[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SOLVING AN EPIDEMIC: ADDRESSING HUMAN TRAFFICKING AROUND MAJOR EVENTS
LIKE THE SUPER BOWL AND THE NEED FOR CROSS-JURISDICTIONAL SOLUTIONS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE AND
BUDGET PROCESS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON RULES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2019
__________
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via http://govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the Committee on Rules
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
39-699 WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON RULES
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts, Chairman
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida, TOM COLE, Oklahoma,
Vice Chair Ranking Republican
NORMA J. TORRES, California ROB WOODALL, Georgia
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida
MARK DeSAULNIER, California
DON SISSON, Staff Director
KELLY DIXON, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida, Chairman
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York, ROB WOODALL, Georgia,
Vice Chair Ranking Republican
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
------
Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the House
NORMA J. TORRES, California, Chair
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado, DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona,
Vice Chair Ranking Republican
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania ROB WOODALL, Georgia
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
------
Subcommittee on Expedited Procedures
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Chair
DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida, MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas,
Vice Chair Ranking Republican
NORMA J. TORRES, California DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
MARK DeSAULNIER, California
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
C O N T E N T S
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December 11, 2019
Page
Opening Statements:
Hon. Donna Shalala, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida and Member of the Subcommittee on
Legislative and Budget Process............................. 1
Hon. Rob Woodall, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Georgia and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Legislative and Budget Process............................. 2
Hon. Alcee Hastings, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida and Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Legislative and Budget Process............................. 3
Witness Testimony:
Ms. Jean Bruggeman, Executive Director, Freedom Network USA.. 9
Prepared Statement....................................... 11
Ms. Katherine Fernandez Rundle, State Attorney, Miami-Dade
County..................................................... 23
Prepared Statement....................................... 26
Dr. JoNell Potter, Clinical Professor, University of Miami &
Vice Chair for Research, THRIVE Clinic..................... 32
Prepared Statement....................................... 34
Mr. Bill Woolf, Executive Director, Just Ask Prevention &
Director, National Human Trafficking Intelligence Center... 36
Prepared Statement....................................... 39
Mr. Bob Rodgers, President and CEO, Street Grace............. 54
Prepared Statement....................................... 57
Additional Material Submitted for the Record:
Statement from Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz dated December
11, 2019................................................... 6
Statement from Ms. Hanni Stoklosa, Executive Director, Co-
founder, HEAL (Health, Education, Advocacy, and Linkages)
Trafficking dated December 11, 2019........................ 61
Statement from American Hotel & Lodging Association dated
December 10, 2019.......................................... 67
Statement from National Football League dated December 9,
2019....................................................... 70
Article by Laurie Anderson, UGA Today, entitled ``UGA
receives $15.75M to combat human trafficking'' dated
November 19, 2019.......................................... 89
Document entitled ``FY18 and FY19 TVPA Human Trafficking
Funding Restriction'' by Freedom Network USA............... 92
Curriculum Vitae and Truth in Testimony Forms for Witnesses
Testifying Before the Committee............................ 96
SOLVING AN EPIDEMIC: ADDRESSING HUMAN TRAFFICKING AROUND MAJOR EVENTS
LIKE THE SUPER BOWL AND THE NEED FOR CROSS-JURISDICTIONAL SOLUTIONS
[ORIGINAL JURISDICTION HEARING]
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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process,
Committee on Rules,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in
Room H-313, The Capitol, Hon. Donna E. Shalala presiding.
Present: Representatives Hastings, Morelle, Scanlon,
Shalala, McGovern, Woodall, and Burgess.
Ms. Shalala. The Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget
Process of the committee on rules will come to order.
I want to welcome the witnesses and thank them for being
here today. I also want to thank my colleague and friend Alcee
Hastings from Florida, the distinguished chair of the
subcommittee, for his leadership, as well as the chair of the
full committee, Mr. McGovern from Massachusetts. I appreciate
you passing the gavel off to me for this hearing.
I apologize in advance if I have to leave the room before
we adjourn as I am managing a rule on the floor this afternoon.
We are here today, first and foremost, to learn. With the
help of this expert panel, we will learn about the issue of
human trafficking. Human trafficking is a worldwide issue, with
millions of men, women, and children forced into labor, the sex
trade, drug smuggling, and other forms of exploitation.
Large sporting events that draw huge audiences of out-of-
town visitors often serve as magnets for human trafficking,
fueling a multibillion dollar criminal industry. As this vile
industry grows, municipalities, counties, States and countries
around the world have expanded their efforts to combat human
trafficking by focusing on these events.
As we all know, the Super Bowl is being hosted in Miami
next February. Sometimes dubbed the largest human trafficking
event in the United States, the Super Bowl presents an
opportunity to begin a conversation on human trafficking and
highlight the efforts of Miami-Dade County and other
communities across the Nation to eliminate this epidemic.
The Super Bowl happens one day a year, but we must be
vigilant about combating human trafficking every day. While the
Super Bowl may bring increased incidents of tragedies like
human trafficking, it also brings increased resources to
counter the issues that arise from the event's presence. We
need to examine the resources available in the effort to combat
human trafficking in every community year-round.
Today, we will learn about the complexities of combating
human trafficking, the ways the Federal Government is assisting
local law enforcement, and the additional resources that are
needed for prevention.
How do we make better laws? How do we deliver better
Federal resources? How do we better provide support for
survivors of human trafficking? I look forward to exploring
these questions and learning from you as we seek to develop
effective solutions. Thank you very much.
The chair now recognizes the ranking member of the
subcommittee, Mr. Woodall, for any opening statements he wishes
to make.
Mr. Woodall.
Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for your
leadership on the issue. Thank you to Mr. Hastings for bringing
us all together.
You have got the Super Bowl coming. We, of course, in
Atlanta had the Super Bowl going. And the kind of collaboration
that came together in my home State is something that I am just
incredibly proud of. I wish we didn't have to come together in
that way. And I know we can always do better, and so I am very
pleased that we have got such a distinguished panel to talk
about that.
You all don't know, but generally sitting in those chairs
we have got the chairman and ranking members of whatever the
committee of jurisdiction is. Ordinarily, we don't have outside
witnesses. Our folks who testify in the Rules Committee are the
chairman who is bringing legislation and the ranking member who
is either collaborating on that legislation or vehemently
opposed to that legislation. So, so often, we have a partisan
conversation from that table. I am so looking forward today to
a nonpartisan issue, something that we are all invested in. We
may come to it from a different perspective, but we all have
the same goal in mind. And that is certainly the way that
Secretary Shalala has led in her time here on this committee,
and I look forward to that leadership today.
If Miami needs any advice and counsel, I don't want you to
feel shy about coming to Atlanta. When it comes time to
introduce our witnesses, I brought one of our very best from
Atlanta, a gentleman who leads an absolutely fabulous
organization that has a tremendous record of partnership. But I
don't want to spend any more time hearing from someone who
doesn't have expertise in this area. I would love to hear from
folks who do, so I yield back.
Ms. Shalala. Thank you. Chairman McGovern.
Mr. McGovern. Thank you. And I want to thank both Chairman
Hastings and Representative Shalala for bringing us together
today on this very important issue. Chairman Hastings has been
a leader in this fight against human trafficking for much of
his career, using his other chairmanship at the Helsinki
Commission to make a difference on an issue as difficult,
complex, horrifying and important as this one, and I want to
thank him for his leadership.
And I also want to thank Representative Shalala for putting
together this incredibly talented panel to help us at the Rules
Committee learn about human trafficking nationally, but also as
it impacts her district in Miami, Florida.
You know, like Mr. Hastings, I have another chairmanship as
well. I serve as the co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights
Commission with my colleague from New Jersey, Congressman Chris
Smith. And for that chairmanship and, believe it or not, this
chairmanship too, I work every day to promote these goals: That
every person must be free, free of persecution, free from
manipulation and free from coercion, and every person deserves
dignity, respect, and autonomy to achieve the destiny of their
choosing. And all of us, every single one of us plays a role in
achieving a freer, fairer world. And so to our witnesses, I
want to thank you for the work that you do to end human
trafficking and to help survivors reclaim and reengineer their
lives.
There is hope in this story, and I thank you for sharing it
with us. When any major event like the Super Bowl comes to
town, Federal attention and resources flow into the community.
And it is important for Congress to understand the role our
Federal agencies play, how Federal resources are assisting
local communities and how we can do more together to stop human
trafficking.
It is also important that we understand that human
trafficking is a 365-day-a-year problem that requires a 365-
day-a-year solution. We also know that human trafficking is a
complex issue. As we here in Congress work to find solutions,
we would be well-served to ask ourselves how our silos might
inhibit our thinking about how to direct resources to help
communities address trafficking.
And so, again, this is an incredibly important topic, and I
think we are all grateful that you have come here to give us
your expertise and advice. So thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. Shalala. Thank you.
Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Hastings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I wish to
especially thank my distinguished colleague, Ms. Shalala. When
I see the person I call Donna all the time, I think of all the
titles that she has, president and Secretary and now Congress
people and whatever. It is sort of like at one point I was a
judge and I was a lawyer and I had letters of doctorate, and
people would ask me, say, what do you want to call me? I would
say, ``Just call me often.'' That is all. So that is what we do
with her.
But I am especially pleased that she agreed to lead this
morning's hearing, which marks the Subcommittee on Legislative
and Budget Processes' second hearing of the 116th Congress. And
I thank the chairman for letting us carry forth in that way.
I am pleased to welcome our witnesses. I don't know all of
you. I know the reputation of two of you, and I know one of you
very well, who has hasn't aged a bit, and I am jealous,
Katherine Fernandez Rundle. I am pleased to welcome them and
grateful that they are here.
We will hear from a number of experts, so I will keep my
remarks brief. We are here today to address human trafficking
around major events like the Super Bowl. And not meant to
correct you very much, Madam Secretary, but you said the Super
Bowl is one day a year. I have been at parties for the Super
Bowl a week in advance and got hung over and was a week later
as well.
But we do need cross-jurisdictional solutions. And this
morning's hearing is going to focus on the complexities of
combating human trafficking and ways the Federal Government is
assisting local law enforcement and additional resources needed
to increase our prevention.
The need for Congress to prioritize fighting this heinous
form of modern day slavery is urgently clear. The United States
has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the world,
but this is a local, not just a global problem. There have been
incidents of trafficking identified in all 50 States and
Washington, D.C., and centers of major events, tourism, and
entertainment, including California, Texas, and Florida are
among the major destinations for human trafficking victims.
I am painfully aware that my home State of Florida is
facing this epidemic on a daily basis and have long fought to
boost both awareness and prevention efforts for this very
reason. And the State attorney of Miami has done some forward-
leaning things that I am sure she is going to tell us about at
the instance of working with attorney general of the State of
Florida. They did some incredible work and stood up a building
even.
It is estimated that half of Florida's trafficking victims
are under 18 years old, with children from high-risk
backgrounds being the most vulnerable to exploitation and
trafficking. In September, Florida's State Board of Education
approved a new rule to require K through 12 students to learn
about the dangers posed by traffickers.
However, there is still much to do to address this epidemic
in Florida and across our Nation. That is why, without going
into great detail, I have introduced several bills, as have
many of my colleagues, and I won't mention them in the interest
of time. But in September, I have worked with ECPAT-USA, a
leader in fighting child sex trafficking, to introduce an
important guide which helps Members of Congress effectively
begin to discuss and address cases of new trafficking in their
respective jurisdictions.
As presentations for the Super Bowl continue in Miami, it
is imperative that we do everything we can to better understand
how we can protect our communities and our children from the
horrors and trauma of human trafficking. Today's hearing is a
vital step in that direction.
And, Madam Chair, with your permission, I would like to
introduce into the record a statement of our colleague Debbie
Wasserman Schultz and also her statement in support of the
effort that she has made, states hundreds of trafficking cases
last year, she says, and south Florida is one of the worst
epicenters for this heinous crime. The Congresswoman is
currently working on legislation which mandates trafficking
awareness and intervention training to hotel employees.
And I will footnote right there. This isn't only in hotels.
We need to pay attention to other places where this activity
flourishes, particularly around bars. And it also requires the
development and display of public materials on human
trafficking in lodging facilities. Most importantly, it will
include a provision of enforcement so that hotels will be held
accountable or have an opportunity to amend their wrongdoing.
With no objection, I would like to formally enter the
statement for the record.
Ms. Shalala. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Hastings. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Ms. Shalala. Dr. Burgess.
Dr. Burgess. Thank you, Chairman Shalala. I apologize. I am
going to have to go to another meeting, but I did want to--and
I will submit these questions in writing, but I want to just
speak to them just if I could to give you some context and
background.
Like Mr. Hastings, until last year, I was on the Helsinki
Commission. I was removed because we lost a seat because we
lost Members of the House. Long story. But part of that time--
Mr. Hastings is quite correct. Human trafficking is something
that we took testimony on. And some of the most compelling
testimony that I heard was one morning when we had two
witnesses from Central America, who were speaking through
translators, and they had been brought to this country and
trafficked and used for the worst purposes, but they were
trafficked by family members. And so, particularly for Dr.
Potter--now, the focus of the hearing was, why isn't our
healthcare system doing a better job of detecting this? I got
defensive, and, you know, why aren't people telling us the
truth when they come to see us as doctors.
But I think even just an awareness that this could happen
and a patient where they are not allowed to speak for
themselves. They are never allowed to be alone with the
provider in any way, shape, or form. Some of these things ought
to be red flags and ought to be conveyed, whether it is through
our professional organizations or medical schools, but this is,
unfortunately, something that all of us could see during a
typical practice time.
And, Mr. Rodgers, again, just the same thing. I mean, these
were ladies who were trafficked by transnational gangs, but
then their family members were involved in their trafficking.
And I won't be here, but I will look forward to your testimony
on how we are able to perhaps deal with that and intercept
that.
So thank you, Madam Chairman. I will yield back.
Ms. Shalala. Mr. Morelle.
Mr. Morelle. I want to thank you both, Mr. Chairman, and my
colleague Representative Shalala as well as Chairman McGovern
for organizing this. I know that in New York, when I was a
State legislator, we took a number of steps at the State level
to provide resources for victims and also to strengthen State
laws. This is clearly a Federal and international problem and
deserves a Federal response.
So I just appreciate the witnesses being here, and I am
looking forward to their testimony. So thank you.
Ms. Shalala. Thank you very much. Let me introduce our
witnesses. Jean Bruggeman is executive director of the Freedom
Network USA, a coalition that provides services to survivors of
human trafficking in the United States.
Katherine Fernandez Rundle is the Miami-Dade County State
Attorney. In this role, she leads the Human Trafficking Task
Force, a cooperative multiagency law enforcement effort.
Dr. JoNell Potter is clinical professor at the University
of Miami, vice chair for research at the THRIVE Clinic. She has
built a comprehensive model of healthcare for survivors of
human trafficking.
Bill Woolf is executive director of Just Ask Prevention and
director of the National Human Trafficking Intelligence Center.
Just Ask Prevention is a leader in educating communities on
strategies to identify and respond to human trafficking.
And Bob Rodgers is president and CEO of Street Grace, which
focuses on countering commercial sex exploitation of children
through faith-based prevention and policy.
We will start with you.
Ms. Bruggeman. Thank you.
Mr. Hastings. Get your microphone. Just press it, and the
green light will come on.
STATEMENT OF JEAN BRUGGEMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FREEDOM
NETWORK USA
Ms. Bruggeman. Thank you for the IT assistance.
Chairman McGovern, Secretary Shalala, Ranking Member
Woodall, Congressman Hastings, committee members and staff,
thank you for the opportunity to discuss the need to address
human trafficking in the United States.
I am Jean Bruggeman, executive director of Freedom Network
USA. I am an immigration attorney by training, with 20 years of
experience in addressing violence and exploitation, including
human trafficking, within the United States. Freedom Network
USA was established in 2001 and is now the Nation's largest
coalition of human trafficking service providers, and we are a
leader in human trafficking training and technical assistance
and policy advocacy.
Our 68 members are NGOs and individuals that provide
services to and advocate for the rights of trafficking
survivors here in the United States. Our members include
survivors themselves as well as former prosecutors, civil and
criminal attorneys, and social service providers, who work with
over 2,000 trafficking survivors each year. I have provided
detailed recommendations in my written statement, but I will
summarize those briefly now.
The unfortunate truth is that no jurisdiction in the United
States is successfully and comprehensively addressing human
trafficking, which includes compelled work in a wide variety of
industries, both legal and illicit. While it is important to
note that there has been an increased understanding of sex
trafficking across the United States, labor trafficking,
especially child labor trafficking, continues to be mostly
ignored.
While trafficking can happen to anyone anywhere in the
U.S., there are clear patterns. Some populations are at higher
risk. Immigrants are most often victims of labor trafficking
with, for example, predominantly women exploited in domestic
work and men in agriculture. Girls and young women, both U.S.
citizen and foreign nationals, as well as LGBTQIA youth are
more likely to be exploited by sex traffickers.
However, our understanding of the full complexities of
victim populations is incomplete, and some of our policy
efforts are unintentionally exacerbating this problem. The
focus on child sex trafficking, while laudable and important,
has, unfortunately, created a dangerous feedback loop. The
Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act of
2014, for example, specifically requires the identification and
reporting of child sex trafficking only in the child welfare
system. Therefore, the data suggests that child labor
trafficking does not exist and does not need further attention
and efforts. This demonstrates how important it is to design
approaches and solutions that both focus on the most prominent
problems without ignoring or excluding any victims.
While the Super Bowl brings us here today, it is not the
cause of human trafficking, and trafficking will not end when
the players leave the field or Mr. Hastings gets over his
hangover. Human trafficking, as you have already noted, is a
24/7, 365 days a year crime. It is happening in our homes, our
stores, our restaurants, our fields and factories and on our
streets all across America.
We can, however, use the energy and attention of sporting
events to bring attention and resources to this issue, but we
must do so responsibly, focusing on the true facts before us.
The U.S. has been focusing efforts on human trafficking since
the passage of the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
The President's Interagency Task Force, or PITF, has
brought agencies together from across the government to
collaborate and coordinate, and yet you know that there is more
work to be done. Funding for services for trafficking survivors
has increased from the initial authorizations of about $5
million each for DOJ and HHS to over $100 million for 2020.
Investigations and prosecutions are up, with State laws
allowing for more jurisdictions to bring cases.
However, services continue to be insufficient and focus on
short-term services instead of long-term recovery. Prosecutions
of labor trafficking are stagnant at best, and too often law
enforcement resources designated for sex trafficking are
squandered on arresting sex workers and buyers without
identifying a single trafficking victim or the high-level
traffickers who remain in operation.
Survivors continue to be arrested for the crimes they
commit that their traffickers have forced them to commit, only
to then be trapped in a cycle of dependency and poverty by
those criminal records while they are denied legal relief from
these charges.
We have also failed to address primary prevention in a
comprehensive way to change the factors that are putting people
at high risk of human trafficking. In fact, many policies have
increased the risk for immigrants, LGBTQIA community members,
and people living in poverty across the United States.
We must continue to focus on more comprehensive solutions
to not only meet the needs of those who have been victimized,
but to change the systems that make this crime so pervasive in
the first place.
Thank you for your commitment to a comprehensive approach
to human trafficking in the U.S., and I look forward to your
questions.
[The statement of Ms. Bruggeman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Shalala. Thank you very much.
Ms. Fernandez Rundle.
STATEMENT OF KATHERINE FERNANDEZ RUNDLE, STATE ATTORNEY, MIAMI-
DADE COUNTY
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. Good morning, Madam Chair Shalala and
Chairman Hastings. It is a real treat to be in front of you,
two people that I have thought of so highly all these years. So
thank you very much. And, Chairman McGovern, thank you so much
for hosting this. And to all the members of this committee,
thank you for putting such a spotlight on this issue and for
hosting this today, having this hearing.
My name is Katherine Fernandez Rundle, and I am the State
Attorney for Miami-Dade County, Florida. Throughout my career,
I have seen the effects of many horrific crimes, but it wasn't
until 2012, when I read that Florida was reported to be number
three, the third in the United States in the number of victims
of human trafficking, and Miami-Dade was number one, which is
my county, and I realized that this crime was happening in our
own backyard, and we didn't see it. And I have since learned if
you are not looking for human trafficking, you are not going to
see human trafficking.
So our experience is that human trafficking does not limit
itself to stereotypes that are depicted in the movies. It
occurs in hotels, massage parlors, even licensed storefronts.
It affects every single one of our communities, rich or poor,
every ethnicity, every race, every gender, and, most
importantly, it is primarily targeting our children and our
youth.
I am happy to report we have come a long way since 2012,
and my office has worked with over 700 victims of human
trafficking, and we have been able to file over 619 criminal
human trafficking-related cases. Our victims are ages as low as
12 years old. Human trafficking we all know, because you have
been paying good attention to this for many years, it is ugly,
and it is often an inhumane crime of exploitation.
Not surprisingly, the victims typically are the most
vulnerable. They primarily are children and youth. And our
experience in Miami is that over 34 percent of these cases--of
course, that fluctuates as they come and go--involves victims
under the age of 18, as you were pointing out earlier, Mr.
Hastings. The remaining 66 percent were really between the ages
of 18 and 24. So you are really talking about very young folks,
and 90 to 92 percent of them are female. Our cases involve
local victims that include children and youth from our schools
and from our parks and from our foster care system.
Human trafficking is no doubt a public health and mental
health threat to our children and our youth. Rescuing human
trafficking victims requires much more, though, than just
locating them and physically removing them from their
predators. Most have no home, no safe home to return to. They
have no clothing, other than what is on their back when you
rescue them, and many have not eaten or slept in days.
Many have been beaten, drugged, raped, isolated, branded,
threatened with retaliation, stripped of all their dignity and
their identity. Their mental, physical, and emotional injuries
are so profound, many are unable to heal and rebound without
any substantial or sustainable resources and assistance. When
proper services are not provided, many of these victims end up
back on the streets, where traffickers are just waiting for
them to save them and restart that sexual exploitation and
violent abuse cycle.
For us in prosecution and law enforcement, we have learned
that we needed to develop new methods of investigation and
prosecution and develop a network of victim services. Our human
trafficking prosecutions have become victim-focused and not
reliant on the victim. What we have tried to do is create a
community safety net of partnerships in all different silos
that will assist us with the housing, the physical and the
mental health needs, and getting them reintegrated into
society. You will hear today from our great colleague here to
my left from the THRIVE Clinic, such an integral and valuable
partner of ours.
The key, though, is to find the long-term sustainable
resources that are really necessary to address the victims
throughout a pendency of a prosecution. This is a constant
struggle for us, and it is a constant struggle for them. In
2018, we opened our Institute for Coordination, Advocacy and
Prosecution of Human Trafficking. We call it ICAP.
It is one building that is dedicated solely to combating
human trafficking, with the goal of creating a single doorway
that focuses on efforts that include prosecutors, law
enforcement, all our victim services, all our community
partners. They say it takes a village. Well, that is what we
tried to do. We tried to build a village, and we have created
one.
Miami is very collaborative, we are a great community in
that respect, but we would not have become a national model
without all our community service providers. It is not just
about law enforcement. And large-scale events like the Super
Bowl that we are all talking about today, our limited resources
are even more strained.
So Super Bowl LIV is taking place in my community in less
than 2 months. And while we have been preparing for the surge
that this may bring, we could use more help. We fear that
traffickers will be coming to our city to make money during the
Super Bowl, because that is what it is. It is all about money.
It is about selling our children and youth for money.
But to protect our most vulnerable and to rescue and
transport them in, what we have tried to do as a community is
create training and very costly messaging about what is human
trafficking and what everyone in the community should be
looking for. We have also tried to create a good reporting
method and then have rapid response teams that can respond out
to the community that consists of not just law enforcement but
medical professionals, to have them on standby, to have
prosecutors on call, to have housing readily available, food,
clothing, and a whole host of other services.
So we are looking at the Super Bowl as an opportunity. It
is an opportunity that is going to give us an opportunity to
have an aggressive and comprehensive awareness campaign that we
have developed. We have just created a new hotline. It is
called 305-FIX-STOP. It stands for fix it, stop it, and it will
have text and hashtag capabilities.
The goal is, upon receiving that call into that one
hotline, we will have a rapid-response team, depending on the
circumstances, of course, that will be dispatched right out to
investigate immediately and/or rescue that victim and pull them
into that network of care coordinators and services.
The campaign will be launched by--was launched by the
Women's Fund last month. It is a community wide. We have 35
municipalities in our reach, from the airport, seaport, truck
stops to billboards to public transportation sites. Hopefully,
we can serve for the rest of the community, the rest of the
world, if you like, as a demonstration to other communities on
how to attack crime, especially when there are these major
events.
But as I have heard said here, it doesn't end just there.
They are going to leave. Super Bowls come and go. And so what
we are going to need to do is make sure that what we have built
we are able to sustain long after the Super Bowl leaves us. And
so, for this long 365-days-a-year problem that we have, we are
now talking about how we are going to sustain that past that.
So I thank all of you so much. I have put some paperwork
here. I am going to try to stick to my time limit. We know
where we need to go with this. And so I thank you so much, as
our Federal Government and our Federal Representatives, for
listening to us, inviting us here today, and I look forward to
continuing this conversation.
[The statement of Ms. Fernandez Rundle follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Shalala. Thank you very much.
Dr. Potter.
STATEMENT OF JONELL POTTER, CLINICAL PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF
MIAMI & VICE CHAIR FOR RESEARCH, THRIVE CLINIC
Ms. Potter. Good morning, Madam Chair, Chairman Hastings,
Chairman McGovern, committee members, your amazing staff, thank
you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I am a professor
of clinical obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences,
pediatrics, and nursing at the University of Miami in Miami,
Florida. My career began in the early 1980s, when the HIV
epidemic emerged in Miami. I led the design of comprehensive
multidisciplinary models of care to help the women and children
living with HIV access healthcare services.
This experience taught me to listen to my patients. The
patients taught me about fear, abandonment, and stigma. They
also taught me about the incredible strength of the human
spirit. We were able to build models of care that helped these
vulnerable populations live healthy lives, and what we learned
in Miami spread to clinics across the country.
Six years ago, I was contacted by local law enforcement and
members of the Human Trafficking Task Force in Miami to provide
medical care for victims that they had identified. What I
encountered in my exam room led me on a new journey. I realized
these survivors, often taken as young children, had experienced
years of abuse and medical neglect and had tremendous
healthcare and mental health needs. Their healthcare needs
were, frankly, beyond the scope of anything that we had in
place. And I took on a new mission.
I am here to speak with you today because, since then, we
have established a comprehensive model of healthcare for
survivors of human trafficking. At the University of Miami,
along with our partners at Jackson Health System, we developed
one of the first clinics in the Nation to help survivors access
healthcare and mental health services. We saw this as an
emergency and we responded.
The clinic is called THRIVE. We provide medical, primary,
and specialty care, mental health and behavioral care services
to address the very unique needs of this population, who are
deeply impacted by poverty, housing insecurity, food
insecurity, and illiteracy. Many of the survivors have had
little or no education. Most have no identification or records
of any kind. Many have never had any healthcare or proper
nutrition. They have all suffered from trauma, from being held
captive in one way or another.
Our healthcare model is designed on the basic principles we
developed listening to the survivors. Trust is critical. The
most important issue for survivors is building trust. They have
been brainwashed by their traffickers and taught not to trust
anyone. We start by deliberately developing a trusting
relationship.
Patient navigators add safety and support. Getting care can
be overwhelming. We employ navigators, usually survivors who
have reentered the workforce who chaperone the patient through
every visit. No waiting rooms. Waiting rooms make our patients
too nervous. Having their name called out to come to the desk
in a public place is very frightening for them. We admit and
discharge every patient inside the exam room. We have
reengineered the medical model.
Specialists come to the clinic. Our patients cannot
negotiate multiple medical appointments in multiple facilities,
but most of the care they need comes from specialists. So the
physicians and nurses at Jackson Health System and the
University of Miami come to the same familiar clinic room every
time to see the patients.
We take a medical history only once. Repeating their
history retraumatizes our patients. So we take a medical
history only once and ask all the providers to review it before
they see the patient.
We have learned that no medical history is routine.
Survivors often cannot or do not want to remember. Their
stories change over time as they are able to share and trust.
They are not lying. They have blocked out the trauma to
survive. Every patient needs comprehensive care. Our patients
have physical injuries and illnesses that have been untreated
for years. They have bones that were broken a decade ago. They
have never seen a dentist. They need coordinated comprehensive
healthcare.
Extensive mental healthcare is essential. All of our
patients, every one of them has posttraumatic stress with all
of the classic symptoms: flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety,
depression, suicide attempts. What these survivors need most is
mental healthcare, and there are simply not enough available.
We are just beginning, but we have already seen results. Some
survivors relapse, but most do not. They are successfully
reengineering their lives.
Our clinic has been replicated in another Florida
community. We are collaborating and sharing best practices with
a program in Texas and Atlanta. Atlanta has called us to
replicate our model there.
So, in closing, I just want to reiterate what my colleagues
have already said and what you already know. Human trafficking
exists in every State in our Nation. I urge you to support
funding to establish medical demonstration projects designed to
evaluate the most effective model of medical and mental health
aftercare for survivors of human trafficking.
Thank you for the opportunity today, and I look forward to
your questions.
[The statement of Ms. Potter follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Shalala. Thank you very much, Ms. Potter.
Mr. Woolf.
STATEMENT OF BILL WOOLF, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JUST ASK
PREVENTION & DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING INTELLIGENCE
CENTER
Mr. Woolf. Madam Chair, honorable members, good morning. It
is, indeed, a privilege to be here, sitting next to these
highly respected experts in the field of human trafficking, and
quite humbling.
I started my career almost 20 years ago as a Fairfax County
police officer, first working as a patrol officer, then
graduating to a detective assigned to work in the gang
investigations unit. It was during the course of one of my
investigations into the notorious MS-13 gang that I first
encountered human trafficking.
My experience was similar to so many other law enforcement
officers when they encounter their first case. I had no idea
what I was looking at. As I became aware of what I would later
learn was human trafficking, my initial belief was that it was
just prostitution.
I had never received any training or education surrounding
the issue of human trafficking. Those words had not been a part
of my academy instruction, and so the concept was quite
foreign, much like I believed something such as human
trafficking was simply a foreign problem. Sadly, this lack of
training for law enforcement is still a problem today, with
some estimating less than 5 percent of law enforcement in the
United States have received adequate identification and
response training.
My eyes were quickly opened to the reality and prevalence
of this horrible crime. That reality: Human trafficking is
exploiting men, women and children alike, yes, in foreign
lands, but, more disturbingly, right here in the United States.
The land of the free has become one of the top three countries
of origin for modern day slaves.
Human trafficking is not just a threat to the most urban
areas of our country, but is impacting some of the most
remotest areas as well. Traffickers are exploiting technology
to gain access to potential victims right in their own
communities, their own schools, and even their own homes.
I have had the honor of working alongside more than 200
victims of human trafficking during the course of my career as
a law enforcement officer, alongside victim services
professionals, and in my capacity as the executive director of
the Just Ask Trafficking Prevention Foundation.
Their stories are complex and heartbreaking. They have been
exploited by boyfriends or girlfriends, those that have used
the guise of love to manipulate them into this lifestyle. They
have been exploited by gangs, who have learned that human
trafficking is more profitable and less risky than other
crimes. They have been exploited by lures of employment and
even in some cases by their own family members.
I would like to recognize my friend and a member of the
Just Ask board of directors, Barbara Wilson, who is with us
here today. Ms. Wilson is a survivor of sex trafficking here in
the United States. Starting at the age of 12, Barbara was sex
trafficked by her own mother, enduring abuse and exploitation
and ultimately running away from home, only to be taken
advantage of by many others. She became addicted to drugs and
survived on the street for many years until she was finally
able to pull herself out of that situation.
Barbara is more than a survivor; she is a thriver. She has
gone on to become a successful woman with a beautiful daughter
and enviable career. But Barbara did not have anyone to turn to
during her exploitation. She didn't know where to go, and
because of that I would say that, at a minimum, we as a society
were complicit in her exploitation.
I am also honored to have here with me Susan Young, who
serves as the director of our parent Coalition to End Human
Trafficking. Susan's daughter was lured and manipulated and
ultimately trapped by MS-13 gang members into a life of sexual
exploitation and servitude starting at the age of 14. These
monsters assaulted her, forced her to engage in commercial sex
acts, and injected her with multiple drugs as a means to
control her.
When Susan and her husband found out and tried to
intervene, the gang went after their 3-year-old daughter.
Susan, her daughter, and her family have literally been to hell
and back, although Susan might tell you that she will never
fully return from that hell as it will live with her for the
rest of her life. In her case, her daughter attempted to seek
help from school officials 22 times. All 22 times, the school
took no action to stop the abuse. We as a society were again
complicit in the exploitation.
There are many social determinants that lead to someone
being drawn into a life of exploitation. Much research has been
done identifying at-risk populations: those that come from
disjointed home lives, those in the very broken foster care
system, victims of prior abuse, those that are economically
challenged or homeless, those that are bullied or have low
self-esteem.
So many social issues have a direct or indirect correlation
to the pervasive exploitation of human trafficking. One social
issue in particular is that of the opioid epidemic. Drugs have
become inextricably linked to human trafficking. Traffickers
use these drugs to manipulate, control, and trap victims. In
even more disturbing cases, adults, parents will become
addicted to these drugs and then sell their own children in
order to fuel that addiction. One of our team members with us
here today, George Swanberg, is a drug addiction expert and
helps guide our understanding in developing comprehensive
prevention programming.
Human trafficking is truly a complex issue, from the social
determinants that create victim vulnerabilities to addressing
the demand for these illicit services, challenges in deploying
effective training for frontline professionals, availability of
resources to support victims, and the lifelong challenges these
survivors face. Considering the tremendous impact trafficking
has on its victims, much of which you have heard about from my
colleagues today, I ask you, what are we doing to prevent these
atrocities from happening in the first place?
I believe the key to combating the epidemic of human
trafficking is through prevention. Events like the Super Bowl
bring a much-needed awareness to the issue. There is much hype
surrounding sporting events with claims that human trafficking
increases exponentially as a result. While the research is
inconclusive, it is important that we seize these opportunities
to educate the public on the realities of human trafficking and
dispel the myths with a call to extend this awareness
throughout the entire year.
Prevention is truly possible. One young lady that I had the
privilege of working with, a young lady by the name of Maria,
was 17 years old when she was being drawn into trafficking.
Someone she believed to be her boyfriend was luring her in
through coercion and lies.
And, fortunately, she went to school and went through a
program, a prevention program that Just Ask had put together.
She realized what was happening as a result of that program and
was empowered to report to her parents. Law enforcement got
involved, and the bad guy was arrested, and she was never
exploited. Prevention is possible.
This is but one example of the effective lifesaving efforts
that our foundation and other NGOs working in the prevention
space do on a day-to-day basis. We are just beginning to
scratch the surface of addressing the issue of human
trafficking. It is really going to be the next generation to
bring about real change if we provide them with the tools and
resources that they need.
I am so proud to have members of the Just Ask Student
Advisory Council here with me today: Cora, Ashna, Maya, Paige
and Alex. These young women and men provide guidance and
leadership to us at Just Ask to make sure our message is
relevant and effective. And I hope that you share in my
gratitude and pride in these leaders, who have taken a stand to
safeguard their communities and their generation.
On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the passing of the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, I call upon all of us to
take action. Provide us working in the field with tools,
resources, and support that we need to expand our successes and
bring an end to human trafficking. The witness of Barbara and
Susan here today are a testament to resiliency and strength of
the human person, but it is also a call for us to stand up,
with the noble goal of not one more victim. And these students
stand ready to carry on that charge.
I would like to thank Representative Shalala and the
committee members for offering the opportunity to address human
trafficking, with the sincere hope that this is the beginning
of a meaningful conversation, not the end. We can end this if
we would help these students, who are willing to stand up and
do something.
I commend you all for your commitment to safeguarding our
communities and look forward to an ongoing partnership. If I
may just for the record offer my daughter Emma a happy 11th
birthday today. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Woolf follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Shalala. Thank you, Mr. Woolf. And thanks for bringing
your posse with you.
Mr. Rodgers.
STATEMENT OF BOB RODGERS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, STREET GRACE
Mr. Rodgers. Yes. Madam Chair, honorable members of the
committee, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to be
with you today, addressing the issue of sex trafficking. I know
we can all agree it is a shame that organizations like these
and Street Grace have to exist and that these conversations are
even necessary.
However, for Street Grace and many of the organizations in
the fight, there is good news. We have never been more
encouraged. Together, we are making meaningful, and we are
making measurable progress. I am grateful for the committee's
willingness to deal with this issue directly and at the highest
levels to keep it in the forefront. This is how real progress
is made.
I have never met anyone in favor of sex trafficking, but I
meet people every day who aren't aware of what it is and they
are not aware that it is occurring in their neighborhoods and
in their communities. My exposure came as a graduate university
president, but today I have the distinct honor of serving as
the President and CEO of Street Grace. We were launched in 2008
as a result of the faith community coming together with a
collaborative response for the growing issue of sex
trafficking, child sex trafficking in Atlanta and throughout
the State of Georgia.
Today, we have offices in four States, and over the last 2
years have partnered with more than 10 attorneys general around
the country. We are led and informed by a survivor advisory
board that puts their hands, their eyes, and their life
experience on everything that we do.
Since context matters, I thought it would be important for
you to know the lens that we see the issue through. One, we are
Christ-centered; two, we are child-focused; and, three, we are
demand-centric. Additionally, all of our initiatives rest on at
least one of three pillars.
Prevention and protection of children: Every year,
especially the last 3 years, we have had the opportunity to
speak and present and educate 50,000 to 75,000 kids a year
between the ages of 12 and 18. It is a remarkably powerful
thing when you are sitting with a middle school or a high
school student and you give language to this part of life and
these things that can happen and you see a light bulb and a
connection come on. We follow the old adage that the eyes can't
see what the brain doesn't know.
Second is policy. Street Grace is a leader in local and
national policy recommendations that create a better framework
for law enforcement to make arrests and for those that can be
successfully prosecuted, also focusing on and continuing to
create access to care for those who have been victimized by
this crime while ensuring that the perpetrators, both the
traffickers and the buyers of sex, who are also traffickers,
face appropriate convictions and sentencing.
And, third, pursuit: Including the use of artificial
intelligence and learning chatbots, we sit here this morning,
we have technology that is deployed in 15 cities and 8 States
identifying bad actors who are attempting to purchase sex with
children and disrupting those transactions.
And let's be really clear. I don't mean to be offensive or
disrespectful in any way, but I think it is very important that
we call it what it is. Child sex trafficking is the exchange of
something of value or money to rape a child. It must be
stopped, and no child deserves this.
I also mentioned, though, that this was an encouraging time
to be in the fight against sex trafficking. I would like to
briefly highlight a couple of those reasons. I am happy to
comment further during the Q&A, if necessary. On this issue,
around the country, we have moved from competition to a greater
level of collaboration, where we are working together in
support of a shared goal and cooperation. It is occurring
between government, local, State, and Federal, NGOs, law
enforcement, corporations, the Academy, faith communities,
community groups, and more. Many States are benefiting from
this now more than ever before. We just saw a very practical
example of that earlier this year in Atlanta, when we came
together to create a web of protection around our city as we
hosted the Super Bowl. While we weren't perfect, it worked.
Second, we continue to acknowledge that restorative care
for those who have been victimized by this is critical. They
need, as you have heard, and deserve the best and highest
standards of medical care, mental healthcare, skills training,
life support, education, and every other resource that we can
possibly make available. Progress cannot be made without gold
standard of care. There is no substitution. There is no second
best. We have to lead in this area.
We are doing a better job acknowledging that we will never
end this issue by following it around and trying to put the
broken pieces back together from those who have been impacted
by it. While it is critical, it is not the solution. They
deserve more, as do others, and we must look at this as the
illegal business that it is and strategically work to dismantle
it.
We will never end sex trafficking one arrest, one rescue,
one prosecution at a time. We have to scale up. The use of
artificial intelligence, chatbots, and other technology allows
us to keep pace with the traffickers and the tools that they
use.
Finally, there is a growing acceptance towards removing the
cloak of anonymity towards the buyers of illegal sex. Laws are
being passed around the country that allows for the arrest and
exposure of those who are caught. This has to be included.
For these meaningful reasons and more, we have cause for
encouragement, and yet, as is always the case, there is more to
do as we continue to make measurable progress and accelerate
the rate of that progress. We must allocate additional funding
for prevention and evidence-based demand reduction strategies.
Historically and overwhelmingly and appropriately, funding
has gone primarily towards restorative care. Because this is
such a hidden crime, it requires proactive investigations. We
need to do more to prioritize trafficking investigations among
Federal law enforcement agencies, like the FBI and Homeland
Security and others.
We must include the rampant transnational and organized
crime rings in the illicit massage industry. It is the second
highest category of reported cases of sex trafficking in the
United States of America. It is the safest place in the United
States of America to purchase illegal sex. No one is better
positioned than the Federal Government to address these large
criminal enterprises.
We also must look at the systemic approaches that can be
used to cripple segments of the industry. The House took the
lead on H.R. 2513, known as the Corporate Transparency Act. And
while it is in the Senate now and they are considering similar
legislation under the name the Illicit Cash Act, this could
quite possibly help us with the stroke of a pen do more to
dismantle the illicit massage industry in the United States of
America overnight than all of the NGOs' combined efforts could
do over the next 10 years. We need your leadership and your
support.
We need to continue to create and pass legislation that
allows those who have been victimized by this horrible crime to
have civil recourse against all parties who knowingly and
financially benefited by this activity or passively allowed it
to occur. We must continue to expand the statute of limitations
that allows someone who has been victimized to pursue criminal
charges and damages. And we need to continue to create
expungement and vacatur laws, providing access and legal help
for those who have been victimized by this. As you are probably
aware, in recent months grant funding to survivors to provide
legal support to help clear their criminal records so that they
can move forward and establish careers and move on with life
has been eliminated or dramatically reduced by this
administration.
We must continue to focus on restorative care solutions as
well as evidence-based demand reduction strategies. We are
capable of doing both. Simply put, much good is occurring, and
there is much left to do, but the pace of progress is
accelerating, and it seems like a tipping point could be in
sight. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Rodgers follows:]
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Ms. Shalala. Thank you, Mr. Rodgers.
I would like to insert three documents into the record. The
first is written testimony from HEAL Trafficking. HEAL is a
network of 35 countries, over 3,100 trafficking survivors, and
multidiscipline professionals that focus on education and
training, protocol development, research, and providing direct
services to victims of human trafficking.
The second is a statement from the American Hotel and
Lodging Association on their No Room for Trafficking Campaign,
which unites the industry around a comprehensive approach to
fight human trafficking in the hotel sector.
And the last statement for the record is a letter from the
National Football League on their effort to utilize Super Bowl
as a platform to promote awareness about human trafficking.
Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Shalala. Mr. Woodall, would you like to start the
questioning?
Mr. Woodall. I thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Ms. Shalala. Excuse me. Let me acknowledge the presence of
our colleague from Pennsylvania, Representative Scanlon.
Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Madam Chair. For us in Atlanta, it
was 11 days of the Super Bowl, and Street Grace was a part of a
Federal, State, local and NGO collaborative team. We called it
the Metro Atlanta Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task
Force. And it resulted in those 11 days in about 169 arrests.
Mr. Rodgers. That is right.
Mr. Woodall. Including 26 traffickers and 34 individuals
trying to purchase sex with minors. It also led to the rescue
of nine adults and nine minors, I believe the youngest of which
was 14.
Mr. Rodgers. Right.
Mr. Woodall. That is a record of enforcement that I hope
Miami does not match, because I hope the problem is not
escalating. I hope the tipping point that Mr. Rodgers talked
about is, in fact, among us.
But I want to talk about what the four corners of the
debate are. Mr. Rodgers, you mentioned civil recourse. And
certainly getting the lawyers involved is--money talks. But I
heard Mr. Woolf's testimony. I believe 22 times a victim went
to the local school system seeking help, did not find help.
When you talk about something as deliberately heavy-handed
as civil recourse against folks who passively allow abuse to
occur, do you have something as serious as allowing a lawsuit
against that local school system in order to promote that,
lawsuits against doctors who passively allow that to occur? Is
that the level of necessity that we have come to?
Mr. Rodgers. No, I can't speak specifically to that, but in
our impression of what we are looking at, that is not the case.
We are looking for people who--the key word for us is
``knowingly'' and ``benefited from.''
So what we are talking about is an example over and over
again that you can run across where the front desk clerk or the
manager at a local motel has been allowing this to occur on
property while they have either been receiving cash, you know,
under the table or they have just passively allowed it to occur
and not wanting to get involved. So it is primarily targeting
those who, A, knowingly and have financially benefited from.
Mr. Woodall. And I know you were talking about massage
parlors or some of the research and the reports that are coming
out locally. Are those large criminal enterprises? Are we going
to find 15 or 20 of those massage parlors connected? Are those
individual smaller sex trafficking shops, in your experience?
Mr. Rodgers. The recent research that was done by Polaris I
believe earlier this year/late last year indicated that there
were about 9,000-plus illicit massage businesses around the
United States of America, accounting for about $2.5 billion to
$3 billion in annual revenue. Those are overwhelmingly owned by
more--the individual owner, whoever that might be, owns more
than one. And they also have likely two of--at least one of
three businesses: A dry cleaners, a laundromat, a restaurant or
a nail salon, and that is where they funnel and traffic the
illegal money that comes from--the majority of them are run by
organized crime in some way, shape or form, from our
experience.
Mr. Woodall. Doctor, I wanted to ask on Dr. Burgess'
behalf, you heard him express his concerns about giving that
minor time to be alone with a provider to make that report. Do
you have, so we can get that on the record, a response to his
very serious concern?
Ms. Potter. Absolutely. When Representative Burgess was
speaking, I was thinking about his story as a missed
opportunity. It was a missed opportunity in healthcare. And I
am happy to say that most healthcare professionals, a lot of
service industries have licensed professionals. And State
legislatures are working hard to mandate continuing education
on human trafficking. Education and awareness is the key. I
have been doing this for 6 years, and it is amazing to me how
many people do not understand what human trafficking is and
what to do if it is in front of them.
Doctors are not equipped to care for the survivors that we
are seeing today. We don't know best practices. We don't know
best approaches. I have sent a patient to the emergency room at
2 in the morning and called the ER to speak to the attending
physician about my case that was in the ER. And the attending
physician says: Could you stay on the phone, because I want to
talk to you about a case that I had a couple days ago that I
thought could have been a trafficking victim, and I am not sure
what to say because if I bring it up, they will run. I am not
sure what to do and who to refer to.
HEAL Trafficking, the memo that was put into, she has an
online website where they do massive education. There are
protocols online that can be downloaded about what ERs can do
to increase the awareness.
We talked a little bit about trauma-informed care. Trauma-
informed care, survivor-informed care, what I call human
trafficking-informed care. In Massachusetts, for example, they
are working at Brigham and Women's to make the entire hospital
trauma-informed. Because human trafficking is hidden in plain
sight, it is not like you know who the victims are. So it is
the words that you use and the language that you use as a
provider to let the patient feel safe.
We are all trained to isolate the patient. There are tricks
that you can use. If the chaperone won't leave them, you send
the patient for an x-ray that is not really ordered and get
them away from the trafficker, and then you put a note in the
bathroom and ask them for a sample in the bathroom. So we are
learning all of these tricks about how to educate healthcare
professionals, but educate the world.
Everyone in this room today, all of the stories that you
have heard, we are counting on you to go back to your dinner
parties, to go back to your families and tell the stories that
you have heard today so that we increase awareness and
education and everybody starts to think about the victims and
if they see something they call the human trafficking hotline.
Mr. Woodall. We do spend a lot of time talking about
response. During the Super Bowl, every billboard in Atlanta was
``see something, say something,'' not in a terrorist context
but in a human trafficking context. It is easier to get dollars
out of Congress for a response, because if you see a problem
everybody wants to solve that problem.
What I am hoping you can tell me, to your point, Mr.
Rodgers, to so many of your points, response is critical and
must happen, but prevention would have been better. What is the
best dollar that we spend so that you don't have a prosecution
in your courtroom, so that Fairfax County isn't involved in
making arrests, so that we don't get the negative policy
feedback loop. It may be different for each of you, but if we
know, what is the best dollar we spend on prevention?
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. Thank you. That is such a complicated
question with a very broad answer, but I think that what you
are hearing today is that it is not just one area. Prevention
is critical, but prevention happens at different intersections,
right?
So it can be at the home level. It can be at the
neighborhood level. It can be in your doctor's office. It could
be your first arrest. It could be the arrest of somebody else.
There are so many intersections that we need to prevent what is
happening at each intersection. So it is really all of the
above.
And one of the things that is so challenging about this
area is that it is so complex. And, for instance, neuroscience
today is teaching me and I think a lot of us that what we are
dealing with is something that is so neurologically different
from what we ever learned about as professionals or had
witnessed as professionals. And so now we are all trying to
build some trauma-informed responses at all those different
intersections so that we can be very preventive, that we can be
also very punitive with the traffickers.
So what Mr. Rodgers, for instance, was describing about
massage parlors, you know, that is about money also. But, you
know, what he was talking about is we now know that trauma is
so deep and hard for these victims to tell their stories, or
like I think one of them said, they are not lying. We now know,
because of the new neuroscience that is only, what, like 20
years new that we are learning about the brain, we now
understand they are not lying. So we don't have to rely on
them, because they are going to be cross-examined and they are
going to be called a liar, and Mom's not going to believe them
and all those horrible things. But what we now can do is we can
look at money laundering, for instance.
So what Mr. Rodgers was talking about is pertinent I think
to this discussion, because we know that we have to take care
of that victim, but at the same time we can go after the
traffickers in the massage parlors and the dry cleaners if, in
fact, that is where they are laundering their money from those
illegal acts. That was a long answer, but----
Mr. Woodall. So often when folks say it is a complex
question, what that leads me to conclude is that, yes, Miami-
Dade is going to have to try something, Gwinnett County is
going to try something different, Fairfax is going to try
something different; but I am going to be stuck, as a Federal
legislator, responding with that block grant that lets you use
it as you see fit.
Have you seen, Jean, a place that we have underfunded that
you can point to?
Ms. Bruggeman. Well, I think there are many--as you stated,
I think there are many levels to what would be effective
prevention. I think that there is actually, sort of taking a
step back even further, going further upstream is where the
real work hasn't started. And that involves comprehensive
immigration reform. That involves looking at guest worker visas
and including visa portability for workers.
What we see is that a majority of labor trafficking victims
enter on a legal visa that was given to them by the U.S.
Government that tied them to an employer, who then abused them
and used the U.S. legal system to entrap them.
So when we change the system that the traffickers are using
to exploit the workers, then we protect the workers. When we
make housing affordable across the country, what we see is that
a lot of people who are entrapped in sex trafficking engaged
first in sex work in order to pay their rent and pay their
medical bills. If they could just pay their rent because
housing was affordable, then they wouldn't be put in a
desperate situation where they were willing to take employment
that was dangerous and difficult.
So I think it is actually the fundamentals of keeping our
community safe. And when we keep our community safe from all
sorts of violence and exploitation, that is when we truly
protect them from human trafficking as well. It is not as
pinpointed, so it is much more difficult to get through
Congress, and it is the real work that needs to be done,
because I think that is the work that would address the
problems that all of us are seeing where people are being put
at risk by systems.
Mr. Woolf also mentioned the foster care system and the
challenges. What we see is that time and time again our youth
are running away from the foster care system and would prefer
to trade sex on the street than to go back to the foster care
system. Until we fix that, the kids keep running away from it
and into the arms of anyone who will take them. So that is on
us to fix that system I think, as Mr. Woolf pointed out.
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. If I may, can I piggyback on that
issue, the foster care system? About 45 percent of our victims,
our experience in Miami, come from the foster care system.
So, when you are talking about prevention, one of the areas
that we can have some well-developed preventative strategies
would be when they are really, really young in the home, and we
start to see that there are dynamics that aren't working, and
they are ending up in our foster care system, whether it is
temporarily or a couple weekends, or then it goes to a couple
weeks and then a couple months. And they tend to be runaways,
like you say, and throwaways. A lot of them tend to be kids
that nobody wants except these traffickers want them.
So, you know, that is another area I just wanted to
piggyback on on her talking about the foster care system.
Mr. Woodall. Doctor.
Ms. Potter. I just want to also add, that is about half of
the population, but many of my patients are coming from regular
suburbia, middle class homes, and they are being lured because
they want things. And the traffickers entice them. They will
trade sex for phones, things like that.
And the internet, the internet is a big problem. We were
speaking in Palm Beach, and after we presented some work, a
judge raised his hand, and he said: That was my granddaughter,
right?
So they were lured on the internet. So prevention,
educating the youth, you know, mandating education about how to
stay safe in schools is critical.
Mr. Woodall. Mr. Woolf.
Mr. Woolf. Mr. Woodall, yes, sir. If I can just respond and
add onto what Dr. Potter pointed out. And I think that if you
are asking how do we best use our dollars the right way, I
think absolutely, it is educating our young people.
Even though we know that all ages are targeted by
traffickers, if we look at it in the sense of inoculating
against a particular threat, right, where we can give them that
education early on. I have worked with so many victims that
came and said, I just didn't know. I didn't know what I was
getting myself into, or I didn't know how to describe what was
happening to me. I didn't know who to turn to for help.
And we have got to put those skills and resources and give
those tools to our young people so that they are empowered to
be able to stand up and protect themselves and their peers.
Education is cheap. I commend Florida for the steps that they
have taken to mandate it in their classrooms.
But this is something that is called on by the Department
of Education, Health and Human Services has asked for this, and
yet we are not seeing it get the traction. And many communities
around the country say: Well, we haven't had that many cases,
so do we really need to make this a priority?
And I think the answer is yes, and that needs to come from
your leadership.
Mr. Rodgers. Just one quick comment. I agree with
everything that my colleagues have said. And so this is not an
agreement. If it was my dollar, I would figure out how to
divide it amongst education and demand reduction, evidence-
based demand reduction. When a buyer of sex has to pause
because there is a 50/50 chance that they are going to get
caught, it stops. But when there is a 1 percent chance, ``that
is never going to be me.''
Mr. Woodall. Thank you all. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Shalala. Thank you.
Representative Scanlon.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Chairwoman Shalala, for convening
this subcommittee hearing today, and special thanks to all of
you for coming.
This is actually something that I had an interest in before
coming here for a couple reasons. First off, my district in
southeastern Pennsylvania contains all five of Philadelphia's
professional sports teams as well as a major international
airport, an East Coast port, Amtrak, regional rail, a large
stretch of I-95. So a lot of infrastructure that can be used to
facilitate human trafficking.
And the other reason I was interested is because before
coming to Congress, I was head of a pro bono program for a
large law firm where we provided legal services to a lot of
underserved populations, and human victims or survivors of
human trafficking were certainly a large part of that.
We represented victims from around the world who have been
lured to the U.S. with promises of employment. We represented
an order of Catholic nuns who repurposed their convent to
become a halfway house or a place of refuge for victims. And we
represented foster care youth and other people who our social
safety net had failed. So, certainly, I am aware of the
connections and look forward to your helping us figure out what
we can do about it.
And I am also grateful to Mr. Woodall, because I was aware
that Atlanta had really stepped up its game. I had seen a lot
of the materials in the airport there.
But with regards to the airport, we have heard--airports,
we have heard stories from time to time passengers or people in
the air industry being able to disrupt trafficking. And I know
that there is some Federal legislation or regulation that
requires some training and posting of signs.
But, you know, we have seen what happens when there is
mandatory training or posting of signs. What can we do to step
it up? And I think, Ms. Fernandez Rundle, you might have
something on that.
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. Yes, thank you very much for asking
that question. I think that anything that we can do in
education and awareness is always going to get us much further
than any reaction, right?
So I think that all the mandatory training that we have now
passed in Florida, that you have mandated at the Federal level,
is all having an impact. I mean, just, you know, somebody
pointed out to me 10 years ago when the Super Bowl was in
Miami, 10 years ago, the NFL wasn't talking about human
trafficking. They are talking about human trafficking. And I am
not saying we don't have a long way to go, we do. But just even
talking about the issue. And everything the Federal Government
has done, that you have done, and the State government has done
to constantly every year pass legislation and some funding and
appropriations, this says: This matters, and we want you, hotel
industry, we want you, the education system, and we want you to
be talking about training, have curriculums built, medical
system.
All of the medical professionals in Miami are incredible.
They all want to know what are the protocols? What are the
standards of care? How do we get involved? What are we going to
do when they all come to our emergency rooms and urgent care
centers?
So I think that kind of conversation constantly, and even
though there are a lot of different professionals working at
it, if we are all really focused on it together as an
infrastructure, I think we have to say to ourselves, we are
making a difference and we can make a difference. And we need
to be super supportive of each other, because if we all stay in
our own silos, we are not going to get it done. We have to get
into each other's lanes, and we have to really work with each
other and around each other and include each other and embrace
each other.
So I hope that answers your question.
Ms. Scanlon. Jean.
Ms. Bruggeman. Yeah, I would just like to add I think it is
also important what we have seen is some really amazing work
done by community-based organizations across the country. For
example, in my written testimony, I talked about Damayan, a
Filipino-based worker collective that works to educate Filipino
domestic workers throughout New York.
What we see, especially in immigrant communities that are
very vulnerable to different forms of human trafficking, is
that general public information campaigns aren't successful at
reaching those workers, especially domestic workers who are
isolated in their homes. And so having community-based
organizations educate using peer education methods.
In Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has an
amazing program that educates agricultural workers in the
fields in Florida using a peer education model with an
opportunity to report violations that has virtually eliminated
labor trafficking in the tomato fields in Florida.
So I think it is also, you know--as Mr. Woolf was talking
about the importance of peer education and school-based
education and the peer educators that he uses in his own
program, in the same way with other communities that are at
high risk, really working within those communities to provide
culturally relevant, linguistically appropriate direct contact
and information. Building that trust, as we have heard about
this morning, is critically important.
Ms. Scanlon. I am a little curious about how the impact of
the administration's hardline enforcement or seeking out of
immigrants for deportation, et cetera, how that has impacted
human trafficking, because certainly what I have seen in the
past when people have been lured to the U.S. with promises of
employment or if they are here with any question about their
legal status, then that becomes an instrument of control that
people are profiting off of, that they are basically held in
servitude because they are afraid that they are going to be
arrested.
So what can we do to disrupt our government becoming the
enabler of these people who are putting others in slavery?
Ms. Bruggeman. Yeah, that is a current challenge right now.
What we are seeing is that immigrant victims are more hesitant
to come forward. Those who come forward to local service
providers, the legal service providers in our network report
that the immigrant victims who will come and tell them about
their situation will not report to law enforcement. They even
fear right now filing for immigration relief, the T visa that
Congress created.
Now the new policies of the administration have made the T
visa harder to get, and they have extended a memo which then
threatens with deportation anyone who applies for a T visa and
whose application is found lacking in any way or they are
unable to respond to any questions for whatever reason. They
will be subject to immediate deportation if their application
is denied, in a complete reversal of policy.
So this is terrifying the immigrant community. Our members
have reported that victims have come forward to them and said:
I will go back to the trafficker. It is not safe for me to come
away right now.
What can we do to disrupt that? I think we have to change
these policies. We have to reach out to our immigrant
communities and tell them that we know that they are
hardworking, honest people who are trying very hard to support
their families and loved ones, just like everyone else. And we
have to protect them from these really painful and abusive
practices.
Ms. Scanlon. Even before the recent administration policy,
there was an issue with the T visas and the U visas that do
provide a path to legal entry, that they were capped. I mean,
we helped many people apply for these visas, and the wait time
was now moving into years, and 7 years, 8 years, 9 years. So
even people who were trying to comply with our laws were unable
to, and so, therefore, they remained in this limbo and subject
to deportation.
Is that your experience as well?
Ms. Bruggeman. Yes. That continues to be a problem. I think
most Americans think that there is a legal path to citizenship
for anyone who works hard and tries and complies with the law,
and that is simply untrue. The U visa cap has been reached
every year, and the wait list now to even be considered for
approval is over 10 years.
So that is something Congress could certainly look into,
raising that cap to allow more U visas each year. U visas are
for victims of a wide variety of crimes and requires
certification from law enforcement.
So a U visa is only eligible, is only available to someone
who has come forward and been helpful to a law enforcement
investigation or prosecution and the law enforcement agency, on
their own accord with no requirement, has certified that that
is true. We have law enforcement agencies across the U.S. who
choose not to certify even when victims of violence have
assisted in an investigation or prosecution. So it is a very
high standard. It is an incredibly high bar, and we are limited
by numbers.
The T visa has a lower ceiling, but it has never been
reached. So the problem with the T visa is not that we are
running out of T visas. It is that the adjudication process,
which used to be completed within 6 to 9 months, if you look at
the historical averages that USCIS has published online, is now
over 2 years. For that application, we are talking about less
than a thousand applications a year. They simply made changes
to their adjudication process to slow down adjudications of
visas, including the T visa, which leaves then victims of
trafficking who have come forward, who have put their lives at
risk, who have complied with every request of our government in
limbo for over 2 years and then with the threat of deportation
hanging over their head.
So those things together are leading to a place where
people are unwilling to come forward at this time.
So those are all policy changes. A legislative change it is
not needed there. Perhaps some oversight into why the
Department of Homeland Security has chosen to make these policy
changes specifically against this population might be helpful.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. One more thing for Mr. Rodgers.
You mentioned the fact--this is more of a domestic
enforcement issue--that funding has been withdrawn to help
survivors of human trafficking expunge their record so that
they can move on from their lives. Can you talk a little bit
about that?
Mr. Rodgers. There were some grants that were available
that would allow folks who have come out of the life and been
rescued to it to be able to apply for legal support for funding
that would allow them legal support to expunge their records,
to erase criminal, you know, charges that were against them
while this was occurring and they were being victimized, so
that they could more swiftly move forward and earn a career,
get a job, and transition into a way of supporting and caring
for themselves.
That is probably, at least in our experience, outside of
the mental health issue of it that is an ongoing basis,
probably the single greatest challenge that survivors of
trafficking face when they are trying to stand on their own two
feet and move forward, you know, is the financial ability to
take care and provide.
Ms. Shalala. Let me ask, Ms. Fernandez Rundle, how you
handle that kind of thing?
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. Actually, Florida has the ability in
State law to move to vacate, a vacatur, in other words, to go
in and take that record and eliminate it for that person. So we
do that as an office. If we feel it is appropriate and the
victim was coerced or a lot of the crimes occurred--robbery is
a big one. They will steal from the person that is buying them,
and they might get charged with robbery or theft. And then, as
we understand that case better, we then have the ability to go
with that victim into court and change the record, really
eliminate it from the record.
Ms. Scanlon. Am I correct that some of the funding for that
is in the VAWA Act, which hasn't been reauthorized. Is that
correct?
Mr. Rodgers. That is my understanding, yes.
Ms. Scanlon. That is Violence Against Women Act that the
House passed months ago. Okay.
Ms. Shalala. Absolutely.
Ms. Scanlon. I yield back.
Ms. Shalala. Kathy Fernandez Rundle, let me ask you,
because you are the prosecutor here, how you build a case,
because everybody has talked about the trust of the victim in
terms of providing services, but you provide some services as
part of your efforts to build a case. And you mentioned that
sometimes you have to build the case without the victim.
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. That is correct. Thank you for asking
that question, because it is really the key component to
successfully rescuing a victim and having a successful
prosecution.
So what we have done, our experience has been working is
that the person that builds that initial trust--and I think you
have met them, because you have been out to our center--are
these incredible angels. I don't know where they get the depth
of passion to do it. But they are the ones who go out 3 o'clock
in the morning, and they build a bond with that victim right
then and there, and brings them into our center, where--we are
not a shelter. We are an advocacy center.
And they can just relax for a few minutes and think about
their experience, think about their rescue. And the bond is
then with that care coordinator. And that is not a cold police
station. It is not somebody in uniform necessarily, right? We
might send an investigator out there.
And then, with that, once we get them into all the services
that we have talked about here, we are then able, not always,
but many times we are able to convince that victim to move
forward with the prosecution. Oftentimes, they run. You could
start a prosecution and they change on you.
So that is why in this packet you will see, I think it is
like page 15 of our PowerPoint that we submitted, we look at
everything. We go to digital evidence, so that we don't have to
retraumatize that victim again, because you have heard us all
say this. We now know neurologically that when you are relying
on that victim, lots of things are going to happen. They could
run on you. They could lie to you. They could be ashamed. They
could be all of the above. And so they are not going to come
forward.
So what we have to do, as prosecutors and lawyers, and
other people in the system like you were talking about, how do
you ask these questions of them? We look to digital evidence.
We look at phone records, text messages, hotel records, massage
parlors, their financial records. We even now have strip clubs
and gentlemen's clubs that are coming to us, as a prosecutors'
office, saying: How can we help you do some undercover
operations within our organization?
So I don't know if that answers your question, but it is a
very--we found a pathway that is working for us. And one of the
things I think I heard Mr. Woodall talking about is, what is
the takeaway here? One of the things that I think we would all
like is some research, right, that would tell us are our
strategies working? What are the best evidence-based strategies
for prevention, for treatment, for medical services, for trauma
treatment, for prosecution, for immigration? What does that
look like? What do we need the takeaways?
And I think the Federal Government can be very helpful to
us in looking at some of the different pockets. I mean, you
know them better than I do, but, HHS and Office Against
Violence Against Women. And there are a whole host of different
places that you could help us also understand better what are
the strategies that are working, what strategies should we be
implementing that can work. And so that would be a wonderful
place that you could really be a contributing major player in
changing this landscape.
Ms. Shalala. Mr. McGovern.
Mr. McGovern. First of all, thank you. I apologize. I had
to leave briefly to testify before another committee.
But, as I mentioned before, I co-chair the Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission. We did a hearing on trafficking a few years
ago. And, you know, many of the same challenges that were
highlighted a few years ago still exist today. You know, this
is a complicated issue. It is more than about a block grant,
right? It is more than about education and awareness. It is
more than about better training doctors. It is more than about,
you know, a lot of these things that we have all talked about.
More than a study even, right? I mean, although those are all
very, very important.
But there are systemic challenges that persist that make it
very, very difficult. We talked about immigration. I mean, I
hear over and over. If you are being illegally trafficked, you
know, sex trafficked or you are being exploited for labor and
you are an undocumented immigrant, I mean, you don't come
forward because you will be revictimized again, you know. You
will be deported. And we do not have a system right now, no
matter how we want to talk about it, that is at all
compassionate when it comes to people who find themselves in
that situation.
The same with people who are trafficked in sex. You know,
not just undocumented immigrants but, I mean, you know, a very
few years ago people were saying that, you know, that the
people who were being arrested and prosecuted, you know, were
the ones who were being caught in the act and not the person
who was exploiting them. And yeah, you can--and I think there
are cases where you can vacate convictions, but those are
tough, right? And so, you know, if you don't have access to
affordable housing and you have a kid or two kids you are
trying to support, and you get arrested and then you have a
record, who is going to hire you, right? I mean, and it is
the--and these are--I know that they are difficult challenges
to try to overcome, but there are systemic problems that need
to be overcome. You talked about the affordability of housing
and decent work that pays a livable wage.
So we also have to be mindful of that, that, you know,
passing an additional block grant in and of itself is not going
to solve this problem. It may help. It may provide some relief.
And even the education and awareness program, I mean, you know,
will be helpful, but, you know, we need to change our system's
approach to this. Otherwise, it is going to continue to happen,
because victims don't want to be revictimized, and they
shouldn't be, I mean.
And so I appreciate all of your testimony here, and I think
there are some concrete suggestions that you have passed on to
us that I think we can pursue legislatively. But we have to
open our eyes a little wider up here too and not be satisfied
that, if we do one component here, that somehow we have solved
the problem.
We have been talking about this issue for a long time, and
it is still a challenge. But I appreciate very much you coming
to the Rules Committee, and I learned a lot here today.
So thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Shalala. Thank you. I am going to yield to Mr.
Hastings. I have to go to the floor to----
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. Good place to go.
Mr. Hastings [presiding]. One of the things that happens
when we schedule things, you don't know what is going to
overtake it.
Mr. Woolf, I apologize to you for having been out of the
room during your testimony, but after I watched the Heat beat
the Atlanta Hawks last night, I did read--in overtime I might
add. I did read most of your testimony, and one thing that
jumped out at me that has not been said here this morning, and
that is that the life expectancy of a person that is trafficked
is 7 years. That should ring a bell throughout the community
that is trying to do something about this.
In addition, the implication of homelessness. I have been a
proud $25 contributor to Covenant House for well on 40 years,
and the same for Women in Distress. That is another area that
needs to be developed, for those of you that are in the
nonprofit sector, is getting smaller donors who may very well
be continuously interested in the problem.
The other thing that we haven't talked about, probably
won't have the time to, is the implication of drugs writ large,
not just opioids, which is the fashion of the day, but
prescription drugs. I learned when I was a juvenile judge from
a young man that all he had to do--he was handsome as all get-
out. He could go in somebody's house and use the bathroom and
come out with drugs that he could sell on Fort Lauderdale
Beach. It was kind of interesting.
And toward that end, I want to make two other statements,
and then if you all would wrap up with any comment that you may
offer to us and also anything that you did bring in writing. We
are making a record, and we will provide that to you as well as
to our colleagues here.
I don't mean this to be offensive, but when I was in the
sixth grade in Altamonte Springs, Florida, at a Rosenwald
Elementary School, which was four schools. The boys and girls
were separated when we went to use outdoor facilities, but in
Mayday activities and physical education, we were so few, and
so the principals and teachers would bring us together.
I say this as a proponent of early education. And what I
mean early, I mean early education. We ignore what our children
see and hear a lot, and sex becomes a taboo subject. Most of us
men in this room learned about sex not so much from our daddies
but in the streets. But in that area, two words that I have
never forgotten came up one day in the boys and girls physical
education class with Mr. Hamilton. One was pediculosis and the
other was dysmenorrhea. That is from sixth grade. And you
wouldn't think that far back in the forties that teachers were
mindful of illuminating children about crabs and painful
menstruation of women.
The other thing is a direct dig at men, who need the
greatest amount of education, particularly young men. And by
young, I am talking about sixth grade, the same as myself, and
even below. The great majority of the trafficking that you all
see and that we see, the pimps, the gangbangers usually are men
and some women associated as decoys and involved with them for
a year. And when the family thing enters, as Dr. Burgess talks
about, that becomes an added tragedy.
But I am a full proponent of Florida's program and an
advocate nationwide. Ms. Scanlon and I on another jag unrelated
to trafficking, we believe that we need to restore teaching of
civics in our schools. And it is just regrettable what we have
left on the table. I might add I think television in a larger
way could do more to help us in this arena.
But you all have been illuminating, and it is deeply
appreciated, but I would appreciate it if either or all of you
would address the implication of drugs and how that impacts
this awesome thing that we are confronted with called human
trafficking.
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. Yes. Thank you for asking that
question, because drugs is a key component of enabling the
trafficking to occur.
A second way that it is, is that oftentimes we find the
traffickers are using the victims to sell drugs during the day,
and then they are forcing them at night to sell their bodies.
So they are so integrally intertwined that one of the things we
try to do in law enforcement from that level, because that is
what we are trying to do is be proactive, is actually find
means and ways to follow the drugs, is one of the options for
us to get to the victims.
So I am glad you brought that up to make that clear. And,
also, sometimes the law enforcement funding dollars will follow
drugs where they might not follow human trafficking per se.
So, when we combine those two and we make our case clear
that they are intertwined and interwoven with each other and
the crime, it also assists law enforcement in those kind of
sting operations or undercover operations, and it takes them to
broader ways to investigate.
Mr. Hastings. Mr. Woodall, do you have anything additional?
Mr. Woodall. We talked about early intervention. I did want
to enter into the record, Mr. Chairman, the State Department,
as part of its Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons, has given the University of Georgia a grant to
continue some work that it is doing in the Sierra Leone at the
very front end of the trafficking chain. I just want to make
that part of the record.
Mr. Hastings. Without objection. It has been mentioned that
all over the place in any field that data drives policy. And,
regrettably, there was mention here of some jurisdictions that
don't even want to keep statistics.
Believe it or not, what I found on the international level,
particularly in the 57 countries of the Helsinki Commission,
that a lot of them don't want to keep data in this arena. And I
won't mention their names. Russia. It is amazing how reluctant
they are.
I also would like to compliment one of my colleagues that
has been a longtime leader in this arena, and that is Chris
Smith from New Jersey. All of you may have come across his name
in a variety of activities, but he has been substantially
involved in this arena, perhaps more than any of us.
Final statement, Ms. Bruggeman.
Ms. Bruggeman. Thank you. I think it is important to keep
in mind, as you just pointed out, the importance of data and
the collection of data. And I think it is also important to
keep it into a helpful context. Crimes like human trafficking,
just like child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, are
going to be undercounted and underreported, regardless of our
best efforts.
And so I think we have to be very creative in the way that
we look at the data and not rely on only our law enforcement
data or prosecution data. Also look at data from service
providers regarding the number of survivors that they are
seeing and interacting with. Some research studies that can
show us examples of, you know, deep prevalence studies in one
location that can be used to extrapolate and estimate the
prevalence and the types and needs of the survivors.
And, also, following on a comment that was made previously
about the need for evidence-based practice, one of the comments
I included in my written testimony is that, in the domestic
violence and sexual violence fields, we have nationwide
research centers and we have statewide coalitions that are
funded primarily through HHS and CDC that guide us with best
practices, with policies and procedures, and with advocating on
behalf of survivors.
And that is something that remains missing in the human
trafficking field. We don't have a similar dedicated space in
which we can invest in those best practices and then promulgate
them forward to help States and localities. And I think they
struggle when finding which are the right partners that we
should be working with? What are the best practices in service
provision? How do we know who is the right partner for us to
work with? What are our investigatory practices? How can we
rely collaboratively?
So I would say looking really strategically at how to
invest in building that analysis of evidence-based practices
across the human trafficking field is a critical step forward.
Thank you.
Mr. Hastings. Ms. Fernandez Rundle.
Ms. Fernandez Rundle. Yes, thank you. And to underscore
that point, because I think we did make that point earlier.
That is such a key component, moving forward, to really develop
evidence-based--research on evidence-based strategies, what
works, what doesn't work.
And then you need the therapy piece. Now that we have
neurological new science, right, neuroscience that can guide
us, what kinds of therapies are we implementing and employing
for a lot of these victims? And for those of us that are
professionals, how do you ask a question? You know, how do you
get them to tell you what happened to them without traumatizing
them? So there is a lot of work to be done in that field.
I also want to say that, you know, from where we sit in
Miami, in any event--and I know your DA in Fulton County, I
spoke with him as well--it needs collaboration. So wherever you
take the Federal Government, you want to take it to a community
that is collaborative, where people aren't in their own lanes,
but instead they are working with each other. They are
collaborating. They are sharing information.
I can tell you I could not do my job in protecting my
community if I didn't have THRIVE Clinic and Project Phoenix
for my homeless victims. There are just so many not-for-
profits, and law enforcement has 35 police departments. So, if
we are not all working together and helping each other, then we
are not going to be able to combat this huge complex problem.
The other thing I would say about that is it is big and it
is complex and we have all talked about that, but if we can
save one child at a time, that is okay. That is okay to reach
for that.
And then, in conclusion, what I would ask in furtherance
is, you know, you talked about data, Chairman Hastings. And I
always listen to you, because you are always so wise. One of
the things we don't have in local law enforcement, okay, is we
don't have a database of sharing intelligence information.
So one of the things we find is Miami is a destination
city. Orlando is. You know, Las Vegas is. And so they do this
circuit. And we may not know what is going on in Las Vegas, our
local law enforcement, and they don't know what is going on
with us. Why aren't we tracking those bad guys? Why don't we
have that intel about who they are and what their patterns and
what kinds of victims are they preying on and so on and so
forth. That could be something that you could help us develop.
And last but not least, I would say that in so many
communities the prosecutor can be galvanizing and help,
especially if it is one that has a lot of different police
departments and local and Federal law enforcement. If we can
empower and give resources to local prosecutors' offices, I
think that would go a long way to helping the whole community,
because sometimes that is what they need.
They need that courtroom piece, that law enforcement piece,
that connected care coordinator piece that will get them to
great places like THRIVE. And so I think that would be an
important thing that you could sort of be a leader on in
getting a message out to all of the communities that have
prosecutors, both Federal and State, that you want them to have
these kinds of units.
And, again, I thank you so much for hosting this today, and
I hope that if you want to call on us individually at any time,
I hope that you will. Thank you.
Mr. Hastings. Dr. Potter, I did read late some of your
stuff too. And two things jumped out at me, and that was the
broken bone and the fact that many of these people, for obvious
reasons, are not taken to the dentist. And I can't imagine
anything worse than having a toothache and not being able to be
treated. There was so much more, but just those things jumped
out at me.
Dr. Potter.
Ms. Potter. So just imagine when you are trying to
reengineer your life and get your life back on track. All of us
have been sick. When you are sick and you don't feel good, you
can't do much more, right?
Mr. Hastings. Right.
Ms. Potter. So thank you for the opportunity to summarize
what we have heard today. And I spent a lot of time traveling
around the country, educating other health professionals and,
honestly, anyone that will listen.
And I would like to say that what we heard today about
prevention and identifying victims is what I call part one, and
what I call part two is the aftercare. And I came today
specifically to speak to you about the aftercare.
I hope that you have a sense of what a great partnership we
have with law enforcement, Homeland Security, our State and
Federal prosecutors and the major tertiary care center and the
health systems that we have in south Florida. We work hand in
hand on this issue, and I hope that was clear to all of you
today. Almost all of our referrals and the reason why I am here
today is because of law enforcement. They came to me with
survivors and said: We need your help.
And as Ms. Rundle pointed out, they come with nothing, just
the clothes on their back. They have no friends. They have no
family. They have no one. And in terms of what they need, we
know that there is a lot of work to do, a lot of evidence-based
medicine that needs to be done to develop a standard of care,
primarily for the behavioral healthcare needs that they have.
The physical stuff is pretty straightforward. We just need
access to multispecialties. They have head injuries. I have a
patient right now with amnesia, because she was beat with the
gun. And so neurology and all of that technology we have, and
we can help them if we have models of care in place.
The needs of the survivors are very complex, in terms of
healthcare and behavioral health. And most of them have been
getting their episodic healthcare in emergency rooms, and it is
not effective, and it is at great financial cost. We have just
done research on our emergency room, looking at the victims and
how often they access the ER before and after THRIVE, and we
have reduced the emergency room visits by 50 percent. And it is
a huge cost saving to the health system by just establishing a
primary care clinic.
When you talk about ``if you had a dollar, how would you
break it up,'' I say 50 cents for part one and 50 cents for
part two. We believe that demonstration projects can help
establish standards of care for survivors. And they can be
replicated in every city in this country, at least the
principles that I presented here, so that all practitioners who
come into contact with a victim or a potential victim know what
to say and know what to do to help them achieve wellness. Thank
you so much.
Mr. Hastings. Mr. Woolf.
Mr. Woolf. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. I just want to just
echo all the comments that you made relative to education and
the younger the better. I couldn't have said it any better
myself, and I appreciate your comments very much.
I think that as we look at this issue, I think we really
can look at the words of Benjamin Franklin: An ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure. And I think that that is
really the answer to this issue, starting as young as we
possibly can and really being able to empower our communities,
our society, our young people, to have the voice that they
need.
I oftentimes reflect back on a conversation I had with my
eldest son several years ago. He was 9 years old at the time.
We were in the car. I had just gotten off of a work phone call.
And he looks at me and he says: Dad, what is human trafficking?
And I said: Man, how do I explain to a 9-year-old what
human trafficking is, right?
He hears me talking about it all the time on the phone. And
so I start stumbling through this conversation with him. And he
stops me--and I will never forget this. He stops me, and he
says: Dad, I think what you are trying to say is you give a
voice to those that can't speak.
And I said: Son, I couldn't have explained it any better
myself.
And those wise words of my 9-year-old son echo in my head
every day that I go to work. And I challenge you all to take
that as well, to give a voice to those that are voiceless, to
give them the tools, the skills, and the resources, to invest
in education, because it really is the way that we are going to
make a change.
I echo the sentiments of my other colleagues up here who
say: Listen, we have got to establish standards. There is lots
of training out there, but is it quality training? And we hear
a lot about awareness training. And I would encourage all of us
to add the word ``awareness and response training.''
We make people aware, but we don't give them the ability to
respond and to help those that may be in trouble, whether they
are in the process of being manipulated into a situation or
whether they are actually being exploited. We have got to give
a voice to the voiceless. So thank you.
Mr. Hastings. Mr. Rodgers.
Mr. Rodgers. We all know this is a very complex issue. We
have said it repeatedly. And there is no silver bullet. So I
think it is important for us to remind ourselves not to be
reluctant to do the next right thing, because it doesn't solve
the entire problem.
And so I want to challenge us to keep doing that.
Comprehensive solutions very rarely come out of the gate all at
the same time in a synchronized swimming kind of way. So let's
keep doing one more right thing together.
I was very encouraged by what Chairman McGovern just said a
minute ago, even if that wasn't his intention, in the fact that
we have said and had some of these conversations for 10 years.
And I think he is exactly right. I mean, even longer. But I
think the time has come for us to put on a new lens and a new
paradigm around this issue and pull chairs up around the table
and have a comprehensive solution and discussion about what we
can do and how we can do it and start, because the statistics
are our kids.
Mr. Hastings. Right. In the Helsinki Commission, I am very
fond of at some point turning to the audience, but time won't
permit today, but I do thank you all for your patience. I am
sure that a lot of questions arise in your minds, and it is
deeply appreciated.
And, Mr. Woolf, your 9-year-old has moved on up but I have
a 9-year-old and an 8-year-old granddaughter, and proof of what
I was talking about about early intervention, both of them are
taking artificial intelligence in the third grade. I couldn't
spell artificial intelligence in the third grade.
Mr. Rodgers. That is right.
Mr. Hastings. We are adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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