Remarks at the Meeting of the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Hey, good afternoon, everyone, and apologies for the delay.  But let me just thank each and every one of you, all of our colleagues, for being here today.  This is genuinely an honor to chair what is now the third meeting of the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.  To kick us off, it’s a particular pleasure to introduce and to turn the floor over to Neera Tanden, Domestic Policy Council Advisor to the President and good friend.

Neera, over to you.

MS TANDEN:  Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary, and I also want to thank everyone here, most importantly for the critical work that your departments are doing to combat human trafficking.  We all know the importance of this work and the impact that we can have in tackling human trafficking when we harness the strength of the entire federal government and our partners to address it.  As we all know, it’s a multifaceted problem and it takes an all-of-government approach, and in that vein the Domestic Policy Council has been really privileged to work with a range of agencies to deliver real policy change that affects this problem.

I’ll just talk about a few issues, including temporary foreign workers and unaccompanied children who are particularly vulnerable, and really appreciate the great work.  I’ll be speaking on issues that I know agency partners have been doing tremendous work with us to accomplish real change on behalf of, again, some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

So as we all know, our administration is committed to cultivating an environment where good jobs with strong labor protections are available to all.  H-2B temporary workers serve alongside U.S. workers in some of our country’s most critical occupations, and despite the requirements intended to protect these workers, too many find themselves in abusive situations, including forced labor with no way out.  Driven to more – driven to do more in this space, in October 2022, the White House launched the H-2B Worker Protection Task Force with the great collaboration of so many leaders here.  Particularly I want to do a shout-out to the Secretary of Labor, Acting Secretary of Labor, for her leadership in her prior role and her role now.

This past October, the task force released a report detailing a series of sub-regulatory actions to be taken in the coming weeks and months to strengthen worker protections in the program.  These actions include enhancing protections for workers who report labor violations, reduce unscrupulous recruitment practices, and improve worker access to information about their rights.  It is really important as we think through how we’re protecting all of labor that we take the essential steps to address the needs of the most vulnerable.

I also want to just take a minute to talk about our Unaccompanied Children Program.  We really want to highlight the tremendous work of Health and Human Services in addressing the needs of this vulnerable population.  HHS has taken numerous steps to ensure that unaccompanied children are protected against trafficking and exploitation, including through a new memorandum of agreement with the Department of Labor to improve information sharing and coordination, updating home study requirements for sponsors, expanding post-release services, and tightening protocols to ensure that safety concerns reported by children through the National Call Center are appropriately addressed.

We know how hard the Department of Labor and HHS has been working to protect vulnerable children.  There is more work to do, but an incredible system of protection has been built and I just wanted to note that.

And finally, the DPC has been focused on ensuring victims and survivors of human trafficking and gender-based violence have the physical and behavioral health care services and supports they need.  And so we are grateful for the work we, again, have done with HHS to ensure that there are new toolkits for behavioral health care providers and that we are providing them with the information they need to better spot signs of human trafficking and assist survivors.  This work is really critical to ensure that we’re using all of our tools across the federal government to do everything we can to offer protections.

And I know that we are squeezed for time, so I will now turn it over to my very, very dear friend, Jen Klein, and chair of the Gender Policy Council.

MS KLEIN:  The first is more important.  (Laughter.)  Thank you, Neera, and thank you all.  I am really privileged to be able to work with so many of you on this range of issues, including preventing and addressing gender-based violence with the wonderful federal partners and leaders in this room.

Today I have the additional honor of introducing three remarkable survivor leaders who will continue their advocacy as new members of the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.  But before I introduce them, I just want to say, as I think we all know working for President Biden, that ending gender-based violence wherever and whenever it occurs has been a cornerstone of this President’s career.  From championing the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 to his current leadership on everything from military justice to online harassment and abuse, President Biden is a champion, a true champion for survivors.

And that includes our work to fight human trafficking, which, as the leaders in this room know all too well, disproportionately impacts marginalized populations, including women and girls, LGBTQI+ individuals, people of color, individuals with disabilities, migrants, and low-wage workers.

In addition to the work that you will hear from our agency and White House colleagues, I want to just highlight some of our efforts to end gender-based violence and trafficking.  Last year, we released the first-ever U.S. National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, which was a government-wide effort to prevent and address gender-based violence, including human trafficking.  My team is working with so many of yours to implement this plan and to take steps to, for instance, develop new ways to minimize trauma, to increase identification, and connect trafficking survivors with stabilizing and supportive services.

We also recognize that human trafficking and gender-based violence are proliferating online.  To coordinate the administration’s efforts in preventing online harms, the President established the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse.  Many of you are members of that task force and are working to fight online harassment, including technology-facilitated human trafficking and gender-based violence.

There is much more I could say about this work, but again, in the interest of time I just want to emphasize that the progress we have made is thanks to the tireless and courageous leadership of survivors and advocates here and across the country.

Survivors are literally the heart of everything we do, and survivor input, including through key partners like the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, is vital to ensuring that the policies and strategies that we put in place are effective at addressing trafficking, including its facilitation by technology and the intersection with different forms of online harassment and abuse.  Lived experiences are critical to informing the administration’s work at these intersections.

So on behalf of everyone gathered here, thank you to those who serve on the council, for the time you dedicate to combating this crime, and for expertise and advocacy on behalf of survivors everywhere.

So with that, I am deeply honored to announce three new members of the council.

Jose Lewis Alfaro is a lived experience expert working with anti-trafficking – anti-human trafficking organizations worldwide to spread awareness specifically within the LGBTQI+ community.

Christina Love, a proud Alaska native, brings to the council a deep commitment to systems change and advocacy for marginalized and targeted populations based on her own experience as a survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking, a formerly incarcerated individual in long-term recovery, and as a person who has experienced homelessness and disabilities.

And finally, Chris Ash, whose current work as an anti-violence advocate and educator brings together their lived experience and years of direct service and community-based consent and prevention education work.

So thank you to Jose, Christina, and Chris, and our existing council members for their continued leadership in ensuring that all people can live and work with dignity and respect.

And with that, let me turn it back to you, Secretary Blinken.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Jen, thank you very much.  And could I now turn it over to Liz Sherwood-Randall, our Homeland Security Advisor, to maybe share a few of the notable accomplishments that we’ve had just over the past year or so, as well as talk a little bit about the way ahead.  Liz.

MS SHERWOOD-RANDALL:  Thank you, Secretary Blinken.  And let me begin by thanking each of you, our cabinet members and all of the other leaders around this table and around the room for taking your time to participate in this very important event, now an annual event for our administration, the third time we’ve gathered in this format.  We all know how much heart and soul goes into this and how important the work is to our nation’s health and well-being and to the world.

Over the last three years, you and your teams have done extraordinarily hard and historic work to prevent human trafficking, to prosecute perpetrators, and to protect survivors.  So my message this afternoon is simple:  We have to keep pushing ahead.  And importantly, in this year ahead we have the opportunity – no, I would say it’s our obligation – to continue translating the National Action Plan into tangible progress.

At the White House under President Biden’s leadership – and you’ve heard from my colleagues at the Domestic Policy Council, at the Gender Policy Council, and also in the National Security Council which I represent here – we will continue to work together to focus on three key priorities in partnership with each of you.

First, we will address aspects of nonimmigrant visa programs that facilitate the exploitation of visa holders.  The Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Mayorkas’s leadership has already done impactful work on this front, including protecting workers from exploitation while maximizing the value of the H-2B program to power the fishing, restaurant, tourism, and other industries all around the country.

So together with the department and the White House H-2B Worker Protection Task Force we will continue addressing vulnerabilities, including challenges that disincentivize migrants from reporting abusive conditions.

Second, we will prioritize building law enforcement’s capacity to investigate and prosecute human trafficking.  Around the world, more than 27 million people we estimate are enduring excruciating suffering at the hands of traffickers. That’s why we are doubling down on our efforts to hold them to account and strengthen the ability of our law enforcement partners to investigate their abhorrent crimes, like online child sexual exploitation and the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images and videos.

I look here and see so many of my colleagues – the Attorney General Merrick Garland, Paul Abbate, the deputy FBI director – and know how much work you and your workforce does on behalf of these individuals, how important this work is going forward.

Finally, we will work to expand our toolkit for disrupting and deterring human trafficking.  As a first step, we will work closely with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to sanction more perpetrators for their involvement in this immoral and inhuman practice.  And we will work, as I said, with all of you because we know it’s not enough just to prioritize this work; we have to work together to have a greater impact, to use the strength of our entire federal enterprise to get this work done.

So we look forward to making progress with you in this coming year to reduce the terror and horror of these human rights abuses in communities around our country and around the world.  Thank you again for your participation, for your leadership and partnership.  And with that, Secretary Blinken, I’ll hand it back to you.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Liz, thank you so much.  To you, Jen, Neera, thank you both for everything you’ve said today but also for the work that you and your teams are doing every single day.  I also want to thank my friend and colleague Cindy Dyer, who has been leading our efforts at the State Department as the Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.  You’ll hear in a bit from Cindy, but she and her team have been spearheading some truly important and remarkable work at the department to strengthen how we engage with survivors in working through our plans and our approach to dealing with human trafficking.  And I know from working with Cindy a bit that no one is more tenacious and determined, and we have some results to show for that.

We’re also honored to have with us – we’ve already mentioned a number of people.  I just want to point out one other person with us today, Sameer Jain, a member of the Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.  Where’s Sameer?  There you are.

So those of you who don’t know Sameer’s story, he was lured into leaving a white-collar job in New Delhi by the promise of a job in business development.  Instead, he was forced to work 14-hour days at a restaurant in Kansas for very little pay.  To keep Sameer from going to the authorities, what did his traffickers do?  They threatened his visa; they implicated him in false legal claims.  And this is, unfortunately, a story that we’ve heard, and we know more than once.  And again, that’s right here in the United States, in Kansas.

Sameer had the courage to report his traffickers to the Department of Labor.  Today, he has dedicated himself to speaking out on behalf of others who find themselves in similarly abusive situations.

So thank you, Sameer, for the – your own courage, but especially your determination to try to take your own experience and put it to the service of others.  We’re grateful for it.

So I think you all know these numbers, but it bears repeating.  Around the world – around the world, an estimated 27 million human beings are subjected to trafficking through force, through fraud, coercion.  They’re exploited for labor, they’re exploited for services, they’re exploited for sex.  The victims are women, they’re men, their children – disproportionately from marginalized communities – each of them denied the fundamental human right to be free.  As President Biden says, human trafficking is, and I quote, “a stain on our society’s conscience.”

Trafficking also fuels crime, it fuels corruption, it fuels violence.  It distorts our economies; it harms our workers.  In 2021, the White House released an updated National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, and – guided by the strategy – each of our agencies and our partners have been working every single day to prevent trafficking, to protect victims, and to prosecute those who are responsible.  We’re cracking down on the importation of goods that are made with forced labor.  We’re strengthening our efforts to counter online sexual exploitation and abuse of children, as you’ve heard.

And through the presidential memorandum the President issued last November, we’re taking additional steps to shore up worker rights and worker protections.  Now, so much of what we’ve been able to accomplish is due to the partnership and input of other governments, of our private sector, of civil society, and – and maybe especially – survivors themselves.

So before we get into the progress that each of our agencies has made, which is really the purpose for gathering today, and to discuss priorities for the year ahead, I’m also – I’m going to take this opportunity to just move over to the podium to honor two of our partners: the recipients of the 2023 Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

This makes it more official.  (Laughter.)

For the past decade, Dr. Minh Dang has offered her fellow survivors hope and healing while empowering them to play a central role in the global fight against trafficking.  As cofounder and executive director of the Survivor Alliance, Minh helps train survivors to become effective advocates.  The alliance ensures that our collective understanding of as well as our policy response to trafficking is actually informed by the experience of those who have lived it.  It connects survivors to job opportunities.

The alliance also teaches people how to engage ethically and effectively with survivors.  Minh says that she wouldn’t be here if not for “each and every person on my journey who kindled the fire of freedom within me.”  And she in turn has helped to fuel that fire of freedom in so many other people.

Minh couldn’t join us today, but I’d like to read the citation that’s printed on the award that she’s receiving – and again, I quote:  “To Dr. Minh Dang for her efforts to advance the anti-trafficking movement through research and advocacy, her substantial dedication to uniting, supporting, and empowering the global survivor community, her longstanding efforts to place survivors at the center of anti-trafficking work.”  So we’re going to make sure to get this award to her very soon, but meantime, congratulations.  (Applause.)

Thank you.  Now I’d like to invite Ambassador Dyer just to join me for the second award presentation today.

Ensuring that survivors have adequate support systems, from stable housing to job opportunities, is a key element of the President’s National Action Plan.  So our second award, Restore NYC, exemplifies this approach.  Restore NYC’s mission is to make freedom real for victims – victims of trafficking.  Going back to 2009, this organization has done exactly that for almost 3,200 people from nearly 100 countries across our planet.

The group offers counseling from licensed clinicians to improve victims’ mental health and well-being.  They help survivors transition to safe, affordable homes.  They provide pathways to employment, helping with everything from resume writing to entrepreneurship training, including through an innovative partnership with New York University.  At every step along the way, Restore NYC anticipates and works to meet what are genuinely unique needs for those who are survivors of trafficking.

Now, whether that’s providing services and their native languages, offering childcare while survivors attend training, or establishing a relief fund during the pandemic to support victims – and the list goes on.  To describe how she felt in her time with Restore NYC, here’s what one survivor said.  She painted a butterfly and said this is me.  That’s the feeling that Restore NYC gives to the victims that it helps.

So in honor of all the lives that they’ve transformed, I’d like to invite Beck Sullivan, Restore NYC’s chief program officer, to receive the award today.  (Applause.)

AMBASSADOR DYER:  To Restore NYC for its extraordinary commitment to improving outcomes for survivors of human trafficking through continuous expansion of its housing offerings and economic empowerment services using innovative models and partnerships.  (Applause.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  So to get back to the business at hand of the (inaudible), let me turn back now to Cindy Dyer to give us an update on the interagency efforts of the Senior Policy Operating Group.  Cindy, right over to you.  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you, Secretary Blinken.  It is a privilege to be in the presence of such extraordinary advocates in the fight against human trafficking.  First, let me echo your thanks to the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.  I am inspired by the council’s engagement and partnership and am thankful to have them join us at this table.  Their participation in anti-trafficking initiatives and their 2023 annual report provides us with the invaluable insight and expertise necessary to forge ahead in our collective efforts to combat human trafficking.

The Senior Policy Operating Group, which consists of senior officials of the 20 federal agencies represented here today, continues to coordinate measurable actions across the federal government to address human trafficking.  I would like to focus on a few of our recent accomplishments.

The Grantmaking Committee released a review of Promising Practices in U.S. Government-Funded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Programs.  The committee developed this resource to address recommendations made by the U.S. Advisory Council to identify promising practices for anti- trafficking grant programs that are survivor-informed, trauma-informed, and culturally competent.  We hope this will be a valuable resource for federal grantmaking agencies, practitioners, and other stakeholders.

The Public Awareness and Outreach Committee published a federal anti-trafficking resource inventory, which includes a list of federal human trafficking outreach efforts and resources, awareness campaigns, toolkits, and programs.  The list also helpfully includes evaluations of the effectiveness of the particular resources.  Just last month, the Procurement and Supply Chains Committee hosted a virtual public outreach session for contracting companies, nongovernmental organizations, international partners, associates of state, local, tribal, and territorial officials, and other interested stakeholders to build understanding about the anti-trafficking requirements of the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

This was the second public meeting by the committee, and topics included the federal government’s guidance on anti-trafficking risk mitigation and management; trainings and resources for government contractors; the use of government reporting to help analyze supply chains; and developments in efforts to prevent and address human trafficking in global supply chains that would be helpful to apply to federal procurement.

Last, in furtherance – in furthering the government’s implementation of the Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, the Senior Policy Operating Group is developing a plan to integrate racial equity into our anti-trafficking work.  We know that Black, Indigenous, and other people of color are differently and disproportionately impacted by human trafficking.  To inform our plan to address these disparities, we sought information related to the intersection of race and human trafficking through several channels, including through a request for information, a virtual public meeting, and a series of small in-person roundtables with different communities around the country.

Thank you for the opportunity to highlight some of the Senior Policy Operating Group’s recent efforts.  I look forward to continued work together in the coming months.  (Applause.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.  Cindy, thank you very much. Thank you for that report.  Thank you for the great leadership that your office has shown.

I’d actually like to give Sameer Jain now an opportunity to speak representing the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.  As number of us have mentioned, the Council is an indispensable partner in everything that we do.  So Sameer, we’re grateful to have you with us today and grateful to get an update from you on the council’s work.

MR JAIN:  Thank you, Secretary Blinken.  Good afternoon.  My name is Sameer Jain.  I’m a member of United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.  I would like to thank the administration and all PITF agencies for their unwavering efforts to combat human trafficking.  I came to the United States in 2017.  Seven years later, I am struck and inspired by where I sit today—at this table, at a seat of power with each of you.  And on behalf of a Council that is first of its kind, where leaders with lived experience advise the highest level of our government.  It is a great honor for me to present on behalf of the Council today.

The scourge of human trafficking continues to evolve.  Civil unrest and war across the globe, natural disaster, climate change, and advent and increasing reach of social media all pose significant challenges.  It is within these contexts that we recently submitted our 2023 report.   This report focuses on data on access and services for all victims, and on visa and immigration systems.  We specifically made recommendation on the intersection between human trafficking and missing, murdered, and indigenous and black communities.  We call for the adoption of best practices in prevention and services, and focus on building capacity for culturally diverse organizations.

We also made recommendation relating to labor trafficking among temporary work visa holders, particularly in high-risk industries, as well as unaccompanied children at risk of experiencing labor trafficking.  We specifically called for increased data sharing among agencies to prevent visa fraud.  In light of increases in child labor trafficking in this country and lack of deterrent to prevent it, we also called upon administration to bring a legislative proposal to Congress that would amend the TVPA with respect to criminal charges involving child labor trafficking.

Common theme across our recommendation is that of accountability – accountability within our government processes to address system-related vulnerabilities.  We also focused on theme of diversity – diversity in the services provided to survivor through federal programs; diversity with respect to how U.S. Government engages different communities across the United States.

As we look to 2024, the council plans two trips to inform our work.  The first is to Alaska, where we hope to gather information about the needs and challenges Alaska native population face in fight against human trafficking.  The second will be to the U.S. southern border to learn more about efforts to prevent and identify human trafficking among vulnerable immigrant populations.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today, and I look forward to our continued partnership.  Thank you.  Back to you.  (Applause.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you very much, Sameer, and thank you for the great work of the council and for the partnership that we enjoy.

So we now want to have a chance to basically hear from all of our departments and agencies that have been leading our anti-trafficking efforts, and we’ll go around and do that.  I have the honor of kicking us off, taking off my hat as chair of this meeting and putting on my State Department hat to give you a little bit of a report on what the State Department’s been up to, and then I’ll turn it over to colleagues.

So first, our department is working to ensure that our human trafficking efforts are informed, as you’ve heard, by survivors and the trauma that they’ve endured.

Wherever department employees encounter victims of trafficking – at our consulates, in refugee camps, at shelters, or anywhere else – we want to engage survivors in a respectful and sensitive way.

We’ve worked with the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking – as well as the department’s own Human Trafficking Expert Consultant Network – to develop key resources that allow us to meet that essential goal.  We’ve launched two new online trainings – one, through our Foreign Service Institute, for Department employees; another to assist our anti-trafficking stakeholders, our grantees, our other partners.

Second, we’re taking steps to prevent forced labor and other forms of migrant worker exploitation.

We’ve been updating our consular training course to empower staff to better prevent, detect, and respond to human trafficking.

And just as a parentheses here, I think one of the things I’ve found really instructive over these last three years is the ability for all of our departments and agencies to make sure that as we’re learning more and as we’re experiencing more and dealing with an issue, perhaps even an issue that was not something that our departments and agencies were focused on in the past, our ability to bring people up to speed, to make sure that we’re sharing best practices within our own departments and agencies, and to have career-long training and education for our workforce, is vitally important.  And this is something we’re really focused on.

We’re empowering workers coming to the United States with the information and resources they need to protect themselves and to protect their rights – by simplifying the “Know Your Rights” pamphlet that we distribute to many visa holders, and we’re conducting workshops, for example in Mexico, for prospective temporary workers.

Third, we’re launching new models of foreign assistance to combat trafficking.

Going back to 2015, the department has funded innovative partnerships, through which the United States and participating countries jointly develop plans to prevent child trafficking.

This year, we’ve expanded that approach to address all forms of human trafficking.  Through what we’re calling our Partnership to Prevent Human Trafficking – or P2P – the department will provide up to $12 million for projects that effectively prevent trafficking, prosecute traffickers, and provide care for survivors.

Finally, we’re advancing new research projects to better understand human trafficking.  This year, for example, we’ll fund a groundbreaking project with the International Labor Organization to create standardized tools for determining the prevalence of human trafficking, which we hope researchers around the world will adopt.  Because knowing where and knowing how much trafficking is occurring is obviously a vital step in addressing it.

So I’m proud to say there’s lots of great work happening at the State Department.  I’m proud of all the work that our team is doing – and very much looking forward to seeing more of that in the course of this year.

But really, the point of this gathering today is that this work transcends any one of our departments or agencies.  It demands constant, creative coordination across virtually the entire federal government, which is represented here today – and including with our Intelligence Community.

So with that, it’s a nice segue to my friend and colleague, the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines.

MS HAINES:  Thank you, Secretary Blinken.  And really, thank you and to President Biden and Ambassador Dyer, others who have really just prioritized this issue, who have maintained our focus on it in the way that you have, and to all of the leaders that are here today, for we see this in the Intelligence Community as a critical national security challenge – so much so that we’re including actually for the first time a separate section on human trafficking in our annual threat assessment, and so you will see that reflected in our work.

Transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs as we often refer to them, and criminal actors view human trafficking – including sex trafficking, forced labor – as low-risk crimes of opportunity, seeking to exploit vulnerable individuals and groups to bolster illicit revenue streams.  And of course, not only does human trafficking fuel the global growth of organized crime and deprive people of human rights and freedoms, but also negatively affects global health and longstanding psychological and physical impact on individuals, families, and communities, and has been reflected in the comments so far, particularly historically marginalized and underserved communities.

To help address this disturbing reality, the Intelligence Community in close partnership with law enforcement has been improving its production of detailed data analysis and reporting to better discern patterns and trends in human trafficking of migrants.  And with the help of new tools for conducting such analysis, we’re investing in these efforts, we think to good effect, as we also work to continually improve our connection to both local and federal law enforcement as well as the Department of Homeland Security to assist them in their work to countering the problem.

And for example, last year the Intelligence Community hosted a crisis cell, which comprised itself of intelligence, law enforcement, other key partners, to enhance support focused on combating human smuggling and human trafficking.  And the crisis cell resulted in improved reporting and information sharing, increased support to border enforcement, and aided activities to disrupt human smuggling.

These are the kinds of organizational mechanisms we need to build on in order to enhance our capacity to provide the intelligence that our operators, our policies need – policymakers need to combat trafficking in persons.

Relatedly, we’re also working to support coordinated partner efforts to enhance public awareness.  For example, the Intelligence Community actively lends support to the Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign, a national public awareness campaign designed to educate the public, law enforcement, and other industry partners regarding human trafficking.  And in addition, we continue to work on strategic assessments on human trafficking that draw on the robust expertise that resides not only in this task force and in the folks that work for all of the people that are here, but also in the Advisory Council, to really discuss a whole range of issues in this area, to provide assessments, including on sex trafficking, on forced labor in the global supply chain, and other issues that are of interest to the policy community in this work.

And then moving forward, the Intelligence Community is focused on initiatives through which we might provide further support to law enforcement to improve detection and disruption of trafficking networks.  For example, FBI’s Transnational Organized Crime Actor Detection Program is an operational coordination system that advances counter-transnational organized crime advanced data management and information sharing that we participate in and support.  The program over time will assist with the identification and disruption of transnational criminal organizations involved in human trafficking.

Ultimately, we hope programs like this, and our collective efforts will better support the policy and law enforcement communities in their critical efforts to not only raise awareness around this issue, but also to effectively counter global trafficking more broadly.  And we just thank you again for the opportunity to discuss our contributions on this issue.  Thank you.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Avril, thank you very much.  I’d like to turn now to the Attorney General.  Merrick.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GARLAND:  Thank you, Tony, and good afternoon, everyone.  So we are all familiar with the horrors of human trafficking, but I want to highlight just a few stories that capture the urgency of our work.

Last year, the Justice Department secured a 35-year sentence and an order to pay nearly $1 million in restitution against an individual in Louisiana who used sexual abuse, violence, withholding of food, and other forms of abuse to compel multiple minors to work for his business.

The department secured the sentences of a mother and son for 30 and six years, respectively, and an order to pay $840,000 in restitution for luring vulnerable victims from Mexico, some as young as 16, and compelling them into commercial sex at the mother’s bar.

And the department secured a sentence of six life terms in federal prison and an order to pay $68,000 in restitution against an individual who forced women struggling with homelessness or substance use disorders to engage in commercial sex.

These cases represent just a small fraction of the work we have been doing to combat trafficking crimes and pursue justice for victims.  During the last year alone, the Justice Department secured almost 300 convictions of defendants on both sex trafficking and forced labor trafficking charges.

Since our last meeting, the Justice Department has continued our work to implement our National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking.  The Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of United States Attorneys convened a human trafficking working group to guide all 94 of our U.S. attorneys in combating human trafficking in their districts.  The FBI established a specialized anti-trafficking team in its Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Unit to disseminate victim-centered, trauma-informed expertise through the FBI’s 56 field offices.

The Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit led the Interagency Forced Labor Initiative Steering Group in detecting, investigating, and prosecuting forced labor with a focus on forced child labor.

Last summer, the department released its own National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction, which covers child sex trafficking and complements the National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking.

And through the department’s Office for Victims of Crime, we issued over $95 million in grant funding for direct victim services and legal assistance and for specialized training and technical assistance on the needs of labor trafficking victims.

In the year ahead, we plan to expand this work across all of our components and across the country.  The perpetrators of human trafficking prey on vulnerable people for profit.  In so doing, they attempt to undermine not only the victims’ sense of safety, but of their dignity.  The Justice Department will continue to use every tool we have to combat human trafficking and to vindicate the rights of victims and survivors.  We look forward to continuing to work alongside all of you in this difficult task.  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you so much.  We are next going to turn to the Department of Homeland Security.  My friend and colleague, Cardell Morant, who is the leader of the Center for Countering Human Trafficking, will be speaking on their behalf.

MR MORANT:  Thank you, Ambassador.  Human trafficking is more than a violation of our laws, it is a violation of our values and our humanity.  That’s why in 2023, for the first time in the department’s history, we made the fight against human trafficking and crimes of exploitation one of our core mission priorities.  In our fight against the scourge of trafficking in persons, we take a victim-centered approach.  The department’s victim-centered approach seeks to minimize additional trauma, mitigate undue penalization, and stabilize and support victims.  We have consolidated our lines of effort through our Center for Countering Human Trafficking, which I’m proud to lead.  The center has recently doubled the number of permanent employees supporting this important effort across the country.  The team works with 16 agencies and offices across the department to collaboratively and aggressively combat human trafficking in all of its forms.

Last month, 1,100 members of the DHS workforce attended a CCHT-hosted multiday seminar to train and connect to counter-human trafficking officers across our department.  We remain focused on several key lines of effort.

In the area of criminal investigations, Homeland Security Investigations recently investigated a case in which four human traffickers were sentenced and ordered to forfeit $1.4 million for engaging in human trafficking of noncitizens at a commercial laundry business.  The investigation helped victims as young as 14 who were forced to work 11-hour overnight shifts before attending school.

In the area of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, in Fiscal Year ’23 CBP stopped 4,415 shipments of goods valued at over $1.46 billion, suspected to have been made wholly or in part with forced labor.  This represents a 78 percent increase in the value of shipments compared to FY22.

In the area of public-private partnerships, the Blue Campaign recently announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Lyft to teach drivers the signs that indicate someone may be a victim and provide them with resources to help, including guidance for how to contact the right authorities.  The trainings started in Las Vegas last week ahead of the Super Bowl.

In 2024, we also focused intensely on harnessing technological innovation, especially AI, to advance our mission.  In the coming weeks, we are launching a pilot using AI to aid investigations at Homeland Security Investigations, which will include trafficking cases.  We are working to improve local law enforcement coordination with DHS when first encountering suspected victims of trafficking who made – may need assistance stabilizing their immigration status to break free from their trafficker and support investigations to hold perpetrators accountable.

We’ll also further institutionalize this work across the department, including by selecting a senior victim-centered approach official to support victim identification and build capacity across the department.

Our resolve has never been stronger to fight against human trafficking and crimes of exploitation using every authority at the department.  We remain committed to the critical and heroic counter-trafficking mission.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  And over to the Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland.

SECRETARY HAALAND:  Thank you so much.  Want to recognize Secretary Blinken’s leadership and thank him and the department for everything they do, and for everyone here for your service on this critical task force.  I’m grateful to be a part of an administration that takes the health and safety of our communities so seriously.

At the Department of the Interior, we’re leveraging every tool at our disposal to address violence in Indian country.  Much of this work is focused on tackling the crises of missing and murdered indigenous peoples and human trafficking.  As a member of Congress, I helped lead the effort to pass the Not Invisible Act and Savanna’s Act.  These laws take steps to address these crises by identifying gaps in information sharing and data collection.  Now, as Secretary of the Interior and with the President’s support, I am putting these laws into action.

The Not Invisible Act Commission established by our agency and the Justice Department, led by, of course, our dear friend and colleague Merrick Garland, brought together members of law enforcement, tribal leaders, federal partners, service providers, family members of missing and murdered individuals, and survivors to host public hearings, engage with communities, and identify the ways in which Congress and federal agencies can best address this crisis.  Last November, the commission submitted its recommendations to the department and to Congress, which emphasize a needed focus on tribal law enforcement recruitment and retention, survivor and family services, and cross-jurisdictional coordination.  These recommendations will help us to reshape our existing efforts at the department, including through our Missing and Murdered Unit.

Our department is also making a concerted effort to address this crisis through our Fiscal Year 2024 budget request.  Specifically, we’ve called for an increased funding for the Tiwahe Initiative, which enables tribes to design their own programs for the delivery of Bureau of Indian Affairs program services, including public safety initiatives for children and families.  By integrating tribal traditions, customs, and values into the delivery of these services, we can ensure that community safety and resilience are at the heart of program implementation.

Finally, we are bolstering our workforce’s ability to detect, report, and prevent human trafficking.  This past year, our Office of Law Enforcement and Security finalized its human trafficking awareness training, and we will continue our collaboration with the Justice Department’s Indian Country Training Initiative to develop additional training of law enforcement officers.

Together we’re making progress to address this horrific crisis and the trauma it leaves behind.  We have a long way to go, but the advancements we’ve made on behalf of Indian country are truly historic, and that’s thanks to all of you.  So thank you all so much again for having me today.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  We’ll now turn over to the Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas Vilsack.

SECRETARY VILSACK:  Thank you very much.  We all know that human trafficking in rural communities will provide a key opportunity for interagency collaborative work to better understand how rural providers encounter and confront the issue of human trafficking, including victim identification, provision of services for survivors, and prevention of trafficking.  USDA is going to continue to reimagine and improve our program design and delivery of services.  I can assure you that every component of USDA has a role in this work.

While there are several factors, as everyone knows, that drive the presence of human trafficking within rural localities, persistent and disproportionate rates of poverty are often a major contributing factor.  When the COVID-19 pandemic first struck, we were all given a wake-up call regarding an important group of people called farm workers.  They were deemed, as they should have been, essential employees, and the pandemic put a spotlight on the importance of this workforce and their contributions to our nation’s food security.

As you know, they work every day in food orchards and dairy farms – in the blazing heat and freezing cold – to ensure that our families have food on our tables.  It is not easy work.  It is backbreaking work that requires long hours in the field and pays low wages.  Often, those very same workers who harvest our food lack enough to eat themselves and report family incomes below the poverty line.  Of all the USDA stakeholders, they are the most susceptible to trafficking, particularly the folks that travel to the United States to work.

Because of this and their importance in agriculture, I instructed USDA employees to break down institutional barriers and create meaningful opportunities to impact the lives of farm workers through USDA programs.  Last year, in coordination with many of the agencies at this table, USDA launched the Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection pilot program.  Now, this pilot program is utilizing up to $65 million in American Rescue Plan funding to provide support for agricultural employers in implementing robust health and safety standards to promote a safe, healthy work environment for both U.S. workers and workers hired under the seasonal H-2A visa program.

This program aims to raise the bar with employers on worker protections.  Employers engaged in the grant program must ensure ethical, safe recruitment of any worker employed through the H-2A visa program.  We know that the recruitment process is an area of particularly high risk of exploitation of workers looking for opportunities to come to the United States.  It must stop, and we’re sending the message that this kind of conduct in recruiting is unacceptable.  Additionally, we’re ensuring that all workers employed by grantees in this program have access to “Know Your Rights” and resources training that will help ensure workers have better information and a better understanding of how to seek help if they need it, hopefully setting the standard for the entire migrant workforce.

At USDA we’re also taking strides to ensure our contractual relationships are with responsible industry partners.  In 2024, we’re working towards gaining further visibility into the supply chain of prime contractors to mitigate risk in the provision of food commodities and labor-intensive services.  We will, of course, also continue to include requirements that contractors and grant recipients must prevent the trafficking of persons or forced labor.  You have our commitment to continue to advance the understanding of trafficking in persons and identifying the best way to integrate and track the many ways in which this issue intersects and impacts rural communities and rural people.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you, sir.  We’ll turn now to the Acting Secretary of Labor, Julie Su.

ACTING SECRETARY SU:  Thank you so much.  As many in the room know, about 30 years ago, 72 garment workers from Thailand were trafficked to the United States and then forced to work behind barbed wire and under armed guard in an apartment complex for 18 hours a day.  These workers were vulnerable in part because they had been told their whole lives that they should keep their heads down and know their place, and that all they would ever know were poverty wages and a lack of opportunity.  And that made them susceptible when traffickers came and promised them a good job.  That promise, of course, turned out to be a lie.

When those workers were freed, improbably, they spoke up and challenged not only their traffickers but the industry that had made demand for their labor.  And that created a tremendous amount of change.  I was privileged to be their attorney during that time, and back in September, I was privileged again to induct them into the Department of Labor’s Hall of Honor.  It was really lovely.  (Applause.)  So I know we’ve talked a lot about listening to survivors and understanding their work, and 67 of those 72 were women, which is also indicative of how this problem works globally.

In terms of looking forward, the Department of Labor is focusing on two things.  The first is enforcement of labor laws in this country, and I think it’s important to note that we shouldn’t look at the abuses that happen to trafficked workers as aberrations.  They really turn out to be one end of a spectrum of abuse that is often common in those very same industries, and if we don’t look at the context in which the abuse occurs, then we’re missing out on a key lever we have to try to prevent the abuse.

We, like so many agencies, are also training our staff on recognizing indicia of trafficking.  As we enforce labor laws, we can often be the first line to see that, and we’re making sure that our training is both trauma-informed and survivor-centered.  We have been working with the Department of Justice on assessing back wages and using forfeiture and restitution and other tools, but again recognizing that the ability of survivors to actually collect real wages is limited if we don’t look at the entire context in which their abuse occurs.  We are also certifying T and U visas, and it’s important, I think, to note that those visas exist because of the Thai workers and their work and their advocacy.

The second thing that we’re focused on is our international work.  We are investing in organizations around the globe who are identifying forced labor and child labor and the risks in supply chains of those kinds of practices.  We’ve worked with Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security on what was already mentioned, making sure that any goods that are made with forced labor are prevented from being imported.  We follow the extraordinary leadership of Ambassador Tai, who is breathing life into this President’s promise that when we look at our trade policies, we will look at the well-being of workers, and that includes those who have been trafficked.  And we work with the Department of Education, and I know that Deputy Secretary Marten is going to talk about some of that collaboration.  So as has been said, we – none of us does this work alone.

The DOL also has a list of goods produced by child labor or forced labor, and that is the result of research we do to combat these practices in supply chains.  So we are very much on board with and share the goal of making sure that nobody who hears that their only option is to keep their heads down and know their place actually believe that.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you so much.  We’ll turn now to Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.

SECRETARY BECERRA:  Thank you, Ambassador.  I extend a special thank you to the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking and the hundreds of individuals with lived experience who have worked with and informed HHS.  You have helped us strengthen efforts to prevent trafficking of migrant workers and families, address inequities and barriers to assessing services, and increase prevention education.

Last year, HHS-funded programs connected more than 4,000 survivors of human trafficking to housing, health, and other critical services.  We responded to requests for assistance from every state in the nation, and our National Human Trafficking Hotline received nearly 8,000 calls, texts, and chat messages directly from survivors of trafficking.  We want to stop human trafficking before it occurs and minimize its harmful impact.  Today, we are releasing our National Human Trafficking Prevention Framework, which draws on research and best practices and proven violence prevention strategies.

Additionally, protecting children and youth from trafficking continues to be at the core of our prevention efforts.  This spring, HHS will start the work of a National Advisory Committee on Child and Youth Trafficking to strengthen coordination among federal, state, tribal, and local agencies to prevent forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.

Each of us has a role in reducing violence in our society.  Last summer, thousands of survivors and leaders across government, private sector, and nonprofit organizations joined our National Human Trafficking Prevention Summit and brought with them a shared commitment to taking on this issue.  Studies show that most survivors of trafficking have seen a health care provider while they were exploited.  This year, we invite partnerships with health care institutions to expand the number of providers trained to identify, screen, and provide trauma-informed responses to human trafficking.  We also invite coordination to continue strengthening the resilience of public health supply chains against forced labor.

In addition, we will continue to work with tribal leaders and indigenous organizations to address the intersections of trafficking and missing and murdered indigenous persons, and we will organize regional convenings to share best practices and interstate coordination among child welfare and other youth and family-serving organizations.

HHS recently announced the Anti-Trafficking Leadership, Innovation, and Sustainability Project to support high-impact, survivor-led programs to advance anti-trafficking efforts.  Later this month, we will announce the first round of awardees under the HHS Innovation Challenge to prevent human trafficking among women and girls.  We will be enhancing our understanding of the role of technology-facilitated exploitation and leverage technology to scale the reach of effective prevention programs.

We look forward to building on these collaborations to prevent human trafficking, to promote innovation, and advance equity to strengthen health and well-being for all.  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you so much.  And at this time, over to the Director of the Office for Management and Budget, Shalanda Young.

MS YOUNG:  Thanks.  Thanks, Cindy, for all you do, and for gathering us for this very important topic.  This is one I think you’ve talked about – some of the efforts we’re doing at OMB, but I think it’s worth reiterating the United States purchases a lot of goods – $700 billion worth.  So how do we put our procurement power to work, especially in stopping the horrible things we’ve heard about today in trafficking?

And again, you’ve talked about some of the things, but I think it’s worth repeating:  OMB’s role as the co-chair of the Senior Policy Operating Group’s Procurement and Supply Chain Committee.  We work with many of you at this table to identify agency spends that increase risk of trafficking, and to implement additional protections and oversight to reduce the risk of forced labor tainting the goods and services we procure.

In furtherance of the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy partnered with State and Labor to cohost our second annual public outreach session on January 18th to increase understanding and awareness on the anti-trafficking requirements of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which include a prohibition on many activities closely associated with trafficking for federal contractors and subcontractors.  Participants representing government, civil society, and the contractor community from 10 countries attended and discussed actions the federal government can take to achieve more effective implementation.

Finally, OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy has recently listed the Federal Acquisition Institute’s Combating Trafficking in Persons course as required curriculum for all civilian acquisition workforce members in 2024.  Following similar requirements for employees of the Department of Defense, this new requirement will ensure that over 50,000 acquisition workforce members are educated on the red flags associated with human trafficking and the government’s supply chain and appropriate steps to take if issues arise.

And finally, I wouldn’t be the OMB director without talking about resources a little.  (Laughter.)  Listen to all that we’ve heard and all that we will hear about agencies’ efforts and how essential they are to protecting against the scourge of trafficking – we cannot let up to seek more resources.  And people always say do more with less – that doesn’t really work out in real life.  We need more in Department of Labor – Julie and I have talked about this – getting our budget requests for wage and hour, having more capacity; or having more attorneys at DOJ to have more prosecutions, have more people have to answer for their crimes against humanity; more for Samantha in USAID’s effort; more for the Tiwahe project you heard Deb Haaland talk about.

So I appreciate when people talk about non-defense discretionary, and we spend too much – this is what we’re talking about.  When people hear this is what the government does, they want us to do more.  And I hope we speak in plain language about this to people so they understand the necessity of having more resources to have more capacity to do more of this.  If government doesn’t do it, who will do it?

And so you have a partner at OMB in this director to keep pushing for resources, because this is what government’s all about, and this is what people want us to focus on.  So we’re doing great things; keep doing it.  But it’s my job to help push for more resources to make sure you can do more of it.  So thank you all.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  I brag on your office all the time when I meet with other country governments, so thank you for your leadership.  We’ll turn now to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai.

AMBASSADOR TAI:  Well, thank you so much.  It’s an honor to be here with all of you and my colleagues on the task force to share how my office is advancing the administration’s commitment to combat human trafficking.  As you may all be aware, this administration is taking a different approach to trade.  We are using trade as a force for good by putting workers at the center and empowering them and their communities to thrive in a rapidly changing global economy.

And I just want to pause for a moment and to reflect on the comments that so many of my colleagues in the White House and in the Cabinet have made, which is every one of us has approached this issue in our remarks by centering our focus on the experience of people in our economy and the global economy.  I think in this sense that I take a lot of inspiration from this particular table that we have set, that we are sitting here in a hall of power, each one of us with particular authorities, placing the experience of workers and people at the center.  And I really want to express the honor and the privilege that it is to share a seat at the table with Sameer down here at the end, who shared his experience and his courage with us in terms of what he has seen in the global labor supply chain.

What we are doing at USTR is working to incentivize that race to the top.  And what that means is a global economy where workers can compete on the basis of their skills and their creativity, and not exploitative cost advantages, labor law violations, or degrading practices.  And this includes making sure that goods made by forced labor do not enter the United States and doing everything we can to eliminate forced labor and supply chains globally.

One of the most important tools that I have to carry into international trade discussions, forums, and negotiations is a piece of U.S. law:  Section 307 of the Trade Act of 1930.  It’s been around for almost 100 years – prohibits the importation into the United States of goods made in whole or in part using forced labor.  In 2023, we focused on creating a team of likeminded trading partners that are all committed to this cause, and we will continue this work in 2024 and beyond.

USTR developed and is negotiating the highest standard labor text ever developed for three landmark agreements:  the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the United States-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade, and the United States-Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership.  The proposed text would commit partners to meaningfully addressing forced labor in supply chains alongside the United States.

Additionally, we are continuing our close collaboration with the European Union through the U.S.-EU Trade and Labor Dialogue to further enhance our transatlantic coordination.  With Japan, in this very room just over a year ago in last January, we launched a task force to promote human rights and international labor standards in supply chains. This task force continues to meet to deepen our partnership with Japan on this issue.

And just this very week, the United States, Canada and Mexico are holding a trilateral dialogue on forced labor enforcement under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.  We are continuing to exchange information on enforcement approaches and best practices related to addressing forced labor risks in our own hemisphere.  We are leveraging all available trade tools to clean up our supply chains, including – would you believe it – through the World Trade Organization. Their ongoing fishery subsidies negotiations have allowed the United States to propose a provision to address the prevalent use of forced labor on fishing vessels, especially distant water fishing vessels.

As a member – a proud member – of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force, USTR looks forward to year three of implementing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and accelerating the expansion of the UFLPA Entity List.

Finally, we at USTR will release our first ever forced labor trade strategy later this year, which is the result of great teamwork with many of your agencies and also with labor organizations, governments, civil society, survivors, and businesses.  I look forward to our continued collaboration over the next year.  Thank you so very much.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you, Ambassador Tai.  Now over to Deputy Secretary of Education Cindy Marten.

MS MARTEN:  Thank you, Cindy.  Great name.  (Laughter.)  The two Cindys here.

As I mentioned before to this group, this is my 34th year in education.  I spent 17 years as a classroom teacher and 10 years at an (inaudible) in San Diego, one year where I saw firsthand students and parents being trafficked.  Because we were a rural town next to Tijuana, I got to witness it, unfortunately, firsthand – a mother who trafficked herself because her husband had been deported and she had to do something.  I also saw a student do it.

Those are some firsthand stories that I witnessed and then I became superintendent of San Diego Unified School District, after being principal at the inner-city school for 10 years.  As superintendent, I was able to then actively work in that leadership seat that I had to combat what I had seen firsthand devastate families that I loved and cared for.  I was able to do that at all levels of the system to ensure that all school personnel – 16,000 employees in San Diego Unified – had proper training and support to prevent and respond, detect and recover.

And so I bring that experience to the work that I’m now leading with our agency, the Department of Education, in our Office of Safe and Supportive Schools, knowing what can happen to students and their families when we don’t give the kind of support that we already know what to do.  We are here to support the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, and we know what to do.  It’s our responsibility, and with the dedicated guidance and support that we can put out there, we can make a real difference.

In response and with the actions that’s required through this plan, the Department of Education has hosted 13 webinars on human trafficking and child exploitation.  All of these webinars are designed to get the information out there so people know what to do, and the attendance rates are incredible.  We host a lot of webinars with the Department of Education; we like to educate.  We host webinars.  We had almost 16,000 people register for our webinars, almost 10,000 people attending.  Ninety four percent of the participants in our webinars strongly agree that the webinars improved their understanding, to know the topic, and to understand what it looks like to prevent, to respond, and to recover.

And that’s why we’ve published our resources on human trafficking in American schools, and what schools can do to combat human trafficking, and also partner with survivors in this also second guidebook – and the summary of everything that we can do with QR codes because we love that – to give resources so schools know what to do.  The participants, these 16,000 people that registered for our webinars, they range from school bus drivers who see it firsthand, to curriculum specialists, to McKinney-Vento liaisons from across the United States and several territories, as well as multiple countries.

We had Waukegan Public Schools from Michigan, Long Beach Unified from California, and Fairbanks School District from Arkansas, just as an example of the kinds of people who sign up to participate.  And then information from all of our webinars from the last several years we’ve published and it’s available on our website from our National Center on Safe and Supportive Learning Environments.  So if you didn’t attend, you can send people to it and you can see the resources that we make widely available.

We also partner with Department of Labor – being able to work with your wage and labor and your international team to be able to get the information out there in some of our webinars.  We also put in terms of prevention administering support in terms of $500 million in funding this fiscal year for students’ wellness and well-being, because we know ultimately, we need to prevent this from actually happening in the first place through exercises and training on financial literacy and self-care.  We know social-emotional learning is so important, and that’s how we can empower our youth with the skills to recognize what might be happening to themselves, or to report it when they see it happening with other people, and to refuse trafficking and abuse, and to prevent youth from offending themselves.

Then also through the BSCA, we’re investing – Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – we’re investing in mental health professionals, increasing 14,000 mental health professional providers in our schools that will also help detect and prevent, because we know the value of school-based mental health supports.

So this fiscal year, we’re going to continue to do webinars implementing the anti-trafficking exploitation strategies and resources for new youth, newcomers, and immigrant youth, and continue to talk to youth about trafficking.  I’m just proud of the learning that we’re doing and the series that we’ll be continuing, and I love to learn from what other agencies are doing so we can collaborate and help school officials that are working with our students every single day, get the resources and supports they need right in their hands.  And these resources are all available for all of you to widely distribute.  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you, Cindy.  Over to Jeffrey Prescott, Deputy to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

MR PRESCOTT:  Thank you very much.  It’s an honor to be here.  Last year at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, we worked with our allies and partners across the UN system to ensure that combating human trafficking remains a key priority in Vienna, in Geneva, in New York, in Rome, and throughout the United Nations system.

Our goal is very simple.  It’s to extend all of the work that we’ve been hearing about from around the table and across the U.S. government, to the work that we’re doing with allies and partners and indeed across the entire international system, so that we’re spreading our focus and our attention and our priority, not just here but to other parts of the world.

Let me just give two examples, one from the last year and one the kind of work that we have underway this year to advance this mission.  First, we’re trying to strengthen the tools that the international system has to address this scourge.  For example, the United States coordinated with a few partners last year to successfully negotiate a resolution that will provide the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, additional tools, including the tools to collect essential data and strengthen their efforts against trafficking.  This is something that we’re doing not just at the UNODC, but at UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, and other UN institutions as well.

Second, we are going to advance our efforts to use the global platform that we have at the United Nations to address this issue as well.  We are going to use our status as a member of the Human Rights Council this year to continue to advance anti-trafficking priorities, including in 2024.  We’re looking for opportunities and advancing opportunities to encourage the United Nations and member-states to develop their own survivor-led entities building on the example that we’ve heard about from our own government today.

We also need to ensure that the response to combating human trafficking is truly survivor-centered and trauma-informed, and that’s something we’d like to get our partners to step up and do more of in the international system.  And to Ambassador Tai’s point, we also want to seek to highlight the importance of strengthening not just services for victims from underserved and marginalized populations but making sure that we’re addressing forced labor in supply chains, something that we’ve obviously taken on as a significant focus in the U.S. Government.

There is much more to come in our efforts at the United Nations, and we partner, of course, very closely with others in the room – Secretary Blinken, who was here earlier, Ambassador Power, and others.  We want to work with all of you to make sure that we’re getting this right.  I want to thank you again, thank in particular President Biden, Vice President Harris, Secretary Blinken, and the rest of the senior officials in the room here, on our leadership and on continuing this focus not just at home but around the world.  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  I’ll turn now to Samantha Power, Administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

AMBASSADOR POWER:  Thank you so much, Ambassador.  Thanks to Secretary Blinken and all of you who are doing so much to combat this horrific crime.  I have attended many of these task force meetings:  in my current capacity this is my third, as it is for many of you; I believe four as UN ambassador; and several as a staffer as President Obama’s Human Rights Advisor.  And I can’t think of a previous meeting where there was such personal testimony.  This builds on Katherine’s point.  It’s very inspiring to see just how personally people are taking this cause and the conviction and the commitment as manifested in the work of you and your teams, so I also am just very honored to be here.

Since 2001, well before my time, USAID has invested nearly $400 million across 88 countries to fight human trafficking, and we try to bring a toolkit in partnership with the communities in which we work.  The tools range from conducting research that sheds light on key drivers and flows of trafficking, to helping deliver legal assistance to survivors or to people still in captivity or enslavement, to bringing together local, national, and regional stakeholders to coordinate new policy, new legislation, new regulation, new enforcement.

In all of this and other work, we, like so many have mentioned here at other agencies, are committed to survivor-focused efforts.  USAID’s comparative advantage is our ground game and our ability to connect the ability to support individuals at the local level while working to take what we learn from that support to enable systemic progress at the national and regional level.

Stories of real people today at this meeting I think have brought home the human stakes of the effort, and I will share as well a story of Salam, who is a 26-year-old from Bangladesh.  A few years ago, Salam heard about a new IT job in Cambodia that would pay five times more than his current job.  His dad mortgaged the family farm to help Salam pay for his travel and visa, but once in Cambodia Salam was forced into a labor compound and made to work for hours for a criminal scamming network.  His documents, like so many’s, were confiscated and his communication with his family was cut off.

Thankfully, a USAID-supported program helped Salam make his way out of the compound in September of 2022.  But – and this happens so often – once he returned to his community, he had little support in getting the counseling and the resources he needed to reintegrate, much less the legal support that he needed to try his case.  Bangladesh is, of course, one of the countries hit hardest by human trafficking.  It falls within the top 10 countries worldwide for the number of people in the country trapped in modern slavery.  And the enormity of the problem in a country like Bangladesh makes it difficult for the government to provide survivors with those kinds of resources to reintegrate them, and in many cases, of course, the justice system is completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of perpetrators or the sophistication of those networks.  So we’re hugely appreciative of the collaborative work by other agencies in the intelligence, the justice, the labor, the trade, and, of course, the diplomatic spheres.

USAID worked with the Government of Bangladesh to help craft in the first instance and then revise its National Plan of Action to combat human trafficking and to empower communities with the tools to enforce it.  We’ve worked with survivors like Salam and leaders in civil society and government to establish guidelines that outline a step-by-step process for service providers to offer counseling, places of safety for victims as they reintegrate, and legal support to try to bring perpetrators to justice.

Today, Salam is working as what is called a survivor empowerment officer at one of our partner organizations helping alert people who are still enslaved to their rights while also helping integrate those who mercifully have made their way out of captivity.

To keep cases from lingering in the justice system, USAID is working directly with the Government of Bangladesh – and again, this is just one example, but to bring home just the range of inputs and support that are needed – but to build its capacity to actually try cases.  We trained nearly 500 members of the judiciary, law enforcement, trafficking tribunals, lawyers, and court administrators in handling trafficking cases so they can do so more quickly and effectively and put survivors at the center of their focus.

Even in just the past year, these efforts are already making a difference.  In 2023, courts in Bangladesh successfully tried three times as many cases as the year before and achieved five times the number of convictions.  But before we celebrate too much, the numbers are very, very small.  I will not share those numbers because we want to inspire more work, but the baseline unfortunately was very, very low.

We are continuing to build on these efforts sharing information to help more governments and leaders understand the evolving threat and of course to appreciate best practices for combating it, as well as to remember always to empower local leaders and survivors who we know are best at driving the change we seek.  Thank you so much.

AMBASSADSOR DYER:  Thank you.  Over now to Brian Nelson, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence from the Department of the Treasury.

UNDER SECRETARY NELSON:  Thank you very much, Ambassador Dyer.  It’s an honor to join you all to discuss Treasury’s work to combat human trafficking.  Treasury has publicly identified money laundering linked to human trafficking as among the most significant illicit finance threats facing the U.S.  As many of my colleagues have noted, perpetrators of this crime prey on vulnerable populations and infiltrate critical supply chains and industries.  These bad actors also launder proceeds through the U.S. and international financial systems, which is where Treasury comes in.

We see that by pursing the profits associated with human trafficking we can disrupt the illicit networks behind this crime.  The work starts by closing financial loopholes in the U.S.’s regulatory framework which human traffickers continue to abuse to launder, move, or stash their illicit proceeds.  We know that human traffickers use shell companies to obscure their criminal activities.  That is one reason why Treasury has prioritized our efforts to prevent human traffickers from laundering illicit funds through anonymous shell companies in the United States.

Just at the beginning of this year, Treasury achieved a key milestone in this effort by launching the United States’s first beneficial ownership registry.  This centralized database will equip law enforcement with beneficial ownership information to disrupt the financial anonymity that human traffickers rely on.

Human trafficking networks also mask profits through real estate transactions.  Just last week, we announced a rule to prevent illicit actors from misusing anonymous non-financed purchases of residential real estate in order to launder or hide the proceeds of their crime.  And we believe that these efforts will help prevent human traffickers from achieving impunity through financial anonymity.

Human trafficking remains a focus of Treasury sanctions authorities as well.  Since December of 2022, Treasury has designated persons for conduct related to human trafficking or labor issues, including for human – serious human rights abuse aboard Chinese-flagged fishing vessels.  We are also regularly leveraging financial intelligence to identify new and emerging typologies impacting this issue.  I am also proud to announce today that FinCEN issued an analysis on the use of convertible virtual currency, so Bitcoin and the like, in financial transactions that involve human trafficking.

To further our public-private partnership on this issue, just last July Treasury convened a FinCEN exchange with both financial institutions and law enforcement partners to advance operational efforts to combat illicit financial transactions, including those that are related to human trafficking.  And I’m also delighted to announce that this year FinCEN will joint Project Protect, Canada’s flagship public-private partnership on human trafficking.

So in support of the National Action Plan, we will continue to creatively use all of our tools and authorities to counter human trafficking, and we certainly will look forward to deepening our work with all of you on this incredibly important issue.

Thanks so much.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  We’ll turn now to the Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade at the Department of Commerce, Marisa Lago.

UNDER SECRETARY LAGO:  Thank you so much.  As Administrator Power noted, there are very many personal stories, and Deputy Secretary Marten, I was so impressed how you brought your experience.  So I think I’ll share that I’ve spent 49 years living in the warm embrace of my husband’s Ukrainian parents.  Both of his parents at age 15 were taken into forced labor under the Nazis.  They were freed by U.S. GIs.  As you can imagine, no more loyal Americans.

I heard their stories, but I also witnessed the lifelong trauma that was impossible to hide, so it is such a privilege to be here representing Commerce Secretary Raimondo on this topic.  As many of you may know, Commerce is comprised of different bureaus with widely ranging authorities.  It’s appropriate to be going after Under Secretary Nelson because I’ll start out by noting that Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security has the authority to impose export controls, which often go hand in hand with sanctions.

These ensure that foreign governments and companies that exploit forced labor are constrained in their ability to access U.S. goods, software, but importantly technologies that can be used to carry out their nefarious purposes.

Another branch of the Department of Commerce relates to comments that were made by Ambassador Tai and Under Secretary Nelson – fisheries.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, continues to build on this public-private initiative that it launched in 2022 called the Collaborative Accelerator for Lawful Maritime Conditions in Seafood.  It brings together U.S. Government agencies but also business representatives to develop best practices for industry accountability for legal and safe working conditions.  This initiative importantly also improves the conditions, the safety, and the labor conditions on U.S. vessels by incorporating the all-important worker voices.

The final initiative that I’ll touch upon – it may be third but certainly not least – is the work of the International Trade Administration that I lead.  We have very longstanding relationships with the private sector, and these relationships continue to serve as an important channel to raise the issue of forced labor in supply chains.  Through all of our supply chain work, including our newly established Supply Chain Center, we provide businesses with best practices.  We make them aware of the breadth of government resources that are available to them to mitigate forced labor wherever it might arise within their supply chain decisions.

I’ll end by noting that enforcement of our existing laws is absolutely critical.  So like Ambassador Tai, we are so pleased to be part of the government’s Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force holding others to account.  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  We’ll turn now to Christopher Maier, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, from the Department of Defense.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY MAIER:  Well, thank you, Ambassador Dyer.  And on behalf of Secretary Austin, it is my honor to convey how the Department of Defense is prioritizing its role in monitoring and combating human trafficking.

To start, DOD requires all of our 3.4 million military and civilian personnel to receive combating-trafficking-in-persons training, a key baseline for all of our service members and civilian support.  This year, DOD’s dedicated Office of Combating Trafficking in Persons will focus efforts on preventing through awareness training and outreach, addressing demand reduction, and engaging survivors.  Through our military departments – the Army, Navy, and Air Force – we are developing judge advocate legal counsel training and key toolkits, also overhauling the DOD Education Activity staff training that trains our service members’ children, and promoting the new combating trafficking in persons refresher course that all our DOD military and civilian personnel receive.

Judge advocate training includes signs and indicators, laws, policies, and regulations, and also advises commanders, law enforcement, and other personnel on criminal and administrative human trafficking cases, the DOD Education Activity that’s undergoing a training overhaul intended to enable school leaders and personnel to amplify combating trafficking messages in the curriculum, and also amongst the educators.

All this training uses DOD human trafficking case studies, public service announcements, survivor voices, and other material to enhance these trainings.  DOD is focused on raising awareness also about the Defense Base Act, which we administer through the Department of Labor to help victims of human trafficking.  This includes raising awareness about the rise in defense base cases brought by other country nationals who have incurred trafficking-related injuries while working on U.S. military bases around the world.  DOD has briefed Department of Labor administrative law judges highlighting cases about harms suffered by workers in Afghanistan, as one example, and informing them about the body of trafficking-in-persons laws that provide means to assist victims.

DOD continues to add stories about survivors of sex and labor trafficking and child soldiering to its Survivor Voices of Human Trafficking website that gets regular and frequent visitors.  Survivors continue to provide important insights to DOD leaders about how the department can continue to refine our awareness and our specialized training and resources with the goal of raising awareness and effectiveness in combating terror – combating trafficking in persons throughout our force and for all those that we interact with.

So thank you very much for the ability to participate.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  Over now to the Department of Transportation and Annie Petsonk, Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY PETSONK:  Thank you very much.  As Secretary Becerra pointed out, most survivors of trafficking have some interaction with the health care system.  Similarly, most people who are trafficked have some interaction with transportation.  That’s why the Department of Transportation is continuing to raise awareness among rural, urban, and tribal frontline workers across all of our modes of transportation – road, rail, air, and water – as they have unique and essential roles in combating human trafficking.

I’m going to share what we’ve just done, what we’re going to do, and what we’re always doing.  First, last month was National Human Trafficking Prevention Month.  And Secretary Pete announced a new Transportation Leaders Against Human Trafficking survivor-informed awareness campaign, with scannable QR codes to educate and empower travelers and transportation workers across all modes of transportation.  The campaign complements our survivor-informed awareness training for transportation employees and travelers, and gives general and transportation-specific human trafficking indicators and reporting methods.

We also hosted an event for hundreds of representatives from smaller transit agencies – coming from a small town myself, I appreciate this very much – to highlight available resources, because often trafficking occurs with people going to rural areas.  And if people in rural areas are not equipped, they cannot help detect and prevent this scourge.

The secretary also announced that the department’s 2024 Combating Human Trafficking in Transportation Impact Award is open through March 11th.  We’re inviting sharable submissions to that award.  And looking ahead, our multi-modal Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking, which includes two lived-experience experts, is developing a report which we will release this year, with recommendations for public and private sector stakeholders and an assessment of best practices.

We will also engage internationally with the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, in developing guidance material on combating trafficking in air operator supply chains.

We will also continue working with transportation stakeholders across the country.  We have 600 transportation signatories from different modes of transportation at state and local and tribal level, covering all modes of transportation in every state, who have pledged to train 1.3 million transportation-sector workers whose awareness is crucial in combating human trafficking.  They are the eyes and ears that our outreach efforts depend on.

We’re also creating toolkits tailored to each mode, so that these transportation organizations can develop a comprehensive approach to preventing the crime.

We are always committed through our Transportation Leaders Program to leveraging those eyes and ears, and we will continue to require every state to permanently ban convicted traffickers from operating commercial motor vehicles.

We’re proud to be cooperating with all of our partners here at federal, state, and local and tribal levels, and with public and private sector stakeholders, as we work together to end this scourge.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  We’ll turn now to Paul Abbate, Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

MR ABBATE:  Thank you.  Thank for the opportunity to be here today to continue to focus on such an important issue.  It’s a true privilege to join together with each of you.

Human trafficking is one of the most heinous crimes that the FBI works to prevent and investigate.  And as we all know, it’s far too pervasive, both here and around the world.  Sadly, our work reflects that a significant majority of the victims encountered – estimated at over two-thirds – are children.

In strong response, we in the FBI are doing everything in our power across each of our 56 domestic field offices and around the world through our legal attaché offices, to stop those responsible for these abhorrent crimes, and to protect and assist those victimized.

Thankfully, as reflected here, we do not take on this task alone.

The FBI conducts its work in partnership with an array of federal agencies and departments, collaborating closely with state and local law enforcement through 91 FBI-led child exploitation and human trafficking task forces, staffed by more than 800 task force officers from over 500 state and local agencies, and also working, importantly, with essential partners outside government like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where FBI personnel are embedded full-time.

In all, we currently have more than 1,600 active human trafficking investigations – a sad reflection of the extent of the harm occurring.

And through the work, we see that criminal enterprises perpetrating human trafficking – as has already been noted – are running other criminal schemes as well, including drug trafficking, passport and visa fraud, public corruption, money laundering, among many other crimes.

So while the problem is complex, the work is yielding results.  Last year alone we made over 600 human trafficking arrests.  Those are predatory criminals taken off the streets away from communities harmed, and held accountable for their actions.

Even more importantly, the investigatory work is about much more than just arrests.  Our work has collectively, and always will, focus on protecting and supporting those who suffered harm.  We bring a victim-centered approach to each trafficking case.  This involves multidisciplinary teams, including special agents, intelligence analysts, victim specialists, and child forensic interviewers, working together to engage with victims of trafficking – because victim support and protection is the primary goal of the FBI’s and our work in this area.

When trafficking victims are recovered, experienced victim specialists begin the essential and arduous task of working with them to help rebuild their lives, providing everything from food and clothing and housing to translation services and assistance navigating the criminal justice system – anything and everything that we can do to help.

The FBI’s mission, of course, is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution.  No one needs and deserves that protection more than victims of human trafficking, who are so often among the most vulnerable.

We are tremendously proud of the FBI’s work in this area.  And together in partnership with each of you, we will continue to aggressively push forward with these efforts.  You have the FBI’s absolute and sustained commitment to continue to work with all of the organizations represented here today to carry out the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking.  We will never relent in our pursuit of those responsible for these horrific crimes, and bringing them to justice.  And we will continue to support and protect victims, replacing fear with freedom.

Thank you.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  I’ll turn now to Jocelyn Samuels, Vice Chair, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

MS SAMUELS:  Well, thank you so very much.  It’s a real privilege to be here with all of you and to see the level of commitment and tenacity in addressing these critical and sobering problems.  You are probably all aware that the EEOC enforces the nation’s laws against discrimination in the workplace based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion, disability, age, and genetic information.  And our work to combat human trafficking is not only a core part of the work that we do as we enforce the non-discrimination laws, but I hope really does contribute to this administration’s efforts to end trafficking and forced labor.

The laws prohibiting discrimination are often violated by traffickers who use force or fraud to – or coercion to exploit workers.  We have numerous enforcement authorities, we can take complaints and bring lawsuits to hold employers accountable, and we do that when we confront cases of trafficking.  But I thought I would highlight today a little bit of the work that we are doing to encourage employers to understand when people have been trafficked, and victims of trafficking to understand their rights.

We have a robust outreach and education program, and trafficking is very much a priority of that work.  So among other things, last July we launched a new section of our Youth@Work website, which adds specific content on human trafficking.  Our Youth@Work materials are focused on – as it sounds like – young workers, often really vulnerable individuals, teens, or minors of different sorts who do not know their rights in the workplace.  And so the new materials that we have launched are intended to help these young workers, educators, advocacy organizations that work with them, parents, and others identify the signs of human trafficking and understand when that trafficking can violate the laws that we enforce.

The materials that we’ve posted include tips on staying safe in the workplace, examples of the lawsuits we’ve brought to combat human trafficking, and links to other resources to help people who believe that they or others they know may have been subject to trafficking.

In addition to our Youth@Work updates, we have a group of outreach and education coordinators who work in each of our 15 districts nationwide, and they held 128 no-cost outreach events in the last fiscal year to address trafficking, which were attended by somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,500 people.

We are continuing our partnerships with federal, state, and local agencies, tribal organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and international partners to ensure that our stakeholders understand when trafficking violates employment discrimination laws, and what we at the EEOC can do about that, how to request EEOC support for U and T visa petitions, and how to obtain relief for victims.

We also will this year be releasing new material to help workers understand their rights to be free of harassment.  And of course, victims of trafficking are peculiarly vulnerable to threats of harassment, because they are so powerless and vulnerable in the workplace.

There is obviously much more to be done, but it is a privilege to be a part of this community trying to address this issue, and I look forward to our work together in the coming year.  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR DYER:  Thank you.  And thank you all for your work every day, as well as making your presentations here.  The problem of human trafficking is daunting, but I firmly believe that we are up to the challenge.  I am so encouraged by the solutions presented and the commitment demonstrated by everybody here today.  This issue cuts across so many different agencies, but I really believe that working together, we can make real progress and make a real difference in the lives of so many people.  It is an honor to be a part of your team.

And with that, this meeting has concluded.  Thank you so much.  (Applause.)