[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 4, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-88
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida GRACE MENG, New York
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
TED S. YOHO, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
LUKE MESSER, Indiana
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Luis CdeBaca, Ambassador-at-Large, Office to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of
State.......................................................... 7
The Honorable Tony Rackauckas, district attorney, Orange County,
Office of the Orange County District Attorney.................. 22
Ms. Kay Buck, executive director and chief executive officer,
Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking..................... 27
Ms. Angela Guanzon, survivor of international trafficking,
Member, CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus and National Survivor
Network........................................................ 33
Ms. Carissa Phelps, chief executive officer, Runaway Girl, FPC... 37
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Luis CdeBaca: Prepared statement................... 11
The Honorable Tony Rackauckas: Prepared statement................ 25
Ms. Kay Buck: Prepared statement................................. 29
Ms. Angela Guanzon: Prepared statement........................... 34
Ms. Carissa Phelps: Prepared statement........................... 39
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 52
Hearing minutes.................................................. 53
The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign
Affairs: Department of Justice statement for the record........ 55
REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING
----------
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:17 a.m., in
the Titan Student Union Building, California State University-
Fullerton, 800 North College Boulevard, Fullerton, California,
Hon. Edward R. Royce (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. This hearing will come to order. I am going
to ask everyone, if you could find a seat and we will begin on
our Human Trafficking Field Hearing.
Let me also say that we are pleased to be joined today by a
number of organizations here in Orange County that have been
very involved with a task force that I put together some time
ago in order to try to bring organizations in the community
together with law enforcement--some representation from the
bench to try and come up with some solutions to the trafficking
problems. This time we will just mention that we have some
people in the audience, who will go nameless, who work with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, but we appreciate their good
service.
But some of the others I am going to ask to stand for a
minute and be recognized: Bob Smith with F.A.C.E.S.S.; Cheryl
Pittluck from Vineyard Anaheim Human Trafficking Ministry;
Chris Bauer, Saddleback Justice and Trafficking Initiative;
Claude Arnold, Special Agent in Charge with ICE; Guido Hajenius
with iEmpathize; Je'net Kreitner with Grandma's House of Hope;
Joyce Capelle with Crittenton Services, Children and Families--
been around since the 1880s helping girls; Kimberly Yim, San
Clemente Abolitionists; Leigh Dundas with A21 Project; Linh
Tran of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force; Marji
Iacovetti, ZOE Children's Home; Paula Daniels, Forgotten
Children; Chief Raul Quezada, Anaheim PD; Sandra Morgan, Global
Center for Women and Justice; Sherri Harris from the Salvation
Army--their network that works with human trafficking; and
Stephanie Pollaro and Wendy Dailey, co-founders of
International Sanctuary.
We thank them for their help on the legislation that we
have authored. And I also thank my colleagues, who I am going
to introduce in a minute, for their trip out here to
California.
But we must thank California State University, my alma
mater here, today as well for making this venue possible, and
our acting ranking member, Congresswoman Karen Bass. Many of
you know that she is the former speaker here in the Assembly in
California. She has been a leader on this issue.
[Applause.]
Chairman Royce. And we are working with her on this
bipartisan legislation. We appreciate her trip out here. Randy
Weber, we appreciate you coming all the way from Texas. Dana
Rohrabacher, Congressman, we appreciate you and all your work
as well.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All the way from Costa Mesa.
Chairman Royce. All the way from Costa Mesa. [Laughter.]
And Alan Lowenthal will be here shortly all the way from
Long Beach.
But I am proud, I must say, of the work the Foreign Affairs
Committee has done over the years, and all of these members
serve on the committee with me, on human trafficking. In 2000,
our committee put forward legislation that was focused on what
we could do to force other countries around the world to put in
place standards and to start to combat human trafficking. The
consequence of that legislation is that we now we have 130
countries around the world over that period of time that have
strengthened laws on their books. And the reason they do it is
a simple one: They try to stay out of a report that the State
Department now does every year that shames them for their
failure to comply with efforts to try to stop the trafficking
of underage girls and try to stop the trafficking with respect
to labor trafficking.
And so, we have these tier rankings that we do, and part of
our efforts in Congress has been to increase the pressure,
increase the standards. And as we are traveling and meeting
with foreign heads of state, this does come up. This does come
up. They complain about the report, but they try to comply with
it. And we think that continued vigilance is what is called for
on that front.
We appreciate that our top point person in the world is
here, who has the role of traveling, and he is headed to
Algeria a little later after his appearance here in California.
But he is Ambassador CdeBaca, and many of you know he has had a
rather prominent role in forcing this issue internationally,
and we are pleased that he is with us today. Thank you,
Ambassador.
Trafficking is a global problem, but unfortunately for us
it is not a far-away problem. And I mentioned here in Orange
County some of the statistics, some of the things that the
District Attorney's Office has shared with me. We have had a
doubling of trafficking in underage girls every year for the
last 3 years that those working in community-based
organizations offering services have noticed in the community.
And it is because of the expertise established by some of these
criminal syndicates in the use, for example, of Romeos to find
underage girls, to find a girl maybe 14 years old, convince her
to leave her State, come to California, leave her ties with her
family, and then begin the process of moving in with them. And
before they know it, they are being beaten and trafficked.
And as the District Attorney will tell you, it is those
beatings which establish something of a Stockholm syndrome-type
situation where that child is now afraid to testify against the
individual who has done it. And now he sells her into a
criminal syndicate that deals in these underage girls.
We especially appreciate the work of the police
departments, including the Anaheim PD--they are represented
here today--in their efforts across this county and in southern
California to try to prosecute. And for that reason, many of
the organizations that we mentioned here today were involved in
the passage of a Statewide initiative in California, Statewide
proposition, which went into effect this year. And as a result
of that law, we have our first conviction of an individual who
was trafficking underage girls. In this case, he had taken her
from Bakersfield to Sacramento, a 13-year-old, and he received,
as I recall, some 32 years in prison for that act.
This new legislation has teeth, but in talking to the
prosecutors, what they say is they also need additional
legislation not only to attack the problem of trafficked
underage girls and labor trafficking out of countries in the
United States, and we have legislation to do that, but also
additional legislation to try to make it easier for
prosecutions to go forward by creating an environment for
underage girls especially to have an element of safety and be
able to come forward and testify. So we are going to discuss
some of those issues.
But we held a committee hearing in May on this issue and
had one of the supervisors from Los Angeles County, Don Knabe,
tell about his experiences and the discovery that girls 10, 12
years old were being trafficked in Los Angeles County and some
of the steps that the county took.
Well, going forward, we want to build on that work. The
Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force has assisted 250
victims. Ninety-three percent of them are women. Eighty of them
were from foreign countries. A third of them are recruited in
foreign countries by unscrupulous labor recruiters. Our
legislation, the legislation that I have introduced, the
Fraudulent Overseas Recruitment and Trafficking Elimination
Act, requires that foreign workers be given accurate
information about the terms of employment and anti-trafficking
protections under U.S. law. It prohibits recruitment fees or
hidden charges used as coercive leverage over workers. No
longer can you get them into debt bondage. It requires the
foreign labor recruiters to register. They have got to remain
in good standing with the Department of Labor.
Why do all of this? Because it gives us a ground for
prosecution when people are involved in bringing trafficking
into the United States. And it provides new incentives for law
enforcement to ensure that recruiters and employers fall under
a series of penalties and fees and consequences.
So I look forward to the input from our expert testimony
here today. And as my chief of staff can tell you, based on all
her volunteer work with underage girls trafficked in India and
in Cambodia, and there the average age when girls are
trafficked is 11. She says you do not see the harm of human
trafficking most clearly in numbers or statistics. You see it
in the eyes of the individual person whose life is being stolen
and whose dignity is being assaulted for the profit of someone
else.
We will hear today thankfully that in southern California,
some of our organizations are on the cutting edge to fight
trafficking and rescue and protect victims. And I want to thank
our witnesses, but especially in closing I want to thank our
courageous survivors who will testify, for being here to share
their insights, share their expertise with our committee. And
your message will be heard loud and wide, and certainly taken
back to Washington, DC.
We will now go to Congresswoman Karen Bass from Los
Angeles.
Ms. Bass. Well, thank you very much and good morning,
everyone. I want to thank Chairman Royce for convening this
hearing and in general for his leadership on the Foreign
Affairs Committee, as well as his commitment to eradicating
human trafficking. I know he is your congressional
representative, but you should know that all of us are very
honored to serve under his leadership on the committee.
Although trafficking impacts every country across the
globe, it is far too often unspoken and in the shadows. It is
my hope that today's hearing will shed light on both the global
statistics as well as the local trends right here in southern
California. By learning more about the regional strategies
utilized to stop this exploitation, we will surely be better
prepared to strengthen our prevention, protection, and
prosecution efforts both here at home and abroad. I look
forward to sharing the solutions discussed here today with our
colleagues back in Washington.
In 2012, according to the International Labor Organization,
nearly 21 million individuals worldwide were subjected to
conditions of human trafficking. Unfortunately, the U.S. is not
immune to this problem. The State Department's ``Trafficking in
Persons Report'' outlined that the U.S. is a source, transit,
and destination country for labor and sex trafficking of men,
women, and children. While the assessment has been helpful in
highlighting certain types of trafficking, it does not include
raw new data recently reported about the domestic minor
victims.
In 2013, 60 percent of the child sex trafficking victims
recovered as a part of an FBI nationwide raid from over 70
cities were children from foster care or group homes. This
issue is very close to me personally because it greatly impacts
Los Angeles, and our Nation's foster youth are a vulnerable,
yet resilient population that we remove from their homes and we
pledge to keep them safe. In fact, in Los Angeles County alone,
hundreds of youth are commercially exploited each year. In 2012
in Los Angeles, 78 percent of the girls identified as victims
of trafficking were current or former foster youth.
Despite these statistics, few child welfare employees have
been adequately trained or are prepared to respond to child
victims of trafficking. And fewer still have incorporated
policies, protocols, and case management techniques to serve
this population appropriately. It is absolutely unacceptable to
allow the continued victimization and abuse of a population
that we have vowed to care for and protect.
That is why my fellow colleagues on the Foreign Affairs
Committee and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Foster
Youth, Representative Tom Marino, and I have introduced the
Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act. Our bill will do
three things. It would ensure that child welfare agencies
create plans to prevent the exploitation and provide
appropriate services to victims. It would create a best
practices toolkit for child welfare agencies. And it would
provide accurate State-by-State and national statistics in a
comprehensive report to Congress.
As Federal legislators, we have a tremendous opportunity to
ensure that local plans to prevent exploitation are in place,
as well as collect the necessary national data to inform future
Federal strategies. While many of the social services needed to
properly serve trafficked youth may require a monetary
investment, these first steps do not require additional Federal
funding.
But congressional action is not enough. We must undertake a
whole of society and a whole of government approach that works
to ensure the safety and dignity of trafficking victims and
acknowledges that human trafficking affects U.S. citizens and
foreign nationals as well as millions of adults and children,
men and women worldwide.
I look forward to hearing the testimony today, and I, along
with my colleagues, really want to thank you for being willing
to come forward and share your stories. I know that it might be
painful, but it is just extremely important that people
understand exactly what happens and how we need to help. Thank
you very much.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congresswoman Bass. Randy Weber
came all the way from Texas for today's hearing. He serves as
vice chair of the subcommittee dealing with Global Human
Rights, and his commitment to these issues extends back to his
days in the Texas legislature where he offered landmark
legislation there to combat human trafficking and to protect
trafficking victims.
Mr. Weber. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start
out by thanking you for calling this important hearing, and my
colleagues for taking out the time to come all the way from
California [laughter] which is a little bit closer than Texas,
I will tell you. I frequently joke as I leave DC to go back to
my home State of Texas that I am returning to the land of
sanity. Yet there is some real truth. I think it is important
that we leave the Beltway behind and all the politics and we
come back into the trenches to actually hear from those who are
dealing with these treacherous realities of life as some of our
witnesses have been through firsthand. And again, I want to
echo my colleagues' comments in saying thank you for being
willing to come and share your story.
We need to be back in the land of reality, as I call it, to
hear these kinds of stories and to deal with these kinds of
atrocities so that when we go back to DC, we realize how our
decisions impact those who are out in the real world, as I like
to call it, how our decisions affect them. Sometimes it is the
decisions that we do not make, Mr. Chairman, the things that we
will not take up, that we will not address. So I think it is
important that we come back and we come to these kinds of
events and we learn from those who are here on the ground.
Mr. Chairman, you alluded to the journey I started nearly 5
years ago in the Texas legislature when I got involved in human
trafficking issues. And at that time, I had absolutely no idea
of the prevalence of participation in the industry, the
magnitude of profit, the horror, absolute horror, faced by
those trapped in this life. I instinctively knew immediately
then it was not right, and I had to pitch in and stop this
madness. Since then we have been privileged to be a leader in
the Texas State legislature in that fight against this
abhorrent slavery. We created the very first Statewide human
trafficking prevention task force in the Texas legislature,
House Bill 4009. We added criminal enhancements for those who
buy and sell humans as if they were commodities. And we
included even those who assist in the trade and benefit from
it. We added them to the criminal list. And as I said to a
number of groups when we spoke back in Texas, that we would
like to catch those perpetrators and put them under the
jailhouse.
We strengthened the penalties. We increased the definition
of ``human trafficking'' so that it included a lot of these
extraterritorial, extraneous criminals, I guess I should say.
We added significant protections for minor victims. We wrote
the Code to simplify criminal prosecution.
And then we began to tackle the demands. I was encouraged
reading today about one set of comments. They do not call them
``johns.'' They call them ``purchasers of sex.'' We tackled
that demand. We changed the law to allow the creation of the
First Offender Prosecution Prevention Program in our State.
And the deeper involved I got into the fight, the more
horror stories I heard. The larger the number grew of those
impacted, and I think, Karen, you are exactly right when you
say it is not the numbers that you have to look at, or maybe it
was you, Mr. Chairman. It is the eyes. When you look into the
eyes of the victims and you realize the pain and the suffering
and you hear the stories, it just causes us to want to redouble
our efforts.
We must not let those numbers be so large that we become
desensitized. We have got to keep this in the forefront, got to
educate, got to make this a priority, and got to make sure that
we make the public aware of it. The magnitude of this industry
can literally be overwhelming, unbelievably overwhelming.
We must focus in one individual at a time. Now, there were
some statistics in the reading today and a lot of the comments
made, I think, were 17,000--I forget. It was 17,500 victims in
a particular State or county or area, I forget. And I am
thinking 1 percent, 175 lives. If we change and help 1 percent,
what a great number that would be. Think if it was 10 percent.
What a great number that would be. So one person rescued, one
life saved, one more person on the road to restoration. It is
worth it. It is absolutely worth it. All of those stories, all
of your stories, all of those individuals add up to
encouragement, hope, and keep us motivated to continue this
fight.
I thank you for this holding this, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
Congressman Rohrabacher, who represents the 48th District
of California, is chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe,
Eurasia, and Emerging Threats. Mr. Rohrabacher, would you like
to make a statement?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I would just like to thank the
chairman, Chairman Royce, for the leadership that he is
providing as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and
those of us who are on the Foreign Affairs Committee. We
obviously have a very wide view of the problem.
Can you hear me now? All right. Should I repeat what I said
about Ed Royce? [Laughter.]
Mr. Rohrabacher. I would just note that those of us on the
Foreign Affairs Committee have a very wide view of what is
going on in the world. And there a lot of evil things that are
happening in the world, a lot of things that threaten our
national security, a lot of things that demand our attention
for the immediate safety of our country and our people. And I
applaud Ed and the other members of this committee for what we
are trying to do to meet those challenges.
But, you know, it is really easy when you have got these
grandiose visions of an army of terrorists who want to blow up
buildings and murder our people and how we are trying to thwart
that. And it is really easy to overlook maybe something that is
right in our own neighborhood and is an evil that we need to
pay attention to. In this case, that evil does have ties to
things that are happening in foreign countries, for young
people who are being exploited and brought here. And I really,
again, want to applaud our chairman for taking the time to look
at that and to look at this and see what we can do about this
issue that deserves our attention.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congressman.
We are going to now turn to our witnesses. And as I shared
with you before, your full prepared statement will be part of
the record. And without objection, all members may have 5 days
to submit statements or questions.
And I would like to submit for the record the collection of
one-page information sheets provided by the members of the
Human Trafficking Congressional Advisory Caucus that I work
with, and I mentioned them earlier. And that has been a very
welcome resource for the committee.
And with that, we will introduce our first witness. For 4
years now, Ambassador CdeBaca has served as Ambassador-at-Large
and Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons at the United States Department of State. Before that
he served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee following
a successful career as a Federal prosecutor, during which he
received the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award for
his role as lead trial counsel in the largest slavery
prosecution here in the United States.
Mr. Ambassador, we thank you for being here in Orange
County today and for the work that your office does every
single day.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LUIS CDEBACA, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE,
OFFICE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
all of the members of the committee, Ranking Member Bass and
everyone else. Good morning.
Chairman Royce. Ambassador, will you pull the microphone
just a little closer?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Of course. Thank you for the invitation
to testify and for your commitment to the fight against
trafficking in persons. The work of Congress on this issue has
sent a clear message that the U.S. rejects modern slavery and
that responding to this crime wherever it exists is a priority
for our country.
Now, trafficking in persons is the umbrella term that we
use for all of the conduct involved in reducing a person to, or
holding a person in, a state of compelled service, whether for
sex or labor. And there are a lot of legal ways to skin that
cat. There are a lot of euphemisms and different terms that get
used. But I am glad that Mr. Rohrabacher named it so plainly
for all of us: It is evil. And that evil, to really illustrate
what that means, I think we have to look to the survivors. We
have to look to the victims.
It is the man who boarded the fishing boat with a promise
of a good job, instead was forced to work 20 hours a day for
months on end, beaten, starved, and told he could keep working
or lose his life. It is the woman who left home for better work
as a maid in a foreign country, who instead found herself cut
off from the outside world, never given a day's rest, passport
confiscated, wages withheld, abused, and then the knock on the
door at night: The sexual assaults. It is the child prostituted
in a brothel, enduring unspeakable exploitation. It is the
teenager aspiring to a different life, manipulated by promises
of love and opportunity.
These are people we know, who we have met, whose stories we
seek to tell at the State Department. They are from abroad and
they are American. They are men, women, and children. They are
migrants, and they are people who have never left home. They
are in remote countries, and they are in the communities in
which they were raised. And the estimates, as we have heard,
range from 21 million to 28 million of them.
That is why today's hearing is so valuable. It reminds us
that this is not simply a crime that happens over there, that
the efforts to deal with this challenge are not just carried
out from Washington. This crime must be dealt with in every
town hall, courthouse, and police precinct across this country
because modern slavery undermines the rule of law and justice.
It tears at the fabric of our families and our communities, and
it is an affront to all of our most dearly held values of human
rights, freedom, and dignity for all people.
Today I would like to talk a little bit about the way
partnerships are an essential tool in the struggle. Because
trafficking in persons is first and foremost a crime, it also
touches many other areas: Labor, immigration, health,
agriculture, and transportation. This is why we need to spread
understanding about this crime and how it intersects with
different various areas of concern and jurisdiction. Much like
the work, Ms. Bass, that you are doing with the Child
Protective Services around the country, that notion of
preexisting jurisdiction, preexisting systems that were set up
not thinking about human trafficking, how they need to
incorporate it into their work.
To do that, we need to share information and practices, and
to cooperate on efforts to protect victims and prosecute
traffickers. We have to think about how to go up the supply
chain to those who profit, who do not care where their fish or
fiber comes from, the hotel managers who, with reckless
disregard, look the other way when the pimp sets up business on
their property.
At the Federal level, partnerships are the center of our
antitrafficking efforts, and part of that is because of the
President's Interagency Task Force that Congress set up in 2000
through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This Cabinet-
level body meets every year to review progress across the
administration and to chart our path forward.
And in doing that, we have seen that we have made a great
deal of progress in recent years, but we are clear eyed about
the fact that there is so much to do, and that government alone
cannot solve this problem. And that is why our Federal
partnership approach tries to bring together a wide range of
activists and advocates. We are working with partners in the
survivor community, the public sector, the private sector, the
faith community, civil society, academia, everyone who cares
enough to join this fight.
Looking ahead, we know that the next step in this struggle
is confronting this issue at the local level. After all, right
now a trafficking victim is likelier to come into contact with
a local patrol officer than an FBI or an ICE agent. Right now,
they are more likely to encounter a prosecutor in a specialized
domestic violence unit than they are one with experience in
human trafficking cases. So in the years ahead, we hope that
more and more local level partnerships will emerge to help
drive this effort forward.
Now, the partnership model that we have adopted at the
Federal level will not be the right fit for every community.
But there are elements of effective partnerships that we hope
that State and local leaders will look to. For example, we need
to make sure everyone that could have encountered a trafficking
victim knows what they're seeing and has the information about
what to do next. We need to make sure that justice and law
enforcement officials work with caregivers and activists so
that survivors can get the support and resources they need--
rehabilitation, restoration, jobs, and restitution--and knowing
that their abuser will not hurt them or anyone else anymore,
seeing their abusers held to account.
Here in California, we have seen excellent examples of
that, and we are very happy that the members of the Orange
County Task Force and the Los Angeles Area Task Forces are able
to join us. These partnerships work. They work here and they
work abroad. In India, NGOs are helping victims leave the brick
kilns, and the newly-formed anti-human trafficking units at the
State level are starting to take those cases up. In Nigeria,
the NAPTIP organization is co-locating special social workers
and specially-trained police together for when a victim comes
through the door. In Canada, Native American leaders are being
brought into the fight, and hotel operators are stepping up in
Mexico with job training. Partnership is the solution, whether
in California or Cameroon, whether in Texas or Tunisia.
In conclusion, I want to make to clear to the committee
that the Obama administration will partner with you and anyone
who takes this crime seriously because slavery cannot be
tolerated whether in history or in the 21st century. My former
boss on the Judiciary Committee perhaps said it best when John
Conyers said that ``Emancipation was not a 1-day event; it was
a promise, a promise written in the blood of all who lived in
bondage and all who died to end it.''
Today we hear the voices of the survivors of the past and
of the present. We cannot--we will not--shirk our duty to make
good on the promise of emancipation. And I am confident that by
working in partnership, our shared goal is within reach--a
world free from slavery. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador CdeBaca follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ambassador. Let me ask you one
or two questions, and then we will move down the panel with
some questions on this.
One of those questions I was going to ask is we had the
reauthorization of the Traffic Victims Protection Act this
year. We put it into the larger bill of the Violence Against
Women Act. And as part of that, we had language that was
focused on what we would do on ranking countries overseas to
try to ramp up the pressure. And some of those countries have
been entering into these agreements, antitrafficking
agreements, that are called partnerships, that to quote from
the agreement, ``have resulted in concrete and measurable
outcomes.''
What I wanted to talk to you about is how do you get those
outcomes to be something truly measurable? How do you
promulgate perhaps regulations to say it is going to depend
upon the number of prosecutions or it is going to depend upon
the number of victims who are assisted, something tangible that
allows us more than a judgment call when you do the assessment
on compliance?
Ambassador CdeBaca. I think, Mr. Chairman, that goes to the
heart of how we are looking at this requirement from the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. What we do
not want, just as at the same time that we are saying that
partnerships are emerging as the fourth P from the three-P
paradigm of prevention, protection, and prosecution, that
partnerships are the way to effectuate that. But partnerships
for partnerships sake are not a panacea, and they should not be
a refuge for a country that is doing nothing on human
trafficking.
And so, we are working right now with the rest of the State
Department as we ramp up for this coming year--it will be the
first year of the report--where we are taking those
partnerships into account. And one of the things that we are
talking about internally is that notion of weighting those
partnership efforts, and I think that just as you yourself have
expressed and just as the legislation has as its touchstone
that notion of concrete and measurable.
Concrete and measurable comes back to the things that are
in the other minimum standards: The number of prosecutions, the
number of victims held, whether the sentences are actually in
line with kidnapping, extortion, et cetera. Those are the
things that I think that we are going to be looking to. So we
are trying to make sure that we will not have strategic
behavior on the part of countries around the world to enter
into empty partnership agreements that do not have time-bound
goals and structures put in place.
Chairman Royce. Well, we want to work with you on something
concrete where you can show exactly what are the prosecutions,
you know, what are the programs out there to assist underage
victims and so forth.
The other question I was going to ask you is, the Orange
County Anti-Trafficking Task Force has reported that nearly 90
percent of the labor trafficking victims that they assist are
foreign citizens. We will hear from one such victim here on the
panel today. But how significant a factor is fraudulent
overseas labor recruiting in international human traffic in the
United States in your assessment?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Mr. Chairman, we think that this is a
big factor in the exploitation of the workers. And this is one
of the reasons why in the executive order that President Obama
issued for Federal contracting, the standard that we put in
place and that is currently in the Federal Acquisitions
Register, which is open for public comment right now, is the
notion that no recruiting for fee is appropriate. Now, we
understand that that's something that we can do by executive
order for Federal contracts, and that those who do not want to
abide by that can choose not to apply for a Federal contract.
It is something, though, that we see across the globe, that
when people have to buy a job, they end up going to either the
labor recruiters themselves for the loan, or they have to go to
a loan shark in their home village. And so, they owe so much
money that they are almost already in debt bondage before they
even show up at work.
And so, when we are looking at this through the executive
order--we know that there is some legislation out there on this
as well--we very much want to be moving the conversation both
in the U.S. and globally to confront this, because we have seen
in country after country where it is not the stereotype of
illegal immigration that is fueling the trafficking. It is, as
we saw in this year's report, the advertisement in the paper
that said ``Indonesian maids for sale,'' perhaps more honest
than they should have been. In that country, the way that they
were bringing in those Indonesian maids was through labor
recruiters.
And so, I think that that's what we see time and time again
is it is not simply the underground economy. It is in labor
recruiting. It is in the places where the vulnerable are
brought in to do the types of dirty and dangerous jobs that
others do not want.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ambassador. My time has expired.
Karen Bass?
Ms. Bass. I actually want to follow up on what you were
saying in terms of the labor recruiting, and a couple of
things. One, I wanted to ask you which countries are involved
in recruiting labor to the United States. And then in terms of
the fees, you know, I recently learned about au pairs and how
they are recruited into the United States. And a person who
wants an au pair pays a fee and does not realize that the
person who wants to be an au pair pays a fee.
So is there something that we could do about that since it
is directly coming here and there are businesses that I imagine
that are U.S. businesses?
Ambassador CdeBaca. As far as the biggest countries that
are sending folks into the U.S. through labor recruiters, we
have just been looking at the cases that have come to light. We
have certainly seen folks coming from India. We have seen folks
coming up on some of the agriculture visa programs from Mexico.
And we have ended up seeing a lot of eastern European labor
brokers, who will end up in perhaps nontraditional visa
categories. The abuse that has been seen, for instance, in the
Summer Work and Travel Program is something that the State
Department has been looking at issuing new rules as to what
those students can be put into in the first place.
So I think that it is something that we are seeing that
places that unfortunately have trafficking problems at home,
and that have trafficking problems when they are sending their
people to other parts of the world are also sending their
people to the U.S.
Ms. Bass. Do they come over here legitimately and then they
fall out of status, and then they wind up being----
Ambassador CdeBaca. A lot of times they fall out of status
because the labor recruiter is putting them into a job that
they did not get approved for, so they will bring them over. I
think, for instance, a good example is a case that I prosecuted
when I was at the Justice Department where the girls had not
been taken to Virginia Beach to work in the retail stores that
they were supposed to under their visa. Instead they ended up
in Detroit in a strip club. Now, at that point they were out of
status because they were not working at the place.
Now, of course, the second that they were out of status,
the traffickers started telling them----
Ms. Bass. Right.
Ambassador CdeBaca [continuing]. You know, you cannot go
for help because they will turn you over to immigration. So it
is an out of status situation that is created by the fact that
they have been exploited by the traffickers.
Ms. Bass. So are these U.S. companies? And then if you
could answer the au pair question because I guess I am trying
to get at the same thing that the chairman was mentioning, is
like how can we tie it down to do something specific. If they
are U.S. companies, can we not do something about that?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Some of them are U.S. companies. For
instance, if you are looking at the au pairs, if you are
looking at Summer Work and Travel, et cetera, they are
companies that exist to facilitate those things. Some of them
are overseas companies where you will have labor recruiting
companies that are, for lack of a better term, flagged in other
countries.
So there was a situation a few years ago with a company
called Global Horizon, which is actually owned by an Israeli.
There are situations with folks from Bangladesh and India that
are bringing people in, whether it is training visas or
otherwise. So it is, I think, something that we have seen in
both U.S. and foreign companies, but all of those end up going
through the process. And so, there is very much a Federal
jurisdictional hook, whether it is through immigration law or
whether it is through regulating these American companies.
As far as the au pairs are concerned, I think, you know,
what we have seen is that this notion of double dipping by the
recruitment fees is a problem around the world. And I was
talking recently to a now former president of Manpower Group,
who said that he told the folks from the Bangladeshi Recruiters
Association, Manpower does not require the applicant to pay
because the employer, the potential employer, pays all of their
costs. And they are very reputable, the largest sourcing
company in the world, and they have done that profitably not by
shipping the costs over to the workers.
And one of the things that he certainly has seen was that
not only was the exploitation higher, but the ability of those
recruiting companies to get the right workers into the right
jobs is less because they do not care about that. The only
thing they care about is, is this person willing to mortgage
themselves to me so that I will then be able to profit from
placing them?
So I think that making sure that the model that we have
seen successfully in the marketplace of the employer pays for
recruiting as opposed to employee pays kickbacks to get the
job, moving toward that would be, I think, revolutionary.
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congresswoman Bass.
So we go now to Congressman Weber.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me follow up on
something, Mr. Ambassador, if I may. You said you were speaking
to, was it a former executive of Manpower? Okay. And you said
he was from Bangladesh, and they have a recruiters association?
Are we able to get in touch with those associations and say,
look, we would like to see an outline, a format, whereby we can
track this? Do we have that capability?
Ambassador CdeBaca. We certainly have the ability to meet
with the folks from BAIRA, for instance, in Bangladesh. I think
that what we have seen is that the pressure that was being put
on BAIRA both by the U.S. Government, by some of the other
destination countries, but also by the Bangladeshi Government
in the wake of them passing their new trafficking law about a
year and a half ago, may have lessened a little bit as so much
of the attention now has moved over toward the tragedy at Rana
Plaza with the collapse of the building, coming as it did after
another tragedy involving a fire.
I think that right now, a lot of the energy in the
relationship with Bangladesh around workers' treatment and
safety is being seen through that lens of the garment sector.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Ambassador, you are going to have to
pull that microphone closer.
Ambassador CdeBaca. Sorry about that. So I think that what
we have seen is that the focus on the garment sector in the
wake of the Rana Plaza tragedy and others perhaps has taken a
little bit of heat off of BAIRA, the Bangladesh Labor
Recruiters Association. But it is something that we continue to
look at, and we are certainly trying to work with the
Bangladesh Government to put pressure on it.
Mr. Weber. Well, I was unaware--forgive me, Mr. Chairman,
for taking so long. But I was unaware that there were those
kinds of associations. I guess my question is, if we went
country by country, and I know there are 180 or whatever number
of countries it is. And we have got the good guys who will sign
up with an association, trying to do it the right way, and, of
course, the bad actors are not going to do that. But can we
give them an incentive in each of those countries, those
associations, in order to turn over to us the names of the bad
actors, because I am sure they would like to do away with that
competition as well. We have a little competition incentive for
them. Have we tried that, to your knowledge?
Ambassador CdeBaca. That specifically I do not think that
we necessarily tried, and I think we will definitely take that
on board.
I think that one of the things that we are very interested
in, and we are seeing this with the supply chain work, it
really first came out of the California Supply Chain
Transparency Act that I know a lot of folks here in the room
worked so on. And that is that notion of the companies that use
these recruiting companies, the companies that are using those
factories, such as the Rana Plaza and others, having to now
publicize their anti-slavery and their antitrafficking
policies. That is something that is only here in California. It
does not have a lot of penalties. It does not look to how good
those policies actually are.
I know that our cousins over in the UK are looking at
legislation that would be more akin to the Dodd-Frank work on
the conflict minerals where companies are going to have to
start certifying the conflict minerals----
Mr. Weber. Yeah, I saw that----
Ambassador CdeBaca [continuing]. Come this spring. And so,
that is something to look at. I am not sure if she has
reintroduced it, but I think Ms. Maloney may have some
legislation on that for trafficking and slavery as a whole.
That may be a way to look at this to be able to drive that
change such as the Dodd-Frank legislation did with eastern
Congo.
Mr. Weber. That is something that I hope you will look at.
And one final question. I know that we have tiers set up--Tier
I, II, and III--and we have countries that wind up getting bad
grades, and we wound up actually having to sanction them. It
seems like there has been a new category established, an
automatic downgrade. How did that come about, and was that
because we were sensitive to foreign diplomacy? I mean, if we
have a bad actor, do we somehow try to soften that blow? How
did that come about?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Well, I was on staff at the time, and I
know that a lot of the members had the concern as we were
looking at the 2008 reauthorization, a concern that a number of
strategic countries had been on the tier 2 watch list for many
years. And there was a term that we bandied about at the time
at both the staff and member level, was this notion of the tier
2 watch list parking lot, the idea that a country might be so
important that you just had them on the tier 2 watch list
rather than actually having them fall into tier 3.
The way that the auto downgrade works is that over the
course of several years, the country can avoid falling
automatically if it has an action plan and resources to
effectuate that action plan. Some countries were able to do
that, and other countries fell to tier 3. This last year, the
waivers for the action plans were no longer available, and we
indeed saw Russia, China, and Uzbekistan fall to tier 3 on the
Trafficking Persons Report.
And we have seen, I think, certainly the downgrading of
those countries having as good result as far as conversations
that we have been having since then. I am going to be going to
Moscow soon. I was meeting with the Uzbek Ambassador a couple
of days ago. So I think that it is something that we are
getting these countries' attention.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
Chairman Royce. We will go to Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Can you give us some just two or three
specific recommendations of where local officials and local
authorities can work with the government and vice versa with
the Federal Government where you would like to see an expansion
of cooperation or doing a better job?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. I think
that the places where we would like to see a better job done I
think is in the notion of the longer-term, more proactive
investigations. Right now, there is kind of a divide between
feds do long-term investigation and local first responders are
doing kind of, you go to a hotel, you see something, you charge
it, and then it gets referred up to the prosecutor's office.
And that first police officer kinds of hands off the case.
There are phenomenal detectives in State and local law
enforcement around the country, and they can do that type of
longer-term, more proactive investigation. They can only do
that, though, if they are cut loose from some of their other
responsibilities. It is a bit of a zero sum game right now. If
you take somebody off of looking at drugs in biker gangs so
that you can then go after the pimps, then the biker gang
problem can end up getting out of control.
So I think that that's one of the things that we want to
look at, but recognizing that this is a time of austerity. This
is not necessarily a time of new federally-funded task forces
as we have seen in some other areas in the past. So I think to
me one of the things is that notion of moving away from
responsive law enforcement and moving toward proactive law
enforcement, harnessing the power of the local detectives to
really make cases.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
Chairman Royce. We have been joined by Congressman Alan
Lowenthal, who represents the 47th District in California, and
he serves on the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation,
and Trade. Thank you very much, Alan. Did you have any
questions at this time?
[Nonverbal response.]
Chairman Royce. Okay. We are going to go now to our second
panel, and we will begin with Tony Rackauckas, who is in his
fourth term as district attorney here in Orange County. He
served as judge and presiding appellate judge of the Orange
County Superior Court, also as a municipal court judge, and as
a social worker in Los Angeles County. He is a former U.S. Army
paratrooper. He is a graduate of the Loyola University School
of Law in Los Angeles.
We also have Ms. Kay Buck, CEO and executive director of
the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking--that is
CAST--in Los Angeles. During her 20 years of human rights work,
Kay Buck as served as director of the Rape Prevention Resource
Center of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. And
she spent over 5 years in Asia working with nongovernmental
groups on anti-slavery projects there.
We have Ms. Angela Guanzon, a survivor of international
trafficking who, while attempting to help support her family,
was lured from her home in the Philippines to Long Beach,
California. Now a certified nurse assistant, she is a member of
the National Survivor Network and the CAST Survivor Advisory
Caucus. She was honored with their 2012 Seeds of Renewal Award
for her advocacy and her leadership.
Ms. Carissa Phelps is founder and CEO of Runaway Girl. She
is a survivor of child sex trafficking and an abusive life on
the streets as a runaway youth. I think at the age of 12 this
challenge began for her. And she later earned her JD and MBA
degree from UCLA School of Law and the UCLA Anderson School of
Management. She was named one of her alma mater's top 100
inspirational graduates in 2010.
We welcome all of our panel, and we will be begin with Tony
Rackauckas. Five minutes of testimony if you want to summarize,
and then we will go to questions from there.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TONY RACKAUCKAS, DISTRICT ATTORNEY,
ORANGE COUNTY, OFFICE OF THE ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Mr. Rackauckas. Thank you. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
Bass, and other distinguished members of the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs, thank you for convening this hearing on one of
the most significant abuses that is plaguing us locally and
globally. It is a $32 billion enterprise, second only to
narcotic sales and profitability. And, Chairman Royce, thank
you for your continued leadership in this fight, including the
recent introduction of the new bill, H.R. 3344, the FORTE Act,
which is the Fraudulent Overseas Recruitment and Trafficking
Elimination Act of 2013.
A hundred and fifty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln
signed the Emancipation Proclamation and declared that all
persons held as slaves henceforth shall be free. Today, 150
years later, we have been given a new mandate by State and
national legislation. More than two-thirds of the commercial
sex victims in the U.S. are American citizens, while a third of
them are trafficked from foreign countries. It is time that we
abolish modern-day slavery, including the commercial sexual
exploitation of women and children.
Human exploitation and trafficking generally comes in two
forms: Forced labor, which we believe are highly under
reported, and commercial sexual exploitation. Unfortunately,
the things that make our county so great and such a tourist
destination with our mild weather and available wealth also
make our county one of the circuit stops for these sex
traffickers and modern-day slave owners.
The most concerning cases are the children who are being
prostituted on the streets in strip clubs and brothels, and
child pornography also that is being produced and traded on the
Internet and around the world just simply with a click of the
mouse. No child grows up hoping to someday be sold for sex.
Shockingly, the average age of a child being trafficked in
this county is 12, a little girl who has not even reached her
teens. These victims are being isolated, coerced, seduced,
threatened, and beaten into turning profits for individuals.
These people have absolute disregard for other human beings.
One of our defendants made a $25,000 profit in 2 weeks off just
one trafficked victim. One defendant denied medical care for a
young woman who was begging to see a doctor for her burning
pelvic region. Another refused a shivering girl from coming
inside from the cold. When one of the victims pleaded by text,
``I can't keep anything down, you don't care,'' the defendant's
response was, ``(Expletive), eat crackers.''
Career criminals and gang members have decided that
exploiting humans is cheaper and safer than trafficking drugs
and guns. A typical modern-day slave owner is Berneal Holman,
who was convicted of pandering a 16-year-old victim in Orange
County. Before he perpetrated this crime, he had previously
attempted to rape a 10-year-old girl and tried to use a 13-
year-old girl to turn tricks for the 10-year-old.
Like the slaves of the past before they were emancipated,
modern-day sex slaves are branded with tattoos of their owners'
names. They are being bullied and beaten into selling their
bodies, some over 10 times a day. For many of these victims,
the slave owner is the only family they have, and they are
forced to call these people ``daddy.'' Some of these victims
are foreign women who are lured with the promise of earning a
lot of cash to work in a legitimate job, and then they are
stripped of their passports and forced instead to work in
brothels. Some of these brothels are located in luxury
apartments in upper class neighborhoods in Orange County.
In order to protect these victims, the Orange County
District Attorney's Office has responded to the mandate of the
people by formalizing our efforts and launching a new vertical
prosecution unit named HEAT, Human Exploitation and
Trafficking. The HEAT Unit scrapped the conventional and
traditional ways of law enforcement and took a fresh, more
comprehensive approach to solve the problem using a tactical
plan called PERP, Prosecution, Education, Resources, and
Publicity. With the new weapons provided by Proposition 35,
these defendants are going away to State prison for multiple
years and even life terms. We have been educating police
officers, prosecutors, students, community members, and we want
to produce webinars and videos to take the message directly to
parents and to children.
The human trafficking victims need to be rescued, and we
need to have resources to do that. They need a place to go or
they will end up back on the street with their abusers. The
Orange County public-private partnership, made up of
corporations, non-profits, faith-based groups, law enforcement,
and victims' rights groups, work hard to rescue these girls off
the street. But sadly, we need a lot more resources.
We are working hard now. Our HEAT unit has been in
operation for about a year, and maybe a little more than a
year, and we have many open cases. We have cases involving
victims who are from other countries, involving victims who are
from the United States. We have quite a number of felony cases.
Five of those defendants are facing life counts, and many
others are facing mandatory sentences of several years in
prison. Like I said, we have some victims who are foreign
nationals also.
Our HEAT unit is here, and I am very proud of the work that
they have been doing. And the police you can see also from
Anaheim Police Department are the head of the Orange County--
not HEAT, but the Orange County victims group that we have and
working to reduce this kind of a problem. I think they have
done a magnificent job in Orange County. In fact, I think I can
with some pride say that we have a defendant, for example, who
is in prison, and he has been grumbling that if he was in
another county he would be out by now. So with legislation, and
prosecutions, and the kinds of sentences that get their
attention, I think that we can make some inroads.
And thank you again for conducting this forum so that we
can end this modern-day slavery now.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rackauckas follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Rackauckas.
We go now to Kay Buck.
STATEMENT OF MS. KAY BUCK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, COALITION TO ABOLISH SLAVERY & TRAFFICKING
Ms. Buck. Thank you, Chairman Royce, and the committee
members for holding this forum today. As the chairman
mentioned, my name is Kay Buck, and I am the executive director
of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, also known
as CAST. We are located in Los Angeles, California.
Since 1998, CAST has been providing specialized services to
survivors of human trafficking, while informing the movement to
prevent modern-day slavery through our evidence-based
approaches. CAST has worked directly with over 1,000 survivors,
children and family members from over 58 countries around the
world, including a growing population right here from the
United States to provide emergency response, shelter, case
management, and legal services, as well as a high-level
leadership development program for survivors.
CAST works closely with other nongovernmental
organizations. We are a coalition of pro bono attorneys, law
enforcement agents, as well as both Federal and local
government agencies. We were the founder of the Los Angeles
Metropolitan Task Force on Human Trafficking many years ago,
and were the first to do that in the country.
However, despite ongoing efforts to leverage existing
resources, CAST acutely feels a gap in services because of the
shortage of resources that are currently available for
survivors of human trafficking. And I want to thank the
chairman for pointing out all of my coalition partners in
Orange County earlier in the hearing. They are the human rights
defenders of our time, and they do so with very little
resources.
Last July, a report showed that that the U.S. Government
spends approximately $100 million annually to combat the 9-
billion-dollar--and growing--industry of human trafficking.
Compare this to the approximate $15 billion that we spend
annually on the war against drugs. Clearly, efforts to prevent
trafficking and assist more and more survivors need more and
more support. This is evidenced in our numbers. Three years in
a row, our numbers in serving new cases, new people coming to
us for help, have doubled 3 years in a row. And I am sure my
colleagues in Orange County have similar statistics.
Victims of human trafficking are enslaved not only through
physical means, but also through coercion, through fear and
intimidation. In today's global economy, workers can be
enslaved by threats of deportation, lack of viable
alternatives, and especially death. We often think of
undocumented immigrants as vulnerable to human trafficking, but
almost 50 percent of our cases at CAST include individuals who
come to the United States on lawful visas.
Human trafficking thrives when immigrant workers are forced
to pay labor recruiters high fees. And what we saw as maybe
$2,000 as a fee 10 years ago is now upwards of $30,000. They
are often charged very high interest rates, most of the time by
the loan shark from a community, which puts the families at
risk, and they do this in order to work lawfully in the United
States. So these workers actually become vulnerable to debt
bondage, one of the most pervasive forms of modern-day slavery
today.
CAST believes that one of the most important policy changes
we can make is better regulation of foreign labor recruiters
through the following four-pronged approach. First, the
elimination of fees. Foreign labor contractors should not be
allowed to assess any fees to the worker. Such fees may be
borne by the employer. Second is disclosure. Foreign labor
contractors must disclose all of the terms and conditions of
the work in writing in both English as well as the worker's
native language. Third is registration. Employers must use
foreign labor contractors who are properly registered with the
Department of Labor. And last, but not least, is enforcement
and accountability. The Department of Labor should establish a
process for receiving, investigating, and adjudicating
complaints against either foreign labor contractors or
employers.
CAST commends Chairman Royce for his leadership in
introducing H.R. 3344 in the House. This piece of legislation
takes the comprehensive four-pronged approach I just outlined,
and this bill is such an important one that will help prevent
human trafficking and protect more workers. In addition to the
protections already mentioned in the legislation, I would like
to recommend also the inclusion of J-1 visa holders so that au
pairs and nannies will receive the same protection as other
workers coming to the U.S. from abroad.
Finally, CAST believes that the business community must be
an integral partner in combating modern-day slavery. CAST was
an original co-sponsor of S.B. 657, the California Transparency
and Supply Chain Act, that the Ambassador mentioned earlier. It
requires companies to publicly reveal the steps they are taking
to eradicate modern-day slavery from all supply chains. Today,
over 400 goods in 352 countries are produced by either child or
forced labor. Given how prevalent modern-day slavery is in the
global supply chain, CAST now hopes that measures similar to
the law that we have in California, S.B. 657, can be adopted
federally. We call for the House to reintroduce the Business
Transparency in Trafficking and Slavery Act.
Thank you for your attention today and for the invitation
to testify before all of you. And I also want to commend you
for including survivors not only to speak of the suffering that
they endured in the course of human trafficking, but as the
experts they are to really help us find the policies that will
eradicate modern-day slavery. Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Buck follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Kay.
Angela?
STATEMENT OF MS. ANGELA GUANZON, SURVIVOR OF INTERNATIONAL
TRAFFICKING, MEMBER, CAST SURVIVOR ADVISORY CAUCUS AND NATIONAL
SURVIVOR NETWORK
Ms. Guanzon. Good morning, and thank you, Chairman Royce.
My name is Angela. I am from the Philippines. I came to the
United States with a lawful visa and a promise to have a good
job. In the Philippines, coming to the United States is like
winning the lottery. I was so excited to go that I did not even
ask many questions. When I got my visa to go to the United
States, my passport was taken away from me, and I was told it
would be held for me until I got to the United States. I
traveled with about 10 workers to the United States.
When I got to the U.S., things were very different than I
thought. I was told I owed $12,000 for my transportation and
visa and have to work for 10 years to pay it off. I was then
forced to work in a retirement home for elderly care located in
a suburb in Los Angeles. I worked 18 hours a day, 7 days a
week, and we had to sleep on the floor in the hallways. My co-
worker and I, Jayson, were threatened that if we tried to
escape, we would be deported by calling the police and telling
them that we stole something from her. And my situation,
trafficking is not only for women. It is also for men. And this
went on for 2\1/2\ years.
Finally I was rescued by the FBI through the neighbor who
noticed that we did not get a day off. I spoke to the FBI about
what happened to me, and eventually I testified against my
trafficker in a criminal court, and she got a 5-year sentence.
Now, I am a certified nurse assistant and a member of the
CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus and the National Survivor
Network. CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus is a group of survivors
who are learning leadership and advocacy skills to raise
awareness of human trafficking and to influence policies to
help better protect and help the survivors of human
trafficking. National Survivor Network, this consists of, like,
58 or 60 survivors around 18 States here in the United States.
I do not believe what happened to me, what happened to
other people. Because of the work that I do in CAST, I have
learned that what happened to me happened to a lot of survivors
that I met in National Survivors Network and CAST Survivor
Advisory Caucus. I have met a lot of workers that came with an
H-2B visa and were supposed to work with an H-2A visa. I have
learned that they came to work in agriculture, but ended
enslaved on farms all over the United States here with armed
guards keeping watch. And some have an H-2B visa and a promise
to have a good job like I was told, but ended up working in a
hotel under threat of police.
I am very thankful to Chairman Royce for making such a big
step to introduce the H.R. 3344. And I feel that he is really
listening, and he is really listening about the issue. And I am
so proud that I am here today to participate in this H.R. 3344
on behalf of the survivors so we can speak and we can be in a
world that is free of abuse. Thank you.
[Applause.]
[The prepared statement of Ms. Guanzon follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Angela.
Carissa?
STATEMENT OF MS. CARISSA PHELPS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
RUNAWAY GIRL, FPC
Ms. Phelps. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity to be
here and to speak about strength in survivorship.
At 12 years old I thought I was born free. I thought that I
could do anything and be free. But when I was kidnapped by a
trafficker, kidnapped by a pimp in the town that I was born in,
people looked the other way. Law enforcement looked the other
way. Social services looked the other way. And I was blamed for
what was done to me.
It took me over 15 years earning my education, graduating
from law school and business school, connecting with community
members, to be able to embrace my story, to be able to share
it, and to be able to speak to this difference that we see
today, this movement that we see today to end trafficking for
domestic minors of sex trafficking.
The work that I do is not just based on my story from the
past. It is my story of advocacy. I found out as I was becoming
an advocate that survivors who were sitting alongside of me did
not have financial means to be there. They were not being
compensated. They had day care issues. They had transportation
issues. And they were being asked to come in to share their
stories, asked to influence policy, asked to make policy, write
policy, inform policy, and yet they were not being treated as
experts in the sense that they were not being compensated.
At one very high profile and federally-supported event,
survivors were separated from the experts and taken to a
basement room and asked to share their horror stories to
complete strangers. I was told at that event that I was not an
SME, a subject matter expert, and so that is why I was left
out. I informed that person that I, in fact, was an attorney,
and did hold an MBA, and was an expert, but I realized at that
moment that we needed a united front. We needed to connect with
each other and to stand up for each other in these instances.
And since then I founded Runaway Girl as a flexible purpose
corporation. And what that means is that we have a charitable
purpose in our articles of incorporation. It is a way for us to
create a platform and lower barriers to entry for survivors who
are speaking out and educating. It has no borders. It does not
see international and domestic as any different. The more
united we are, the stronger we are.
Slave owners knew that when Willie Lynch wrote his infamous
letter to his colleagues who were slave owners and told them
that they needed to lower the self-esteem, to basically demean
their slaves and to divide them and have them fight against
each other, the light-skinned against the dark-skinned, the
house against the field. And when he did that, he knew what he
was doing. He was dividing them. He was keeping slavery in
existence. In order to end slavery, we need to unite. We need
to build up each individual survivor and support them and unite
them across any borders globally together. And I believe that
we are going to end slavery for good.
In this next step as we look at this legislation that was
survivor informed, I do have recommendations. I do believe that
anyone who is receiving any type of support or a corporation
needs to look at and figure out if someone has been a victim of
human trafficking. They should never be arrested for
immigration issues. They should never be charged, held in a
prison for being a prostitute for solicitation or even for a
runaway violation if they, in fact, have been recruited and are
being trafficked. As long as we arrest and we hold people
criminally accountable for what has been done to them, we are
allowing slavery to exist.
We need to address demand. We need to arrest demand--
literally arrest demand. We need to treat demand as part of the
trafficking equation. So trafficking in arms and trafficking in
drugs we know requires sellers and buyers and that they are all
traffickers. But for some reason we have excluded buyers from
our trafficking work and what we do. We will no longer protect
the buyers who allow this to happen.
As a survivor group and as a survivor voice, I hear that
loud and clear from my colleagues and from my friends. And we
must end the demand for trafficking by going after those people
who allow it to happen from the very top to the very bottom in
our society. We have people who buy children, and who buy
labor, and who are enslaving, and we need to hold them
accountable as buyers as well with more than 5-year sentences,
with more than 13-month sentences--with real sentences for what
they have done, which is taking away someone's freedom.
[Applause.]
Ms. Phelps. My final recommendation is to invest in
survivors individually and in groups. We need to see to the
longevity of survivors. What is it that they are offering as
they are growing, and learning, and becoming a part of our
community? Once again, how can we in the long run expect
survivors to be there if we are having them pay their own way
to be there? It just does not make any sense. So investing in
survivors individually and in groups, and supporting their
global leadership, and supporting them supporting each other is
something that I would highly recommend.
And I thank the people who are here today that are doing
the work. And I know that here, I know there is a group who is
part of the FACT Alliance and the fight against child
trafficking, and that does not have borders, does not see
international and domestic differently, that supports freedom
for children in all areas of the world. So thank you so much
for your support today.
[Applause.]
[The prepared statement of Ms. Phelps follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Carissa. Thank you, Carissa, for
that testimony. And I was going to ask Tony Rackauckas, the
district attorney, a question along those lines. Your
circumstance, the fact that, as Tony shared, the average age
for teen underage girls now is 12 when we are bringing these
cases. Under the new law, under Prop. 35, I guess one of the
advantages is a focus on those involved in the criminal
syndicates and those participating as pimps, and more focus on
those who create the demand as well. But the fact is that we
have that new prosecution with the result of 32 years for an
individual who is involved in trying to recruit underage girls,
and this particular girl was 13 that he tried to lure up to
Sacramento, and he was caught doing it.
Let me ask you, if I could, Mr. Rackauckas, are there any
common factors that increase the susceptibility, the nature of
the risk, for a 12-year-old, 13-year-old, being vulnerable to
being trafficked? If you would give us some insights on that.
And what strategies have our panelists found to be most
successful in addressing that particular problem?
Mr. Rackauckas. Well, those are certainly great questions.
I think that as far as the vulnerability is concerned, what
seems to happen mostly is that they wind up meeting somebody,
and this person appears to be somebody who looks fine and
appears to be upstanding, and gets them into a car or some kind
of a compromising situation, and then just takes them off. And
we have seen quite a number of cases where a young girl would
willingly get in the car with somebody or go off with somebody,
and then, of course, once that person gets control, he winds up
taking her quite far away. It is not usually just in the local
area, but it might be to another State, and then gets control,
dominates her, beats her up a few times to let her know that
she cannot disobey anything that he has to say. And then he
starts trafficking her.
So as far as what would be the common thing, you know, I do
not know if I can put my finger on it except to say that, you
know, just being out on their own, not being supervised, and
winding up being in the hands of a stranger. It is not usually
a kidnapping off the street where somebody jumps out of the
bushes and grabs a young girl and throws her in the car. It is
usually a cooperative sort of a thing.
Chairman Royce. Kay, let me ask you that question, too, or
any of the other panelists.
Ms. Buck. The same question?
Chairman Royce. Yes, just the factors that, in your
opinion, make girls of that age at risk for being recruited
into or kidnapped into this type of situation.
Ms. Buck. Well, there are definitely factors, and certainly
socioeconomic status is one factor. That said, we have served
clients, served survivors, here in LA who have had university
degrees. So I think we need to look at, you know, there is a
domestic population, yes, that have been survivors. There is
also a foreign national population. And I really want to credit
Carissa that the similarities are more than the differences.
And as a movement, we need to look at this more when we are
looking at the factors of vulnerability.
So what I am saying is that the foreign labor contractor
who drives into a community in a foreign country and looks, you
know, nice, drives a nice car, says come with me, or, let me
take your children, they'll be given a really great education,
is not that different from the pimp who seeks out one girl in
the same fashion.
So when we are talking about vulnerability factors, and I
do want to say that we are really proud to be working with
Representative Bass' office on the child welfare system. And we
are doing some really innovative things in LA working with the
county board of supervisors to address the vulnerability
factors, which can be everything from socioeconomic status to,
you know, to the traffickers going in and being allowed to do
recruitment in the way that they are doing that.
So I think there are a lot of vulnerability factors is what
I am saying.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. I was going to ask one last
question of Angela, and that is if during the visa application
process you had been given information about antitrafficking
protections under U.S. law or maybe the number to that
antitrafficking hotline, do you think that that would have
helped you escape sooner, Angela? Angela, if you had had
access----
Ms. Guanzon. I am so sorry.
Chairman Royce [continuing]. To the antitrafficking hotline
at the point that you----
Ms. Guanzon. No.
Chairman Royce [continuing]. Had the visa application----
Ms. Guanzon. No.
Chairman Royce [continuing]. Would that have helped you if
that had been given up front, or if you had been given
information about antitrafficking protections in the United
States, would that have assisted you?
Ms. Guanzon. Yes, it would be helpful, and I am just going
to show this one, the Survivor Advisory Caucus that we have, a
member, she worked as a nanny. And they were based on--and when
they came, when she went through the immigration, somebody
handed her the information about the hotline, and that is how
she got help. And when she got to the hotel, she called the
number, and that is how she got help from CAST.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to go to
Representative Karen Bass.
Ms. Bass. Thank you. Well, once again let me just thank all
of the witnesses for your testimony. And to Carissa and Angela,
I really appreciate you coming forward and being willing to
share your story. And Carissa is just amazing because I met her
years ago and back when you were a student, and to see progress
and what you have done is just really incredible. And I
appreciated that you pointed out the demand side, and also that
you talked about how those of us who are well meaning have to
make real sure that we do not re-assent or exploit your time in
the way that you described.
But we mentioned the demand, and I wanted to go to our
witness from the DA. One of the things that I do not
understand, and especially on the underage side, I do not
understand, and maybe I am wrong, but that the men are not
charged with rape, and also that I do not think you can use the
word ``prostitution'' for a child because if you are below the
age of consent, then how can you be considered a participant?
So the question is, are people charged with rape as opposed
to soliciting?
Mr. Rackauckas. Yes. Yeah, the answer to the question is,
of course, yes. Any time that we would have a case where the
child who is so young, that person would definitely be charged
with rape. But, you know, this Proposition 35, by the way, has
been very helpful. Even since 8109 went into effect, and so
many people in California do not go to prison. Under Prop 35,
we are sending a lot of these traffickers to prison now for a
long time period.
Ms. Bass. But the solicitors, the johns.
Mr. Rackauckas. If we can show that the john knows or
should know that this young lady is under 18 years of age,
then, yes, we would, of course, charge that person at least
with statutory rape.
Ms. Bass. Right, because anybody is supposed to know that.
I mean, that is statutory rape, right? Because what I
understand, this is what the LA FBI told me, is that guys
specifically ask for age. I mean, apparently there are places
in LA where you can go on this one street, and that is where
they are between 12 and 13, and so people are specifically
doing that.
It is raising the issue of really going after the demand,
obviously the traffickers, but----
Mr. Rackauckas. Absolutely. And we are not calling them
``johns'' anymore. We are not using that kind of a euphemism.
Now, they are being referred to as sex purchasers.
Ms. Bass. Or if they are under age.
Mr. Rackauckas. Right. And if they are under age, we are
going to prosecute them on the rape charge, and if the victim
is not under age, then, of course, we are still going to
prosecute them for soliciting, and we are going to publicize
their names as well.
Ms. Bass. Good. Now, are the girls, when they are arrested,
which I do understand sometimes that is an important thing to
do. But what are they charged with? They are not charged with
soliciting, right?
Mr. Rackauckas. Well, in the past it has always been a
soliciting to commit prostitution. But we are taking a much
different approach on that now because looking at
circumstances, and we are treating them like the victims that
they are, and we are trying to work with them to develop the
case because we need them to give us the information that will
take us to the person who is trafficking them.
Ms. Bass. I know, and I will bet you that is a huge
challenge because it is probably very difficult for them to
actually do that. And I think it is part of the community
education to not view an underage child as being capable of
prostitution, you know what I mean? Changing that.
Mr. Rackauckas. It is a huge challenge, and that is one of
the reasons we are talking about resources because we are
committing, of course, resources from the DA's office, and the
Anaheim Police Department has resources committed for the
county-wide committee. But a lot of the police departments do
not have that kind of resource.
Ms. Bass. Right.
Mr. Rackauckas. And it requires a good deal of
investigation. It is not just a quick thing. It requires a
serious investigation that is going to take place over time to
get the job done.
Ms. Bass. Exactly.
Mr. Rackauckas. So that is an issue with us, too.
Ms. Bass. Thank you. And then just one further question, if
you do not mind, Mr. Chairman. Carissa, if there was one type
of social service that would be most needed for the girls, what
is that?
Ms. Phelps. I think the number one protective factor that
has come up is information and education. It is empowering
those young women, and boys, and foreign nationals, people that
are vulnerable. It is giving that phone number and that
information at a very early age in the early stage because not
everyone who even has a mom and dad at home has protection and
information about what is going on out on the streets. And I
think with more education, that would lead to greater
prevention.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Weber?
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am really glad that
our district attorney is present. He was telling us not to call
them johns. We have fought that fight in Texas. You know, we
have a term for them, but since we are being recorded and maybe
broadcast, so I will not tell you what that is. [Laughter.]
I said earlier we would like to put them under the
jailhouse, you know. The City of Waco had a great program where
they actually posted their pictures on billboards throughout
the city, and I would love to see every city doing that.
And one of you cited--Carissa, maybe it was you--a study by
a lady that said the ``purchasers of sex,'' POS. That is what
we call them. [Laughter.] They pretty much agree that if they
had paid a $1,000 to $2,000 fine or spent a month in jail that
they would not be out looking for it. And I was shocked when I
did some research on her. She has actually done research all
the way back to '94 along these lines. I do not know how you
followed her. It is really interesting. It is really good
stuff.
And the thought occurred to me, and, Mr. District Attorney,
you might be able to tell me, you know, we have sexual offender
registries, and we put them online, and they are precluded from
living near schools, and it varies by State. But how about
this? What if we put that on their driver's license so that----
[Applause.]
Mr. Weber [continuing]. So when they have a habit--and it
gets better, so just stay tuned. [Laughter.] When they have a
habit of being POSs, it goes on their driver's license and
their credit report. People need to know what they spend their
money for. Has anybody ever thought--I mean, I am talking from
a policy making standpoint. Have you ever heard of any
legislation like that?
Mr. Rackauckas. I have not. I have not.
Mr. Weber. We will get to work on that. [Laughter.]
[Applause.]
Mr. Rackauckas. Maybe it would be helpful if you would come
and work with our California legislature on that particular
idea. [Laughter.]
Mr. Weber. Okay. And then another question I have. It seems
to me that we are talking about education and helping our
victims with what they need the most, and I appreciate Member
Bass' question, what do they need the most. Are we going down
into the junior high and middle schools, and are we saying,
ladies, guys, this is what is out there in store, you need to
be aware of it. We are doing that in the local school
districts, are we? One is saying yes, the other is saying no.
We are having a disagreement here.
Ms. Phelps. We want to. We definitely want to, and we want
to bring more survivor leaders in for that preventative work
because we know it is personal stories that make that impact.
So it is definitely something we are looking at in partnership
with school districts. Some have reached out and been very
proactive about it. Others will need some mandates to get it
done.
Ms. Buck. Yeah.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Well, I would just encourage you to do
that. Any help we can give, and I know you all have very
capable members here in California who would help, too. So, Mr.
Chairman, I will yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. We will go now to Mr.
Rohrabacher, and then we will finalize with Mr. Lowenthal.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So I assume by the last answer that
perhaps we need to be more proactive in our schools at an
earlier age and giving as much warning to our young people.
That is something we need to do more of?
Ms. Phelps. Yeah. I cannot remember the name of the study,
but I will provide it to you later. There is a study for
overseas victims, and it was about positive deviance. So when
all of these vulnerable factors are in place, when all of them
are in place and when they are living in poverty, when
trafficking is all around them in their community, what was the
difference for the people that were not trafficked, the
positive deviance. It was information and education, and that
is true empowerment. And it says, you know, we can inoculate
and prevent this from happening with information and education.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And, Tony, our district attorney, I have
noticed in your testimony about the recent 24 defendants that
went to State prison. And you have 40 active felony cases or 5
defendants facing lifelong counts and there are other major
accomplishments in terms of law enforcement.
You interact with your fellow district attorneys because
your report says one of the fellows that you picked up was in
county jail said that he would have been out if he was in
another county. So how do you rate, and I will not ask you to
rate them specifically by name, but how do you rate the way
district attorneys around the country are doing on this issue?
Mr. Rackauckas. I think that district attorneys' offices
are not uniform, that there has been, I think, an awareness or
an awakening that has developed just in the last couple of
years. And so, it is in the process of developing at this
point.
I know that in the last Statewide district attorney
conference that we had, the California attorney general and
some other district attorneys made a lot of effort to present
information, particularly the Alameda district attorney, but a
lot of effort to present this kind of evidence and the sort of
things that we are talking about here for the DAs on a
Statewide level. And I think that it is improving a great deal.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Was that giving them a good assessment or
a bad assessment for your fellow DAs? [Laughter.]
I think that is what we are supposed to do at hearings like
this. I mean, is law enforcement--number one, I am satisfied
that you are doing a great job. I would not back you for
election otherwise. I am satisfied of that. I am not
necessarily satisfied that law enforcement around the country
is meeting that same standard.
Mr. Rackauckas. You know, I can just relate more to Orange
County, and I can tell you that police departments are having a
tough time trying to keep resources in this kind of an area.
For example, one of our large police departments has a number
of people who are in the vice squad who may have been paying
attention and doing these investigations for the last 1\1/2\ or
2 years and doing some pretty good work. But now with the
cutting of resources and the difficulty of keeping resources in
an area like this, they probably are going to take those
resources away and just put them in the more general kind of
police work. So it is tough to get good local investigations to
bring these cases forward.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Well, obviously this is not a job
just for local police, and it is obviously more than just our
local school teachers. And Mr. Royce is pointing out the
national and international aspect of this challenge to our
society. And so, obviously we have from the administration a
commitment to all of us working together, and I think that is
what this is all about.
Thank you very much, Mr. Royce, and all of the witnesses.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Alan Lowenthal?
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I have a
question for Ms. Buck, but really the question will be a follow
on to really all the panelists. I really want to compliment you
for advocating for victims of human trafficking. Your work
obviously here today and with all the panelists really sheds
light on this egregious offense which affects the dignity of, I
think, worldwide more than 20 million people. And I noticed
that CAST provides, in looking through and listening to you,
many critical kinds of services, such as legal services, and
emergency response, shelter, and case management.
But I am interested in a particular subset in terms of the
healing of people that have gone through this. As a mental
health professional in the Congress----
Ms. Buck. Yes.
Mr. Lowenthal [continuing]. I would really like to
understand from you and from the others about how we really
deal with some of the long-range healing of people who have
been subjected to this kind of abuse, really long-term abuse.
And if you could shed some light on what we should be dealing
with in terms of long-term mental health issues. And then I
would like to ask the rest of the panelists also about really
where mental health really fits into this.
Ms. Buck. Absolutely. That is a great question because I
think as both Carissa and Angela pointed out, empowerment is
really necessary. Sometimes the traditional modalities of
mental health are not necessarily provided through an
empowerment program or an empowerment approach. And so, what
the field is really moving toward is what is called trauma
informed care.
And so, actually even our legal services program at CAST,
we train our attorneys in trauma informed care so that not only
are mental health services delivered in that fashion, but legal
services, shelter, and emergency response. And that has been
the number one indicator for us of success where, you know, we
work very closely with survivors. Most survivors stay with us
on average about 2 years.
So, you know, we have the opportunity and really the
privilege of following them through their healing process. And
what we know works is a variety of options, so it is not one
modality that people have to stick to through that whole 2-year
process. It is really using the arts and music, mentoring as
well as something that is very helpful.
When you think about it, most of our clients, whether they
be a domestic client or a foreign national client, come to us
with a very small support system. Sometimes they do not have
any support system at all. So by empowering them and helping
them connect with other survivors, that begins their social
network, and then going into the community do that more, we
have a lot more success.
We are doing something or piloting something that is new in
the coming weeks where it is called ``Open Table.'' And it is
actually a modality that is used, and the first one has been
very successful in Arizona in a faith-based context and for the
homeless population. We are adapting it to serve human
trafficking survivors where they can meet every Sunday with a
group of community members who can mentor them, who can become
their social network for 2 years at a time. And they open up
jobs for them. They connect them to other community resources.
That is the kind of services that are really necessary. So it
is not a traditional modality, but rather other progressive
modalities that we know work.
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you. And I wonder if other panelists
might want to comment about the healing process, and how we
empower people, and how we even change the, what I have just
heard, is the very nature of the delivery of all services, that
this empowerment model has to be included in the training of
all folks, including law enforcement. And so, I am just
wondering how that is being played out in your experiences and
what you can add to that, because I am convinced that
frequently we overlook mental health as one of the critical
issues to deal with.
Ms. Guanzon. I am just going to speak for myself. I lived
in a shelter for 1\1/2\ years, and through the CAST Survivor
Advisory Caucus, we have this, like, every week or once in a
month we have this potluck. Before I was too scared to get out
from the shelter because I did not know anybody. I am so scared
that if I go out, am I going to be, like, with anybody else, or
am I going to be, like, somebody knows that I am different.
But through the CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus, they make me
feel that even though I have been in that situation, I have a
family. And CAST staff, they are so good for making us feel and
teaching the proper way of--we can say no. ``No'' is not a
light word for us, but from the CAST staff, we are taught that
at every step or every decision that we are going to do, you
are entitled to say ``no.'' It is up to you.
So with that, we learn. And in the Caucus, I have learned
that being outside the shelter is like just regular people that
you can be mingled and talk to, and there is no, like,
situation between us and the people outside.
Ms. Phelps. When I initially came out with my story, I
would be introduced at events that had nothing to do with
trafficking as here is Carissa Phelps, a former child
prostitute. And it became the fixation of people when they met
me. And so, education in our communities as well is critical.
And with sexual assault, any type of victimization, educating
your community about how to receive people, whether they are
law enforcement, education, mental health providers, is
critical.
Susan Draper from West Coast Clinic, she is in Alameda
County, and she is the leading expert for child sex trafficking
response, mental health response. She is, I think, getting
ready to retire, so we could, like, find a job for her to lead
the way and educate other communities about the mental health
approach, because it is critical that the team of mental health
professionals are also not just educated, but supported because
there is a level of trauma and victimization that they are
learning about, and hearing, and taking in.
In order to make that job sustainable for them, they really
need a strong, supportive network themselves. And I think Susan
is the lead expert in that right now.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. Well, in summation, let me just
thank our panelists for helping us to understand not only the
challenges going forward, but also the important work that is
being done out in the community today. And especially we want
to thank my Human Trafficking Congressional Advisory Committee
for their input.
As we go forward, we are going to be working with members
of the Panel and members of the community to try to strengthen
legislation.
I want to thank my committee members who are here as well.
This will be a committee product, and so we thank them for
their participation. And out there in the audience, we thank
the members of the community that came forward in order to hear
more about this issue, to be involved. And we appreciate the
activism from so many who are supporting some of the community
groups that are dealing with the survivors, those who are
involved in these situations of sexual slavery of children that
were pressed into this, or for those overseas who have been
trapped with respect to labor trafficking.
And lastly, thank you very much to you, Ambassador CdeBaca,
for coming out.
And I shall share with you all that today's video, and
testimony, and legislative info are available online at
foreignaffairs.house.gov. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
Chairman Royce. We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
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Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Edward R. Royce, a
Representative in Congress from the State of California, and chairman,
Committee on Foreign Affairs
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