trafficking victims in the months leading up to and including the 
Olympics. Next month, Russia--a country ranked at the lowest Tier by 
the annual U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report--will 
host the winter Olympic Games. Since Russia does not have in place any 
formal national procedures to guide law enforcement in the 
identification of sex trafficking victims and does not fund trafficking 
victim care, I am very concerned that the 2014 Winter Olympics may turn 
out to be a trafficking nightmare.
  Later this year, Brazil will host the 2014 World Cup and then the 
2016 Summer Olympics. Although Brazil has improved their anti-
trafficking laws and is taking steps to mitigate trafficking risks, the 
fact remains that Brazil will have to do much more if they want to 
protect their children from sex tourism. Numbers from Brazil's Federal 
Police indicate that between 250,000 and 400,000 children are forcibly 
prostituted.
  Worldwide, the best estimates are that 600,000 to 800,000 trafficking 
victims are moved across international borders every year. Millions 
more victims are moved within national borders. But anti-trafficking 
efforts have only recently turned to equipping transportation employees 
to identify victims in transit. The training is easy, inexpensive, and 
is already saving lives.
  In July of 2010, I chaired a conference in Washington, DC, to bring 
together the relevant U.S. agencies, such as the Customs and Border 
Patrol, various U.S. airlines, and non-governmental organizations to 
focus on interdicting traffickers by training commercial transportation 
employees to recognize the indicators for trafficking. Speakers, 
including Deborah Sigmund, founder of a non-government organization 
called Innocents at Risk, explained how flight attendants were the 
``first line of defense'' in the fight against human trafficking.
  Flight attendants are in the unique position to observe a potential 
trafficking in progress and then call a trafficking hotline or inform 
the pilot to radio ahead so that the proper authorities can intervene.
  Former flight attendant Nancy Rivard, President of Airline 
Ambassadors International and one of today's witnesses, told us how she 
and other flight attendants compared notes one day and were shocked and 
dismayed at how often they had noticed what they suspected was a 
trafficked woman or child on their flight, but had no training or 
protocol to do something about it. Nancy has been doing a great deal 
about it ever since, training airline employees around the United 
States and world. Last year I joined Ms. Rivard at a training seminar 
in Kiev, Ukraine.
  One of the earliest successes of the program was a call Ms. Rivard 
placed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security regarding a child 
she had observed on her flight from the Dominican Republic to Boston. 
That tip led to the break-up of a trafficking ring that had transported 
more than 80 children to the United States.
  Just this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 
released a similar training initiative, the Blue Lightning program, to 
domestic U.S. airlines--so far, Delta, JetBlue, Allegiant, and North 
American Airlines are on board. With minimal modifications, the 
training is also easily adaptable to bus drivers, station operators, 
train conductors, trucking associations, and other transportation 
industry professionals.
  The New Jersey Human Trafficking Task Force, which was originally 
started with seed

[[Page E125]]

money from a law I authored--the Trafficking Victim's Protection Act of 
2000--is working overtime to mitigate sex trafficking and has released 
anti-trafficking brochures to bus and train employees in New Jersey, as 
well as reached out to another major industry on the front lines of 
spotting traffickers and victims: the hotels.
  We had with us yesterday the NGO End Child Prostitution and 
Trafficking, or ECPAT-USA, which has been conducting hotel training on 
behalf of the task force in the lead-up to the Super Bowl. Hyatt, 
Hilton, Wyndham, Carlson, and Accor hotels have been establishing a new 
industry standard to ensure that their properties are not used for 
human trafficking.
  In addition to reaching out to transportation employees and hotels, 
the New Jersey Human Trafficking Task Force has increased print and 
electronic public service announcements and training programs for law 
enforcement officials, health care workers, lawyers, and others on the 
front lines of potential interactions with trafficking victims.
  In December, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe 
OSCE, which comprises 57 countries from Europe and North America, 
endorsed my plan to make anti-trafficking training for airline 
employees, other public and commercial carriers, as well as hotel 
employees, a primary goal in the international strategy to combat human 
trafficking. In an earlier session, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly 
adopted my resolution to implement such training in each member 
country.
  Any country that competes to host a major sporting event must be 
fully aware of the human trafficking vulnerabilities associated with 
such events and the best practices for protecting and rescuing the 
victims. In fact, the International Olympic Committee and the 
Feedeeration Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, should 
take into consideration a country's anti-trafficking commitment and 
ability when awarding games. Standard anti-trafficking measures should 
be included along with the required security measures and stadium 
specifications.
  Finally, the only standard that fits the crime of human trafficking--
zero tolerance--must be rigorously and faithfully enforced by arrests 
of those engaged in this nefarious trade--modern-day slavery. And there 
can be no higher priority than the liberation and protection of the 
victims. Combating human trafficking must be continuously prioritized 
at all levels of government, the faith community, civil society and 
corporations, including the National Football League. All of us must do 
our part to protect the women and girls.

                          ____________________