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BEST PRACTICES AND NEXT STEPS:

A NEW DECADE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN

TRAFFICKING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 13, 2011

Serial No. 112–88

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

VACANT 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

KAREN BASS, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

(III)

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 .............................. 5

Ms. Deborah Cundy, vice president, Carlson Companies ..................................... 27

Ms. Chai Ling, founder, All Girls Allowed ............................................................ 34

Ms. Nancy Rivard, president and founder, Airline Ambassadors International 45

Mr. Philip Kowalcyzk, president, The Body Shop ................................................. 49

Mr. Kevin Bales, co-founder and president, Free the Slaves ............................... 56

Mr. David Abramowitz, director of policy and government relations, Humanity United .............................................................................................................. 67

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Luis CdeBaca: Prepared statement .............................................. 8

Ms. Deborah Cundy: Prepared statement ............................................................. 30

Ms. Chai Ling: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 37

Ms. Nancy Rivard: Prepared statement ................................................................. 47

Mr. Philip Kowalcyzk: Prepared statement ........................................................... 52

Mr. Kevin Bales: Prepared statement .................................................................... 59

Mr. David Abramowitz: Prepared statement ........................................................ 71

The Honorable Donald M. Payne, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New Jersey: Prepared statement .......................................................... 82

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 108

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 109

The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Missouri: Prepared statement ......................................................................... 110

The Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas: Prepared statement .................................................................................. 111

Questions submitted for the record to the Honorable Luis CdeBaca by the 

Honorable Donald M. Payne, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New Jersey ....................................................................................................... 112

Questions submitted for the record to the Honorable Luis CdeBaca by the 

Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas ... 120

The Honorable Luis CdeBaca: Material submitted for the record ....................... 121

Ms. Nancy Rivard: Material submitted for the record ......................................... 129

Mr. David Abramowitz: Material submitted for the record ................................. 131

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, and Human Rights: Material submitted for the record ...................... 140

(1)

BEST PRACTICES AND NEXT STEPS: A NEW 

DECADE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN 

TRAFFICKING 

MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order. 

I’d like to welcome all of you this afternoon to this important 

hearing on human trafficking. The focus, of course, is on the continuing fight to end human trafficking in all of its forms and manifestations. 

Significant progress has been made since I authored the landmark legislation known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 

of 2000, or the TVPA, to address trafficking around the world almost a decade ago. But new forms and methods of trafficking are 

consistently and constantly emerging, and we have to constantly 

recalibrate our efforts to stay ahead of them. 

At this hearing, we’ll be examining in particular the most effective policies and tools developed by the government and the private 

sector to combat human trafficking. No country, and few industries, 

are untouched by this pervasive human rights abuse. 

Traffickers use airlines to move their victims, hotels to exploit 

sex trafficking victims, and unsuspecting buyers to pay for goods 

that have been made with raw materials tainted by forced and 

bonded labor. 

It is estimated that there are anywhere from 12–27 million sex 

and labor trafficking victims in the world at any given time. We 

know that organized crime, street gangs, and pimps have expanded 

into sex trafficking at an alarming rate. It’s an extremely lucrative 

undertaking. A trafficker can make some $200,000 a year off just 

one victim. Unlike drugs or weapons, a human being can be held 

captive and sold into sexual slavery over, and over, and over again. 

It turns a child, or a woman, or anyone into a commodity. 

And we are just beginning to understand the full scope of labor 

trafficking. The International Labor Organization estimates that 

countries import and export billions of dollars worth of goods made 

by labor trafficking victims. Unsuspecting buyers purchase these 

2

goods perpetuating the profits of traffickers and the misery of the 

victims. 

The TVPA was a landmark bill with a bold strategy that included sheltering, asylum, and other protections for the victims; 

long jail sentences and asset confiscation for the traffickers; and 

tough sanctions for the governments that fail to meet minimum 

standards prescribed by the Act. 

It was met, initially, with a wall of skepticism and opposition. 

And I think David Abramowitz remembers so well, on both sides 

of the aisle there were people who thought that it was a solution 

in search of a problem. 

When you talk trafficking, people thought you were talking about 

drug trafficking, and there was a very myopic and narrow-minded 

view about that. 

One major problem, especially from the Clinton administration, 

was the naming and ranking of countries based on compliance with 

the establishment of commonsense minimum standards, clearly articulated prevention, protection, and prosecution benchmarks enforced by sanctions and penalties against egregious violators. 

Fortunately, reality won out over ignorance and a very, very fine 

bipartisan coalition was formed, and the TVPA was signed into law 

by President Clinton 2 years later after its introduction in the year 

2000. 

The Trafficking in Persons Report, which is written by the State 

Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking, 

currently headed by Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, not only summarizes the rankings and performance of each nation every year, but 

also provides detailed recommendations as to how each country can 

improve its efforts. 

The report has become a resource and a diplomatic tool of extraordinary value. In the last 10 years, we have seen over 130 

countries change their laws to better fight human trafficking. Successful prosecutions have increased dramatically. The number of 

victims identified and rescued goes up significantly each year. But 

still, much more needs to be done. 

In 2009, close to 50,000 victims were rescued worldwide, more 

than any other recorded year; yet, this is just a fraction of the 12–

27 million slavery victims suffering around the world. 

Parts of the TVPA were reauthorized in ‘03 and ‘05, and 2008. 

Of course, some of it is permanent law, but those parts that needed 

to be reauthorized were done so, and we are now preparing to reauthorize sections of the legislation again this year. 

This hearing provides an opportunity, and an important opportunity, to see what new and effective measures are being taken by 

various stakeholders, and what the U.S. Government can do to 

help encourage and facilitate those efforts. 

Of particular interest are the evolving roles of public-private 

partnerships. In the past 5 years, several effective initiatives that 

aim to prevent trafficking and assist victims had been undertaken 

by the private sector. Joining us at this hearing is a representative 

of Carlson Wagonlit, which has taken a lead in developing best 

practices for the hotel industry. 

The Body Shop is using their brand to raise awareness of human 

trafficking and to campaign for country-specific solutions. Airline 

3

Ambassadors, a non-governmental organization, is identifying gaps 

in trafficking prevention on airlines, and developing training for 

the worldwide industry. 

Other NGOs, such as All Girls Allowed, have exposed government policies, such as China’s brutal one-child-per-couple policy 

that fuels trafficking demand, and contributes directly to the exploitation of girls and women. 

I’m particularly pleased to welcome Mr. David Abramowitz as a 

witness before our subcommittee today. Prior to his current position with Humanity United, Mr. Abramowitz served for many years 

as chief counsel with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and 

he has been involved in the drafting and negotiations of the TVPA 

since it was first being worked on back in 1998. 

Mr. Abramowitz is well known as a leading expert in the human 

trafficking field, and is a stalwart advocate of trafficking victims 

around the world, and it’s a privilege to have him here with us 

today; although, I’m used to seeing him right here. David, thank 

you for being here. 

This hearing will highlight the need to harness the insights and 

the expertise of government and various actors from civil society 

alike. Such coordinated efforts should always be an emphasis of 

public policy, but are particularly necessary in times of severe 

budgetary constraints, such as now facing our global economy. 

Such partnerships bring together a broader range of expertise, leverage resources to obtain better results, and spread awareness to 

people who can make a difference, but who may otherwise never 

hear about human trafficking. 

I look forward to hearing the testimonies of our witnesses as we 

look to strengthen the global fight against human trafficking. Mr. 

Payne will be joining us, our ranking member, very shortly, but I 

would like to recognize Ms. Bass for an opening statement, if she 

may. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman Smith, human trafficking is a significant and complex 

international and national crisis that requires significant attention. 

Many organizations in my district in Los Angeles have demonstrated significant leadership in addressing trafficking both 

internationally and domestically. The leadership of the Coalition to 

Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, the Thai Community Development 

Corporation, the Covenant House are just three organizations that 

I’m proud to represent. And I’d like to thank their ongoing leadership in combating trafficking. 

I’d also like to recognize Chairman Smith for your diligent work 

and committed work to end trafficking around the world. Chairman 

Smith, your work on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, 

and its subsequent reauthorizations have been tremendous, and I 

look forward to working with you on this year’s bill. 

The United States Justice Department estimates that nearly 

18,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across out borders 

annually. Unfortunately, many victims do not receive the level of 

emotional and physical assistance that they need. 

One of the most disturbing elements of trafficking is that a large 

percentage of the trafficking victims are minors. In fact, the averVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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age age at which girls become victims of sexual exploitation in the 

U.S. is 13. 

These young victims require special attention and care. And as 

a long time advocate for children, and particularly foster youth, I 

will be introducing legislation that will strengthen the ability of 

child welfare professionals to identify and support victims, and will 

provide specialized support for trafficking victims within the foster 

care system. 

I look forward to working alongside my colleagues on this committee, as well as joining forces with our witnesses today to move 

this legislation forward. 

Last, I’d like to recognize our expert panelists today. Your leadership in combating trafficking is inspiring, and has truly made a difference throughout our world. I look forward to hearing your testimony today, and discussing how we can collaborate and expand the 

best use to curb trafficking through prosecution, protection, prevention, and public-private partnerships. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Bass, thank you very much for your statement, 

and for your comments, and I look forward to working with you on 

these very important issues. 

I’d like to now yield to Ms. Buerkle, the Gentlelady from New 

York. 

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is a sobering statistic that 12.3 million people around the 

world are in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution. 

Unfortunately, too many of us still think primarily of the Civil War 

when we hear the term ‘‘slavery.’’ We are disconnected from certain 

ugly realities of our modern world. 

I agree with Chairman Smith that effectively fighting worldwide 

trafficking and slavery requires a collaborative approach that involves all levels of the government, NGOs, law enforcement, and 

health care professionals, as well. 

I would add one more partner to that list, the American people. 

Trafficking and enslavement of millions of people should be an 

issue of grave concern to all Americans. We should be engaged because it not only affects us as a country, our security, and our commerce, but it also speaks to our common humanity. 

I applaud the witnesses today for their diverse efforts to address 

what I believe is the seminal global issue of our time. Thank you 

to Chairman Smith for all of your efforts, and all that you do to 

promote human rights. 

I look forward to hearing from all of our panelists during the 

next question and answer period, as well as their testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back my time. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Buerkle, thank you very much for your statement, and for your leadership on human rights issues in general, 

and on trafficking in particular. Thank you. 

I’d like to now welcome to the witness table Ambassador Luis 

CdeBaca, who coordinates U.S. Government activities in the global 

fight against contemporary forms of slavery. 

Ambassador CdeBaca directs the State Department’s Office to 

Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, which assesses global 

trends, provides training and technical assistance and advocates for 

an end to modern day slavery. 

5

Ambassador CdeBaca formerly served as counsel to the House 

Committee on the Judiciary, where his portfolio for Chairman John 

Conyers included modern day slavery issues. He has also served as 

a Federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where he convicted dozens of abusive pimps and employers, and helped to liberate hundreds of victims from servitude. 

I want to, on a very personal note, thank the Ambassador for his 

exemplary commitment to ending this heinous practice. He eats, 

sleeps, and breathes this issue. You talk to him and he’s a man 

with an idea every day on how to combat slavery. So, again, we are 

well served as a country having him at the helm over at Department of State. Mr. Ambassador. 

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, Chairman Smith and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the invitation to testify 

today, and for your leadership in the fight against modern slavery. 

More than 10 years ago, a group of women who had been 

enslaved in the commercial sex trade by the Cadena family in Florida testified before this committee. As a Federal prosecutor, I 

brought over a dozen of their traffickers to justice. It was their 

courage that led the way to the path-breaking legislation that updated our anti-slavery laws and launched a new abolitionist movement. 

Looking back, we’ve seen the effects of this decade of development, cases ranging from upstate New York to Georgia, from New 

Hampshire to Saipan. The TVPA has had dramatic results at the 

Federal level, and state and territorial governments have followed. 

Just in the last few months we’ve seen legislatures from Washington and Hawaii, to Vermont and Tennessee becoming among the 

most recent to pass laws that track with the TVPA, and we hope 

soon that we’ll see universal adoption of modern anti-trafficking 

laws in all of our states and territories. 

We’ve seen innovators, such as the witnesses that you’ve brought 

together for today’s hearing. We’ve seen results from the Federal 

Government, and I’d offer for the record a document prepared earlier this spring by the Cabinet-level task force about those activities. But even now we see a movement that is maturing and expanding. 

With governmental leaders like Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna, who next week when he is sworn in as president of the National Association of Attorneys General, will make 

trafficking the flagship issue of his term. 

With civil society heroes like Rachel Lloyd, whose innovative 

methods at GEMS are helping girls on their journey out of modern 

slavery and back into society. With successes like the National 

Human Trafficking Resource Center operated for HHS by the Polaris Project, which receives an ever-growing number of calls linking 

victims up with NGOs and law enforcement who can help them. 

With coalitions of NGOs and advocates, such as the Freedom Network, the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition, U.S. PACT, 

Demand Abolition, ATEST, and more. We’re working for real-world 

6

results rather than just symbolic gestures. And bloggers, like 

Amanda Kloer and Youngbee Dale, who are using new media to inform, inspire, cajole, and change. 

Because in a decade of delivery, it is results that matter. The 

symbolic work has largely been done, the baseline work of definitions and concepts, and laws and programs. That’s been very much 

done, achieved consensus and stability, but around the world, as 

well as at home, it is implementation and results that will make 

or break this movement in the next decade. 

Having working on the original TVPA and subsequent reauthorizations, I know all too well that while nobody favors human trafficking, good people who care deeply sometimes disagree about how 

best to fight this crime. 

Mr. Chairman, you’ve worked to bring together those diverse 

voices and to ensure that the United States remains innovative and 

in the lead. Indeed, the careful balance that you struck in the 2008 

reauthorization ensured that the United States’ definition of trafficking and the application of minimum standards would continue 

to drive international norms. The vision of the TVPA and the carefully crafted compromises of the 2008 bill deserve the continued 

support of this body. 

I would like to take one note of personal privilege and urge this 

subcommittee and the full committee to continue one of the most 

important things that Congress can do, and that is to get out on 

the road and see these people for yourselves. Get out on the road 

and have your staff see these people. 

One of the things that made the 2008 bill reflect the reality on 

the ground, for instance, was a trip that Sheri Rickert from your 

staff, myself, and some others were able to take to Thailand and 

Cambodia to go into the shelters, to go into the red light districts, 

to see human trafficking once and for all. And I think that that’s 

something that, unfortunately, again in this time of budget constraints, in this time when there’s so much pressing work to do at 

home we often don’t remember that it’s those trips, it’s those experiences, it’s holding the trafficking victims in your arms that informs what we then come back and do here in Congress, or in the 

administration. So, I certainly would urge that kind of continued 

involvement on the part of the staff and members of the committee. 

The challenges facing the United States and governments around 

the world might not be, at this point, so much issues of creating 

new legislation as the often more difficult activities of implementation, political will, and resources. So, in my written testimony I’ve 

outlined more fully a range of promising practices and forwardlooking innovations that will help governments live up to the commitments that they’ve made, and shape the next 10 years as a decade of delivery. 

These are solutions that harness the power of the business community and the consumer, but also challenge them, challenge them 

to know as much about their slavery footprint as they want to 

know about their carbon footprint, to advocate locally and nationally for a world without slavery. 

And to reject the culture of ‘‘boys will be boys,’ and choke off the 

demand for commercial sex and cheap goods that fuels this crime. 

7

But as important as innovation and partnership with civil societies are, it remains a core governmental responsibility to fight 

against modern slavery. And the best tool for assessing those efforts is, and continues to be, the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. 

Leaders in Africa, Latin America, and around the world have 

credited the report as a motivating factor for their actions as governments. As Congress considers reauthorizations, it is important 

that we maintain and strengthen this diagnostic and diplomatic 

tool. 

Because it’s incumbent upon governments around the world to go 

farther than just acknowledging the problem exists, and passing 

laws that criminalize all types of human trafficking, moving forward our measure of success, whether assessing foreign governments or our own, can no longer just be whether a government has 

enacted a law that looks good on paper; but rather: ‘‘Is that law 

implemented broadly and effectively?’’

All governments can and must do more. If otherwise functioning 

legal systems aren’t responding to the needs of trafficking victims, 

developed countries can’t just stand by and presume that they’re 

doing well. Developing countries can’t absolve themselves of responsibility by pleading lack of capacity, because crimes are usually not solved with money, they’re solved with political will and 

standards, and high expectations for police, prosecutors, and 

judges. 

Governments shouldn’t just aggressively pursue traffickers, they 

have to couple enforcement with robust victim identification and 

protection efforts, and proactive attempts to prevent this crime. 

And we must affirmatively partner with NGOs. NGOs asking the 

government to act is not partnering, working together is. 

We’ve come a long way in the last decade. Last week an attorney 

for the women who testified here a decade ago joined me at a meeting of the United States-Russia Presidential Civil Society Working 

Group. She continues to represent those clients, but she also has 

become a global leader in victim rights advocacy, sharing the lessons that she has learned from them and dozens of subsequent clients. 

It struck me during those meetings last week that the lessons 

and examples of the Cadena case continue to inform how we fight 

this crime today. The strength of those women and girls, and their 

success today, 10 years later, and having been reintegrated into 

our society as survivors must continue to serve as a call to action 

for us to deliver on the uniquely American promise of freedom. 

We must continue to be a strong voice for those women, for other 

survivors, and the millions of victims who remain lost in the shadows unable to break free or speak out. It is they who inspired a 

decade of development. It is us who owe them a decade of delivery. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador CdeBaca follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. Marino, do you have any opening statement? 

Mr. MARINO. No. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Let me just begin the questioning with a couple. First of all, with 

regards to the TIP office, and I know that these kinds of requests 

need to go through Office of Management and Budget, but do you 

have sufficient staff, Mr. Ambassador, to do the extraordinarily important work that you and your staff do? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Well, you certainly identified the route 

that that question needs to go through. We, certainly, have seen 

the advantage of having more staff in the office over the last 11⁄2

years. We’ve grown such that we’ve been able to add a person or 

two to each of our teams. We have four teams of public engagement 

which works very much with not only here in the Congress, but our 

public-private partnerships, a lot of our prevention activities, the 

program staff, the political affairs staff that does the report each 

year, and our admin staff. 

And one of the things that we’ve seen, as we have been able to 

add a couple of bodies to each of those teams, is we’re able to move 

past merely a report that accuses a country of doing something to 

a relationship with those countries, both a diplomatic relationship 

and a programmatic relationship. So, if we maintain those levels 

we’ll be able to continue to serve those relationships at the high 

level that we’re doing right now. If we had more staff, we would 

certainly look to having even more engagement. We have certainly 

seen how that lower caseload, as it were, is achieving results in 

countries. 

When I first came to the office, some of our reporting officers had 

35 or even 40 countries on their docket, and now we’re looking at 

20 to 25 countries at most. Optimally, if we could get down to 15 

or so, people really would be able to have a very strong working 

relationship, and could achieve change in those countries. 

Mr. SMITH. One of our witnesses in the second panel, Deborah 

Cundy, vice president of Carlson, you and I both heard her speak 

very eloquently as to what Carlson is doing to combat trafficking 

in the hotels. And she points out in her testimony that, ‘‘In 2004, 

Carlson was approached by the U.S. Department of State to sign 

the travel industry’s Code of Conduct,’’ and she talks about how hotels are complicit in these activities, but often they’re unwitting 

facilitators. And I’m wondering how the progress has been with 

companies other than Carlson. Are you finding a reluctance on the 

part of hotel chains and the like, and are they perhaps looking at 

the example of what Carlson has done, and looking to emulate it? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. One of the things that we’ve seen is that 

the Carlson Companies took a very brave, and unfortunately for 

many years a very lonely stand with the Code of Conduct. And it’s 

only now in recent years that we’ve seen other of the big hotel 

chains start to respond. 

We’ve been trying to work with hotel companies, for instance, in 

a project that we have in Mexico trying to get materials out about 

child sex tourism, and other things. But at the end of the day, I 

think that the fear that many of the corporations had at being asVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
14

sociated with this crime, even if it was that they were fighting it, 

the notion of having the term ‘‘slavery’’ associated with them was 

so nerve racking to many of these companies that when we would 

talk with them, they would say we’d love to do something. Of 

course, we’re against modern slavery, but we don’t really want anybody to know what we’re doing. 

So, there’s been a couple of the large hotel companies that we’ve 

talked to about things they can do within their own company. But 

at the end of the day, it seems like the response is coming after, 

to use a farm analogy, after the horse is out of the barn. 

We recently saw the Hilton Hotels look to join the Code of Conduct. That was after a scandal broke in one of their hotel properties in southeastern China. There’s currently pressure on the 

Wyndham Group because of some cases in California in which, I 

think it was Travelodge, which is one of their brands, was implicated in a sex trafficking ring. So, this is something that we see 

more and more energy coming to as corporations that are getting 

the rude wake-up call of a case happening on their property, are 

now finding a potential place of refuge in the Code of Conduct. And 

we want to encourage them not to wait until something bad happens on their property, but to join the Carlson Companies earlier 

rather than later. 

Mr. SMITH. You know, today we’ve invited Nancy Rivard from 

Airline Ambassadors, and Philip Kowalcyzk from The Body Shop, 

which are two other extraordinarily effective models for the rest of 

the industry. But I’m thinking in a subsequent hearing of inviting, 

and maybe they will come, maybe they won’t, we did it with the 

Global Online Freedom Act, with Google and Microsoft, to invite 

some corporations that are not necessarily doing what they ought 

to be doing. But hopefully today is a gentle prod to all the rest to 

sign the Code of Conduct. And, more importantly, after you sign it, 

implement it, and be very faithful. 

Is there anything you’d want to say about those other companies, 

or to Airline Ambassadors, they deal with the airline industry, or 

with The Body Shop? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Well, one of the things that we’ve seen, 

and we saw this recently now with Delta Airlines, signing the Code 

of Conduct, is that there should not be a 10- or 15-hour respite for 

the trafficker once they’ve made it passed the gauntlet of law enforcement, or others in the source country, and before they come 

to our shores where they’re going to exploit their people. 

That time on the airplane is a time when victims could be identified. It’s a time when people can be educated. It’s the ultimate captive audience. So, what we’ve seen, whether it’s the work that Airline Ambassadors has done, it’s trying to harness the energies of 

folks in the airline industry to do charitable work outside of their 

working hours, or what’s happening within the confines of the 

plane. It’s something that I think bears great looking at. 

What we’ve seen as far as The Body Shop is a very interesting 

extension of their brand. It wasn’t designed, I don’t think, to be one 

of the selling points of The Body Shop. My understanding is when 

it was founded, it was very much trying to be an ethical and responsibly sourced company, and it has then grown into one of its 

selling points. And it should be a selling point. 

15

A natural extension of what The Body Shop has done throughout 

the years, throughout the last 30 years as being a responsible corporate citizen has been the work that it’s doing with ECPAT. So, 

what we see, especially with these petitions, use of The Body Shop 

as an advocacy vehicle, as a new model of corporate social responsibility. 

I think that one of the things that I would like to see, and The 

Body Shop is, I think, a pioneer in this, is moving past the idea 

that corporate social responsibility is something you do when business is done, or something that you do as an adjunct to your business; and, instead, the notion that this is actually part of a very 

productive business model. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask you—one of the hallmarks of the 

TVPA, and one of the most difficult provisions for us to get enacted 

into law—it held up the conference for a long time—was the T-visa. 

We’re hearing from some of the NGOs that the Family Unification 

Program, one of the hallmarks of it was bringing family members, 

in addition to providing asylum, to the individual who has been 

harmed by trafficking so that the retaliatory tool the traffickers 

had would be mitigated, and so that the trafficked person, the victim, would be able to perhaps get additional support as she or he 

goes through the healing process. 

How many family unifications is the State Department facilitating at this time? Has it stopped? And, if so, why? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Well, there is currently a backlog in the 

Family Unification Program with the lack of a budget and the various negotiations that were going on around that, everything was 

put into limbo. 

This is a program that’s been traditionally administered by the 

Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, so a PRM program. 

We have, now that the smoke has cleared and we’ve seen what the 

internal budget cuts are at the State Department, G/TIP has 

kicked in some money in an agreement with PRM so that we can 

clear that backlog. 

As far as going forward, though, I think that there is an open 

question as to whether we have the funding to see that program 

into FY 2011 and 2013. 

Mr. SMITH. Is it a matter of prioritization, or is it a matter of—

I mean, there’s not enough money in any other pocket of money 

that could be used? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I will shake whatever trees need to be 

shaken. I think that we’ll work with the committee and others to 

try to identify other trees to shake, if necessary. This is the first 

time that G/TIP has put money into this program. And, obviously, 

it was redirected away from other programs that we would have 

done. So, we’d like to find a solution to this, as well. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Anything we can do as a subcommittee 

I’m sure both sides of the aisle would be very happy to assist. Because, again, that was a very difficult provision. There were those 

who suggested at the time that both the T-visa itself and bringing 

family members over would be exploited. Nothing like that has 

happened over the last decade. If anything, it has been too slow in 

being implemented, so if we could be of assistance, please let us 

know. 

16

Let me ask just a few final questions. First, one of our witnesses 

will be testifying, Chai Ling, about the issue of—from All Girls Allowed—the egregious issue, one of the worst issues I think ever to 

confront humankind, and that’s the issue of the missing girls in 

China and in India, largely attributable to sex-selection abortion. 

It has become increasingly a magnet for human trafficking in both 

of those countries, especially in China, where the one-child-per-couple policy has made brothers and sisters illegal. And the question 

is, since this is a wave as men get into marriageable age and 

there’s a dearth of potential brides out there, we know that the 

traffickers will, and are already, sweeping into action to buy and 

sell women to be exploited in China. 

I know the TIP report will be released soon. You might want to 

tell us when, today. We’d love to hear. But my hope is that your 

office has adequately brought that issue on board in terms of an 

exacerbating problem for trafficking and for victims. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Indeed. Yes, Mr. Smith, this is something 

that we continue to report on, and something that I raise in my 

discussions with our Chinese counterparts. The Chinese have a 

inter-ministerial anti-trafficking council now, which makes it perhaps a little easier for us to plug up with them and be able to have 

some of these types of conversations. 

I think that as we pointed out in the TIP report last year, and 

has been in other interventions on our part, this notion of the 

skewed sex ratio in China, that as you say results from these policies, is having a destabilizing effect that we have noted, and will 

continue to discuss with the Chinese; especially as we see the importation of women from other countries, or the trapping of those 

who would try to flee the regime in North Korea. It is a problem, 

and it’s something that we need to continue to push on. 

I think that one of the things that we hope to be able to tell you 

very soon is an exact date for this year’s release of the TIP report. 

We will definitely make the June—June is when it’s supposed to 

come out, and June is when it will come out. We’ve got a Secretary 

of State who’s having to go wheels up a little sooner than she 

thought because of yet another volcano that’s erupting, this time in 

Africa. So, scheduling the next couple of weeks has been difficult 

over the last few days, but we’ll be letting your office know very 

soon exactly when the report will be coming out. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

Let me ask you, Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves will be testifying 

shortly, and will bring a tremendous amount of focus on the issue 

of what’s going on in eastern Congo. Frankly, I’ve been there and 

I have seen the devastation that has resulted from the minerals 

and wars, if you will, the exploitation of people, slavery. 

He and others have signed a letter that went to the Secretary of 

State opposing a delay or phase-in of the reporting requirements of 

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Bill, and a letter was sent back on March 17th that puts the administration at 

least on the side of saying they are not for a delay. But I’m wondering where all of that is right now in terms of that section, is 

it being implemented? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Congressman, I’d have to check on that 

and circle back to you. And I’ll try to get you an answer forthwith. 

17

Mr. SMITH. Appreciate that. 

Finally, just two final questions. David Abramowitz in his testimony, and we heard some similar testimony earlier at a hearing 

that you were at with the Helsinki Commission from the Solidarity 

Foundation, but he makes a very strong appeal that there be an 

elimination of fees for foreign labor contractors, fees assessed on 

the worker, if it’s assessed on the company itself, apparently that’s 

okay, but on the laborers themselves, full disclosure, and enforcement, and points out that the Wilberforce legislation had some very 

good provisions that were lost between the House and the Senate; 

they passed in the House but not in the Senate. And I’m wondering 

if you think the elimination of broker fees, labor contractor fees, is 

something that would help to mitigate labor trafficking, and if you 

would support legislative initiatives in that regard? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I’ll take those backwards, if I could. 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Obviously, I think we’ll have to continue 

discussions with the committee and with your office as far as any 

particular legislation before we’d be able to give you feedback on 

supporting particular things. But I do think that this is something 

that we’ve been pointing out in the last few TIP reports. It’s something that concerns us greatly, the amount of fees that are charged 

by these brokers, even when the broker delivers, and so often they 

do not. So often it’s the bait and switch in the labor recruiting that 

lends itself toward a debt bondage or a peonage type of situation. 

The company store doesn’t, necessarily, happen through the deductions later on. It’s already happened before the person even 

travels because they owe so much money. So, it’s something that 

we’ve been highlighting, and it’s something that really clicked into 

focus for us, I think, in the last few months in the wake of the 

Libya problems, when so many of the returning Bangladeshi migrant workers who were coming back to Bangladesh are reporting 

to IOM that they—while they were in Libya before the Ghadafi regime began to target its own citizens, the workers of whom there 

are almost 3 million foreign guest workers, routinely had had their 

passports taken and owed so much money to the labor recruiters 

that they had to stay there, effectively, for every day of their 3-year 

term just to pay the debt back. So, what we’ve seen is people who, 

in effect, are renting themselves to the recruiters. They know that 

they’re not going to get very much money. 

It’s something that needs a solution, and we want to work with 

you and the committee to find a solution. 

Mr. SMITH. I’m planning an additional hearing, and would invite 

the Department of Defense in to speak. And this would be a followup to two previous hearings that I put together 7 years ago on the 

use of labor brokers to bring people into Iraq, where huge amounts 

of monies were being expended for very laudable goals, but these 

people were given—it was a typical modus operandi of a trafficked 

laborer, they took their passports, the agreement that they had 

made as to what their salary would be was drastically cut. They 

lived in subhuman housing, and we had Ambassador Miller here, 

coupled with some DoD representatives, and they kept telling us 

they’re going to do better. And I’m wondering if they are doing better in terms of DoD. It was very discouraging. 

18

Ambassador CDEBACA. This is of concern. It’s something that 

was raised in the Cabinet meeting earlier this year, it’s something 

that Secretary Gates had a lot of—continues to have a lot of personal interest in, and we think that we’ll be meeting with soon to 

be Secretary Panetta as soon as he’s in place. 

What we’ve seen is, as you’ll recall, the Wilberforce Act mandated the Inspectors General from DoD, State, and USAID start 

looking at these contracting situations. And what we’ve found is 

that in many cases the contracting officers did not, necessarily, 

know to include these types of provisions, these kind of safeguards 

into their contracts. 

So, as far as the State Department is concerned, we’ve issued a 

Procurement Information Bulletin, or a PIB, in this March with additional reporting requirements making sure that the contractors 

are providing trafficking and ‘‘know your rights’’ type of briefings 

to the third country nationals and subcontractors, making sure 

that they can’t withhold the passports, informing them about the 

zero tolerance policy on the use of commercial sex, or human trafficking. 

So, we’re seeing this idea of being able to tighten up the Federal 

Acquisitions Registry, but I do think that it’s something that needs 

as much light shone on it as possible. We want to make sure that 

we are doing the right thing, that our slavery footprint, as well—

if we’re going to ask the consumer to look at their own slavery footprint, we have to look at it as a government. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Yes, thank you. 

I’d like to ask you a couple of questions related to technology and 

this issue. The Center for Missing and Exploited Children, advocacy groups, private companies and universities like the one in my 

district, the University of Southern California, have established 

guidelines and recommendations on how to utilize cutting edge 

technology to fight trafficking and child exploitations. Examples of 

innovative approaches include the use of photo DNA, mandating 

ISPs to stop child porn access, et cetera. 

I wanted to know how, in your opinion, the State Department 

has embraced these technologies, and incorporated into its toolkit 

to prevent trafficking? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Well, the child pornography issue is a 

very serious one that the State Department deals with not through 

the TIP office, but through the Bureau of International Narcotics 

and Law Enforcement Affairs. So, one of the things that we’ve been 

doing through funding resident legal advisors and intermittent 

legal advisors is to take the U.S. techniques, whether it’s through 

NCMEC, whether it’s through the Child Exploitation and Obscenity section at Justice, whether it’s through Project Safe Childhood, 

the ICACs, these other ways in which we’re trying to prevent online exploitation of children, and making linkages, so there’s linkages, for instance, with Scotland Yard and the Irish, and others. 

So, these are the types of things that through the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement we are trying to make 

sure is available to other countries. 

One of the biggest problems that we’ve seen is that there are a 

number of countries that don’t even have laws against child porVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
19

nography. So, last week in the United States-Russia Presidential 

Joint Dialogue, for instance, the Child Protection Subcommittee 

was grappling with how can we get a normalization of these laws 

across the countries, because with the Internet, if there’s no child 

pornography law in a small country in eastern Europe, well, they 

have an Internet portal. They’ll be—all of the pedophiles will flock 

to that. 

Ms. BASS. Do you know if that’s come up in the United Nations? 

Are there efforts there? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Well, there are efforts through the 

UNODC, the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, and others to try to 

work on it. And through a number of the conventions, it’s something that countries are supposed to be addressing. But as far as 

coming into compliance, it’s taken a while. So, this is something 

that there’s going to be a joint U.S.-Russian NGO summit in August in Lake Baikal to try to bring together folks from the Commonwealth, the independent states where, unfortunately, a lot of 

the child pornography that’s being seen these days is coming out 

of eastern Europe. So, it’s something that the State Department is 

very much looking at, and wants to be on the cutting edge of. 

Ms. BASS. So, this conference that you’re talking about is dealing 

with this issue, specifically, or about a range of issues and this is 

on the list? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. A range of issues, and this is on the list, 

but it’s going to be very much focused on this with the assistance 

of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. Second question. Online trafficking has become a growing problem, especially in the face of large sporting 

events. I don’t know if you saw some of the coverage that was done 

around the Super Bowl that a couple of the major cable news networks talked about. 

What efforts are being made to curtail this activity within the 

State Department? To you knowledge, has the FCC engaged in 

cracking down on Internet service providers and content Web 

pages? I also wanted to—kind of connected to that is, how do you 

prosecute traffickers without violating First Amendment rights, 

and how can government agencies work together to crack down on 

these abusers? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Well, this is something that the FBI and 

the Justice Department have more direct jurisdiction over than 

does the State Department, since it’s largely a domestic enforcement issue. But I think that you go right to the crux of the issue 

as far as regulating content. 

Now, soliciting a crime is, and I’m not a First Amendment scholar, but I was a prosecutor for a long time. 

Ms. BASS. And you worked on the Judiciary Committee, right? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I did. And soliciting a crime is not typically thought of as protected speech, so there are some ways to deal 

with this. 

I think that one of the big issues, of course, is not necessarily 

through government regulation, but consumer to business activism. 

The old media version of this played itself out over the last year 

with the removal of the spa ads from The Washington Post. Most 

people knew that these spa ads were fronts for prostitution. This 

20

wasn’t the Elizabeth Arden or the Red Door that was advertising 

in the sports page. The names were much more risque than that. 

But it took the advocacy community, it took business owners, it 

took folks saying to The Washington Post Company, I don’t want 

to advertise in your paper because these other advertisers that are 

advertising something that you couldn’t just look at it and say 

that’s obviously illegal. It was advertising a spa. 

From a law enforcement perspective you couldn’t say well, we 

know it’s illegal so, therefore, we’ll go after them, because that’s 

not the burden of proof for a criminal case. So, the advocacy community, the other advertisers, and the people of the Washington 

area properly did something that the First Amendment likely 

would have stopped the DC government or the Federal Government from doing, which is they made is to The Washington Post 

feel like it should do the right thing and pull those ads out. 

So, I think that some of the pressure on the service providers, 

whether it’s Backpage, Craigslist, et cetera who have seen these 

problems, some of that ends up needing to come from the consumer 

side as much as it does from the regulatory side. 

Ms. BASS. One final question, if you don’t mind, Mr. Chairman. 

I’m still stuck on your earlier comments about the foreign workers 

on U.S. bases. Could you talk a little bit more about that so we 

have minors, we have people that U.S. companies are recruiting 

that get involved in sex trafficking on bases? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. One of the things that this committee has 

dealt with now since the Kosovo wars is the problem of the followon when we’re deployed. 

Ms. BASS. The what? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. The follow-on. It’s not just the American 

troops, it’s the people who are providing services to them, it’s the 

folks who are being brought in, often third country nationals——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Ambassador CDEBACA [continuing]. To run the canteens, to run 

the commissaries. There’s an entire ‘‘other than U.S. military’’ presence. 

Ms. BASS. I understand that. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. And this is something that as far back as 

the Kosovo-Bosnia interventions, we saw this problem. There it 

was very much sex trafficking with the Albanian mafia setting up 

nightclubs and bars that were frequented by the contractors, were 

frequented sometimes, as well, by our troops. It was not uncommon 

to hear about police contractors, and other security contractors just 

flat out buying the women to have as their own as concubines for 

6 months at a time. 

That has largely been regulated and policed, but what we’ve 

seen, there was an article in The New Yorker just last week, is 

that the recruiting of third country nationals into the missions in 

Iraq and Afghanistan continues to be a concern. It’s a concern to 

us. We’re working through the Inspectors General to try to make 

sure that those third country nationals, if they’re brought in in 

support of our mission, that they’re done so with full understanding of what they’re going to be doing, how much they’re going 

to get paid, how they’re going to be used, if they have freedom of 

movement, all of those things; as opposed to being, basically, 

21

brought in in a debt bondage-type of situation, confined to quarters, or used for both sex and labor trafficking. 

Ms. BASS. And, Mr. Chairman, this is what you said you were 

going to have a hearing on subsequently? Yes, I’d be very interested in that. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. Mr. Marino. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, Ambassador. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Good afternoon. 

Mr. MARINO. I had a couple of questions that I was going to delve 

in to, but my friend and colleague, Congresswoman Bass, has 

sparked my interest in the child pornography side of this. 

I was a U.S. Attorney for quite a while, and that was one of my 

main missions, is prosecuting those that perpetrated, created, and 

sold child pornography. The toughest issue we ran into was dealing 

with countries like Russia, other European countries, as well, who 

just have no laws for pornography. A great deal of the pornography 

does come from overseas, not to mitigate that there is child pornography taking place right here in the United States. 

What have we been able to do as far as sanction-wise in getting 

Russia and countries like Russia to take a serious look at this, because in my opinion and in my experience, it is not even on the 

back burner. It’s an issue that they share no interest in. It’s an 

issue that generates billions of dollars for their economy. It’s an 

area whereby those involved in the organized crime aspect of 

things are becoming obscenely wealthy, and it’s all for the dollar, 

the money that they’re making. 

So, we can send them letters, we can publicly make statements, 

but what are we specifically doing to address the issue with getting 

support from law enforcement, the President, the Prime Minister 

of Russia? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I can only speak to that which I’ve been 

involved in, and we’re not the lead on that, obviously, so we could 

make sure that we get a more fulsome response. But, as I mentioned earlier, I’m the head of the Migration Subcommittee for the 

United States-Russia Presidential Bilateral Commission, and my 

counterparts on the Child Protection Subcommittee, I was present 

when they were reporting out, and we do overlap, so we tried to 

make sure that the two committees lash up, especially as far as 

child trafficking, child slavery in Russia as often members of the 

African minorities, members of the migrant communities, whether 

it’s the Uzbeks, or the Tajiks, or others. So, the child pornography 

is kind of one removed from me, much as in the U.S. Attorneys offices, the trafficking and child sexual exploitation AUSAs are often 

not the same person, but they have to work very closely together 

because there’s so much of an overlap. 

One of the things that we’ve seen that’s very positive over the 

last year with the Medvedev Presidency is the appointment of a 

Child Protection Advisor in the President’s staff. For the first time, 

someone whose job it is to look at this. They’re looking, among 

other things, at child pornography. They’re looking at making sure 

that the orphanages don’t simply become breeding grounds that the 

traffickers or pornographers show up on the 18th birthdays when 

the girls are released from the orphanages with no other options. 

22

So, we do think that this is something they’re looking at holistically. We’ve talked to folks from the Duma who are working on 

the pornography legislation. And it’s something that the Obama administration really wants to support through the relationship, what 

we call the reset with the Medvedev government. 

Mr. MARINO. I’m not pointing any finger at any particular administration, but the only way to deal with this, in my opinion, is, 

first of all, worldwide recognition. But equally important is economic sanctions, severe economic sanctions, and I have not seen 

that yet from this present administration, and from past administrations, as well. 

What is it going to take for us to seriously, wholeheartedly start 

implementing these sanctions? Can you give us some suggestions 

at what perhaps we in Congress can do? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Again, Congressman, I’d be hesitant to do 

so considering that my office is not the bureau that handles child 

pornography. So, I wouldn’t want to speak out of turn, but it’s 

something that I’ll certainly pass on to Assistant Secretary 

Brownfield and his folks, and we can hopefully circle back and 

have a conversation. 

Mr. MARINO. Good, thank you. I yield my time. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

I do have two final questions. I’ve got a dozen, but I’ll submit the 

remainder for the record. 

On May 11th, the Foreign Affairs Committee had a hearing 

chaired by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. We heard harrowing testimony 

from past Peace Corps volunteers about how they had been sexually abused as volunteers. Pleas to Peace Corps supervisors to help 

to address unsafe situations, or for assistance following the attacks 

went unheeded, and in many cases were met with a ‘‘blame the victim’’ attitude. 

A major concern that I raised during that hearing with Aaron 

Williams, the Peace Corps director, was whether there were arrests 

of alleged perpetrators in foreign countries, whether or not they 

were followed up with meaningful prison sentences. Something 

that David will remember, we learned with the earlier TIP work 

that we would hear about arrests, but then we wouldn’t hear about 

prison sentences, and some countries were actually gaming the system of saying, ‘‘Oh, we arrested umpteen hundreds of people,’’ but 

none of them went to jail. They didn’t even get a slap on the wrist. 

I suggested that Peace Corps Inspector General, Kathy Buller, be 

in contact with the G/TIP office to ascertain whether or not there 

is a nexus between failures in prosecution and sentencing practices 

for sexual violence against Peace Corps volunteers in any given 

country, and such failures in prosecuting and punishing sex trafficking, and I’m wondering if there’s a correlated lack of prosecutorial capacity, or perhaps political will with regards to this? 

And I would hope that you would meet with Ms. Buller, if you 

haven’t already. We also believe, I believe and will be putting this 

into the reauthorization, that the Peace Corps, and I would appreciate your thoughts on this, ought to be part of the President’s 

Interagency Task Force because they certainly, I think, could provide some insights there. 

23

Secondly, and this will be my final question, you mentioned that 

China has a ministerial anti-trafficking group that you are now engaging about the trafficking problems in the People’s Republic of 

China, what is their response to concerns that the one-child policy 

and the consequent number of missing girls is feeding the trafficking pandemic in China? 

On June 1st, I joined Chai Ling and other human rights organizations at a very troubling press conference, and they showed a 

video about gendercide, the targeting of girls for destruction, simply because they happen to be girls, for sex-selection abortion, and 

in some cases the baby is born through suffocation. And one 

woman even talked about how she applied a wet towel to her baby 

girls in order to destroy them simply because they were girls. 

And the bottom line of the video was that the most dangerous 

three words nowadays in some countries are these: ‘‘It’s a girl.’’ If 

it’s a girl, she is subjected, whether an ultrasound finds it while 

the baby is still in utero, or the baby once born is discovered to be 

a girl, she is killed. 

How did the Chinese, your interlocutors, respond to that issue of 

they’re creating a demand for trafficking? Do they understand 

that? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I think their actions perhaps speak louder than their words, Mr. Smith. One of the things that we have, 

in fact, expressed concern to the Chinese over is that there have 

been so many cases of forced prostitution and forced labor that are 

going uninvestigated, and unprosecuted by the Chinese, when 

they’re spending most of their time and efforts under the rubric of 

anti-trafficking on prosecuting child abduction cases by parents 

who want children, who can’t have them, who are stealing children 

to be able to fill that need. 

So, I think that what we’ve seen is the effect. As far as a Chinese 

response that links the cause to the effect the way that we do, 

that’s not something that we’re seeing. 

Mr. SMITH. Was it raised? Did we raise it, specifically, that the 

one-child-per-couple policy is creating a huge magnet for the traffickers? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I’ve raised it with my counterparts from 

IMOAT in the course of talking about the problem of child abductions, the problem of the forced marriages whether it’s from the 

South or from the Northeast, et cetera, and how this is kind of all 

of a part of the shortage of women, the skewing of the sex roles, 

et cetera; not sex roles, but the skewing the proportions. And it’s 

something that we’ll continue in those discussions to raise. 

It’s something that I think that, again, if we look at their actions, 

they’re having to act in a particular way because of the outcome. 

But as far as a desire to engage with us on that, that’s not something that I’m seeing. 

Mr. SMITH. I would hope that they realize there is a tsunami of 

sex trafficking. We’ve only seen the beginnings of it. In China 

today, as you know, the average age of marriageable age is 25. The 

one-child-per-couple policy has been in existence since 1979, so systematically these girls have been eliminated. They’re just not there: 

the missing girls of China, and it’s only going to get worse, so I 

24

strongly encourage that this be a front and center issue with your 

Chinese colleagues. 

Anyone else who would like to make a final comment? 

Mr. MARINO. Chairman, may I—I’d like to at least like to get one 

more question into the record. 

Sir, could you please tell me first, do you have anything to do 

with monitoring child soldiers? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. The child soldiers is handled in two different ways within the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. In 

the particular country narratives, when we’re looking at how a 

country is doing, we look at forced conscription as one of the forms 

of human trafficking. So, it goes into the country reports. 

There’s also the Child Soldier Prevention Act, which is part of 

the TVPA Reauthorization of 2008, that mandates that a list be 

put together that has particular sanctions for being associated with 

that list that should be published in the Trafficking in Persons Report each year. That’s handled by one of our sister bureaus, the Bureau of Democracy, Rights, and Labor. So, the answer is yes, but 

it’s kind of a bifurcated system as we look at the child soldiers. 

Mr. MARINO. Okay. Perhaps I could ask my question at least to 

get it on the record, and I could get a response sometime in the 

future. 

In 2010, the Trafficking in Persons Report identified six countries involved in recruiting and using child soldiers; Burma, Chad, 

the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. 

President Obama waved sanctions for four of the six list countries, 

Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen. 

Given that one of America’s tools to combat trafficking in persons 

in foreign nations is the prohibition of U.S. assistance for military 

defense and training do you have an answer, or could you get an 

answer for me why has the President issued waivers for these 

countries that the State Department has found to recruit and use 

child soldiers? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. We can get you something. There’s, actually, I think something that was transmitted to Congress in the 

last Congress, and we’ll try to make sure that we get that up to 

you. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Thank you. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just—did you want to respond to the Peace 

Corps question? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Yes, we will definitely link up with our 

Peace Corps counterparts. I think it is important. 

One of the things that we have been very much trying to do in 

the TIP office is to use the trafficking issue to have an impact upon 

both sexual violence and domestic violence, and how they’re treated 

by a number of these countries. Here in the United States, we very 

much have built our anti-trafficking response, our modern antislavery response, on the gains of the last 30 years from the DV and 

sexual violence movements. 

What we recognize is that there’s a lot of countries where it’s the 

reverse. There hasn’t been a sexual violence or victim rights movement. There hasn’t been a domestic violence victim rights moveVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ment in these countries, but they’re starting to work on trafficking. 

So, we want to be able to go to some of these countries and say 

look, these things that we’ve been telling you about trafficking, relationships of power, the need for serious law enforcement responses, the need for prevention and for cultural change, those 

things also need to happen on family violence, and sexual violence. 

So, we want to be able to have those conversations around rape 

and other things. So, we’ll work with the Peace Corps. 

One of the things that I’ve noticed, however, is that at least historically, the Peace Corps was very loathe to get involved with 

things that they thought of as law enforcement-like, because they 

didn’t want to be seen as law enforcement training. They didn’t 

want the possibility that they’d be kind of lumped in with the security services, or with other government agencies. So, that has been 

an issue, but we saw, for instance, with the Peace Corps volunteer 

in Belize, who was a Federal prosecutor who took 2 years off to go 

into the Peace Corps, simply because of his background, he necessarily ended up having an impact on the people in Belize. And, 

as a result, we’ve seen some change on the ground. So, when the 

Peace Corps is doing anti-trafficking work, it does make a change. 

Mr. SMITH. This is my final question, but on an emergency fund 

for disaster areas, would you—is that something that G/TIP would 

support, particularly in light of what happened in Haiti? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Well, Mr. Smith, we actually were able to 

move a lot of money around very quickly last year in order to respond to the Haiti earthquake. And we’ve—in fact, one of my staff 

members is in Haiti right now following up. It’s a problem whenever there’s an emergent situation. We often then come back to 

Congress to try to get a supplemental, or to get some special budgeting done. But it’s very much robbing Peter to pay Paul, and that’s 

what we did last year, it’s what we’ll continue to do, when necessary. But there are programs in other parts of the world, some 

of them in Africa, and others, that had to be repositioned into 

Haiti, so anything that will make it so that we don’t have to shut 

down an existing program to respond to an emergency would certainly allow us to respond that much more quickly, and that much 

more effectively. 

Mr. SMITH. But wouldn’t a more permanent fund, something that 

we could help craft through our reauthorization—Niger had their 

money and as you said, robbing Peter to pay Paul, a country that 

desperately needed the funding lost it in order to go to Haiti. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. It’s certainly something that we’ve love to 

talk to your staff about. And as you put together the reauthorization, if there’s particular language that we can look at, or that we 

can toss around, it’s something that we’d certainly want to continue 

to talk about. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mr. Ambassador, thank you. I deeply appreciate, we deeply appreciate your testimony and your leadership. 

And we’ll move on now to our second panel. Appreciate it. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SMITH. We’ll begin first with Ms. Deborah Cundy, who is vice 

president in the office of the chairman at Carlson Companies, a 

global travel and hospitality company based in Minneapolis, MinVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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nesota, which includes such brands as Radisson Hotels, Country 

Inn & Suites, Carlson Travel, and T.G.I. Friday’s restaurants. 

For the past decade, Ms. Cundy has worked closely with Carlson 

chairman and former CEO, Marilyn Carlson Nelson, on projects involving gender equality, economic growth, and human rights 

issues, particularly the protection of children from sex tourism. 

Then we’ll hear from Ms. Chai Ling from All Girls Allowed. She’s 

the founder of All Girls Allowed, an organization dedicated to restoring life, value, and dignity to girls and mothers, and to revealing the injustice of China’s one-child policy. 

Ms. Chai Ling also established Zenzabar Foundation, and serves 

as one of its board members. The Foundation supports the most inspirational and influential humanitarian efforts of student leaders 

to grant opportunities. A key student leader herself in the 1989 

Tiananmen Square movement, Ms. Chai was subsequently named 

Glamour Woman of the Year, and nominated twice for the Nobel 

Peace Prize. 

We’ll then hear from Ms. Nancy Rivard, who is president and 

founder of Airline Ambassadors International, which seeks to provide humanitarian aid to children in need, and international development and relief to underprivileged communities around the 

world. 

Ms. Rivard has expanded Airline Ambassadors International to 

include 6,000 members, including some outside of the airline industry. She started the Child Trafficking Initiative at Airline Ambassadors International, and created a training program that teaches 

airline personnel best practices to identify potential trafficking victims. 

We’ll then hear from Mr. Philip Kowalcyzk who is the president 

of The Body Shop, North America. He has led The Body Shop’s 

Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People campaign 

across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, since it was 

launched in August 2009. He has ensured that comprehensive 

training and high-profile awareness programs were developed to 

support the mission of the campaign. 

Since the campaign began, under Mr. Kowalcyzk’s leadership, 

the brand has won six awards for its efforts to raise awareness and 

drive positive change for children and young people affected by sex 

trafficking. 

Then we’ll hear from Mr. Kevin Bales, co-founder of Free the 

Slaves, a non-profit organization that frees slaves, helps former 

slaves stay free, advocates that the government and corporations 

change policy, and carries out research. 

Mr. Bales is also emeritus professor at Roehampton University 

in London, and professor at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study 

of Slavery and Emancipation, at the University of Hull. He has authored several books on modern day slavery, including ‘‘Ending 

Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves,’’ which outlines a 25-year 

plan to stop slavery and human trafficking, identifying what governments, the U.N., business communities, and individuals can do 

to end this egregious form of human rights abuse. 

Then we’ll hear from Mr. David Abramowitz, who is director of 

policy and government relations at Humanity United, responsible 

for informing the organization’s policy-based advocacy activities, 

27

leading outreach efforts to the U.S. Government, multilateral institutions, and international NGOs, and providing strategic counsel 

and advice to a broad range of grantees. 

As I mentioned in my earlier statement, Mr. Abramowitz previously served as chief counsel for the House Committee on Foreign 

Affairs working on the TVPA of 2000 in all of its iterations, its reauthorizations, as well as a wide range of other foreign policy legislation. So, Mr. Abramowitz, thank you for being here. 

I would like to note that Annette Lantos, the wife of Tom Lantos, 

the former chairman of this committee, is here with us, and she’s 

always most welcome. Thank you, Ms. Lantos, for being here today. 

Ms. Cundy. 

STATEMENT OF MS. DEBORAH CUNDY, VICE PRESIDENT, 

CARLSON COMPANIES 

Ms. CUNDY. Chairman Smith, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the honor to testify on an issue that 

threatens the well being of every society on our planet-human trafficking. 

One of the most frustrating aspects of trafficking for all of us is 

that it’s difficult to put metrics around it given its underground nature. But there is much that we do know. And increasingly, many 

in business feel that given what we do know, we must act. We 

know human trafficking is one of the largest illicit activities in the 

world. And we know that, for the most part, it affects the most vulnerable among us—the poor, the uneducated, the women and the 

children. 

We also know that it is projected to yield the traffickers $32 billion in annual revenue, and that’s the dark side. But there are also 

rays of light. We know that in just one decade of focused efforts 

since the Palermo Protocol of 2000 and the historic Trafficking Victims Protection Act, we have made significant progress—particularly when it comes to awareness building among the public at 

large, and in recent years we’ve been encouraged by the increasing 

number of partnerships being forged across sectors to solve this 

complex problem. 

As background to my company’s involvement in combating the 

sexual exploitation of children in tourism, it might be helpful for 

you to know that Carlson is a privately-held 73-year-old travel and 

hospitality company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which has a 

presence in 150 countries. 

Our hotel brands include Radisson, Country Inns & Suites, Park 

Inn, and Park Plaza, and most of these are franchised properties. 

We are also a majority owner in the Rezidor Hotel Group which operates our brands in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and is 

publicly traded on European stock exchanges. There are, in total, 

about 1,070 hotels operating under a Carlson brand employing 

more than 70,000 people. Other Carlson companies include Carlson 

Wagonlit Travel, which is the world’s largest travel management 

company, and T.G.I. Friday’s restaurants, but today I’ll focus on 

the hotel operations. 

As Chairman Smith referenced, in 2004 Carlson was approached 

by the State Department to sign what is known as the travel industry’s code of conduct to protect children from sexual exploiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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tation. We were shocked to learn that at any moment in time more 

than 2 million children are being sexually abused. In the travel industry, this abuse is sometimes play out in hotels at tourism sites 

around the world. And, as mentioned, there are hotels that are 

complicit in these activities, but often they are unwitting 

facilitators. 

The code of conduct basically asks that the signatory train its 

employees in what to look for, and how to report it so that the employee base becomes a virtual army of eyes and ears. The code asks 

that the signatory raise awareness among its customers, that it includes language in its supplier contracts and corporate ethics policy 

repudiating the sexual exploitation of children, and that it reports 

annually on its activities to the code secretariat. 

I am proud to say that our chairman and then CEO of Carlson, 

Marilyn Carlson Nelson, made the decision that Carlson would be 

the first global North American travel company to sign the code, 

but not before we had some spirited internal debate about the pros 

and cons of such an action. We live in a litigious society. Our legal 

department was concerned about possible liability, and our public 

relations department was worried that the public would associate 

our brands with child trafficking. In the end, however, we have had 

nothing but positive reaction to our signing by all of our stakeholder groups. 

The brief video I’d like to share with you now is one element in 

Carlson’s module on human trafficking that’s included in what we 

call our ‘‘Responsible Business’’ training, which every hotel employee goes through. In this, you’ll see a few scenarios designed to 

help our employees know what kind of behavior to watch for as it 

pertains to a possible child trafficking situation. 

[A video is played.] 

Ms. CUNDY. While Carlson was the first global hotel company in 

North America to sign the code, we would have gladly given up our 

leadership position to have others join us. As a matter of fact, we 

have offered to share our training materials with any of our hotel 

competitors. We’ve always felt that there are many ways in which 

we can compete against each other, but on this issue, we must join 

hands. 

And, yet, for 7 years, we remained the only hotel company to 

sign until, as we’ve discussed, just a few months ago when a significant milestone was reached and the world’s largest airline, 

Delta, and the global hotel chain, Hilton, both signed the code of 

conduct to protect children from sexual exploitation. And we salute 

our industry colleagues for doing so. 

To be fair, we know that while the majority of hotels have not 

signed, a few are doing some things to prevent the problem, but we 

feel that signing the code provides all of us with a consistent template for implementation of these programs, a way to share best 

practices, a third-party monitoring tool to insure that we are all 

doing our part, and a very public shared commitment. 

We look forward to the day when engagement by the travel industry in anti-trafficking initiatives is not considered just to be a 

corporate social responsibility activity, but rather a normal business practice. In fact, the goal should be that one day we will have 

29

normalized corporate efforts to combat human trafficking to such 

a degree that they are embedded in every industry. 

At Carlson, we believe that business can be one of the most powerful forces for good on the planet. We see examples of that in The 

Body Shop, in LexisNexis, in Manpower, Ford, Microsoft, Delta Airlines, Chiquita, and dozens of other companies that are using their 

resources, their problem-solving skills, and their voices to engage 

in this issue. They are examining their own practices, training 

their employees, and educating their customers and shareholders. 

But with any complex problem, no one sector can solve it alone. 

Business, government, civil society and academia must partner 

more closely. We must understand each other’s unique roles and leverage them. There are pieces of this complex problem that each 

of us must be accountable for in collaboration with one another to 

solve. 

Conferences on the issue of human trafficking abound. They are 

enlightening and build networks to be sure. NGO coalitions are 

ever-forming. Trade organizations, such as the International Travel 

Partnership, are exploring this issue, and select businesses are selforganizing to mount their own efforts, like the Business Coalition 

Against Human Trafficking. 

All are useful endeavors, but perhaps the time is right for a formalized convening of a cross sector advisory board over a sustained 

period of time focused specifically on human trafficking. The hope 

is that this initiative would accelerate progress through partnerships and capitalize on the increasing desire of the business community to make its contribution to this fight. 

On behalf of Carlson, I thank the subcommittee for the work you 

are doing, and for the privilege to support your efforts. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cundy follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Cundy, thank you very much for your leadership, 

and for bringing that video. Having seen it in Rome when you presented it, both I and everyone there were greatly moved by your 

leadership, so thank you so much. 

Ms. CUNDY. Thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Chai Ling. 

STATEMENT OF MS. CHAI LING, FOUNDER, ALL GIRLS 

ALLOWED 

Ms. CHAI. Well, thank you, Chairman Smith, for your three-decade-long tireless work to improve human rights around the world. 

And on behalf of all the victims, we are grateful. 

There has never been a more dangerous time to be a child in 

China. The one-child policy and a culture preference for sons has 

led to the elimination of millions of China’s girls, which in turn has 

created an influx of young men and an increased demand for 

brides. What has emerged is a black market for stolen children unlike anything the world has ever seen, leaving Chinese families 

fearful every day for their own children’s safety. 

There are 37 million more men than women in China today. 

Even with the child rearing cost, purchasing a child bride is the 

most economical way to guarantee the son will have a bride when 

he’s ready to marry. There’s just simply not enough daughters for 

all the sons in China. 

June 1st, as you mentioned earlier, we were able to create a coalition and declaration against gendercide in China, and India, and 

around the world. We’re thrilled to be part of that process. However, the child trafficking and gendercide is no longer just the issue 

of human rights, but issue of security of nations. 

According to leading experts and their presentation on June 1st, 

unless China is doing something drastically to end the gender imbalance on their one-child policy, there will be over 50 million men 

in 2020. 

What we’re about to see in this video is that trafficking will not 

stop, but only increasing. So, please play the video right now. 

[A video is played.] 

Ms. CHAI. Thank you. Now you have seen this devastating trafficking problem exposed in China, which is only growing. I’d like 

to speak for a moment of our anti-trafficking method at All Girls 

Allowed. 

All Girls Allowed exists to restore life, value, and dignity to girls 

and mothers, and to reveal the injustice of one-child policy. Our 

AGA team is inspired by our love to Jesus, and our desire to follow 

him as we’re commanded to act justly, love, mercy, and work humbly with our God. 

We’re grateful for our brave and courageous local volunteers in 

China. It is their work that keeps us going every day. We’re thankful to Women’s Rights in China, Sister Jing Zhang sitting right behind me; she has spent thousands of hours on the phone coordinating our rescue efforts on the ground in China. And, also, I’m 

grateful to the film crew who produced this—many parts of these 

clips are from China’s Stolen Children. There is a 90-minute video, 

you’re more than welcome to all take a look all the devastating 

trafficking situations taking place in China today. But we have 

35

seen some really good successes with this very small team, but 

dedicated believers, and we are able to make a difference in China. 

The first and foremost important step we do is to research. We 

examine specific areas of China to determine the root causes and 

the magnitude of the trafficking problem. And this map is China, 

and you see the red dot is Fujian province. It’s a hot bed for trafficking. We found after months of research a city with 3 million 

people that could have up to 600,000 people as a result of child 

bride trafficking. 

[Another slide is displayed.] 

Ms. CHAI. These are very young girls who are trafficked and sold 

to marry men in that city as a result of these 37 million excess men 

that will not be able to find wives because their wife was eliminated under China’s one-child policy, and the preference for sons. 

So, in 2003, a young woman who was trafficked in as a child 

bride in her 20s was beaten to death, and to make the case, and 

show to stop all the rest of the girls from escaping. The Putian village was widely known as Child Bride Village and the government 

has not addressed this problem. 

These women in the photos are still looking for their own families after being sold and forced to marry. 

A second method we use is countrywide rescue campaigning. We 

have names, photos, and relevant information for over 2,175 children who are currently missing in China. Parents who lost children 

campaign together, tour the country with banners, pamphlets, and 

rescue hotline numbers hoping to free children and create awareness. This photo shows the banner that we use on campaigns. For 

the hearing, we’ll unroll one of them here just so you can get a 

taste and flavor of what it’s like to try to rescue the children in 

China. And here are the names and the profiles of these missing 

children. It’s a massive amount of work by all volunteers, many 

families of the parents, and they have the names of the children, 

and when they were stolen or trafficked, and how to contact them, 

and what the physical characteristics that could help identify them 

as well. 

We would love to get your help, Chairman Smith, to send this 

to the Chinese leaders, and to the counterpart who is doing some 

work to end the trafficking of children, so they can help these parents who have put their life on hold, and their family on hold while 

looking for their lost ones. 

I want to share some good news. On one of the campaigns a 

worker found this young baby, Little Bean. She was only 3 years 

old when she was trafficked. She was playing outside with her 

mother, and her mother went home to grab some water. The next 

thing she knew, when she came out a few minutes later, her 

daughter was gone. And 7 months later after our workers traveled 

30 cities and counties, sent out 50,000 fliers and received over 100 

hotline calls, she was able to be reunited with her family. This is 

a happy, joyful picture in which she’s taking down her own missing 

child, missing person posters and is in her father’s arm. But still 

many more are searching and waiting. 

Unfortunately, the act of petitioning and organizing on behalf of 

the children is not considered a legal act in China. Rather than 

helping parents finding their sons and daughters, the government 

36

has been cracking down on these volunteers, and detaining or imprisoning them. This photo is the amount of the volunteers and the 

parents of missing children who are detained for the activity to find 

their children. 

So, today we have four specific requests for China; that China 

would focus on helping us find these 2,175 children, and China 

would focus on regions known for trafficking problem, especially in 

Fujian province. And that province has such a common trafficking 

problem buying child brides, so when the parents go over there to 

try to find their kids, nobody thinks twice about it or sees it as not 

something they should be doing. And the three brides we were able 

to reunite, each of them had multiple siblings. A quarter of the siblings there a result of child trafficking. That’s number three. 

China should spend some money and resources any way that is 

effective but respective and encouraging towards parents who are 

searching for their children, rather than detain them, or harass 

them, or punish them. We ask that China would create a system 

similar to the U.S. Amber Alert system that immediately begins 

searching and rescuing at the moment that the child disappears. 

The father who we saw in the clips of the video, his daughter 

was missing in 2005, but the case was not established until 2008. 

That’s too late. Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Chai follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Chai Ling, thank you very much. 

Ms. CHAI. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Rivard. 

STATEMENT OF MS. NANCY RIVARD, PRESIDENT AND 

FOUNDER, AIRLINE AMBASSADORS INTERNATIONAL 

Ms. RIVARD. It’s an honor to address the U.S. Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, 

and Human Rights. 

I was so inspired by the video from All Girls Allowed, it made 

me think to say that we right now have a 30-second spot on American Airlines, and I would love your assistance in re-shooting that 

spot as a tool for public awareness around this issue. 

Ms. CHAI. Praise God, thank you. 

Ms. RIVARD. I founded Airline Ambassadors in 1996 for airline 

personnel using their travel privileges to help children. We are the 

only humanitarian organization of the overall airline industry, and 

are leading the effort to raise awareness on the issue of human 

trafficking and modern day slavery. 

In 2009, on a humanitarian mission in Cambodia, we rescued an 

abandoned little girl in the slums outside Angor Wat. It was written up in an American Way magazine article of September 2010, 

which would request be included in the record. We also learned 

there were thousands more girls just like here, who were bought 

out of the provinces and sold into the brothels of Bangkok and 

Phnom Penh. We realized that many of these children were being 

transported on commercial airlines. That’s when I knew Airline 

Ambassadors had to get involved. 

On our next humanitarian mission to the Dominican Republic, 

our team reviewed the behavioral indicators of trafficking victims 

and their predators, and stayed alert as we boarded our flights to 

the United States. Astonishingly, on every airline, U.S. Air, Delta, 

and Jetblue we correctly identified a trafficking situation. The 

flight attendants on each airline did not know what to look for or 

how to respond, but were anxious to help after we told them what 

they should do. We realized how vital a role that airline personnel 

could play as front line of defense for international security. 

Congressman Chris Smith and Joe Pitts supported us by hosting 

congressional briefings to airline partners and embassies to encourage airlines and airports to raise awareness about this issue, and 

outreach to the travel industry. American Airlines issued a bulletin 

to flight attendants as a direct response to these briefings, and several embassies offered to connect us with their domestic airlines 

and airports. Funding is needed for proper follow-up for training 

and materials. 

I, again, would like to acknowledge Delta Airlines as the first 

U.S. airline to sign the code of conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel, and acknowledge other 

companies in the travel sector, such as Carlson, Hilton Worldwide, 

and Global Exchange Tours. The code is an industry-driven responsible tourism initiative, and an important way to demonstrate corporate social responsibility on this issue. 

Airline Ambassadors has developing a training specific for airline, airport, and hotel employees to identify the visible signs of 

46

trafficking, and protocols to respond. We provided our first training 

just before the Super Bowl at DFW, and we had an overwhelming 

response. It was attended by flight crews from four airlines, TSA, 

and airport personnel. We distributed 10,000 wallet cards with red 

flag indicators to participants, and also on flights leaving DFW. 

It is estimated that 800,000 persons are trafficked across international borders every year. Every week, we receive reports from 

flight attendants who are seeing cases of trafficking. Just yesterday 

I learned about an observant passenger who alerted a Swiss Air 

crew from Zurich to Chicago of a suspicious situation with 30 

young girls. The flight returned to the gate and international security handled the problem. The Swiss Air Crew said they see those 

situations all the time, but they don’t know what kind of action to 

take. 

We ask for your support in engaging the travel industry to implement training programs specifically addressing human trafficking. 

This committee is invited to review our training and help promote 

it as a best practice for airlines, airports, and hotel staff around the 

world. We’d love to partner with Carlson on the hotel aspect for 

sure. The airline industry already provides recurrent emergency 

training for crews, so incorporating this subject would not be too 

expensive. And, again, I said we could adapt the in-flight video that 

we now have on American Airlines. 

On May 31st, 2011, just a couple of weeks ago, the flight attendant unions of APFA and AFA joined us at the signing of landmark 

trafficking legislation by Governor McDonnell at Dulles Airport. 

That represents the support of 70,000 flight attendants and 22 airlines. 

We are also partnering with the First Lady of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Margarita Ceden ̃ o de Ferna ́ndez, to launch the first 

human trafficking Web portal during the United Nations General 

Assembly. I’m honored to extend a personal invitation to every 

member of the Foreign Relations Committee to join us at this historic event. 

As you are aware, human trafficking is a major human rights 

issue of our time. It is not just a cause, it’s impacting lives every 

day. Just last week I met young trafficked boy in Haiti, who was 

so severely abused he didn’t even know his own name, 12 years old. 

I saw three young victims thrown into a dark, mosquito infested 

jail with no chairs and a filthy cement floor, because there’s nowhere else to put them. The Bureau for Protection of Minors in 

Haiti has identified 13,000 trafficked victims just in the last year 

in Haiti. We are building safe houses to protect these children and 

give them the care they need. Please support our efforts to raise 

awareness in the travel industry and protect children in the United 

States and the world. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rivard follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Rivard, thank you very much. 

Mr. Kowalcyzk. 

STATEMENT OF MR. PHILIP KOWALCYZK, PRESIDENT, THE 

BODY SHOP 

Mr. KOWALCYZK. Thank you, Chairman Smith and the members 

of the committee and subcommittee. 

At The Body Shop, we believe that business should be both profitable and a force for good. The principle way that we do this by 

using our beauty boutiques as a platform to inform customers on 

social and environmental issues. In doing so, we invite them to join 

us and together campaign to create long-term change. This approach was pioneered by our founder, Dame Anita Roddick, who 

created The Body Shop in the UK in 1976, and we’ve grown our 

brand from one boutique to over 2,600 in 65 countries today. 

I imagine for many of you in this room, the fact that the numbers are in the millions of children who are trafficked every year 

and sexually exploited, in virtually every country across the world, 

is something that you’ve known for many years. At The Body Shop, 

it was only 5 years ago that we became aware of the extent of this 

underground issue. As a business that has 35 years campaigning 

for social and environmental change, it was a natural step for us 

to explore how we could contribute to providing a solution. 

We responded by creating a global partnership with ECPAT 

International, and together we launched the Stop Sex Trafficking 

of Children & Young People campaign in 2009. In the U.S. and 

Canada we have partnered with ECPAT, and the Somaly Mam 

Foundation to achieve specific and actionable goals. 

In the first instance, our goal has been to raise funds to bring 

immediate relief to help children and young people who have been 

impacted by sex trafficking. But, ultimately, we are working to inspire long-term change by raising awareness of this issue, and by 

facilitating the voice of the consumer to be heard by those with the 

decision-making powers. 

From the outset, our campaign strategy focused on the belief that 

abuse on this scale could be stopped if decision-makers take action. 

Fundraising is important to support the immediate relief, but this 

is only a band aid. The real answer to create sustainable change 

lay in influencing decision-makers to change legislation. 

How do we do this? As an international retailer with stores in 

high-profile locations like shopping malls and street locations 

across the world, we have an incredible opportunity to reach millions of people from all walks of life using our boutiques to communicate and inspire action. We have the ability to create a platform 

that captures and mobilizes the voice of our consumers. 

Add to that equation another incredible asset, 50,000 dedicated 

staff across the world who are trained to talk about the campaign 

with our customers, and with that we have the ingredients to deliver some groundbreaking change. 

When we can inspire customers to lend their voice to the signing 

of a campaign petition, we create a loud and united voice which, 

we believe decision-makers are responding to. 

Of course, the petition call to action has to be nationally relevant 

and very specific to changes that are needed across the globe. To 

50

deliver this, we and ECPAT International created specific calls of 

action relevant to country-specific issues. 

So, for example, in the United States, we are calling for the 

states to introduce ‘‘safe harbor’’ to protect and prevent any person 

under the age of 18 from being charged and prosecuted, or incarcerated for prostitution. In some states this exist, in most it does 

not. 

In Germany, we’re calling for the government to strengthen the 

protection of victims during the investigation and legal proceedings. In South Korea, the call to action centers on training police and teachers to help prevent trafficking. 

While we know we have a long way to go to fulfill the potential 

of our campaign we have already had some successes which have 

created change to protect children and young people not just today, 

but in the future. 

Around the world, in less than 12 months, more than 6.2 million 

people have come to The Body Shop and signed our petition in 50 

countries around the world. This is the biggest petition in a proud 

35-year history at The Body Shop. 

So far, we’ve presented the petitions to governments in nine 

countries, and have already helped to create legislative change. 

And, again, a few specific examples might help. 

In Malta, the government responded to our campaign by signing 

the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children 

Against Sexual Exploitation and Child Abuse, a major international treaty which will greatly improve the protection and support for children. 

In Malaysia, the government responded to the petition by committing to ratify the Optional Protocol to the U.N. Convention of 

Child Rights on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child 

pornography. 

In the Netherlands, the Minister of Security and Justice responded by accepting personal responsibility to increase police protection and support the children affected. 

We’ve also helped change legislation in Switzerland and Norway, 

and have received assurances by the Ministers in South Africa and 

Portugal that our call to action will be delivered. 

We believe this is just a start. With 33 petitions to be presented 

to governments around the world in the coming months, we’re confident that we can help create further change. We’re also preparing 

for a presentation to both the European Union and the United Nations Human Rights Council in the hope that we can influence even 

greater action. 

We’re proud of the achievements in gathering the support of 

more than 6 million people worldwide on this issue of child sex 

trafficking; of raising more than $3 million to support relief and advocacy efforts. We are very aware that there is a long way to go, 

but we’re committed to this issue and confident that we can continue to work with our customers and other affiliates in order to 

be able to make a difference. 

I pay tribute to our customers and my colleagues around the 

world who demonstrated beyond any doubt that as a business, if 

you empower people to become involved, they will gladly respond 

and speak out to help create change. 

51

Chairman Smith, I’m grateful to have been invited here today to 

share the details of The Body Shop commitment to tackling child 

sex trafficking, and hope that what the subcommittee has heard is 

helpful in supporting the work of your subcommittee, and inspiring 

the private sector to play a role in eliminating the commercial sexual exploitation of children and young people. Thank you for listening. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kowalcyzk follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Kowalcyzk, thank you very much for you testimony, and for the leadership of The Body Shop. 

I’d like to now recognize Mr. Bales. 

STATEMENT OF MR. KEVIN BALES, CO-FOUNDER AND 

PRESIDENT, FREE THE SLAVES 

Mr. BALES. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak 

today. 

I’ll concentrate most of my remarks on the situation in eastern 

Congo, but I also have to say it was great fun and enormously exciting to work with the Norwegian Body Shop staff and help them 

with training not long ago with our sister organization, the Norwegian Anti-Slavery Society. 

Since the beginning of human history, conflict and slavery have 

marched together. Since the end of the Cold War, we have since 

this time and again in Sierra Leone, the former Yugoslavia, 

Burma, Uganda, Sudan, and in the Congo. Civil war destroys the 

rule of law. Without the protection of the law, the average citizen 

is prey to violent men and made more vulnerable by their predations. 

Without the rule of law, anything and anyone can be stolen. The 

natural world is decimated and nation’s resources are swallowed up 

by criminals, and the people become disposable tools in what is 

simply armed robbery on a massive scale. 

All this is true of the eastern Congo, but there is an additional 

truth that we must face, and that is our own responsibility in this 

crime. We are not guilty of violence, or culpable for this slavery, 

but we are responsible for generating a market for the minerals 

that feed the power of the armed gangs. 

We have real need for these minerals, and the supply chain is 

complex. But we also have a duty to unravel this complexity, and 

to confront the ongoing rape, slavery, and murder of the people of 

eastern Congo. 

I have been with the people in eastern Congo. I have shared 

their meals, I have joined them in their churches. They are reduced 

to bare subsistence. Before the armed thugs, they are lambs to the 

slaughter. And the weapons that enslave and murder them are 

paid for with the profits from the minerals we buy. 

My written testimony contains precise descriptions of the different types of slavery found in eastern Congo, and detailed suggestions for how we might all work together to end that brutality. Two 

of those suggestions are for provisions that can be added to the 

Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which have been developed by 

the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, a coalition of handson expert anti-slavery and anti-trafficking organizations, of which 

are a proud member. 

One would require greater business supply chain transparency. 

The broad support by businesses for a similar new law in California makes a strong argument to extend that transparency to all 

American citizens. 

The second would close loopholes in the Smoot-Hawley rules. 

Those loopholes are one of the reasons for the very small number 

of enforcement actions. 

57

Additionally, I want to point to the need to build and enhance 

our existing public-private partnerships. In order to deprive the 

armed gangs of their funds, this is necessary, because the existing 

supply chain remediation focused on the minerals after they leave 

the Congo is not enough. 

This requires working with the people there to produce slave-free 

and conflict-free minerals. In this way, our concerns and desires for 

clean computers, for supply chain transparency has a meeting 

point with the desire of local people for freedom, livelihoods, and 

security. 

This is not a problem we can solve alone. These local communities are out best and true allies. Our goal should be communities 

that can articulate their own goals for their lives, and feel some 

sense of control over their destinies. We know this is possible. 

In India, we and our partners work with whole villages who are 

enslaved in rock quarries. With support through liberation, training in citizenship and rights, protection committees, and the assignment of legal mining leases, these communities are transformed. 

Such methods are crucial for eastern Congo, because liberation 

brings development. When freed slaves work for themselves and 

their own family they unleash an enormous potential, both for production and for the consumption that drives the economy. This 

freedom dividend causes local economies to spiral upward and 

helps to stabilize communities. 

Also, the United States needs to be closely involved in making 

sure that peacekeepers are adequately resourced, and that peacekeeping is focused on those locations that are economically important. Without security, there can be no transparency, no slave-free 

and conflict-free minerals, nor can there be protection for the natural world, for the pristine cloud forests, and the rare mountain gorillas which are such a powerful economic engine across the border 

in Rwanda. Remember that the per capita income in the Congo is 

$280 per year, while the average mountain gorilla generates 

around $28,000 a year for their local economy. 

When I was in the eastern Congo, I was astounded that most of 

the people I met were not despairing. They were doing their best 

to rebuild their lives and their families. We don’t have the right to 

despair if they don’t. Instead, we should learn from them and restore our own belief in them, and their home. eastern Congo is an 

amazing resource for the whole planet in both natural beauty and 

needed minerals. Let’s join the people there in visualizing their 

country without destruction, without slavery, where communities 

can support themselves sustainably, and we are excited to go as 

tourists. Then let’s work with them to achieve that vision. 

Finally, it’s rare that I get to speak directly to people who hold 

sufficient power to bring slavery to an end, so I must tell you that 

your’s can be a legacy of freedom, not just for the Congo, but for 

the whole world. 

There are 27 million slaves in the world today, a very large number, but the smallest fraction of the global population to ever be in 

slavery. These slaves generate something like $40 billion a year for 

their masters. But, again, that is the smallest proportion of the 

global economy ever represented by slave labor. 

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Slavery is illegal in every country, and denounced by every faith 

tradition. Slavery now lurks in the dark and hidden criminal edges 

of our global society. In fact, it is standing on the edge of its own 

extinction. With a strong concerted push, we can end slavery. 

For years in our work of liberation and rehabilitation of slaves 

around the world, we have been carefully calculating the cost of 

freedom and of building new lives. The cost of bringing slavery to 

an end would be, to our best estimate, around $12 billion over a 

period of some 25 years, a sum to be raised from all governments 

and all people of goodwill. 

The result would do to slavery what a similar concerted effort 

has done to Smallpox. Where once there were millions of cases each 

year, there are now a handful, and those are quickly dealt with. 

We know how to end slavery. Thousands of freed slaves around 

the world are proof of that. And while we still lack the resources 

and awareness to make that happen, perhaps our greatest need is 

leadership. So, I finish with a question for the committee, will you 

be the leaders that rid not just the enslaved mineworkers of the 

Congo of slavery, but the world of slavery? Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bales follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Bales, thank you very much for your leadership, 

and your organization which is doing pioneering work. Thank you. 

Mr. Abramowitz. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ABRAMOWITZ, DIRECTOR OF 

POLICY AND GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, HUMANITY UNITED 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Payne, and other members of the committee for holding this 

hearing on one of the most pressing human rights challenges of our 

time, the widespread occurrence of modern day slavery and human 

trafficking. I ask that my full written statement be made part of 

the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection; yours as well as other members of 

the panel. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. And I’ll just summarize my remarks in some 

oral remarks since I’m the last of a very distinguished panel who 

have really plowed the ground before me. 

Thanks for your generous introduction, Mr. Smith, but as we all 

know, it’s your leadership that all of us up here honor, and the way 

which you’ve pursued this issue for more than 10 years through the 

original TVPA, and before, bringing this issue to light. And we 

really want to thank you for your commitment, including the commitment of you and your staff and this Congress. 

Mr. Chairman, other witnesses have described the scale and 

scope of modern day slavery, the third largest and fastest growing 

transnational crime. Regrettably, this is not a far away problem 

that affect distant lands. It remains a shock to most Americans, 

but thousands of adults are trafficked into forced labor or sexual 

slavery right here in the United States, and estimates of U.S. 

youth tracked into commercial sex are as high as 100,000. 

Mr. Chairman, at Humanity United we believe there are solutions to this heinous abuse, but ending trafficking and slavery requires a unity of effort between civil society, the private sector, and 

governments around the world. And I was very pleased when I saw 

the composition of this panel bringing together the private sector, 

as well as those of us in civil society who have been working on 

this matter. And I commend the committee for putting that together. 

For our part, Humanity United is supporting the Alliance to End 

Slavery and Trafficking, or ATEST that Mr. Bales just referred to, 

a coalition of 12 members of civil society that I described in my 

written testimony. 

ATEST has been working on the Trafficking Victims Protection 

Act, its implementation, and also on the reauthorization bill, and 

the recommendations I will outline below are drawn from its proposal. 

As I just indicated, Mr. Chairman, there’s no need to remind you 

of the leadership role this committee has taken with respect to 

fighting human trafficking. One of the strong points of this legislation has been it’s bipartisan nature which has sustained the framework created by the TVPA over the last decade. I think it’s of paramount importance that this strong bipartisan support from introduction to Presidential signature remain a key part of this effort. 

68

In my written testimony, Mr. Chairman, I have laid out a number of lessons we have learned over the past 10 years, and I’m 

happy to answer any questions you have on those. Let me focus on 

what we have learned about how the U.S. Government can best 

achieve change. 

The annual Trafficking in Persons Report can highlight forms of 

abuses and identify solutions. The TVPA’s tier ranking system can 

name and shame, and spur governments to action. However, we 

have learned the report and rankings are not enough. 

The U.S. Government must conduct robust diplomacy both by the 

Trafficking in Persons office and the Department of State’s regional 

bureaus, as well as creative action in the field where each Embassy 

has a critical role to play in catalyzing change. 

The U.S. Government also needs resources to leverage change. 

While at the end of the day this responsibility lies with a particular 

foreign government, U.S. assistance, judiciously employed, can be 

critical to go from willingness to actual action. 

As we consider these evolving developments, Mr. Chairman, 

there are a number of important reforms that should be considered 

as you move forward in the next 10 years of combating human trafficking. 

First, as was discussed on the earlier panel, and as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, we need to address the issue of foreign labor 

recruiters and brokers, one of the leading drivers of the phenomenon of slavery and trafficking today. Recent testimony you 

heard before the Helsinki Commission just a few weeks ago details 

these practices, and I would ask the statement by Ms. Neha Misra 

on May 23rd, 2011 be made part of the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. In this regard, Mr. Chairman, we know recruiters deceive young girls with promises of legitimate employment only to bind them into sexual exploitation. Exploitation by 

labor recruiters is happening right here in the United States, in 

our fields, in our factories, and on our streets. In my written testimony, I cite a recent case where 400 Thai workers were lured to 

the United States and put into modern day slavery. 

Mr. Chairman, I believe the abuses of labor recruiters and brokers can be ended, and that effort can start right here in the 

United States, and can have a huge demonstration effect for other 

countries around the world. 

As you mentioned, this House has already adopted such an approach in 2007, but that provision did not become part of the final 

legislation. ATEST has reviewed this House passed provision, and 

I have described the revised framework in my written testimony. 

As you mentioned, elimination of fees that end up being abusive 

and lead to debt bondage, disclosure before the worker leaves his 

or her country, just as the government is requiring the contractors 

to do, as Ambassador CdeBaca indicated. And enforcement through 

a registration system paid by the foreign labor recruiters themselves. 

Second, Mr. Chairman, I would point to the need to maintain 

funding for international anti-trafficking programs, and to authorize contingency funding for emergency situation and unexpected opportunities. 

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As I discussed earlier, we are only going to make further 

progress if smart diplomacy can be leveraged with targeted U.S. 

initiatives. I understand that the cuts in the FY 2011 budget has 

led to a 23 percent decrease in the TIP office’s programs this year, 

a reduction that is as deplorable as it is unwise. I urge that the 

committee reauthorize assistance for international anti-trafficking 

programs at no less than the amounts currently authorized in the 

TVPA. 

The United States also needs to be able to rapidly deploy experts 

and staff, and this was discussed when you were talking to Ambassador CdeBaca. For example, I understand that after the fall of the 

Ben Ali regime in Tunisia during the Arab spring, officials in the 

Tunisian Government communicated that they now could finally 

start talking about trafficking problems that the regime has refused to admit, and expressed a willingness to enter into a dialogue 

with the United States on these issues. The United States must 

have the ability to move quickly in these kinds of opportunities. 

The upcoming independence of South Sudan may be another 

such opportunity to help create a new framework for a new country 

recognizing that the challenges that we see at this very moment as 

conflict is breaking out between North and South may delay that, 

but there will be an opportunity to help them get this issue right 

which has caused so much pain to their own population, and it’s 

something that we should be ready for. 

Finally, as you mentioned, efforts to combat trafficking must be 

part of the response to natural disasters or manmade emergencies, 

and we—I talked about the Haiti example, as you referred to with 

Ambassador CdeBaca. 

Third, Mr. Chairman, as Mr. Bales mentioned, and as I described 

at length in my written testimony, corporations can join the fight 

to end slavery in our time. We see examples of this at our table, 

and there are other ways that corporations can move forward to 

really try to help all of us end this abuse, and I would just direct 

you to the testimony and the reference to the California law that 

Mr. Bales mentioned. 

Fourth, Mr. Chairman, we need to continue the integrity and 

strength of the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which will be 

issued by the Department of State later this month. I spoke of the 

report and its merits earlier, and happy to answer your questions 

on some of its success. 

I am most concerned, Mr. Chairman, that there will be legislative efforts to undermine the impact of the report. Making the report a biannual process or making the report appear earlier in the 

calendar year would have the effect of undermining the impact that 

the report has today for reasons I discuss in my written testimony. 

And I think we should—the first rule here should be let’s do no 

harm. And I’d be happy to talk to you, your staff, and to members 

of the community as proposals might come up. 

We must also carefully review the effects on the report of the 

‘‘automatic downgrade’’ provision that was added in 2008, by which 

countries that have been on the Tier 2 Watch List automatically 

face sanctions if they remain on that list for more than 2 years. 

The implementation of this provision has both produced change, 

but has also upped the pressure and debates within the State DeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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partment, and we need to see how this provision is implemented 

in the coming report. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I have some additional suggestions regarding how U.S. law could be improved to make anti-trafficking 

policies even more effective, including enhancing the State Department’s response in the field, authorizing compacts with willing 

countries, insuring the Department of Labor continues the publications of its reports on goods made with forced and child labor. 

These are all contained in my written testimony. I hope you and 

your staff will have a chance to review them. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Payne, these are a number of 

measures that should be considered by Congress in reauthorizing 

the TVPA, and we at ATEST would be happy to meet with you and 

your staff to have further discussions about these matters. 

If this committee continues to act in a bipartisan manner in accordance with its traditional approach to this issue, you can ensure 

an even greater impact, save more victims and help their journey 

to move beyond their terrible experience and become survivors. 

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for recognizing that every part of 

society—government, private business, civil society, and as was discussed, every human being who believes in the dignity of each of 

us—has a role in eliminating this heinous abuse. 

We stand ready to work with you, and I want to thank you for 

inviting me to present this testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Abramowitz follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Abramowitz, thank you so much for your testimony. I did read your testimony. It’s filled with very useful recommendations, as usual, so I do on behalf of the committee thank 

you for that, as well. 

I’d like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Mr. Payne, our 

ranking member of the subcommittee. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And because 

of the longstanding conflict, I was unable to get here earlier, I will 

just ask to have my opening statement included in the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Payne follows:]


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Mr. PAYNE. And I’ll yield to you for your questioning, and then 

follow as is—okay. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Payne. 

Let me just ask a couple of questions. And, again, all of your testimonies are filled, replete with very useful suggestions. 

And, Mr. Bales, you might have noticed in my questioning of Ambassador Luis CdeBaca that I asked him about the letters that 

have been sent by you, and a consortium of other—and several 

other NGOs. Are you satisfied with the response that was sent in 

March by the Department? 

Mr. BALES. Yes, I think so. And, also, I think to answer the question you asked of Ambassador CdeBaca, as I understand it, the regulations on DRC exports are expected to be released by the SEC 

in early August. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, thank you. 

Ms. Cundy, you spoke about the legal department being reluctant, at first. What were their—in order to share that false concern—although legal departments, they’re paid to keep corporations out of trouble—what were their concerns, and can you share 

that so that we could amplify that and make sure that other legal 

departments don’t repeat those concerns? 

Ms. CUNDY. Yes, Congressman, up to a point. I’m not exactly 

sure all of the issues that they might have been looking at, but I 

do know that in the end, the code of conduct is not binding. Our 

legal department, I think, might have felt that should something 

occur after we’ve signed the code, what does that mean for us? 

In the end, they felt that since we are aware of the problem, it 

had been brought to our attention that, frankly, for us not to sign 

the code might actually put us at more exposure. 

Mr. SMITH. So, it wasn’t a concern about a potentially false allegation by an employee resulting in a defamation suit or some 

other——

Ms. CUNDY. No, not that I’m aware of. I don’t think that was——

Mr. SMITH. It had to do with the code, itself. Okay. 

If I could ask you, as well, when an employee recognizes a potential act of human trafficking, to whom does he or she report, and 

is law enforcement immediately notified? How is that actually 

done? 

Ms. CUNDY. Yes. Yes, they are told to report to the management 

of the hotel. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Ms. CUNDY. The management of the hotel then contacts law enforcement immediately. And, of course, how law enforcement, depending on where the location is, decides to follow-up is something 

that’s within their purview. 

Mr. SMITH. And, Ms. Rivard, when a flight attendant recognizes 

a potential trafficking situation, you had mentioned previously, I 

heard you speak to, during long flights in particular, very often a 

flight attendant will notice a disconnect, if you will, between a man 

and perhaps some other people who are traveling with him, mostly 

women and children, and that opportunities present themselves as 

they go to the ladies’ room. To whom do they report when they 

have a suspicion of a trafficking in progress? 

85

Ms. RIVARD. Yes. This happened last week, my girlfriend who 

was going to Costa Rica, and there was a 50-year-old man with a 

9-year-old Dominican girl. And she noticed that the man wouldn’t 

let the little girl talk to her at all. She brought her cheesecake, 

wouldn’t let—tried to go in the bathroom with the little girl. And 

when she stopped him, saying it’s not appropriate, he kept his foot 

in the door and said, ‘‘Woman, get out, it’s none of your business.’’

She on her own told the pilots who radioed ahead to airline dispatch to have the authorities at customs meet that case. And sure 

enough, it was a trafficking situation. So their procedure is, basically, just to tell the pilots, and the pilots notify SOC, security operations command, at headquarters. 

Mr. SMITH. I had raised your best practices, and actually handed 

out your brochure to OSCE participants at the last Parliamentary 

Assembly, and at least two of the representatives said that their 

national airline, it was the Dutch and the Swedes, were very, very 

interested. Has there been any fruit from your work with other airlines adopting that best practice? 

Ms. RIVARD. Not so far. I mean, we’d certainly be very interested, 

and we’re pursuing Delta right now. We’d love to support them in 

training——

Mr. SMITH. And Delta would bring Aeroflot in, right? Is that correct? 

Ms. RIVARD. They could. I’m not exactly who is part of their alliance. But I have not had luck so far. Many of the airlines are nervous about associating their brand with this issue, afraid maybe 

that the flight attendants would be too vigilant and they would get 

a lawsuit. Although, we’re pitching this to the airlines that this is 

an issue of child protection. And that like Carlson found out, this 

is ultimately good for their brand. 

I would like your support in helping to convince more airlines of 

this. And I need your support and connections to airlines that are 

interested in the training, because we have developed——

Mr. SMITH. Do you think a White House Summit or something 

along those lines would be helpful? 

Ms. RIVARD. That would be fantastic, yes. 

Mr. SMITH. I think the subcommittee could pursue that idea, and 

it would include, obviously, the great work that Ms. Cundy has 

done with her group. 

MS. CUNDY. That would be greatly appreciated. 

Mr. SMITH. We’ll pursue that, and hopefully they’ll be open to it. 

Let me ask Mr. Abramowitz if I could, you pointed out that 

David Arkless’ research suggests that ‘‘worldwide economic downturn has led to a surge in human trafficking worldwide, as those 

desperate to sustain themselves have become more vulnerable to 

traffickers due to economic distress.’’

The correlation between economic downturns, generally, and this 

very, very severe one that we’ve experienced throughout the world, 

what are you seeing, is it more labor trafficking, sex trafficking, 

both? 

In your testimony, you also talked about the unified approach 

rather than this dichotomy, false as it has been over the years. If 

you could speak to that, as well. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

86

I think that you have to look at it from both sides. You have populations who may be under stress because of the change in economic circumstances that they’re under. There may be a factory 

that is closed and, therefore, they’re willing to take more risks to 

try to move in order to seek some sort of better economic opportunity. Therefore, it comes from the sort of the bottom end, as well 

as the top end because as there is shrinking profits, there is a need 

for those, whether they’re making bricks in India or elsewhere in 

terms of the multinational trade. They’re looking to reduce the cost 

that they have, so there’s both a push and a pull. 

With respect to the issue of whether we’ve seen more into the 

sexual exploitation or labor exploitation, I don’t think we really 

have the data to really give a conclusive answer. Obviously, again, 

the presumption would be that there would be increased vulnerability because there would be more women who would be more 

willing to take risks, or others who would be more willing to take 

risks and, therefore, would be more vulnerable to exploitation. 

I think in terms of the false dichotomy issue, clearly there is no 

doubt that there is recruitment specifically into sexual slavery. I 

think that the point is, is that a lot of the different activities that 

we see that are related specifically to labor recruiting, for example, 

on the economic side often ends up with also sexual exploitation involved. So, an individual leaves Nepal to go to India because perhaps sexual violence or other reasons have driven them to take 

that risk. They think they’re going into a domestic situation. 

Maybe they end up in a domestic situation as they thought, but 

then they’re exploited there not only for their labor, but also they 

fall into the trap with sexual exploitation, so you see both phenomena. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could, to you again, you talked about elimination 

of fees, disclosure, and enforcement. You reminded us that the ‘07 

legislation had a registration and enforcement system that penalizes recruiters and complicit employers that do not follow the requirements in the system. 

Could you elaborate on how you think that might help end this 

labor trafficking problem that is only escalating? And if you could, 

I mentioned earlier about the Department of Defense, and that 

when we held those two hearings, I was deeply disappointed in the 

Pentagon’s responses. They told us now we’re going to rectify. Do 

you see any evidence, perhaps, that they’ve really taken to heart 

that we should not be complicit in Iraq or anywhere else with these 

labor traffickers who impose huge sums on people who think 

they’re getting a good deal, and they get an awful deal? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

With respect to the first question, I think the notion is, is that 

we need to set certain standards for foreign labor recruiters, including as was discussed, the elimination of fees. I will say that the 

administration has taken an important step by really restricting 

the amount of fees in certain programs involving legal workers. 

There were recent regulations that the Department of Homeland 

Security has put forward in draft that did really try to restrict fees. 

But, of course, that’s only on one part of the program. 

Then the second part is, as was discussed, the worker really 

needs to understand what it is that they’re moving to. So often 

87

they don’t understand that there will be this fee, that fee, this cost 

for training, et cetera, where they’re going to be. And, of course, 

we’ve seen cases, including the U.S. Government cases, where laborers thought they were going to the Gulf but they end up in 

Baghdad. Clearly, that is a huge problem. Once they’re there 

they’re sort of stuck there. They may have gotten huge debts, so 

then it becomes a problem that exploitation occurs. 

With respect to enforcement, I think that you can take a spectrum of different approaches to this, but it seems that there needs 

to be some mechanism so that once a laborer recruiter, or broker 

has been registered with a government entity that there be some 

ability to pursue them if it turns out that they’ve misinformed the 

worker, or brought them into a situation where there could well be 

exploitation. So, I think there has to be some enforcement mechanism. Exactly what that looks like—there was, of course, one of 

the—in place of the 2007 provision that we’ve been discussing, 

there was a fraud in foreign labor contracting provision that was 

put in, that has just now been starting to be pursued as a prosecutorial method. 

In terms of the Department of Defense, Mr. Chairman, it’s very 

hard to evaluate it. I think that one of the reasons that the Office 

of Inspector General was brought into this was because it’s—the 

contracting procedures of the government are complex enough that 

if you really are not pursuing and really doing the training that’s 

necessary with respect to the contractors, themselves, then they’re 

not really going to—and the employees who are working with the 

contractors, they’re not going to know about these provisions. 

I think the Defense Department has its problems. The New Yorker story that you referred to indicated a wide range of different 

problems that, obviously, the Defense Department has more work 

to do. 

I think Secretary Gates did make some very important statements at the February meeting of the President’s Inter-Agency 

Task Force, and I think that’s going to be something that Secretary 

Panetta is going to have to follow-up with. 

I think in the Defense Department, it’s all about leadership from 

the top. There are a lot of things that happen there, that only happen because the civilian leadership is committed to it, so I think 

that’s the avenue we need to pursue. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Bales. Thank you. 

The corporate responsibility for those, particularly tech companies, but others who are benefitting from it, as we all are through 

many devices that would otherwise not be used or available, for the 

minerals from DR Congo. 

Could you name some names of some of the corporations that are 

doing well, and others that perhaps are doing very poorly, who are 

deriving their minerals from DR Congo? 

Mr. BALES. You know, I’m not sure that I can. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. BALES. And the reason why is that the names that would be 

familiar to us are those who are so close to us on that supply chain 

that they are—it’s not that they’re whitewashed of responsibility 

any more than we are as consumers, but they are a very long distance away from those smelters, processors, and component manuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00091 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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facturers, primarily in Southeast Asia which supply components, 

which are then very difficult to link back to DR Congo; not least 

because so much of the minerals are being smuggled out of the 

Congo, thus making Rwanda, which does not have coltan, for example, one of the largest coltan exporters in the world. 

Until we crack that duplicity at the Congolese, Rwandan, and 

Burundi borders, we will never be able to be absolutely certain, 

and we’ll never be able to make a fair comment about which companies are doing well, and which aren’t. 

Admittedly, there are a number of large electronic companies 

which are on record as wanting to do the right thing, but at the 

moment I worry that they don’t have the mechanisms to achieve 

that, because those of us on both sides of this table aren’t able to 

help them to do that. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Mr. Chairman, could I just add something? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. I think that Mr. Bales really has pointed to a 

very significant problem. If you look at any number of good corporate citizens across the different spectrum of industries, they will 

tell you that they are making efforts, but it’s very, very difficult. 

If you’re buying apparel from China, you don’t know whether 

that apparel has been made with Uzbek cotton or not, so knowing 

whether you’re contributing in some way to the global supply chain 

is very, very challenging. 

There are members who are—companies that are members of 

various stakeholder, multi-stakeholder initiatives that bring together a wide range of industry groups and others who are really 

trying to make efforts in this area. A number of them work on both 

environmental and labor issues, but there has been a lot of focus 

on environmental issues, and not as much on labor issues. So, even 

where there’s an effort to do things in partnership, there’s really—

there needs to be more effort made to really try to trace these supply chains, figure out better mechanisms so that they can actually 

know what’s going on. And then, also, to press those multi-stakeholder initiatives who are saying that they want to look at labor 

issues, to really focus more of their auditing on those labor issues 

so that they can really try to do the best they can. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mr. Bales, maybe you might want to answer this. 

As we know, no woman or girl in the mining zones is free to 

refuse sex to the armed men who control the mines. If there’s a 

problem with a miner, for example, his wife or daughter could be 

forced to have sex with a military leader, and may be taken into 

sexual slavery. 

What attempts have been made to target this specific form of 

slavery? What would you suggest are the most helpful approaches? 

And, obviously, probably the largest deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, are in DR Congo. Is this sufficiently a part of their mandate to protect women against sexual violence, particularly in the 

mining area? 

Mr. BALES. This is, indeed, the largest deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in the world. And it’s certainly part of the training and 

mandate of the peacekeeping forces. However, from my own experiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ence, those peacekeeping forces are, for the most part, sort of in 

Fort Apache. They’re in small communities, there are boundaries 

around it. It’s very difficult given their defensive and protective 

role to carry out the kind of operations that would take them into 

places like the BCA mine that you just described which, as far as 

I know, has only rarely been even visited by a U.N. peacekeeper. 

When it has been, they have been out-manned and out-gunned by 

the rebel groups which control that mine. 

It points to the earlier situation that we were talking about, the 

dichotomy between sex and labor trafficking and slavery, because 

the fact is that the reality for any woman enslaved, whether it is 

in a mine, a field, a factory, or a brothel, there will be sexual assault. Sexual assault and rape are part of slavery for women. 

That’s the way it’s been for all of human history. 

And the situation there is one in which it operates where without 

any hope of redress to the rule of law, and the chaos of that situation, and the armed gangs which have basically carved up that part 

of the Kivus like mafias, meaning that it is very difficult to reach 

in. 

The best response that we have worked to so far in our own organization is to begin to organize local communities to begin to take 

on that vigilance for themselves, that they can never at this time 

rely upon from government and official sources. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Chai Ling, if you could, ‘‘The act of petitioning an organizing on behalf,’’ this is your statement, ‘‘of missing 

children,’’ and that includes, obviously, those who have been trafficked, ‘‘is not considered a legal activity in China. Rather than 

helping parents find their sons and daughters, the government has 

been cracking down on these volunteers and detaining or imprisoning them.’’

Could you expand on the Chinese Government’s response? Is this 

something that the police have been involved in, the trafficking, 

perhaps, of these children? A member of IJM frequently testified 

here and said that there is an Achilles’ heel in all of our trafficking 

efforts, it’s often the police, particularly at the local level, who receive large sums of money, or they’re able to exploit the victims, 

themselves. 

And I’m wondering why, if a parent is looking for his or her child 

who has been sold into slavery, that they get penalized, and they 

end up doing time—perhaps, if you could speak to that issue? 

Ms. CHAI. Yes. The pictures in the PowerPoint presentation, 

those pictures are volunteers and victims’ families who are looking 

for their children. They were detained when they went to Beijing 

to protest, and to petition the government to pay attention to this 

issue. They were looking for assistance. They were put in detention 

for over 20 hours. 

However, in Putian City, within the Fujian province, the reason 

why we believe why there’s such a massive amount of child bride 

trafficking is because for over the past 30 years they have no police 

force or actions taking place, or government to prevent this kind 

of massive proliferation of child bride trafficking. We believe that 

might be a result of corruption between government officials and 

the family planning committee. Even family planning committee 

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members, they themselves are purchasing child brides as well, together with the local police force, and the traffickers. 

Mr. SMITH. In your opinion, is there a sufficient understanding 

and appreciation of what the one-child-per-couple policy has done 

among international policymakers, national and international, like 

the United Nations, the Human Rights Council, for example? 

I mean, it was 10 years ago that the U.S. Department of State’s 

Human Rights Report said that there may be as many as 100 million missing girls in China attributable to the one-child-per-couple 

policy, or largely attributable to it. And that’s 10 years ago, and the 

situation, apparently, has only gotten worse. 

Ms. CHAI. Yes. I personally was shocked to learn how pervasive 

the one-child policy has been, and I used to believe that I was a 

human rights expert for China. That is until I came to your November 2009 hearing on China’s one-child policy. My eyes were 

opened, and I realized this is the Tiananmen massacre taking place 

every single day, over 35,000 children are forcefully and coercely 

being eliminated. Many of them are girls. And now we see the clear 

impact of the one-child policy, because the one-child policy led to 

many other—400 million children killed in the past 30 years, and 

contributed to an imbalance of over 37 million single men that, as 

a result of the gendercide, and these 37 million additional single 

men in China right now have become the biggest driver of sex trafficking and crimes in China, and potentially around the world. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. CHAI. You’re very welcome. And I do believe that this is such 

an urgent matter that all policymakers, leaders from President 

Obama and the White House, and the leaders of both parties from 

the U.S. Congress and the leaders from the United Nations really 

need to rise up to take immediate urgent action to call for the leaders of China to end the one-child policy. 

On January 1, President Hu Jintao visited the United States, 

and he was challenged by Speaker Boehner, and Chairwoman 

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on the one-child policy, and he has stated that 

there’s no forced abortion in China, and most recently with China’s 

census study, China has clearly become old before it’s getting rich. 

This whole one-child policy is creating massive social crimes, instability within China which will impact the world for sure. President 

Hu continues to maintain that the one-child policy will not end for 

a very long period. So, it is really upon us, the leaders of the world, 

to end this crime, try to end the child trafficking, and trafficking 

in China, period. And also end the source of all evil that is onechild policy right now. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, certainly appreciate the testimony that I’ve reviewed, and the answers to questions raised by 

the chairman. 

The whole question in certain countries, and primarily I guess 

you, Ms. Rivard, there—I think airlines do know of where—I mean, 

the world knows where sex trafficking really goes on. Of course, it’s 

difficult to just try to take one person at a time to apprehend or 

arrest. I mean, it’s important because every child is important. But 

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the problem is so big that I wonder if you feel, in your opinion, that 

these countries simply look the other way and do you, which we 

know they do, but do you see any improvement today as say opposed to 20 years ago, or 15, 20, 10 years ago of destinations for 

sex exploitation where tourists go to the destinations? People know 

about Indonesia, for example. I understand that even in some of 

the Canary Islands, as quietly as it’s kept, it’s a big sex trafficking 

there. 

As a matter of fact, it was only in the last maybe 5 to 10 years 

that the Dominican Republic started to advertise its beaches. I 

mean, it has as much beautiful beaches as any other of the Caribbean Islands, but it wasn’t until recently that they built hotels on 

beaches, which meant that all of the trafficking, I mean, all of the 

tourism, by and large, say to the Dominican Republic was—much 

of it had to do with, you know, there was gambling, but also the 

prostitution. 

So, I guess my question is do you see any more, in your opinion, 

commitment on the part of governments, like in DR, or Indonesia, 

or places where it’s just known, any more commitment on their 

part to try to combat it, or do they accept it as a necessary evil for 

their national economy? 

Ms. RIVARD. Well, I do think that, for example, Mrs. Fernandez 

and the Dominican Republic cases, I laud her leadership as a Tier 

2 country to try to take some action on human trafficking. 

I think the big critical issue here is public awareness. I used to 

work those flights, New York-Dominican Republic, and see those 

girls on those flights, and noticed that they were very provocatively 

dressed, had no idea really about the issue of human trafficking 

until the last year. Now they’re calling Atlanta the new Thailand. 

They’re bringing in little Thai girls and putting up in hotels in Atlanta, and men can go to visit—have an exotic experience with a 

Thai girl and be home with their families for dinner that night. 

I know that I’ve become a lot more aware in the last 11⁄2 years, 

2 years, and I think it’s necessary that we who are becoming alert 

to the severity and atrocity of this problem on the planet help 

spread public awareness. And we need to do that to the airlines, 

we need to do the countries, airports, and the general public. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. I really commend you for the initiative 

that you took in creating this organization. 

The question of exploitation in minerals, you know, we passed 

the Conflict Minerals bill. It’s part of the Frank-Dodd Wall Street 

Reform Act, Section 1502, which I’m proud to be a co-sponsor of, 

and its current implementation process. The SEC has proposed 

that public companies disclose if and how they are involved in the 

manufacture, mining, or final end use of conflict minerals. 

Do you think that this legislation will be strictly enforced? I 

guess Mr. Bales, or Mr. Abramowitz would—as you know, when we 

started many years ago on the Conflict Diamond resolution, people 

said Congressman Payne, you’re not going to be able—how are you 

going to identify diamonds and so forth. So, many of us, Mr. Rangel, Mr. McDermott and others got involved in the conflict diamond 

law, which has had an impact, a good impact on the monitoring 

of—and elimination of some of the conflict diamonds. So, I wonder 

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what do you think about the Conflict Minerals bill, and what do 

you think that—how could we work toward making it meaningful? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Well, we very much welcome that bill. And 

we’re very supportive of it, and I think it helped to put some of 

those provisions—think through some of those provisions. 

I think it’s a first step, and I’ll point to two things. First is the, 

as I said in my testimony about the recent passage of the Transparency Law in California that covers all businesses over a certain 

size, requiring them to look and explain precisely how slave labor 

might be fitting into the products that they sell. 

Now, that doesn’t have any penalties to it. It simply requires 

that they put something on their Web sites and in their materials 

that explain, how they’re going to understand that and trace it, or 

to say at this moment that we’re not doing anything about it; 

which, of course, then holds them up to real question about the fact 

whether they actually care about whether they’re using slavery in 

their products. 

The point here is that that’s moving large-scale retailers, especially, and we’ve been in a series of talks with Walmart about how 

best to address the tracing of their supply chains. And it’s very 

much going to include conflict enslaved minerals from the Congo, 

as well. 

Mr. BALES. We’ve recommended that, along with the ATEST coalition, that that be considered to be brought into the TVPA Reauthorization. And we think that would be a great second step, one 

that allows the business community to act without any kind of 

rough stuff, as it were, on the legal side. But it gets people moving 

in the right direction. 

The second part is simply that I was just in Brazil, and I was 

actually looking at cassiterite mines run by artisanal miners, cassiterite being one of the key conflict enslaved minerals from the 

DRC. In Brazil in the Amazon, cassiterite mines run openly with 

cooperative well-paid miners who were very happy. 

It’s about both looking on the right side and on the wrong side, 

and helping to better identify those minerals that we’re happy to 

use, and making sure they get a premium to flow into the global 

supply chain. And as we begin to squeeze down and cutoff those 

that we’re very concerned about, while not harming the people at 

the bottom of that artisanal scale even when it exists in a place 

like the Congo. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Very briefly, I don’t have very much to add to 

what Mr. Bales said, but a couple of points. 

I think there is concern in the State Department about this provision, in particular because of the concerns that Mr. Bales was 

just referring to, that this could cause a number of companies to 

really try to figure out ways to stop purchasing from the DRC because they can’t guarantee that the minerals that they’re purchasing are not coming from these mines. 

There’s a number of new ideas that are being put forward. The 

one that Mr. Bales just presented about the idea of identifying good 

mines that you could focus business activity is one of them. And, 

in fact, there’s a dialogue that’s going on between the NGO community that Free the Slaves is participating in to look at it, and one 

of the issues is the mapping that was also required by the—you try 

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to actually map what’s going on, because I think that there’s a factual deficit that is making it more difficult. 

Finally, just one last point which is, I think that in many cases 

when you hear about reluctance by companies, there are a number 

of different reasons. And one is that people never know when 

they’re going to do enough. When is it that they can say yes, these 

are the measures I’ve taken in place, and being aren’t going to be 

asking me or criticizing me for doing more? 

And in that vain, we have a number of interesting developments, 

an agriculture bill that was passed a couple of years ago, create a 

consultative group that listed out different voluntary practices for 

how you could guarantee that you were not importing slave-made 

food into the United States. The Department of Labor is currently 

reviewing a set of standards for a variety of different sectors which 

once it’s put out, it’s been in the Department of Labor for a couple 

of years now, could give guidelines to companies to say hey, here’s 

a touchstone for us. And I think it is incumbent on us to try to figure out what some of those realistic standards would be to help 

those companies really implement things that could have real impact. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that ATEST does—I have a 

sheet of various different proposals from ATEST. That’s just on a 

two-page sheet, and I would ask that that be included in the 

record, if you would. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. I do think that that’s a good idea, that 

there could be an attempt to identify legitimate companies. 

I have had a number of meetings with President Kabila in the 

DRC, and the DRC itself does not benefit from these illegal operations. And, therefore, in my conversations with him, he would be 

looking for help in order to control these companies. Now, it’s very 

difficult because of the vastness and the U.N.’s mandate may not 

cover illegal mining, so it’s a pretty difficult situation to handle. 

But I do think that we should, perhaps, have more conversation, 

because they would know the legitimate companies, as opposed to 

the illegitimate ones. 

And even much of the—it’s alleged that some of the mining that 

is done by Rwandans in the DRC is not officially mandated by the 

government. It’s these former, as a matter of fact, as you know, the 

name of the group that went to Congo after the genocide and actually aligned themself in the old days with the Government of Congo 

to end the wars that occurred, into harm way and the ex-FAR who 

were there, but also some ethnic Rwandees that still are in that 

area. So, it is a complex area to sort out, but I do think that if we 

do concentrate we might be able to come up some better results. 

So I’m going to ask you to comment on—I’m not—that—don’t 

know that you’re totally familiar with Section 307 of the Tariff Act 

of 1930, which actually was passed, but it said that if there is a 

consumption demand by the U.S., if it’s something that the businesses just got to have, that the restrictions don’t apply, which is 

a big loophole. 

And I’m wondering if our Conflict Resolution Act will supersede 

this law, or whether we need to take another look at this, that 

94

things have changed since 1930. Whether we might look at trying 

to amend that consumption and demand section of the Tariff Act 

of 1930. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Well, Mr. Bales mentioned that in his testimony. Let me just say very briefly that that provision was originally designed to try to keep products out that were created with 

cheap labor that the U.S. couldn’t compete with. So, it was actually 

a sort of infant industry’s protection provision; therefore, there was 

this exception where it said if the companies in the United States 

needed that particular commodity, then it could be brought in without the exception. 

And, in fact, as Mr. Bales indicated, that is a proposal that’s in 

the ATEST proposals. It actually was in a Customs Enforcement 

and Trade Reauthorization Bill that was passed out of the Finance 

Committee last Congress that Senator Grassley and the chairman 

of the committee worked together on, but it did not move forward 

at the end of the last Congress. So, there is discussion actually 

going on in the Senate whether there should be some changes to 

that. And I think—I don’t know, Mr. Bales, do you want to add 

anything else? 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Also, as we know, the ILO in Geneva 

tend to take on these questions and try to tackle some of these 

issues. Are they, in your opinion, funded enough? How could we cooperate more with the ILO, or how can we make it more effective 

since it’s an organization that has been in existence for as long as 

the U.N. has. Is it strong enough? Does it need more beefing up? 

Do we participate in the ILO? You know, there are many international organizations we have not actively competed in, so how do 

we stand with the ILO, I mean, the International Labor Organization? 

Mr. BALES. We, in fact, particular well in the ILO, and are particularly well thought of there because of the long-term support of 

things like the IPECL Program, the International Program for the 

Elimination of Child Labor, which has been based on U.S. Government funding for many years now, since the Clinton administration. 

But when you ask what could it do better, or how could we help 

it to do better, one of the—there’s actually a fundamental problem 

in the organization of the ILO, which arises from the fact that it 

was established in 1919. It was established to represent labor bodies, employer bodies, and governments. So, it has a tripartite system representing people who should absolutely be there, employers, 

labor unions, and governments, but which fails now to take on the 

fourth major player on the global stage, which are the non-governmental civil society organizations. 

And it’s a curious fact that a great deal of the ILO publications 

that come from that tripartite system are actually written for them 

and produced by non-governmental organizations, which are not allowed to have an official role within the ILO. 

I’ve spoken with the ILO leadership about this, but it would be 

interesting if our Government were to say as its major funder we’d 

like you to consider including everyone at the table within the ILO. 

The other side of that is just there’s a bang for buck question. 

The U.N. and ILO salary levels are pretty significant compared to 

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say those of civil society, and you have to make some decisions 

about how those salary levels might balance up to what’s being 

provided. 

I will point to a number of places where the ILO has done brilliant work. And I’m thinking especially of Brazil at the moment, 

and the fact that on the 20th of this month there will be a new 

extension of the Brazil Pact for businesses which is a way to remove slave labor from the product chain. That will be launched 

here in Washington for North America on the 20th of this month 

sponsored by the ILO. That’s fantastic work. But, as you can see, 

it’s like, for all of us, it’s a mixed bag. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Mr. Payne, if I can just say briefly that I think 

you have to look at what instruments can be used for what purposes, at what time, in the best way. So, for example, just last 

week, the ILO’s committee that is looking at a number of different 

problems on the labor side concluded a convention that for the first 

time will regulate domestic work. 

As you may know, there’s been a tradition that individuals in the 

household, people who are providing childcare services, or household services are not considered workers because it’s a private matter within the household. And this has led to a great deal of exploitation all around the world. And under the auspices of the ILO, 

they recently concluded this convention that will, for the first time, 

institute reforms that, if adopted, will make that a much more difficult abuse to carry out. 

Is this something that the United States will become a party to? 

It’s unclear, there’s a lot of state law issues that are involved. It’s 

very complex when you’re talking about some of these types of 

issues. But the United States was very involved in negotiating the 

convention, and had a lot of expertise which helped create a framework which will, perhaps, allow our laws to come into harmony and 

bring in best practices that we have, as well as others. 

There are also some programs that they do that only the ILO can 

do. There are some countries that are concerned about various bilateral programs in various areas, only they can bring a multilateral effort. But I think that—I agree with Mr. Bales, you have to 

sort of look at each individual program and figure out where it is 

that you can invest and get the biggest bang for your buck. 

Thanks. 

Mr. PAYNE. This is my last question or two in regard, again, and 

I keep going to ILO. I worked on the docks in Newark for 4 years 

when I was in college, so that’s why I guess I slip up. However, 

and always have been concerned about maritime issues. 

One of the other inequities, of course, dealing with ILO and what 

they try to deal with, and it’s something that has gone on for decades, and decades, and that’s the so-called flags of convenience. 

As you know, there are three or four countries that certify their 

ships are seaworthy. Once again, an exploitation of workers. I 

think the shipping industry is probably one of the biggest exploitation of workers, whether it’s cruise ships, whether it’s companies, 

import/export. And the flags of convenience, of course, allow countries like Liberia, Panama, America, Carolinas or some countries 

that will certify that a ship is seaworthy and, therefore, is covered 

under the flags of convenience. And there was a great—I served on 

96

a World Refugee and Rehabilitation Committee in Geneva from ‘69 

to ‘81, and during that time a ship actually broke in half because 

it was sunk because it was not seaworthy, but it was approved 

under flags of convenience, approved in one of these countries that 

actually certifies that this ship is seaworthy, and that the conditions are so forth. And that’s something no one really wants to deal 

with. It’s something I think we should certainly still take a look at 

it. 

Interestingly enough, these countries’ companies are run by 

former U.S. naval officers. It’s been that way the last 50 years. It’s 

really a sham which nobody deals with. So, I just raise that. I 

mean, that’s a request because of serving not in part of it, but I 

see this, too, as being a part of exploitation of labor that countries 

are looking the other way and not dealing with the inhumane conditions of workers. 

Matter of fact, that goes way back to the Titanic, you know, 

when they looked at bodies to recover after the Titanic situation 

and crash. They would actually look at the fingernails of people to 

see if there was oil or grease under it, or their dress, when they 

decided which bodies to recover. Once again, the workers were just 

left, and we took the wealthy people, the passengers and so forth. 

So, we’ve had for many, many decades in that industry inequities. 

Once again, abuse, taking advantage of workers who are weak. 

Just have one last question. Ms. Cundy, in regard to the—and 

I really commend your company and what you do. There is no question that probably some of the most—we know that women are 

abused throughout the world, and in the U.S. they still only make 

I think it’s up to 72 cents on a dollar compared to men. When I 

came to Congress it was only 59 cents, so moving up, a little too 

slow, should be equal pay for sexes. But the industry certainly as 

we could just see here right in New York, we don’t have to go to 

Indonesia, you know, to see the inequities, or the pressure that domestics, as we could see California, the former Governor there, and 

with the problem at the hotel in New York with the former president of the World Bank. So, it’s probably not a secret in the industry that the people who work in cleaning, the maids and so forth, 

probably are subjected to this—if it happens on Fifth Avenue, you 

can imagine how it happens around the world. 

Is there—do you think that there could be an increased focus on 

even education so that these poor vulnerable women are protected, 

many of them immigrant people in countries, people that fear for 

their jobs? They many times are accused by the management if a 

customer approaches and abuses them, and they’re afraid to report 

it because many times then they become the victim, and may be 

terminated from employment. 

Is there anything that you all are doing, maybe even starting 

here in the U.S., in addition to what you’ve been doing traditionally? 

Ms. CUNDY. Well, we did sign the U.N. Global Compact which, 

of course, commits us to insuring that we have in place policies 

that respect human rights. And that is an international document. 

So, I would say that women are at risk around the world in any 

circumstance in which they find themselves vulnerable. I think 

that by training our hotel employees, men and women alike, about 

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this particular issue, it empowers them to a certain degree that 

they feel more confident that their company would not retaliate 

should they, themselves, run into an uncomfortable experience. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. BALES. Mr. Payne, if I may. 

Mr. PAYNE. Yes. 

Mr. BALES. I was very pleased that you raised that issue about 

flags of convenience, because we’ve been noticing a very significant 

increase in reports of slavery on ships, particularly on fishing vessels, and particularly in the Pacific and Southeast Asia region. 

Russian ships, in particular, but the number of reports continue to 

increase. 

It also seems to parallel what I think we’re all aware of, is that 

increasing piracy in the world’s oceans. And it’s—I agree with you, 

there’s a kind of shocking historical parallel here that we would be 

talking at the beginning of the 21st century about one of the key 

issues at the beginning of the 19th century, which was about how 

do we deal with ships that are carrying slaves? 

Now, it’s not slave trade any more, but it’s enslaved ship workers 

whose treatment is horrific, and we’ve had reports of simply the 

murder of workers on shipboard. And, of course, their bodies are 

very easy to dispose of at sea. 

It raises some very interesting questions, I think especially for 

the United States Government, in that we have from the very beginning of our Republic, a series of Supreme Court rulings that 

made it possible for ships that seem to have been carrying slaves 

to be confiscated by the Government based on, according to the Supreme Court ruling, circumstantial evidence of that, not direct evidence, as well as the fact that we, and particularly the British 

Navy took part in anti-slavery work of patrols looking for such 

ships that had slaves on board. 

There’s a question about whether our existing long neglected 

legal mandates in that direction actually would expect us to take 

on, again, the responsibility of dealing with people who are in slavery on board ships out at sea outside of our jurisdiction. 

I’d point you to the work of Tobias Wolff, a professor at the law 

school at Stanford, who has published on particularly that issue, 

and suggests that probably we should be considering what our responsibilities are in that way. Thanks. 

Mr. PAYNE. Well, you’re actually—as you may know, the abolition of transatlantic slavery was pushed, of course, originally by 

Mr. Wilberforce in Great Britain, and the U.S. finally also approved the abolition; although slavery continued, but there was a 

law that said that if taken at high sea they can be returned, and 

usually went to Sierra Leone. That’s what they called the Freetown, as the capital of Sierra Leone long before Liberia became a 

place for ex-enslaved people. 

I think that it is something that I, ironically, just happened to 

have spent several days in Connecticut a few days ago where they 

were commemorating Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, ‘‘Uncle Tom’s 

Cabin,’’ which exposed slavery in the United States, and Lincoln 

actually gave her credit for actually bringing this issue. It was a 

best seller, as a matter of fact, that year. And the Amistad, I think 

which was the case that John Quincy Adams came out of retireVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 02, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00101 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\061311\66898 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ment as a former President to take the case of these Caribbean 

enslaved people who overtook the Amistad, and won that case. 

That was the first case in American history that went toward people who had been in bondage. 

So, this is an area that I have had a long interest in, and certainly something that we are going to try to continue. There are 

many, many problems in the world, and we can’t deal with them 

all, but I think this is one that’s been around for a long time. And 

like I said, with the increase in piracy not only in the area of the 

Somali region, but in other parts of the world it’s happening, it’s 

increasing quietly. 

And the other problem with this is that in many instances, the 

health of the workers are not checked out, and diseases can be—

you’ve got products and persons who are working in these substandard conditions, certainly we’re having a hard time getting 

health care in the U.S., you know, for everyone, so you can imagine 

some people working in the bowels of a ship from Malaysia, or 

Singapore, or somewhere in Africa on these ships working. So, 

there are tremendous potential for catastrophic problems that can 

engulf us in this nation, and the world. So, it’s something I think 

we need to pay a little bit more attention to. 

Of course, as we know, resources are becoming more and more 

scarce for everything, so it’s difficult time to try to start a new initiative, that’s for sure, and we’re trying to hold on to what we have 

already, which is going to be diminished. 

So, these are just issues I think that will come up in the future, 

and I appreciate all of you for what you do to assist us in public 

policy to give us good ideas to try to put it into legislation and 

move forward. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Let me just conclude with a couple of 

very quick questions, and note that without objection a submission 

to the record from the United States Conference of Catholic 

Bishops, and testimony from Julia Ormond previously given here 

at the Helsinki Commission will also be made a part of the record 

from her group, ASSET. 

Let me just ask first to Mr. Kowalcyzk: 6.2 million signatures, 

50 countries—how do you choose what it is in each respective country that you will campaign on? Does the TIP Report help? 

And let me ask all the questions, and then please, all of you answer. Secondly, to Ms. Rivard, you pointed out that 30 young girls 

were headed from Zurich to Chicago on Swiss Air. Has Swiss Air 

shown an interest now in your training? You also mentioned the 

TSA attended the Airline Ambassadors training at Dallas/Fort 

Worth around the Super Bowl of last year. Does TSA normally get 

training, or is that something that needs to be institutionalized? 

Let me ask perhaps Mr. Bales and Mr. Abramowitz, if you would, 

SB 657, the California Transparency and Supply Chains Act of 

2010, obviously covers about, according to testimony we received, 

about 80 percent of the corporations; will that affect the corporations that are doing business, or as part of their supply chain coming out of DR Congo? What is the value-added of a Federal law? 

Is it that they report to the SEC? Do they get the other 20 percent? 

Is it that it is a Federal law? If you could speak to that. 

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And, finally, Mr. Abramowitz, you might want to speak to this, 

and this is a more generic question, but Nancy Ely-Raphel, John 

Miller, Mark Lagon, Luis CdeBaca, ambassadors, and the first, obviously, she was a director, all had an upward fight with other people in the State Department who simply did not want to recognize 

trafficking as a severe problem. 

There’s always this internal warfare that goes on within State, 

as you know; how do we get to the point where, at least for the 

first stage, the naming of the countries, is done based absolutely 

on the record of those countries’ performances, and whether or not 

part two, meting out punishments, that is to say penalties, that 

might be more of a political process based on what we think we 

might be able to achieve. 

But I know, regardless of the administrations, Bush administration, Clinton, although he left before it was implemented, Obama, 

his administration, there’s always this tension between the vested 

interest, the people who think that statecraft requires that human 

rights get subordinated to an asterisk on page four. And I’m deeply 

concerned about that. 

It seems like we’re always in this fight to get countries added to 

Tier III that ought to be on Tier III. You were very much a part 

of the effort to get the parking lot of being on the Watch List 2 

years, or you are lowered. We have this problem, and how can we 

fix it, if you have any thoughts along those lines? 

And one last question, Ms. Cundy. The concierges often are 

asked—in your video it was very clear that somebody who is being 

asked a question and he immediately saw that this was a problem—what kind of training do they get? Because very often they’re 

asked in a hotel where can we go for church, where can we go for 

entertainment, best restaurants, and certainly there needs—there’s 

an understanding by the concierges where the traffickers and the 

exploiters are. What kind of training do they get to ensure that 

they’re not wittingly or unwittingly being complicit in trafficking? 

Mr. KOWALCYZK. That’s a lot of questions, and I’ll tackle the first 

one, which has to do with the fact that it is a worldwide issue, and 

the needs around the world are different. 

The Body Shop’s ambition was not to become an expert in this 

subject, but to provide a platform to allow people around the world 

to have a common platform and a voice. For expertise, we relied 

on our partnership with ECPAT, as subject matter expert as it related to finding and helping to create action agenda items that 

were relevant for each country for the stage of development of 

where that country was. So, there are two or three things that I 

would point to. 

One of them is that while the topic is difficult no matter what 

country you bring it to, the response has been universally supported from both our customers’ point of view, and our associates’ 

point of view, which is terrific. 

Secondly, ECPAT exists on a worldwide basis, but it’s not the 

worldwide part of it, it’s the local connection points and the number of affiliates that they’re interacting with that lay out the objectives by country that have made a difference. 

We committed at the beginning of the campaign that we would 

make these objectives measurable and trackable, so we created a 

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scorecard. I’m sorry, we didn’t, ECPAT did in conjunction with support from The Body Shop, and the scorecard is something that allows us to be able to track, to make sure that progress, in fact, is 

being made. 

And third and finally, we also committed that a global report 

would be created in order to be able to, first of all, raise awareness 

and to allow for involvement. Secondly, to show that progress can 

happen, and it doesn’t happen at the same pace in every part of 

the world, but progress is progress. 

Ms. RIVARD. Yes. I wanted to point out that there is a need for 

coordination among law enforcement, and among airlines, and different sections of airlines. At our training, I didn’t specifically ask 

the TSA employee whether they received human trafficking training, but they were very anxious to do that, and to coordinate with 

the airport coordinator, with this SOC, Special Operations Command at American Airlines. 

The pilots said they didn’t receive any training like this, and lots 

of times if a flight attendant reported something they wouldn’t take 

it seriously. And sometimes they said when they called in a problem, that SOC didn’t take it—and let’s say the called for a medical 

emergency, and a wheelchair showed up, there is a need for coordinated response. I know some meetings were started called ‘‘Blue 

Lightning,’’ with Homeland Security, TSA, FBI, ICE, the airlines 

where we come up—and that’s what I’m asking for congressional 

review of our training, where we come up with a coordinated unified response among the issues. 

The other thing is, if there could be some kind of economic incentive for the airlines to sign ECPAT, because right now, I mean, 

there are a lot of people being trafficked, and somebody is paying 

for those tickets. The bottom line, the airlines are making money, 

and maybe they don’t want to disrupt that, or by taking a public 

stand make themselves a target to the cartels. 

If something is legislated, perhaps this would be a protection for 

them, and certainly creating an economic incentive for them to go 

in the right direction. 

Mr. BALES. I’m going to add a tiny bit to say when we conducted 

a piece of research with the National Institute of Justice on trafficking in the United States, one of the top needs we found was 

training across the board. 

We spoke to border patrol agents who ask us where can we get 

training, border patrol agents. So, I just strongly say TSA, Border 

Patrol, I think all Peace Corps volunteers should have anti-trafficking, anti-slavery training because they are going to be in places 

where they can recognize it. 

And I’ll just say that we’re even in talks with the Church of Latter Day Saints to have trafficking training for all the young people 

that they send out as missionaries around the world. We’re looking 

for anyone who is going door-to-door and talking to them about 

what kind of training we can see that would be effective. 

Now, in terms of the effectiveness, or the value-added of a Federal law patterned on that California law, I think there’s two parts. 

Obviously, the simple part is that it would cover those companies 

that are not operating in California. That goes without saying. But 

I think the key here is really about creating a culture, creating an 

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atmosphere in the United States in which corporations and consumers are working together and thinking through what they 

might do to ensure that they are not consuming slave-made goods. 

At the moment, we have something of a strange notion of a 

moral watershed on the supply chain. And most consumers believe 

that there’s some kind of moral watershed that separates them 

from the corporations, and the wholesalers, and the suppliers all 

the way back, that somehow being a consumer is a pure act, but 

every step before it is somehow to be tainted. But the fact is that 

there is a moral watershed, but it actually exists with the slaveholder and the slave master. Those criminals are guilty of enslavement. 

The people who come after, the suppliers, the transporters, the 

wholesalers, retailers, the consumers aren’t guilty, but they are all 

responsible. And it’s about creating that atmosphere and culture of 

responsibility that we think that that kind of transparency lies, a 

first step to build that culture of responsibility. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Mr. Chairman, just adding to that before I 

turn to your second question to us. I think that there is also a difference having this kind of a transparency provision at the Federal 

level. First of all, there is a role that the SEC can play that in 

terms of someone who can look at this issue, not that they’ll be 

spending a huge amount of resources, but they can have some impact on looking at the various different disclosures that are made. 

Second of all, I think it’s different if you’re trying—one of the 

things that I think the TVPA was just marvelous at is that it created a standard by which other countries were forced to look at, 

and see that they needed to improve their own internal work on 

the particular issues that you so masterly brought through Congress. 

So, if we have a California state law, it’s one thing. If we have 

a U.S. Federal law, it’s the demonstration effect. It’s the ability to 

go to other countries and say you need to be regulating your companies, which will force them to be looking at the supply chains 

within their own countries; which, frankly, as we’ve been discussing all afternoon is really where a lot of these significant issues 

come about. 

I think that you raise a very delicate issue in terms of the State 

Department, and how we look at it. As I indicated in my testimony, 

we need to improve the overall unity of effort within the State Department. 

The Trafficking in Persons Office has done, I think, a marvelous 

job throughout its time, and it’s in part due to some of the very 

strong leadership that the office has had over the course of its existence. But we need greater effort from both the regional bureaus 

that are responsible for the bilateral relations, as well as the Embassies, and the ambassadors, themselves. So, a couple of points. 

First, I do think we have to think about this in historical perspective. I was not here at this time. I think you were a little bit 

closer to it, but when the Human Rights and Democracy Bureau 

was first created under the Carter administration, as I understand 

it, it was very, very difficult. They had a long time where they were 

completely pushed aside, and really had no strong role in the policy 

formulation process. 

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People can question how much progress they’ve made, but I 

think they are very much in the mainstream of the State Department, and have very important roles, whether it’s in international 

negotiations dealing with a variety of different issues that are difficult to work on. So I think that even though 10 years is a decade, 

still I think the life of this office within the institution is short. We 

need to continue to have strong leadership, continue to sustain it, 

continue to provide it resources. 

Second, I think that we need to help generate more data. One of 

the proposals that I didn’t discuss, but it’s in my testimony, is 

about giving G/TIP the ability to do certain targeted research in 

certain places. If there is data that is irrefutable, it makes it more 

difficult for the political lens to be put on to issues. So, data which, 

of course, is a huge struggle in this area, as several different members of the panel have referred to today, is something that to continue working on, including in our own country. 

Third, in terms of trying to look at how we can improve the State 

Department, and looking at the whole effort, one hopes that there 

will continue to be senior leadership at the Department, and that 

questions regarding human trafficking are raised as confirmation 

processes move forward. 

I’m in a conversation with ATEST members to try to come up 

with a battery of questions that we can try to provide to the Senate 

Foreign Relations Committee as a way of making sure that they 

understand that for every ambassador, there is going to be some 

accountability with respect to the Senate and members of the Senate. 

I think that extends here, too. You know, schedules are very 

challenging here, but when there are Assistant Secretaries of State 

from the regional bureaus who come before the committee, I think 

you or others who are interested in this issue, raising this issue not 

only in questions for the record, but actually orally raising these 

kinds of issues can indicate that this is an issue that’s not going 

away, that they have to deal with this issue in order to try to succeed in their positions. 

I think that people in the State Department are generally people 

of goodwill. They all believe that these abuses are heinous. It’s 

when they try to look at these issues in this broader perspective; 

but, honestly, the very wide range of issues, that it becomes difficult for them, say why should we be singling this out as an issue 

that we should have sanctions on, as opposed to all the other complicated issues that I have to deal with everyday. And we need to 

change that calculus, perhaps through some of the ways that I just 

described. Thanks. 

Ms. CUNDY. Mr. Chairman, if a guest asks a concierge for some 

kind of sexual services which are illicit, they’re instructed to not 

provide recommendations. If a guest asks for some other kind of 

entertainment in a similar vein which is legal, they might be instructed to go to a certain club, or disco, that type of a thing. But 

I don’t know, I guess it was Mr. Bales who mentioned the realistic 

standards and the supply chain. It’s just hard to know whether or 

not at any of these establishments the workers are there voluntarily, or if they’re coerced, or victims of trafficking. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Okay. 

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One final question, and that is to Chai Ling and that would be, 

it is in my experience, rightly or wrongly, that when it comes to 

China, very often human rights are low on the totem pole, as I say. 

Right before the Olympics, Frank Wolf and I traveled to China, 

and we brought a list of 732 political prisoners, we brought issues 

related to trafficking. The person, the woman who was handling 

trafficking for the Embassy was outstanding, crackerjack, knew 

what she was talking about. We brought up other issues of Internet 

problems, the censorship issue, the Dalai Lama, all the religious 

freedom issues, tried to meet with house church people, were denied it. They were all arrested except for one. It was their call that 

they wanted to meet with us. 

The point was, when we met with the U.S. Ambassador, he, very 

noble person, was more concerned, it seemed, as to what venue he 

was going to be attending, track and field, or some other, than the 

human rights, the whole basket of issues, including human trafficking. 

Fast forward to right now, we have just picked, or the U.S. administration has picked, a new ambassador who is very, very focused on trade, an accomplished man when it comes to commerce, 

having headed up Commerce. 

Do you have concerns that our Embassy is not responsive to the 

one-child issue, in general, and its impact on trafficking? Luis 

CdeBaca, I believe, gets it, and is very concerned about that issue, 

and sees the nexus with one-child policy and its impact, consequentially, on trafficking victims, and it’s only going to get worse. But 

are you convinced that the new ambassador being deployed gets it, 

because the past has been, regardless of illustration, less than stellar, at least from my point of view, and past is over prologue. 

Ms. CHAI. Well, thank you, Chairman Smith. I really appreciate 

the opportunity to just focus the spotlight on China again, that in 

the past China’s human rights abuses have been left mostly at the 

level of lip service, very little action has been taken. And the most 

recent article in Newsweek discussed a nation with men without 

women, and really revealed the serious implications of a country 

with such a massive quantity of excess young men who are restless, and potentially can lead to a very aggressive military expansion policy. History has proven from those scholars and experts 

that for countries like Germany and Japan, when they have male 

youth bulge, imbalance tends to lead to international war. 

So, that’s the situation we’re really facing with China. As we 

start making this argument connecting the current massive human 

right abuses under one-child policy with the threat to our future 

and our peace, both to the United States and to also the world at 

large, we have seen renewed interest from both parties’ congressional leaders. I just met with Ambassador Verveer before I came 

to the hearing. She has also expressed interest to form a bipartisan 

coalition to really address this issue. And she expressed that if we 

get together we could potentially stop this once and for all. 

So, I am excited with a cautious optimism, but I want to thank 

you for your hearing, and your commitment, and your three-decade 

long leadership on this issue. You have been doing this consistently, even though sometimes you’re alone. But you have not given 

up, so I thank you for your leadership. 

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Can I add one more thing? About how China’s one-child policy 

is leading to trafficking to the United States, if I may. We have 

cases which have not been resolved in which Chinese women under 

the one-child policy, to escape, come to the United States to have 

a chance to give birth to a son, but they end up being trafficked 

into this country. Their traffic route is through Mexico, and typically they are raped repeatedly, and they eventually are trafficked 

in through buses, and then to New York. And now we don’t exactly 

know their final location. 

Once they arrive in New York, they’re immediately harassed, they say they have to pay up to $90,000 for the trafficking fee, but 

they don’t have the money, so they have to commit to service; otherwise, the rape pictures will be sent to their home and family, so 

they’ll be shamed forever in their villages. So, they are coerced into 

agreeing to a labor contract, but they are currently working in Chinese restaurants, and for the past year they were only paid $10,000 

when they work 6, 7 days a week, and 16-hours a day. 

So, when we share this information with the FBI, local police enforcement, due to various definitions of trafficking, whether they 

are qualified for visa issue, and who—because these women were 

so afraid to be deported back to China—they were not able to tell 

us exactly where the location is. And the FBI, law enforcement 

could not determine whose jurisdiction, authority we can go after 

to try to get these women help. 

So, I urge you and other congressional leaders, and Congressman 

Payne to maybe potentially look into some kind of amnesty, or to 

grant these women a chance to be protected while they step forward to reveal what’s really going on. And the FBI officer would 

require them to come to testify in public. And, again, these women 

are terrified. They don’t want to step forward, because they know 

once they do that, some of their family members in China will be 

dead. And it has happened before. 

So, I’d like to see some kind of protection to be given to these 

women so they can at least step forward to talk about the severity 

of this international trafficking ring. Now the issue is not just China’s gangsters, but they’re connecting with gangsters in Mexico, 

and to this country, so we don’t know how big a problem we’re 

dealing with right now, but certain effort, and attention, and international collaboration need to take place to provide these victims 

some chance to speak out of the truth. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. They can get protection under our current law, but you can share all of that very specific information. 

They could also get asylum. And, frankly, if they are of some help 

to law enforcement, it would be appreciated, but we’ll follow up on 

that with you. 

Anything further our panelists would like to add, or Mr. Payne? 

Mr. PAYNE. Just on that also, in testifying they can—I think arrangements could be made that they could testify without their 

identity being known. There are international cases in Arusha with 

the genocide in Rwanda where the witness is protected from knowing who it is. 

Secondly, I just have a quick question. If the Government of 

China realizes what is happening, and with the growing gender 

disparity between male and female, there can certainly be a real 

105

problem on your hands with young men who are restless. One, they 

turn to gambling. Two, they turn to drinking. After they are drunk 

and they lost their money, then they turn to fighting. So, this can 

be a growing security problem for the PRC. 

I wonder if you think that—we all know it, and they all know 

it, and if they project the anomaly that will continue to grow, do 

you think that they would finally decide that perhaps this policy 

of encouraging, and much of it, I guess, is inferred, a person would 

like to have a boy. I mean, it’s all around the world, even in the 

United States. I had a friend say, ‘‘It’s a boy,’’ I said, ‘‘Well, what 

would you say if it was a girl?’’ Be as enthusiastic. So, we know 

that that is just what happens everywhere. 

But if it starts to become a real problem, they can’t put them all 

in—you can’t have a military of 50 million people. I mean, you’ve 

got to do something with these men. So, I wonder if they will start 

thinking about maybe amending, only not because they’ve changed 

in their heart, but because it becomes a massive security problem 

for them. 

What do you think? I mean, maybe too far in the future, but it 

has to be something that they know, too, and are grappling with, 

I’m sure. 

Ms. CHAI. Exactly, I think. Congressman Payne, we thank you 

for your statement, and your sense of urgency. That’s exactly the 

problem we’re facing right now, that even the Federal Government’s Family Planning Committee member last October showed 

concerns of this growing gender imbalance, and their strategy and 

policy is they’re going to go after these people who abort the baby 

girls very severely. 

So, on one hand we applaud their paying attention to this problem right now. So, they’re two-fold. One is ending one-child policy 

as soon as possible. It’s really a necessary step to basically ending 

that growing gap of gender imbalance, to end sex trafficking, and 

massive potential social instability. That’s the first and foremost 

need and it should be done. 

The second front on the gendercide part is to combat China’s, or 

Asians’ overall culture of son preference. Yes, all cultures have 

some level of son preference or male preference, but to what extent 

will the female side, the girl, the women be sacrificed in exchange 

for getting their son? 

Under the one-child policy, where only one child is allowed to 

survive, the whole practice, that whole culture led to massive killing of baby girls. 

On June 1st, we showed another little clip of a documentary 

where in India, a mother killed eight of her own baby girls, because 

she really want to have a son. So, in China many of these killings 

are taking place in a very early stage when they detect they are 

pregnant with a baby girl. They abort the baby girl, or the mother 

after she found she just gave birth to a baby girl, she will be immediately locked up, the baby girl will be grabbed out of her arms, 

and she’ll be disposed of by the husband or the mother-in-law. 

And in that video tape you saw that young couple who did not 

have a birth permit, but gave birth to a baby girl. And when the 

baby girl was only 40 days old she was forced to be sold. So, these 

are massive problems creating the issue we’re dealing with right 

106

now, a crisis of what do we do with China’s 37 million single men? 

What do we do with 163 million men around the world? 

Trafficking definitely is not going to be a problem going away 

overnight, but it requires a level of urgency both from congressional leaders, and also from those in the private sector, and the 

NGOs. So, I commend all of you who are here for your moral leadership, and your amazing commitment to this effort. 

Mr. PAYNE. Well, thank you very much. And I think it’s something that we need to deal with worldwide on the value of women. 

Even in our country, when you hear a descendant of say a former 

President, you know, it’s usually the one that keeps the name, the 

male, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They were kind 

of related. When it tends to be a female, too many instances the 

name—there could still be as many relatives of the former outstanding people in every country, but it seems like if you have that 

last name of this outstanding President, or King, or Emperor that 

gets more attention, like the Habsburgs in Austria. It’s a 

Habsburg, you know that it’s usually the man. But there has to be 

as many female Habsburgs, but you never see them highlighted. 

You don’t even know who they are. Somebody came up to me and 

said, ‘‘I’m a Habsburg,’’I said, ‘‘Oh, great.’’ But the men you do 

know. So, it’s a problem I guess no bigger than the group of us here 

will be able to solve, but it is something that we need to—hopefully, it will take hold in some international organizations and really the status of women, just in general. It shows how damaging the 

second-class citizenship of women really has global impacts. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. I’d like to thank our very distinguished panel, extraordinary panel of experts for your insights and wise council to 

help us. You’ve been very, very generous with your time today, and 

the subcommittee is very appreciative of that. And you’ve given us 

a number of actionable items for the reauthorization which is imminent. So, I do thank you especially for that, and look forward to 

seeing you all again. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 6:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE LUIS CDEBACA, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE, OFFICE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE


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f


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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MS. NANCY RIVARD, PRESIDENT AND

FOUNDER, AIRLINE AMBASSADORS INTERNATIONAL


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f


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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MR. DAVID ABRAMOWITZ, DIRECTOR OF

POLICY AND GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, HUMANITY UNITED


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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS


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Æ


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