U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

87–712PDF 2014

EFFECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: TIER RANKINGS IN

THE FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 29, 2014

Serial No. 113–193

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

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

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Mark Lagon, global politics and security chair, master of 

science in Foreign Service Program, Georgetown University (former Ambassador-at-Large for Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State) ............ 7

Mr. Brian Campbell, director of policy and legal programs, International 

Labor Rights Forum ............................................................................................. 17

Mr. Blair Burns, vice president of regional operations, Southeast Asia, International Justice Mission ...................................................................................... 44

Ms. Nathalie Lummert, director, Special Programs, Migration and Refugee 

Services, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops .................................................. 53

Wakar Uddin, Ph.D., director general, Arakan Rohingya Union ........................ 71

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Mark Lagon: Prepared statement ................................................ 10

Mr. Brian Campbell: Prepared statement ............................................................. 20

Mr. Blair Burns: Prepared statement .................................................................... 48

Ms. Nathalie Lummert: Prepared statement ........................................................ 56

Wakar Uddin, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................................. 75

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 96

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 97

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

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

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: 

Written statement for the record by Ms. Mara Hvistendahl ............................ 98

Written statement for the record by Nora E. Rowley, M.D., M.P.H. ............... 101

(1)

EFFECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: TIER 

RANKINGS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST 

HUMAN TRAFFICKING 

TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. 

Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order. 

Good afternoon and welcome. 

First of all, let me apologize for the lateness in convening this 

hearing. We did have a series of votes. And so, I do apologize for 

that delay. 

Welcome to this afternoon’s hearing on the power of holding 

countries accountable in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, 

including its tier rankings, for government successes or failures in 

the fight against human trafficking. 

Experts have observed that there are more slaves in the world 

today than at any previous time in history. With the Trafficking in 

Persons Report and tier rankings, the United States is ensuring 

more accountability and progress, more than ever we believe, in the 

fight to rid the world of modern-day slavery. 

Many joining us this afternoon have been in this fight for more 

than a decade, at least from the year 2000, when a law that I authored, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, created a comprehensive policy that not only established the Office to Monitor 

and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the Department of State, but 

also the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. 

The success of the TIP Report and rankings is beyond anything 

we could have hoped for at the time. From presidential suites to 

the halls of parliaments, to law enforcement assets and police stations in remote corners of the world, this report focuses anti-trafficking work in 187 countries on pivotal goals of prevention, prosecution of the traffickers, and protection for the victims. 

Much of the praise for the success of the TIP Report is due to 

the incredibly effective Ambassadors-at-Large who have led the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and their highly-dedicated staff. Ambassador Mark Lagon is one of them, and he 

2

is here with us today. We are honored to have him and look forward to hearing from him with his testimony. 

Each year the trafficking office evaluates whether a government 

of a country is fully complying with the minimum standards for the 

elimination of human trafficking or, if not, whether the government 

is making significant efforts to do so. The record is laid bare for 

the world to see and summarized in a tier rankings narrative. Tier 

1 countries fully meet the minimum standards. Tier 2 countries do 

not meet the minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to do so. Tier 3 countries do not meet the standards and are 

not making significant efforts to do so. Along with the embarrassment of being listed on Tier 3 as an egregious violator, such countries are open to sanctions by the United States Government. 

Over the last 14 years, mor than 100 countries have enacted 

anti-trafficking laws, and many countries have taken other steps 

required to significantly raise their tier rankings. Some countries 

openly credit the TIP Report as a key factor in their increased and 

effective anti-trafficking response. 

We created the Tier 2 Watch List in the 2003 TVPA reauthorization. This list was intended to encourage good-faith anti-trafficking 

progress in a country that may have taken positive anti-trafficking 

steps late in the evaluation year. Unfortunately, some countries 

made a habit of last-minute efforts and failed to follow through 

year after year, effectively gaming the system. 

To protect the integrity of the tier system and ensure it worked 

properly to inspire progress in the fight against human trafficking, 

Congress in 2008 created an automatic downgrade for any country 

that had been on a Tier 2 Watch List for 2 years, but had not 

taken significant effort enough to move up a tier. 

The President can waive the automatic downgrade for an additional 2 years if he has certified ‘‘credible evidence’’ that the country has a written and sufficiently-resourced plan which, if implemented, would constitute significant efforts to meet the minimum 

standards. 

Last year was the first test of the new system, and it worked. 

China, Russia, and Uzbekistan ran out of waivers and moved to 

Tier 3, which accurately reflected their records. In this afternoon’s 

hearing, we will evaluate whether these countries have made any 

significant progress over the last year. I am particularly concerned 

that China’s trafficking crisis continues unabated. 

The recent U.N. Commission of Inquiry report on North Korea 

provides horrifying evidence of the trafficking of North Korean 

women to China for sex, brides, and labor. I would note, parenthetically, that I have chaired at least five hearings that we have 

heard trafficking victims tell their story, North Korean women, the 

lucky ones who are finally free from the slavery that they found 

when they crossed the border into China. 

An estimated 90 percent of North Korean women seeking asylum 

in China are trafficked for these reasons. Thousands of women a 

year leave desperate situations in North Korea, only to end up in 

a brothel or forced marriage, a tragic and astonishing fact. 

China’s response has not been to provide protection for victims 

or to prosecute traffickers, and they are signers of the refugee convention, and they completely abrogate their responsibilities of 

3

refoulement under the refugee convention. They hunt down and repatriate North Koreans, send them back to hard labor, long 

imprisonments, and even execution. 

North Korean women are not the only victims. By 2020, more 

than 40 million Chinese men will be unable to find wives in China 

because of China’s shortsighted and abusive one-child policy, 

which, coupled with modern abortion technology has triggered the 

mass abortion of tens of millions of baby girls, a human rights 

abuse in and of itself. Sex-selective abortions have also created a 

huge trafficking magnet, pulling victims into forced marriages and 

brothels from countries in proximity to China and beyond. 

China’s extremely modest and overly hyped suggestion that it 

might relax the Draconian one-child-per-couple policy is unlikely to 

mitigate disaster and may be further counteracted by the spread 

of sex-selection abortion technology to even more of rural China. 

Whether the birth limitation is one child or two children in special 

cases, birth limitation policies constitute abuse, cruelty, and exploitation without precedent or parallel for baby girls and, by extension, the rest of society. 

The Government of China is failing not only to address its only 

trafficking problems, but is creating an incentive for human trafficking in the whole region. Although she could not join us today, 

renowned author Mara Hvistendahl, author of Unnatural Selection: 

Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full 

of Men, will be submitting testimony for the record specifically on 

the effect of the sex ratio imbalance as the cause of human trafficking and the proliferation of marriage agencies in China which 

traffic women from poorer countries into China and sell them into 

marriage. 

The hearing this afternoon will also take a look at a second set 

of countries this year that must be automatically downgraded unless they have made significant efforts to fight human trafficking. 

These countries include Thailand, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Chad, 

Barbados, and Maldives. Burma may receive a Presidential waiver 

in order to avoid a downgrade to Tier 3, but the facts on the ground 

don’t justify that course of action. 

Cutting across Burma, Thailand, and Malaysia is the tragic 

plight of the Rohingya minority. Rohingya are leaving Burma by 

the thousands to escape religious persecution. However, according 

to reports put out by Reuters, Thai authorities are selling Rohingya 

to human traffickers, where they are held in tropical gulags until 

relatives pay ransom. Those who cannot pay the ransom are sold 

into sex slavery or hard labor and may die from abuse or disease. 

Thai authorities have done little to stop this practice. Their efforts 

at prevention and prosecution are said to be losing steam. 

Rohingya are often trafficked to Malaysia, where they are exploited for labor, the sad fact is that many Rohingya, a persecuted 

Sunni Muslim minority in Burma, hope to find refuge in Malaysia, 

a majority Muslim country. Burma is the source of Rohingya trafficking in the region. Policies of discrimination, child limitation, 

forced birth control, and violence push Rohingya minority to leave 

Burma and leave them as vulnerable refugees. 

The Burmese Government is culpable in this trafficking and the 

regional problems that their policies create. The Burmese GovernVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:09 Sep 30, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042914\87712 SHIRL
4

ment has done little to stop trafficking of these individuals. Reports 

indicate that authorities profit from the sale of Rohingya traffickers 

and women are held at military bases as sex slaves and many men 

are used for forced labor. Though these practices have gone on for 

many years, I believe they are underreported in the State Department’s TIP Report. 

Displaced by war and the Burmese military, women and children 

from the Kachin tribe in Burma are also subjected to human trafficking. Roija, an 18-year-old woman living in an IDP camp in 

northern Burma, was lured to China with the promise of a restaurant job. Once in China, she was bussed to a rural village and 

locked in a room. According to her testimony, she cried for 3 days 

and begged those around her to let her go. She was told to just give 

up and was sold as a bride for $5,312. 

The importance of accurate tier ratings in TIP Report country 

profiles cannot be overstated. That is why we are having this hearing. Again and again, we have seen countries turn 180 degrees and 

begin the hard work of reaching the minimum standards after the 

TIP Report accurately exposed with a Tier 3 rating and a truthful 

country report of each country’s failure to take significant action 

against human trafficking. 

I will never forget two of our closest allies, Israel and South 

Korea, both were on Tier 3. I remember meeting with their Ambassadors who had files demonstrating to all of us and anyone who 

would listen, especially the TIP office, what measures they were 

taking to mitigate this terrible crime, these crimes that were occurring under their watch. And both of those countries got off Tier 3 

when they took substantive action. 

So, this hearing is an attempt to further inform all of us and, by 

extension, the TIP office, of your concerns, experts in the field, and 

I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

I would like to yield to Dr. Bera. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Chairman Smith. 

And I know Ranking Member Bass is on her way, after votes, 

here. So, I will defer and let her make an opening statement. 

I just want to applaud the committee on your commitment, Mr. 

Chairman, and dedication to mitigating human trafficking. We 

have had a number of hearings, both here in the subcommittee as 

well as the full committee hearing. As the examples you pointed 

out, there is nothing more inhumane or reprehensible than human 

trafficking and our values as Americans clearly reflect the need 

that we have to stand up for the values that we hold dear the value 

of the dignity of life. 

Human trafficking occurs in virtually every country around the 

world, despite our efforts to end this horrible injustice. According 

to the International Labor Organization, nearly 21 million people 

were human trafficking victims in 2012, and traffickers receive 

more than $32 billion a year. 

Tragically, our own country is no exception to this, with an estimated 300,000 children at risk each year in the United States for 

commercial sexual exploitation. This is a particularly important 

issue to me because it is a challenge in my home town of Sacramento. 

5

Sacramento is among the top U.S. cities that suffer from human 

trafficking, particularly childhood prostitution. And Sacramento, 

unfortunately, because of its location and many transportation 

routes, often becomes an entry point for other areas of the country. 

As we have discussed in this committee previously, one way the 

State of California is working on combating human trafficking is 

making sure there are lots of eyes on the ground. That is by training the public to look for those warning signs, so that they can be 

vigilant and notify authorities. This training certainly is incredibly 

important because, again, there is no more reprehensible crime, 

but we have got to raise that community awareness. So, again, we 

have those folks in the neighborhoods looking for signs of suspicious activity. 

In addition, employing a victims-centered approached where victims have access to social services and are empowered to take actions and steps toward the right direction in mitigating human 

trafficking. Again, it is very important for us to not revictimize the 

victims, but to help them rebuild their lives. 

Since the State Department’s reports were first launched, 120 

countries have established anti-human trafficking laws. In this regard, it is incredibly important that the State Department continue 

to place countries in appropriate tiers, so we can find better ways 

to cooperate and stop trafficking, both internationally and at home. 

It is that leverage of proper tier placement that is very important, 

and I look forward to hearing about that from the witnesses. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Dr. Bera. Thank you for your 

comments, and I look forward to working with you even further on 

this important issue. 

I would like to now yield to Randy Weber, the vice chairman of 

the subcommittee and, also, the author of the trafficking law in 

Texas, when he was a member of the legislature there. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to echo my colleague down there, the good doctor’s comments about it is a terrific scourge and it is something that needs 

to be stamped out. In Texas we understood that. 

You know, they call a lot of the buyers of sex, actually, purchasers of sex, or POSes. And I told the last panel, I said, ‘‘We call 

them ‘POS’ in Texas, too, but it is not the exact same connotation.’’ 

And offline, I might tell you what that stands for. 

But, yes, we had a very important bill, House Bill 4009, in the 

Texas Legislature where we strengthened the definition of human 

trafficking, where we increased the penalties of human trafficking, 

where we made sure that law enforcement knew that these young 

girls that are pressed into slavery, basically, aren’t always willing 

prostitutes, for example. Then, you dig deeper, look deeper. 

We actually made a Web site with HHSC, the Health and 

Human Services Commission, where they put it up online and they 

brought together all the NGOs and the different organizations and 

law enforcement, where they could go to get training. We had 

three, I think it was either three or four, seminars around the 

State each year where they would go and hear speakers, hear 

about the background. 

We like to say that everything is bigger and better in Texas, and 

it certainly is. Unfortunately, though, in this particular realm, we 

6

hold the record. Twenty-five percent of the human trafficking in 

this country is in Texas, and that is not one of the records that we 

want. And so, we set about to do something different, to change 

that. 

So, I applaud you all for being here, and I applaud, Mr. Chair, 

you for putting this hearing on, and look forward to what the witnesses have to say. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. I would just say that those who are at risk or victims 

are safer because of the work you did, landmark work, in Texas. 

I would like to now introduce our distinguished panel, beginning 

first with Ambassador Mark Lagon, who was the Ambassador-atLarge from 2007 to 2009 in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. 

Ambassador Lagon went on to become executive director and 

CEO of the anti-trafficking nonprofit, the Polaris Project. Currently, Ambassador Lagon is the global politics and security chair 

at Georgetown University’s master of science in Foreign Service 

program and adjunct senior fellow for human rights at the Council 

on Foreign Relations. 

Then, we have Mr. Brian Campbell, who is responsible for International Labor Rights’ foreign policy, legal and legislative advocacy, 

and runs its campaign to end child labor. 

For several years, Mr. Campbell has led advocacy efforts in statesponsored forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry, working 

closely with child labor NGO partners in Uzbekistan to elevate the 

role of civil society in the country, promote enforcement of existing 

laws, policies, and standards that protect workers’ core labor 

rights, and develop and improve legal and soft law instruments. 

We will, then, hear from Mr. Blair Burns, who is vice president 

of the Regional Operations for Southeast Asia at the International 

Justice Mission, where he oversees IJM’s work in Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines to bring freedom and justice to victims 

of human trafficking and sexual assault. 

He also leads IJM’s local and national strategies to reform the 

justice systems in these countries to ensure protection to the poor 

from violence. 

Prior to his role, Mr. Burns worked with IJM in India, where he 

led a team to rescue more than 700 people from slavery. 

I note, parenthetically, that IJM worked very closely with me 

and my staff, and with Mark Lagon over on the Senate side, when 

we were writing this legislation. And Gary and the rest of the team 

really had a great impact on the legislation, and I want to thank 

them for that. 

Then, we will hear from Ms. Nathalie Lummert, who is director 

of special programs with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 

Migration and Refugee Services, where she manages initiatives relative to unaccompanied children and trafficking victims and immigrant detention. 

She has over 15 years of experience with forced migration issues 

and is an expert in case management, program development, and 

advocacy for various migrant populations. 

7

Prior to her work at the USCCB, Nathalie worked with the 

UNHCR and with at-risk populations, such as the homeless and 

runaway youth. Thank you, too, for your leadership. 

And finally, we will hear from Dr. Wakar Uddin, who is the director general of the Rohingya Union, where he is a key leader and 

advocate for Rohingya citizenship in Burma and for international 

political and humanitarian support of the people. 

He is also a founder and chairman of the Burmese Rohingya Association of North America, which works closely with various organizations to ensure the welfare of refugees and immigrants in the 

United States and in Canada. 

Ambassador Lagon, if you could provide your testimony? 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK LAGON, GLOBAL POLITICS AND SECURITY CHAIR, MASTER OF SCIENCE IN FOREIGN SERVICE PROGRAM, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 

(FORMER AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR TRAFFICKING IN 

PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE) 

Ambassador LAGON. Chairman Smith, members of the committee, I thank you very much for inviting me. It is a special pleasure to look at the upcoming Trafficking in Persons Report with the 

legislator most responsible for putting that tool in the policy toolbox for the United States. 

This is an issue of robustly bipartisan concern, and I want to say 

I am pleased to see President Obama’s personal engagement in the 

annual meetings of the Presidential Interagency Task Force on 

Trafficking. He used the occasion on April 8th to focus on victim 

protection, and I would like to say a word about that a bit later. 

Secretary Kerry and his team at the State Department deserve 

praise for going through with automatic downgrades of Russia, 

China, and Uzbekistan to Tier 3 in the TIP Report last year. 

I would like to speak to a few countries of particular concern 

meriting close scrutiny this year. 

Malaysia is among those countries that face an automatic downgrade to Tier 3. It desperately needs to amend its anti-trafficking 

law to allow victims to live, travel, and reside outside of government facilities. It needs to increase efforts to prosecute fraudulent 

labor recruiters, and it needs to increase training to avoid government complicity in trafficking. 

Thailand, in Southeast Asia, is also on the cusp of an automatic 

downgrade. I would just like to say, as an aside, I think Thailand 

is an example, I found personally, of perhaps an unfortunate addition to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, in the 2013 reauthorization that the House acceded to, drafted by the Senate. It 

gives credit in the minimum standards to countries that have conferences and partnerships with NGOs and other entities. Well, you 

know, I have worked with the Global Business Coalition Against 

Human Trafficking. I believe in partnerships. But when I went to 

speak at a conference in Thailand on Rule of Law last fall, that is 

not evidence that Thailand is doing more. Government action is 

what matters. 

Reuters reported this month that the Thai Government had 

shared statistics with the United States on human trafficking, but 

their veracity is suspect, particularly for the reason that the 

8

Rohingya people trafficked from Burma don’t seem to be counted. 

They seem to be treated as human smuggling victims. 

In this region of Southeast Asia, one sees a particularly acute 

problem in the seafood sector. I testified before the Senate Foreign 

Relations Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee 

on human trafficking in illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. But trafficking doesn’t just occur on the high seas. When that 

seafood comes to shore, it has got to be processed, and many migrants are subject to trafficking, just like Burmese victims I met 

7 years ago, as Ambassador, on the outskirts of Bangkok. And that 

abuse persists today. That is a shame. 

Also in the East Asian region, otherwise admirable, affluent, 

democratic allies New Zealand and Japan, well, have a good record 

of spending resources elsewhere in the region, but they deserve 

some scrutiny for their conduct at home. 

New Zealand has for a number of years been assigned to Tier 1, 

but look at the narrative of last year’s report. The government 

hasn’t prosecuted or convicted any offenders in the last 7 years nor 

has it identified any trafficking victims in the last 9 years. 

Japan deserves on the merits no more than a Tier 2 ranking. It 

is very much in the power of Japan to ratify the U.N. Palermo Protocol and pass a comprehensive anti-trafficking law, and it hasn’t 

done it. 

When I am asked what region of the world exhibits the worst 

human trafficking, my answer is always the Arabian Gulf. There, 

documented guest workers, foreigners from South and Southeast 

Asia, and increasingly from Africa, as well as women, are not treated as human beings in full, not accorded access to justice. 

In particular, I am concerned with Qatar, which has earned a 

Tier 2 ranking the last 2 years. It is of special interest, given its 

preparations for the 2022 World Cup. Major sporting events cause 

a dual hazard of human trafficking in the construction of arenas 

and in the sex trafficking that spikes during the events. 

Mr. Chairman, I admire the fact that during the Super Bowl last 

year you spoke to that sex trafficking hazard in your own State of 

New Jersey. 

Well, in Qatar there was a report 2 weeks ago claiming that 

1,200 men had lost their lives since construction work started, far 

ahead of any loss of life or harm in Brazil and South Africa preparing for World Cup games, or even Beijing in preparing for the 

Olympics. 

Qatar is not alone in its responsibility. The source countries of 

migrants who are abused also are. And the Government of Nepal 

is a good example. By not regulating its labor recruiters who woo 

its nationals into debt, and for not more forcibly defending its nationals in diplomacy, it is a shame that Nepal is not doing more. 

It is too taken with the remittances that seem to make up a quarter of its economy. 

India, in South Asia, has the highest incidence of human trafficking globally. But one case outside of India deserves special attention. The arrest of the Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in 

the United States for trafficking of a domestic servant calls attention to the special priority that the Trafficking Victims Protection 

Act places on government officials’ complicity in TIP. 

9

The U.S. regulation to penalize flagrant or repeated abuses of 

countries whose diplomats are bringing third country nationals into 

the United States has never been invoked. It is about time it is. 

Afghanistan faces an automatic downgrade to Tier 3, with families selling children for prostitution, insurgent groups forcing children to serve as suicide bombers, and labor brokers driving Afghan 

men, women, and children into forced labor abroad. We ought to, 

long after the U.S.-led invasion, be candid about the reality on the 

ground. 

A couple of more cases I would like to cite are ostensible success 

stories. Brazil, year after year on Tier 2, has had labor inspectors 

rescuing forced labor victims by the thousands, but it wasn’t until 

last year’s report that a case of labor slavery was documented as 

having earned an honest-to-goodness prison sentence as opposed to 

a halfway house, a community service term, or some suspended 

sentence. 

Brazil is more broadly emblematic of a global pattern of impunity 

for labor trafficking. Continuing the statistical disaggregation introduced in my own tenure as Ambassador, the 2013 report revealed that only 15 percent of prosecutions for TIP globally were 

for labor, rather than sexual exploitation. And that was double the 

7 percent, a meager figure, the year before. 

In Europe, there remains a problem for demand for sex trafficking. How meaningful can the anti-demand efforts of nations 

which the TVPA minimum standards require the TIP Report to account for if sex buying is legal and, frankly, encouraged as a tourist 

industry by the Dutch, German, and other governments? 

In these examples, generally, one sees two imperatives for the 

U.S. anti-trafficking policy globally. First, fighting demand. It is intolerable to keep suggesting boys will be boys with the purchase of 

commercial sex. Sex trafficking grows in this swamp. It is for this 

reason that I support legislation sponsored by Congressman 

Hultgren to add a provision to the TVPA minimum standards 

which assesses whether national governments that have it in their 

power to criminalize sex buying, by the ‘‘POSes’’ that Congressman 

Weber spoke of, do so. 

Second, of the three famous P’s of prosecution, protection, and 

prevention, protection of victims must come first. If the United 

States Government is spending so very little in this area relative 

to, say, corporate welfare and agribusiness welfare, how can we expect developing nations to advance victim identification, shelter capacity, physical/medical care, therapy for deep-layered traumas of 

victims, job training, and, finally, job placement, as the ultimate 

dignity-reclaiming step for a victim? 

In conclusion, Congress would do well to focus on demand and 

survivor empowerment. By focusing on them in oversight and legislation, it will contribute to the actual contraction and eventual abolition of what amounts to slavery in our time. 

Thank you. 

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

testimony. 

Without objection, your full statement will be made a part of the 

record, along with that of all of our distinguished witnesses. 

Ambassador LAGON. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. 

10

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lagon follows:]


87712a-1.eps
11


87712a-2.eps
12


87712a-3.eps
13


87712a-4.eps
14


87712a-5.eps
15


87712a-6.eps
16


87712a-7.eps
17

Mr. SMITH. All right, now, Mr. Campbell, if you would proceed? 

STATEMENT OF MR. BRIAN CAMPBELL, DIRECTOR OF POLICY 

AND LEGAL PROGRAMS, INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS 

FORUM 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to start by saying that my testimony today is possible 

only through the sacrifices made by hundreds of Uzbekistani citizens who risk their lives year after year to fight against the mass 

crimes the Government of Uzbekistan is committing against its 

own people. 

Equipped with pen, paper, camera, and specialized training in 

monitoring and interview methodologies, the human rights defenders across the Uzbekistan band together in networks to anonymously and effectively gather as much evidence as possible about 

the Government of Uzbekistan’s forced labor system. At great risk 

to them and their families, they find ways to get evidence out of 

the country to their colleagues at organizations like the Uzbek-German Forum in Germany and the Association for Human Rights in 

Central Asia, based in France, and others, so the information can 

be shared publicly. 

And I am here to say that their sacrifice has begun to bear fruit, 

and I have some good news to share, Mr. Chairman. Thanks in 

large part to your commitment, the commitment of the Congress as 

a whole in fighting against the crime of forced labor in Uzbekistan, 

the United States Department of State made the right decision last 

year and allowed the automatic downgrade of the Government of 

Uzbekistan to Tier 3 in its Trafficking in Persons Report. The decision was vital in convincing the Government of Uzbekistan to drop 

its longstanding opposition to the monitoring of the cotton harvest 

by the International Labor Organization. It was shortly after the 

decision was published last June that the Uzbekistan Government 

finely relented and signed the agreement to let the monitors in. 

As a result of this pressure, I am happy to report that the Government of Uzbekistan granted a reprieve to thousands of its own 

children under the age of 14 from having to participate as forced 

laborers in the cotton harvest last fall. Thousands of children were 

saved from the debilitating work of harvesting cotton by hand in 

a hazardous, often toxic working environment. Thousands of young 

children were saved from the fate of Amirbek Rakhmatov, a 6-yearold, first-year schoolboy from Vobkent District of Bukhara who died 

while out picking cotton with his mother last year. 

Unfortunately, the bad news still dwarfs the good news. Despite 

the presence of ILO monitors, the Uzbek Government continued its 

forced labor system for cotton production. It continued to operate 

a state-order system or command economy for cotton production 

that is underpinned by an extensive system of state-sponsored 

forced labor. 

Use of coercion begins with farmers and, then, increasingly over 

the course of the year, extends to all of its citizens and the system 

is administered by government officials nationwide. The government establishes a quota and, then, compels farmers to meet that 

quota and compels farmers to sell their cotton to the government. 

The government earns over $1 billion annually from this forced 

18

labor system. Farmers who fail to meet the government-established 

quota for cotton production continue to face severe consequences, 

loss of land, prosecution on criminal charges, and physical punishment included. 

During the harvest, farmers regularly report being scolded, humiliated, and beaten at their regular meetings held in their local 

communities in which they are supposed to report on their progress 

in fulfilling their cotton quota. To harvest the cotton, the Uzbek 

Government continued to systematically mobilize children aged 16 

and 17 throughout the country and, also, 15-year-olds in many regions. They also, in different regions, depending on the local governor, mobilized the younger children as well, the children under 

14 years old. 

Forced labor was organized through the state education system 

and the threat was expulsion from school. The forced mobilization 

of the harvest began in September and continued through November. 

In addition to children, the government systematically forced 

adult farmers, public sector workers, private sector workers, unemployed citizens, and those in receipt of public welfare benefits to 

labor. Authorities forced pensioners, mothers receiving social benefits, and other citizens to pick cotton under the threat of losing 

those benefits on which they depend. 

Under pressure from authorities in higher positions, administrators of public institutions and private business owners forced their 

workers to pick cotton under the threat of dismissal from their 

jobs. University administrators forced their students under threat 

of expulsion. Teachers and public sector professionals participated 

in the cotton harvest only because, if they didn’t, they would lose 

their public sector jobs. 

Despite the undeniable evidence of forced labor, the Government 

of Uzbekistan continues to publicly deny that it operates a forced 

labor system for cotton production. They were very clear to the ILO 

stating directly that they do not operate a forced labor system. 

In fact, to perpetuate this myth, the Government of Uzbekistan 

tried to impose on the ILO certain conditions for their monitoring 

that made truly independent monitoring impossible. For example, 

the monitors were government officials from Uzbekistan who were 

accompanying the ILO. 

Despite these efforts to prevent independent monitoring, though, 

the ILO was still able to corroborate the civil society reports of the 

serious and continued use of forced labor by the Government of 

Uzbekistan. And the ILO findings were, then, corroborated again 

by the World Bank Inspection Panel who had sent the monitoring 

team to look into the forced labor possibly touching their projects. 

Their findings were very clear that their projects, when investing 

in agriculture in Uzbekistan, could benefit the forced labor system 

of cotton production. 

While we are confident that the ILO will continue to do its duty 

to use whatever diplomatic path it can find to end this forced labor 

problem, and we hope that they will continue to impress upon each 

and every government official that forced labor is a crime in violation of international law, we see no evidence that the Government 

of Uzbekistan is committed to ending its highly-profitable forced 

19

labor system and holding those who have perpetuated these mass 

crimes accountable under the law. 

We must all remember forced labor is a crime. Those investing 

in the cotton system, like Daewoo International Corporation from 

Korea, Indorama Corporation from Singapore, or even those who 

want to sell tractors and irrigation equipment to the government, 

made possible possibly by contracts funded by banks, the World 

Bank, possibly the Asian Development Bank, if they are offered, 

their potential for liability is very clear. Section 18 U.S. Code 1589 

prohibits any person from knowingly benefitting from forced labor. 

Those who do face up to life in prison. 

And then, the Tariff Act of 1930 prohibits cotton products from 

being sold in the United States that are made with forced labor. 

And this is what happened to Indorama Corporation last October 

when they could not import their Uzbek cotton product into the 

United States. 

For companies who are investing outside the cotton sector, the 

risks are just as great that they will get pulled into the forced labor 

system as well. This is what happened to General Motors, whose 

employees were compelled to pick cotton during the harvest for the 

third consecutive year. And the people who compelled them? The 

Federation of Trade Unions of Uzbekistan, which is not an independent trade union. It is an agency of the government, but, also, 

one of the ILO social partners, and they were working with managers from the General Motors plant in Andijan. 

To end my testimony, I just want to say very clearly that, based 

on the evidence by human rights monitors, reports from the ILO 

and World Bank that the Government of Uzbekistan continued to 

impose a forced labor system for cotton production, while at the 

same time denying its existence, and the recognition of the sacrifices made by human rights defenders who risk their lives in 

fighting against the government’s crimes, we adamantly urge the 

United States Department of State to maintain Uzbekistan on Tier 

3 and to utilize all the tools at its disposal to bring an end to forced 

labor in Uzbekistan. 

Very specifically, we also call on the U.S. Government to exercise 

the sanctions made available under the TIP law. Utilize your voice 

and vote at the World Bank, at the Asian Development Bank, and 

prevent any investment that is going to benefit the forced labor 

system. We don’t tolerate it for our own companies. We should not 

tolerate it for the multilateral institutions, either. Investing in 

forced labor is investing in a crime, and it cannot happen. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]

20


87712b-1.eps
21


87712b-2.eps
22


87712b-3.eps
23


87712b-4.eps
24


87712b-5.eps
25


87712b-6.eps
26


87712b-7.eps
27


87712b-8.eps
28


87712b-9.eps
29


87712b-10.eps
30


87712b-11.eps
31


87712b-12.eps
32


87712b-13.eps
33


87712b-14.eps
34


87712b-15.eps
35


87712b-16.eps
36


87712b-17.eps
37


87712b-18.eps
38


87712b-19.eps
39


87712b-20.eps
40


87712b-21.eps
41


87712b-22.eps
42


87712b-23.eps
43


87712b-24.eps
44

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Campbell, thank you very much for your clarity 

and for your insights. 

Last year Ambassador Lagon spoke about America’s pathetic embrace of slavery which was in significant part about cotton. So, 

here we have it occurring in Uzbekistan, and I think your words 

couldn’t have been more clear. 

I would like to now yield to Mr. Burns for his testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MR. BLAIR BURNS, VICE PRESIDENT OF REGIONAL OPERATIONS, SOUTHEAST ASIA, INTERNATIONAL 

JUSTICE MISSION 

Mr. BURNS. Thank you. 

As you said, my name is Blair Burns, and I work for International Justice Mission. IJM is a global team of attorneys, investigators, social workers, community activists, and other professionals working in over 20 communities throughout the developing 

world. 

I have been with IJM for 10 years and I oversee our work in 

Southeast Asia, where our offices focus primarily on combating the 

commercial sexual exploitation of children. Prior to my current position, as the chairman mentioned, I lived in Chennai, India, where 

I directed our programs to combat forced labor slavery in India. 

Thank you for asking me to testify today. My children don’t actually believe that I am testifying before Congress. They are very 

cynical little people. 

And, Chairman Smith, thank you so much for your long time of 

leadership on anti-trafficking. It matters. It matters quite a lot. 

The 2013 Global Slavery Index indicates that there are more 

slaves today in our world than at any other point in human history. I have met a lot of them. They are people just like you and 

me. They are fathers and mothers, friends and coworkers, sons and 

daughters, grandparents and children, all of whom have the same 

hopes and dreams that we have to live lives of happiness, freedom 

from violence, and safety. 

Some might have us believe that they are slaves because they 

are victims of abject poverty, but that belies the fact that every 

country in the world has poor people, including this one, but only 

a minority of countries has a problem of slavery and human trafficking thriving within its borders. 

Slavery and sex trafficking are violent crimes. Such criminal enterprises fester and thrive only because local justice systems fail to 

enforce the laws that are against them. 

Why does slavery not fester and thrive in our country? Because 

the Government of the United States brings great resources to bear 

against those who would perpetrate such violence. 

But let me clarify. I am not here today to tell you horrific, dramatic tales about how bad things are. I am not here to draw you 

into an even more bleak picture. Rather, I am here to point you to 

some things that I am seeing in this fight that are very good, to 

point you to some places where women and men of goodwill are 

turning the tide against global slavery, to tell you more about an 

example of the great power of the United States being used rightly, 

to provide effective leadership to end one of the great tragedies of 

our time. 

45

To put it quite clearly, in 10 years of doing this work across Asia, 

I have seen no action of a Western government that is more effective at anything than the annual release of the Trafficking in Persons Report by the Department of State. I have had senior government officials in every Asian country I have visited from India to 

the Philippines tell me in private that their highest trafficking-related priority is to improve their nation’s tier ranking on the next 

TIP Report. 

In my experience, the actions of these countries have borne out 

what they have told me behind closed doors. I want to tell you two 

stories. 

We have worked in the Philippines since 2001. Since that time, 

our offices have seen over 1,000 girls and women rescued from commercial sexual exploitation and hundreds of perpetrators jailed for 

their crimes. In 2007, with funding from the Bill and Melinda 

Gates Foundation, we launched an anti-trafficking program in 

Cebu, the second-largest city in the Philippines. Before beginning 

operations, we conducted a baseline study to measure the prevalence of children offered for commercial sex, to measure the extent 

of the crime. 

We, then, began operations by partnering with local justice system officials to enforce the Philippines’ laws against the trafficking 

of children. The first thing we learned was that, as of that point, 

the laws were not being enforced at all. In our research we could 

find no evidence of any criminal prosecution of any trafficker in 

Cebu. We found that, in general, law enforcement lacked both the 

will and the capacity to act, but we also found that there were officials of goodwill who wanted to serve their country. 

Early in the project we partnered with the Philippines National 

Police Regional Command to create, train, and mentor a dedicated 

regional anti-trafficking unit. After just a few years, by 2010, over 

70 suspected traffickers and pimps were in jail, as their trials progressed through the Philippines’ glacial criminal justice system. 

And that is when some remarkable things began to happen. 

First, we conducted another study on prevalence and published the 

results. We found that the number of children offered for commercial sex had dropped by 79 percent in Cebu, 79 percent. In other 

words, with the sudden, unexpected, and sustained enforcement of 

the law, it finally became truly illegal to traffic children for sexual 

exploitation in Cebu. 

And so, what did most of the traffickers then do? They found 

other ways to make money. They stopped exploiting children. 

Second, in 2010, the TIP office put the Philippines in the Tier 2 

Watch List for the second year in a row. And just 2 years before 

that, the Congress required that countries could only stay on the 

Watch List for 2 years in a row. For those of you who might have 

voted for that, brilliant move. The Philippines was in grave danger 

of losing a lot of coveted foreign aid. 

And third, a new administration came into power in Manila. And 

so, in late 2010, the new Secretary of Justice, Leila de Lima, came 

to Washington for a meeting at the World Bank. She was in town 

for part of 1 day and called me to meet with her at the Embassy. 

46

We sat down. She looked me in the eyes and said, ‘‘Tell me about 

your program in Cebu, and tell me how we can replicate that success throughout the rest of my country.’’ I had a few ideas for her. 

Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court directed all courts in the 

Philippines to fast-track the trafficking cases. We began to see 

cases that once took 10 years to move through trial reach judgment 

in one to three. We worked with the Secretary as she cleaned up 

and reestablished the Anti-Trafficking Unit of the National Bureau 

of Investigations in Manila. Whereas agents of this unit once made 

barely-veiled death threats to our staff, they quickly became some 

of the closest law enforcement partners we had. 

The Philippines National Police, under a different ministry than 

Justice, decided to replicate the dedicated Anti-Trafficking Unit in 

Cebu. It stood up units in Manila and Pampanga, incorporated our 

training curriculum into their regular training program, and 

partnered with our offices to provide ongoing mentorship to the 

units. Today they are in the process of incorporating these units 

into a single national command. 

So, what is the result? Today the trafficking of children is truly 

against the law in the Philippines, and everybody knows it. Why? 

Because that law is now enforced. And not only is the law being 

enforced, it is being sustainably enforced by elements of the Philippines justice system that are largely operating independently of 

IJM or any other NGO. When we conduct additional prevalence 

studies this year and in 2016, we fully expect to see further dramatic reduction in the violent crime of trafficking. 

And the story is quite similar in Cambodia, where things were 

once even worse. There, in 2003, we found entire open markets 

where minority Vietnamese girls ages 6, 7, 8, and 9 were sold for 

a few dollars to any foreign pedophile who could find his way to 

Phnom Penh. 

The police and senior Cambodian Government officials knew exactly what was happening, yet took no action. Western governments were also unwilling to speak out. But, by 2005, the TIP Report put Cambodia on Tier 3, and we then have the government’s 

attention. 

In response to earlier recommendations from the TIP office, Cambodia had already stood up a national-level anti-human-trafficking 

department, but the officers of this department were both untrained and lacked any will to conduct any trafficking operations. 

With help from USAID, we launched a world-class police training 

program for the department, and then, we began ongoing case-bycase mentorship with the trained officers. We have continued that 

mentorship for nearly a decade. 

Slowly, but surely, the anti-human-trafficking department rose 

up into an effective law enforcement agency. Today the public does 

what was unthinkable then. When a girl goes missing, they call the 

police. We know this because, when that happens, the police call 

us. 

The department proactively enforces the law across the country 

and prosecutors and courts have followed suit. We have seen 187 

convictions of traffickers in Cambodia in our cases alone. 

So, what is the result of real law enforcement in Cambodia? In 

late 2012, we conducted a prevalence study. The results were reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:09 Sep 30, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042914\87712 SHIRL
47

markable. Less than 1 percent of all sex workers were minors 

under the age of 15. Data collectors in three cities found no one offered for commercial sex under the age of 12. 

Thank you for inviting me today, and please let me know if you 

have any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Burns follows:]

48


87712c-1.eps
49


87712c-2.eps
50


87712c-3.eps
51


87712c-4.eps
52


87712c-5.eps
53

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very, very much, Mr. Burns, for your testimony. You have made so many good points. 

Unfortunately, we have two votes. So, we will have to interrupt. 

Ms. BASS. Now? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, we are in the final 8 minutes of the first one. 

So, I apologize again to our two remaining witnesses. And if anyone has to go, obviously, you go, but we regret we won’t get to ask 

you questions. 

But you did make a very good point, Mr. Burns, about when they 

were on Tier 3 in Cambodia; it got their attention. I have found, 

and I know Ambassador Lagon more than anyone else has found 

over the years, that when they are on Tier 3, I don’t care who they 

are. They may protest—the Greeks protested mightily when they 

were placed on Tier 3—but it gets their attention. And naming and 

shaming is an important part of this process, but it ought to be followed by tangible sanctions, which often is not the case. 

But thank you for your excellent testimony. 

I would like to yield to Ms. Bass, if she has anything. 

Okay. I don’t want to cut your testimony short, Ms. Lummert. 

So, if you don’t mind, we will stand in brief recess, then come right 

back. These are the last two votes of the day. So, again, I apologize. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing will continue. 

I would like to ask—you were done, right, Mr. Burns? Yes. 

STATEMENT OF MS. NATHALIE LUMMERT, DIRECTOR, SPECIAL PROGRAMS, MIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICES, U.S. 

CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS 

Ms. LUMMERT. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation to 

speak today. I have a longer written testimony, but in my oral remarks I will focus on the Church’s anti-trafficking efforts domestically and internationally and the partnerships which we think need 

to continue to expand in the efforts to combat human trafficking. 

As you may know, His Holiness Pope Francis has elevated the 

issue of human trafficking as a priority for the global Church. At 

a conference I attended at the Vatican this month, the Holy Father 

called human trafficking ‘‘a crime against humanity and an open 

wound on the body of contemporary society.’’

This conference, organized by the Catholic Bishops Conference of 

England and Wales, gathered senior law enforcement and Church 

leaders from around the world to coordinate around combating 

human trafficking. The conference initiated a new international 

network of Bishops Conferences and law enforcement agencies 

working together to combat human trafficking. Pope Francis emphasized the importance of the complementary approaches of law 

enforcement and humanitarian efforts working together on this 

issue. 

It would be impossible for me to describe all the work of the 

Catholic Church globally in the area of human trafficking in 5 minutes; however, examples include COATNET, a coalition led by 

Caritas International, working across borders; Talitha Kum, an 

international network of women religious in 75 countries; Catholic 

Relief Services; Bishops Conferences; and the pastoral presence of 

54

the Apostleship of the Sea, the Church’s maritime ministry present 

in over 200 ports globally. 

The efforts of the Catholic Church in the U.S. are included in my 

written testimony. 

In March, the Vatican also announced a new partnership called 

the Global Freedom Network with the Anglican Church and the 

Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Egypt. The overarching goal of the initiative is to eradicate modern-day forms of slavery by encouraging 

governments, businesses, educational and faith institutions to rid 

their supply chains of slave labor. 

The Global Freedom Network will focus upon: One, raising 

awareness and education of the scourge at all levels of political life; 

two, assisting countries with developing a strategic plan to eradicate slavery and cleanse supply chains; three, facilitating support 

for the victims; four, advocating for enactment and reform of laws 

in countries which would help end trafficking and provide support 

for its victims. 

This is an exciting initiative that will be operated out of the Vatican, but, no doubt, will rely upon the assistance of the Catholic 

Church and other faith leaders worldwide, including the United 

States, to meet its goals. 

The Catholic Church in the U.S. is well-positioned to assist with 

the goals of the Global Freedom Network. Migration Refugee Services of the USCCB is engaged in anti-trafficking work, including 

protection of victims and education and awareness aimed at prevention. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Bishops Conference also advocates on human trafficking issues. We have worked with you and 

other elected officials to enact the Trafficking Victims Protection 

Act and its subsequent reauthorizations. We are proud of these efforts and the protections in U.S. law for trafficking victims, but our 

work and yours is not done. In our written testimony we cite trafficking bills before the House of Representatives that should be 

considered and passed by this body, including legislation addressing supply chains and prohibiting excessive foreign labor recruitment fees for legal workers. 

The U.S. also needs to fully implement current law, including 

Section 104 of the TVPRA which calls for best-interest determinations to identify child victims in other countries. 

In our written testimony we also highlight the importance of 

partnerships and ask for continued expansion of these. The TIP Report, admirably, attempts to include all partners in all aspects of 

fighting human trafficking. The Bishops Conference is thankful for 

this and asks for the continued expansion of faith-based groups as 

multi-level stakeholders in the global fight. 

The Bishops Conference does not normally comment on tier 

rankings, but we do point to the populations that we are aware of 

that need particular attention and that should be considered as 

being impacted. Included among these are refugees that we are resettling to the U.S. and that we are aware of internationally 

through U.S. Bishops’ delegations to impacted regions, seafarers, 

and, also, among the most vulnerable, unaccompanied children, including unaccompanied children from Eritrea that are in Ethiopia 

and other places subject to trafficking through the Sinai; unaccomVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:09 Sep 30, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042914\87712 SHIRL
55

panied children in Central America that we have seen being vulnerable to human trafficking. 

Catholic Church partners are natural first responders and also 

bring expertise and knowledge. The Church is a voice for the voiceless, including in the most remote areas of the world where trafficking is occurring, including such examples as the fishing industry among seafarers, Eritrean refugees in Africa, and the border 

areas, such as in our own region, including Mexico and Central 

America. These voices can and should inform our national/international approaches to combating human trafficking. 

I will close my remarks about the importance of partnerships by 

drawing upon the example of the meeting at the Vatican on trafficking. During that meeting, stakeholder inclusiveness was highlighted in its most pure form. In addition to reaching out to law 

enforcement leaders, the Holy Father also focused his attention on 

and met with survivors of human trafficking. And these survivors 

also spoke to law enforcement and Church leaders, urging them to 

make stronger efforts. 

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I would like to thank you for your 

leadership on this important issue. The U.S. Catholic Bishops continue to look forward to working with you and your colleagues on 

eradicating the scourge from the earth. As Pope Francis tells us in 

his Joy of the Gospel, the issue of human trafficking truly involves 

everyone. 

Thank you, and I look forward to answering any of your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lummert follows:]

56


87712d-1.eps
57


87712d-2.eps
58


87712d-3.eps
59


87712d-4.eps
60


87712d-5.eps
61


87712d-6.eps
62


87712d-7.eps
63


87712d-8.eps
64


87712d-9.eps
65


87712d-10.eps
66


87712d-11.eps
67


87712d-12.eps
68


87712d-13.eps
69


87712d-14.eps
70


87712d-15.eps
71

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very, very much for your testimony and 

for the great, great work that the Catholic Church is doing around 

the world, and this new reinvigoration by Pope Francis. We know 

the Church was there working, and you were right to point out 

that when we were writing the original statute, which took three 

long years to get enacted, the USCCB, your General Counsel, you, 

your group, the USCCB was very involved with the actual writing 

of the text. So, I want to thank you for that as well. 

I would like to now introduce Dr. Uddin. 

STATEMENT OF WAKAR UDDIN, PH.D., DIRECTOR GENERAL, 

ARAKAN ROHINGYA UNION 

Mr. UDDIN. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman 

and committee members, for giving me the opportunity to speak, 

to testify before the committee. 

I would like to focus on a particular ethnic minority in Burma 

known as Rohingya. This issue that human trafficking and the 

smuggling issue of Rohingya in western Arakan State, Burma, is 

not new. It has been simmering for decades. However, due to some 

media reporting and the reports from the Arakan Project by Chris 

Lewa from Thailand, and, most recently, the writers/reporters has 

opened up this issue to the international community, and it has received widespread attention, the Rohingya smuggling and trafficking issue. 

Mr. Chairman, the primary cause of these Rohingya trafficking 

and smuggling, the root cause, is the situation on the ground in 

Arakan State in western Burma. The human rights violations, persecution, ethnic cleansing, actions of Burmese forces are tantamount to some kind of pre-genocide, precursor for pre-genocide 

crime against humanity. All these conditions faced by Rohingya 

people in western Arakan State in western Burma, in Arakan 

State, are the primary cause, the root cause of these subsequent 

events taking place for the persecution. 

This trafficking of Rohingya victims, actually, this trafficking has 

two phases. One is a smuggling phase and another one is the trafficking phase itself. 

The situation on the ground is so terrifying. It has been terrifying for quite some years. The victims, the Rohingya victims have 

nowhere to go. They are the victims of violence, persecution. Their 

villages have been burned, and they have been arrested for inciting 

violence, accusation of inciting violence, and they have been accused of burning their own homes. The police, Burmese police, have 

arrested hundreds of Rohingya men and women with the accusation that they burned their homes, to show the international community that, look, we are under ethnic cleansing and to have a better house to be built, to get more aids, that kind of accusation. 

This morning I received phone calls from victims from Arakan 

State. The authorities in Burma, local authorities, I should say, 

and the members of RNDP, Rakhine National Democratic Party, 

local officials have primed the Rohingya families ready for trafficking, ready for smuggling and trafficking. 

If you hear their arduous journey living in Arakan State, they 

cannot take the horror anymore. If you hear the arduous journey 

to Malaysia, Thailand, it is heartbreaking, the victims. 

72

We had a victim here 3 days ago at the University, at American 

University, at an event that she has given an account of her own 

horror she faced. She was supposed to come here today, but she 

couldn’t. 

The sequence of events, let me describe the sequence of events, 

how it takes place. The homeless Rohingya families, the victims, 

including men, women, and children, they don’t have anywhere to 

go. In certain areas, in northern Arakan State there are no IDP 

camps. So, whether there are camps are not, these people are vulnerable to fall prey into smuggling rings. So, they want to leave 

Arakan State, finding refuge anywhere in the world. So, that is the 

priming of the victims by the smugglers. 

The smugglers, the ring, the cartel, they board the families to the 

smaller boats, smaller, rickety boats, and, then, they ship them to 

larger vessels docked a few miles off the coast in Bay of Bengal. 

There are women, there are children, there are elderly, and there 

are also young men who are evading, absconding police because the 

police has issued an arrest warrant to arrest them. And once they 

get arrested, 10- to 30-year prison for arson, accusation of arson 

and violence. So, those, also, young men had to leave along with 

their families. 

What happened is, when they leave, the man particularly leaves; 

the family members left behind are mainly women and girls and 

their wives, their mothers, and they also become fallen to prey of 

the forces. They will be taken hostage. The women will be taken 

hostage by the forces and Buddhist Rakhine extremists and they 

will be confined in their camps and villages and become sex slaves. 

Just currently, there are serious issues. Several hundred 

Rohingya women and young girls, even minors, have fallen into 

traps of the sex slaves locally in Arakan State, in army camps, in 

settlement villages, and other places. 

Now these people who are leaving Burma with families, they go; 

they are leaving for anywhere they can find shelter, they can find 

refuge. So, these boats start taking them, sailing them south. 

Hopefully, their destination is Malaysia because they feel that they 

will find safe haven in Malaysia, but often they do not reach Malaysia. 

There are reports of boats sinking, people drowning because of 

the rough weather. Their navigation is not good. They get lost in 

the ocean. And the worst thing, Mr. Chairman, is that they are 

running out of food and water, while they are sailing, running out 

of fuel. They are drifting. They have drifted to India. They have 

drifted to Sri Lanka. 

And then, they often arrive in Thailand, as often Thai coast 

guards will pick them up and take them to detention centers. 

Often, these folks will land at the Thai coast, and those victims 

who are taken to prison and camps, then, at that point the trafficking phase will start. Until this point that they arrive Thai, it 

is smuggling. They are smuggling by these rings. 

When they arrive in Thailand, Thailand does not have a refugee 

law that provides status to these refugees, asylum to these refugees. So, they are kept in the camps indefinitely. 

Then, they have a thing called option two. The Thai police, Thai 

immigration officers then try to get rid of them, send them away 

73

from the Thai detention center through collaboration with cartels. 

Then, these men, women, children are sent to southern Thailand 

in sex slave camps, hard-labor camps, and other places. 

Often, Thai authorities separate women and girls from the family 

members, telling them that they need better protection, and they 

are taken somewhere else and there is no record of returning them. 

They never come back. We don’t know where they are. Later, we 

found out that they have ended up in the trade of sex slaves. That 

is what happened in human trafficking when the Rohingya victims 

are sent to camps in Thailand. 

And the other scenario, Mr. Chairman, is those people who are 

not picked up by Thai authorities, but they landed themselves at 

the coast, and they are taken by the cartels into the camps and 

taken hostage, demanding ransom. You have to pay such-and-such 

amount of money to get released. So, they have phones. They are 

sophisticated. They have a phone system that makes them call 

their relatives in Malaysia, people who went before and working 

there, and demanding thousands of dollars for ransom. And then, 

upon the delivery of the cash, these victims are released. Often, all 

the people, the victims, could not find their relatives and neighbors 

and friends in Malaysia to save them, and they are languishing at 

these camps. And then, the women and girls, minors as little as 8 

years, according to their testimony that they gave to me, are traded 

as sex slaves. 

So, these are the situation the Rohingya people are facing, starting from Arakan State, as persecution, a victim of persecution, to 

smuggling, to trafficking. 

Now how can we allow this to happen in this day and age, in this 

century? These people, the Rohingya victims, because of their fate, 

this trafficking, they are falling victim, the situation on the 

groundin Arakan State. 

I do not see any end to this, unfortunately, to this entire sequence of events, unless the situation on the ground in Arakan 

State is resolved. It is great that there are tiers, categories for different countries, for Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3. And President Obama 

has had a waiver for Burma, reportedly, about this trafficking 

issue. And is it incentive, we are wondering? If it is an incentive, 

is that working? Is the Burmese Government looking into this 

issue on the ground, where the horror is originating, ending in 

Thai and Malaysian border with trade of sex slaves and hard-labor 

people? 

If the waiver is working, that is a great thing. But I am afraid 

that the Burmese Government will enjoy this waiver and will not 

look into the situation on the ground. If you cannot go to the root 

cause of this, I don’t see any other way to solve this issue. 

So, our appeal on behalf of the Rohingya people, I appeal to the 

international community, to the committee, to our Government, 

that we need to insert greater pressure on the Burmese Government to solve the issue on the ground with their reinstating their 

citizenship, giving them all their human rights, recognizing the 

ethnicity as Rohingya. They are refusing to recognize Rohingya as 

an ethnic minority, which has been documented historically, that 

existed in Burma before the ’60s. 

74

Once their citizenship is given back to them, their rights are 

given back to them, they are recognized as a national race, an ethnic minority, and then, I think we are close, one step closer to solving these human smuggling and trafficking issues in Arakan State, 

Burma. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Uddin follows:]

75


87712e-1.eps
76


87712e-2.eps
77


87712e-3.eps
78

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Dr. Uddin. 

I would agree with you about the importance of really taking a 

hard look at Burma. You know, the release, and now somewhat reintegrated great Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sang Suu Kyi 

should not be allowed to gloss over other egregious human rights 

abuses, especially as they relate to trafficking. 

So, I do think your point—and perhaps Ambassador Lagon might 

want to speak to this—but the waiver authority, when we wrote 

that, wasn’t meant to be the rule; it was meant to be the exception. 

It was meant to be done in good faith in a diplomatic embrace of 

the country that could easily be designated Tier 3, to say, ‘‘Look, 

we want to work with you. We want to get to the point where you 

are meeting those minimum standards,’’ which are what we need 

to apply to every country of the world, including the United States. 

The waiver authority has been exploited by both parties, unfortunately. And frankly, that is not the Ambassadors-at-Large’s fault; 

it is the regional bureaus’ faults and people higher up, and particularly the Ambassadors who sometimes develop a little bit of a 

‘‘clientitis.’’

So, my hope is that there will be an effort made to really say, 

waiver authority, only use it as an exceptional tool, not as something that is just automatically meted out because it is a lot easier 

to do so. 

I will ask a couple of questions, yield to Ms. Bass, and then, to 

my good friend, Mr. Marino. Then, I have some additional questions I would like to get to as well. 

But let me just ask you, if I could, Mr. Ambassador, you know, 

one of the reasons why I voted against the Leahy amendment when 

it made its way over here, I had the competing bill that we wanted 

to bring up because it had a number of substantive changes that 

were not included in the Leahy amendment, but one of them was 

the cut in the TIP office’s budget. Now they claim they can craft 

together monies from various spigots rather than have a straightup, transparent authorization. 

But the other was the language that tilted in favor of the regional bureaus’ additional gravitas in making decisions as to who 

goes on Tier 3, Tier 2, Tier 1, and Watch List. We haven’t seen that 

play out yet. But that was a huge fight when we did the original 

TVPA back in 2000, that the regional bureaus didn’t want this bill. 

They were against this bill. I met with so many of the people, you 

know, the Assistant Secretaries, the various desk officers. Then, we 

had round-the-clock meetings—over 3 years you have a lot of meetings—with State Department people, very good people, but they 

didn’t want it. 

And now, people who want to sideline or, you know, put trafficking on page 5 of the talking points, may have disproportionate 

influence on the Secretary, unless you have a very, very powerful 

Ambassador-at-Large. But, even then, he might get drowned out. 

Because, as we all know—and I will finish with this in terms of 

the question—when we did the first leader of the TIP office, we 

could not get Ambassador-at-Large language into the bill there was 

so much objection to it. So, we went with just the director, came 

back in 2003 and put Ambassador-at-Large because we wanted 

79

that gravitas to be equal to the weight of the work that he or she 

had to do. 

So, if you could speak to that, Mr. Ambassador? 

Ambassador LAGON. Well, you ask a great set of questions. I was 

disturbed, too, by an element of the 2013 reauthorization that was 

ostensibly meant to provide that there would be consultation between the regional bureaus and the TIP office. But the fact is that 

who has the pen, having been given to the trafficking in persons 

office on the preparation of the report, has been very important. 

And I will say a very hard-headed official Deputy Secretary of 

State, Richard Armitage, actually was crucial to the decision about 

how that would first get implemented. I think it would not be a 

good idea to hand that pen over to the regional bureaus. 

There is a constructive tension in the Department in which the 

overall picture of U.S. interests on multiple issues and the contexts 

of a state, you know, maybe it is a state at war, maybe there are 

real capacity issues, are brought forward by regional bureaus. But 

the fact that the experts on this in the trafficking in persons office 

are the ones who are principally charged with drafting, is essential. 

I do want to say one thing about personnel. The number of personnel is not everything. I would like to see the voice of the Ambassador-at-Large in the office raised, but it is not always the case 

that more is more. Some of the nimbleness of the office, some of 

the special qualities that you embedded in the legislation to act as 

a voice for civil society benefit from nimbleness. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could just ask you one other question, because 

it was you, when you were Ambassador, who finally elevated the 

issue of China and the nexus with the one-child-per-couple policy 

to its rightful place, and I will always be deeply grateful, all who 

care about human rights, I believe. 

No other nation on earth has so systematically exterminated the 

girl child in utero by way of sex-selection abortion than China. As 

I said, we are going to have hearing testimony from Mara 

Hvistendahl, the author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys 

Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, her testimony, which we will make a part of the record. 

But there is no doubt whatsoever that the magnet driving the 

Chinese situation are the missing daughters. They are gone, 

exterminated systematically every year since 1979 as part of the 

one-child-per-couple policy. Tens of millions, minimally—some put 

it as many as 100 million; nobody knows for sure—but the ratio is 

without precedent in all of human history, and won’t turn around 

anytime soon. 

So, the bride-selling and the trafficking, the magnetic effect of 

that dearth of women will occur and only get worse going on. I 

don’t know how, frankly, the State Department could possibly designate China anything but a Tier 3 country, given the fact that 

they are surging toward more demand, based on the missing girls. 

And secondly, some of the very minor things that I have seen, 

you know, one of you mentioned earlier just attending a conference 

does not make a trafficking plan or any reason to rejoice. It is a 

step and that is all it is. 

If you could speak to that? 

80

Ambassador LAGON. Yes, you know, there are many reasons for 

serious scrutiny of China, on this issue of the demographic matter 

and others, with lots of faults on human trafficking. But the combination of the population policy, even if it is liberalized some—and 

we should watch with great skepticism whether the announced 

leadership reforms in population policy pan out—and attitudes 

which continue to stand throughout Chinese society about the 

value of a male child over a female child. That isn’t changing, and 

that is, indeed, the magnet, combined with China’s inhumane policy of not treating those who flee North Korea as refugees. 

They are under great pressure. Someone, a woman who comes 

over fleeing a desperate economic and political situation in North 

Korea, or a man as well, will be facing the fate of being deported 

back to North Korea for possible punishment or even execution. 

That is a huge situation of leverage. 

And when that is added to the magnet of a desperate desire for 

women as wives and as sex partners, you have a cocktail for a tremendous human harm. 

Mr. SMITH. I have other questions, but I will hold off and ask Ms. 

Bass if she would proceed. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As always, I appreciate your leadership on this issue for many, many, many years. 

So, I just wanted to ask several questions of various panelists, 

starting with Ambassador Lagon. 

I know that the White House recently launched a public/private 

partnership to combat trafficking with the use of technology. Since 

I missed your comments earlier, I didn’t know if you could talk 

about that and highlight some of the methods and strategies that 

are being used. 

Ambassador LAGON. Well, I am a big believer in partnerships as 

the lifeblood of the anti-human-trafficking movement. To her credit, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized that as a 

fourth ‘‘P.’’ Before her, the former head of the U.N. Office on Drugs 

and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, also said that there should be a 

fourth ‘‘P’’ of partnerships. And I think, truth be told, the Bush administration approach was one that believed in those partnerships 

as well. 

I think we should all look at ways that technology can be used, 

including crowdsourcing, to help the funding of NGOs and for looking at big data. But I think we should take care to remember that 

it is, in fact, an idea that every human being is of equal value and 

the people who are working in NGOs and businesses and government are the ones who really make the difference. 

High technology and big data for studying patterns, these are 

tools, and we should just remember these are tools in the service 

of trying to fight this terrible scourge. 

Ms. BASS. Are they being used? And how about the State Department? Has the State Department embraced the technology? Maybe 

you could give us some examples of where they were? 

Ambassador LAGON. Well, I think that, actually, the U.S. Agency 

for International Development has probably been on the forefront 

of trying to use technology, pursuing/offering up a challenge to potential grant applicants for the use of technology. 

81

Ms. BASS. Oh, is it in the process? Like they have a Request for 

Proposals out or something? 

Ambassador LAGON. They are, indeed, asking for people to come 

forward and working with a series of universities around the 

United States to try to figure out ways to use social media and 

ways to use high technology. 

One of the projects of the U.S. Agency for International Development is, in fact, an ability for you to be able to take your handheld 

out and scan a product and have a sense of its supply chain. 

Ms. BASS. Oh. 

Ambassador LAGON. That is a nascent effort——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Ambassador LAGON [continuing]. But a promising one. 

Ms. BASS. Another question, and this is related to the Netherlands. I wanted to ask you, I think last year you were critical of 

the Netherlands as a Tier 1 country. We know that in the Netherlands prostitution is legal. Anybody who has been there has seen 

it. 

But I wanted to know how the State Department has asserted 

that prostitution and human trafficking are linked, but how does 

it factor in the decisions around the TIP Report? 

Ambassador LAGON. Well, I think there has been a subtle change 

in the approach of the office. I think in the Bush administration 

and under the Obama administration there has been an emphasis 

on demand, but I do think that there is perhaps less emphasis on 

the importance of fighting sex buying. 

Let me be clear when I talk about, you know, the legal regime. 

What I am concerned about is putting the men who would be buyers of sex on the hook. And I think it is important not to punish 

women who are in the sex industry——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Ambassador LAGON [continuing]. Whether or not they are human 

trafficking victims. 

I think the model is not working in the Netherlands, and there 

have been really fascinating press stories on the model failing in 

Germany, where trafficking has spiked because of the legal regime. 

And country after country, the UK, France, and across the ocean, 

Canada, are pursuing legal changes to try to punish the sex buyers 

and move toward a more Nordic model. 

Ms. BASS. Right. I appreciate that. 

I didn’t hear your testimony, Mr. Campbell, but I read your testimony about Uzbekistan. And I was wondering if you could talk 

about that in terms of the forced participation in the cotton harvest 

and if anything has changed. And also, you know, in terms of the 

textile industry, I don’t know if any of our companies are sourcing 

from there. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Okay. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

To get right to the point, the situation continues largely 

unabated, that there continues to be forced labor compelled by the 

government and it involves children; in certain places it is younger 

than 14, but largely 15-, 16-, 17-year-old children from across the 

country, and it involves adults who come from all sectors, both the 

public and private sector for employment. 

82

And so, the situation continues. It is an urgent situation. Where 

it has changed a little bit—and I covered this a little bit in the testimony—was, because of the pressure, the pressure from this committee, the pressure from the U.S. Government, the Uzbek Government granted a reprieve for children under 14 years old across the 

nation from being systematically mobilized from across the nation. 

Now children under 14 continue to be mobilized in different parts 

by local government officials and stuff. So, they were mobilized still 

as a part of that system. Now whether they were systematically 

mobilized across the country, no, there were parts of the country 

that actually replaced their labor with adult forced labor. 

Unfortunately, what we have not seen is a change in their attitude toward the issue of forced labor in any way. I will just pull 

a quote really fast from the International Labor Organization 

which stated very clearly that ‘‘The Government of Uzbekistan continues to deny that it has a forced labor problem.’’

It has invited the ILO to help advise it on understanding what 

its forced labor problem might be, although that has been pretty 

clear to everybody for years. It is also they have invited the ILO, 

I think just announced yesterday the ILO will send in a decent 

work team to do some education amongst the government. But we 

are still talking about education about a problem that the rest of 

the world has known about for years. 

Ms. BASS. They say it doesn’t exist. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. And in terms of supply chains——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. CAMPBELL [continuing]. I will say that the garment industry 

in the United States and the American Apparel and Footwear Association has been a tremendous supporter to clean their supply 

chains of this forced labor cotton. 

I mean, there is no question it is getting into our supply chains. 

Can we find it? It is really hard. The closest we have been able to 

really come was we know who is processing the cotton in 

Uzbekistan. There is a company, Daewoo International, a large Korean company, that has operations globally. They are processing 

that cotton and selling that cotton, and they are in full knowledge 

of the fact that they are benefitting from this forced labor system. 

They even said so on their own Web site. 

What they said was, what we can’t do as a textile company is address this issue because it is a government forced labor problem in 

Uzbekistan. 

Ms. BASS. They don’t have to source from there. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, I can’t speak for Daewoo. I imagine that 

they would fear losing this guaranteed supply of very cheap cotton. 

I imagine that they would fear losing really what are their only 

major processing, yarn processing facilities for their other manufacturing. 

But that is the processed yarn. What we also are trying to learn 

more about, and we can find, for example, the cotton, the raw cotton is going to Bangladesh. The raw cotton is going to China. What 

we are trying to find out is who in Bangladesh, who in China is 

buying the raw cotton, because it is our opinion that this cotton is 

made with forced labor. Our laws prohibit the importation of goods 

made in whole or in part with the use of forced labor. 

83

Ms. BASS. Okay. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. So, what we are trying to do is learn. I will congratulate, and I would like to say that the Department of Homeland Security and the Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement have taken this situation very seriously. 

What we understand, though they will tell you they can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, we received a response to a 

Freedom of Information Act request that we had sent whereby we 

were able to confirm that, at our request on a petition we filed last 

year, the Department of Homeland Security has opened an investigation into Indorama Corporation and into Daewoo Corporation. 

And partly as a result of that investigation, a shipment of cotton 

yarn from Uzbekistan was denied entry into the United States last 

October. 

We don’t have the final outcome. What we hope is that the investigation into those two corporations will continue because those are 

criminal violations. And to the extent that either corporation is 

subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, they should be prosecuted for these criminal violations. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. Thank you. 

My final question I wanted to ask Ms. Lummert. One of the 

issues in trafficking that is of major interest to me is trafficking 

domestically here in the United States, not of primarily females 

from overseas, but girls right here. 

We know that a large percentage of these girls have a relationship to the child welfare system and they have fallen through the 

cracks for a long time. We just kind of assumed that any girl that 

ran away ran away and didn’t realize that she was necessarily 

being forced and trafficked. 

And so, you spoke about the Catholic Church’s work domestically. I was looking through your written presentation, and that 

part of it just was mainly talking about girls coming from overseas 

to here. 

So, my question to you is, is the Catholic Church involved in any 

kind of systematic way, focusing on the trafficking of girls here domestically? I know there are some males, but it is primarily girls. 

And if there is an organized effort on the Catholic Church’s part? 

Ms. LUMMERT. Right. The Catholic Charities network in the U.S. 

is very extensive and they operate foster care programs throughout 

the country. Within those foster care programs, of course, they are 

seeing victims of trafficking domestically. Some of them may have 

been foreign-born, but they are trafficked within the U.S. as well. 

One of the things that we are doing is looking at our model of 

refugee foster care network that actually has served victims of trafficking, some of whom are brought in internationally, but some 

whom also have been trafficked within the U.S., to look at what 

has worked with that model of care and the services. We have 

served about 100 survivors of trafficking, children, girls and boys, 

both labor and sex trafficking, to see what are the practices that 

they are using and evaluate those practices. We hope to have that 

available soon. 

But what we are seeing from that work is the importance of having a trusting relationship with the service providers, a mentoring 

relationship with the professionals working with the children. We 

84

think that that will also be very valuable to the domestic child welfare system as well who are serving American-born children. 

Ms. BASS. Yes, and maybe I can follow up with you because I 

would just caution a little bit that I do understand how in some 

ways it might be applicable, but I think there are a lot of ways it 

is not, and especially with a lot of the groups that are working with 

kids who were born here. And so, maybe there can be some relationship where we could be helpful to share. 

One of the things about this field is that there is a real lack of 

evidence-based practices dealing with this population, period. But 

I do worry because over the years the focus has been on the international, and I don’t think we have paid—you know, we are certainly beginning now, and a lot with your leadership and the TIP 

Report, I think the situation in domestic trafficking is different. 

In the Los Angeles area, for example, some of that trafficking is 

done by street gangs. And so, it is really important to understand 

that different programs and practices might be needed. 

Ms. LUMMERT. One of the networks that I think that we could 

follow up with and get more information from is the Covenant 

House organization. They are involved with homeless and runaway 

youth. 

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Ms. LUMMERT. In fact, I used to work with them. They are involved with a Catholic coalition against trafficking as well. They 

are seeing this population. 

As you know, the children who are emancipating from foster care 

in the U.S. are the ones that are particularly vulnerable. The ones 

in foster care and the ones who are emancipating from foster care, 

they are vulnerable to the trusting relationship that these traffickers make the children believe that they have. 

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Ms. LUMMERT. They are exploiting the vulnerable situation and 

the lack of this trusting relationship or any protection system that 

is in place for them. 

Ms. BASS. Right, and I am sure you are aware that the age of 

emancipation, which is a term for which we probably should find 

a new one, is 18, but the average age that these girls are being 

trafficked is 12. 

Ms. LUMMERT. That is right. 

Ms. BASS. So, they are being recruited far before, well before they 

would reach the age of emancipation. So, hopefully, we can work 

together in the future. 

I work a lot with my colleague Tom Marino. We co-chair the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth. And so, this has become a particularly important issue to us. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. I would like to now yield to Tom Marino from Pennsylvania. Now we know, parenthetically, he was the U.S. Attorney 

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, so a very accomplished 

prosecutor at that. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you. 

Karen is right, we work a great deal on foster care/adoption. We 

see so many things taking place that we are trying to bring to the 

public’s attention more and more here in the United States, parVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:09 Sep 30, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042914\87712 SHIRL
85

ticularly when it comes to the trafficking of young people, young 

girls. 

I, too, do not like the term that is used, this ‘‘emancipation.’’ It 

turns one’s stomach to see what we see in our Caucus. 

I have a concern here. I was reading a report by the UNODC, 

the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It was gathered 

from 155 countries. And Executive Director Costa said that most 

countries, most of these 155 countries deny that there is any trafficking taking place. 

One question I have for the U.N. is, why do we have trafficking, 

human trafficking, tied up in a drugs- and crime-gathering unit? 

We should have a very aggressive, specific unit totally devoted to 

human trafficking, starting right here in the United States and in 

the U.N. 

In my last several months of U.S. Attorney in the Middle District 

of Pennsylvania, I guess it was about 7 or 8 years ago, we prosecuted one of the largest human trafficking rings. It took place in 

certainly Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and I think it went 

into Delaware, but I am not quite sure about that. 

We sent a couple of real bad fellows away for a very, very long 

time. And this was not a situation where they persuaded—look, I 

am 61 years old—I call these ‘‘young girls,’’ out for sex. I mean, it 

was threats. It was taking hostage. It was beating these young 

girls. And if you would have heard the testimony coming from 

these victims, it would have broken your heart. But we put these 

guys away just about forever. 

I kind of miss those days from putting these culprits away. 

But this percentage of human trafficking within this report indicated that 79 percent of the human trafficking is for sex; 18 percent of it is from forced labor. And as a matter of fact, in West Africa—and it is usually children in forced labor—100 percent of the 

children that are trafficked, 100 percent of those trafficked are children in these areas, and most of it is close to home. 

So, the point I am painstakingly getting to is, once again, the 

United States steps up to the issue here at the U.N., but what is 

the U.N., in and of itself, doing? My patience is growing very, very 

thin with the United Nations. They talk a good game, but we don’t 

see the results across the board on many issues, but particularly 

this issue. 

Ambassador LAGON. Mr. Marino, could I speak to that? 

Mr. MARINO. Please. 

Ambassador LAGON. It is a good set of questions. 

I came to head the State Department’s human trafficking office 

from the bureau that dealt with the U.N. And one of the threads 

in my career has been working on the U.N., including a book on 

international organizations I am about to publish. 

You asked really good questions. First, the U.N. Office on Drugs 

and Crime has played a leading role because the original treaty in 

the U.N. on human trafficking was attached to a transnational 

criminal networks treaty. I think it is problematic where there to 

be a singularly U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime approach. It should 

not surprise you that coordination between different agencies of the 

U.N. is crummy, a technical term, crummy. 

Mr. MARINO. To say the least. 

86

Ambassador LAGON. There are good actors. UNICEF does some 

good work. The International Labor Organization does some good 

work. Outside of the U.N. system, the International Organization 

for Migration does some very good work. 

The U.N. solution to a problem with coordination is to create 

multiple coordinating bodies, which don’t really improve the situation. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, I think, would do a better job itself, to the degree that it is involved, if it would help train 

countries to implement laws. Because the major problem in human 

trafficking around the world is that countries have enacted laws 

and they have ratified this U.N. Palermo Protocol on trafficking, 

but they are not implementing it. 

Mr. MARINO. But let me interrupt there because that looks good 

from a political standpoint, but if it is not enforced. And I think 

many times in these countries it is just for politics; okay, let’s show 

the world that we are taking care of this. 

However, it boils down to revenue is certainly generated from 

child trafficking, particularly in the labor area, but also in the sex 

trade. So, these are countries that just, once again, give lip service. 

And we at the U.N., and the United States to a certain degree, we 

take it. Why are we not calling out in a general session of the 

United Nations—I would love to stand up there and read off the 

list of countries and the leaders of those countries, you know, 

where they have a law; some of them don’t have a law, but what 

enforcement have they done? 

Ambassador LAGON. Right. 

Mr. MARINO. I mean, it is about time we call these people out 

publicly. 

Ambassador LAGON. I entirely agree with you. So, two points. 

First, I think, despite the desire of the U.N. to have its own global report, the two that it has put out have not rivaled the State 

Department’s report in their seriousness and completeness. 

And then, secondly, it is indeed exactly a problem of promises in 

rhetoric and on paper in laws and treaties, and not having action. 

I used to call this ‘‘the loop,’’ while I was head of the human trafficking office, a country would go up in its ranking when it passed 

a comprehensive law. And then, a couple of years later, you would 

see it wasn’t enforcing it, and it went down again. 

Mr. MARINO. I see my time is running out. But I say this with 

all good intentions. I would leave this position in a heartbeat if I 

had the authority and the team to go internationally and investigate and bring these people to justice. 

And I yield back. 

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

Let me ask Ms. Lummert a couple of questions, if I could. 

In your testimony you list the unique contributions of faith-based 

partners in the fight against trafficking. How can the U.S. Government better include faith-based perspectives and expertise in the 

fight? 

I do want to thank you for your 6 years as administrator of 

grants to foreign victims found in the U.S. As your testimony clearly points out, more than 2200 survivors of trafficking and over 500 

of their family members were served during that time. 

87

I was, frankly, deeply distressed, disturbed, and tried to find 

some legal way of changing it, and could not find it with a reluctant Senate and with the administration taking the position it 

took. 

But when Kathleen Sebelius put out her Request for Proposals 

and said that organizations that refer for abortion will be given 

preference, they sealed the deal, sadly, at HHS and picked the winners not based on competence and the ability to positively affect 

the lives of trafficking victims, but based on who does abortions. As 

you know, the HHS reviewers looked at your program and gave it 

superlative marks, and these were the independent-minded HHS 

reviewers who looked at what do you do, what is your capacity, and 

how well did you do it. And unfortunately, it went to other organizations that scored far below you, at least one which I found extraordinarily distressing. 

But it has been my experience—and you may or may not want 

to speak to this—that faith-based has been given an arm’s length 

approach by many over the years. When we first did this bill, there 

was a large number of people who wanted to exclude the faithbased side. They did it with PEPFAR. They have done it with other 

programs of the Federal Government. I am the one who authored 

the conscience clause on PEPFAR. It won by two votes in the Foreign Affairs Committee. So, it was not a slam-dunk, so that faithbased healthcare could be included. 

So, my question, you know, you spoke eloquently about the initiative by Pope Francis to bring Christians, Orthodox, and Muslims 

together, but I think that is a new platform for further jumping off 

and doing more, particularly on the prevention and protection side. 

Because I have been in shelters all over the world, and so many 

of those shelters are run by faith-based organizations. And I have 

been astounded how much healing happens in a faith-based shelter 

where the love and almost like the 12-step program for AA. If it 

wasn’t for the God side of it, some people would never get to that 

point where they can overcome their addiction to alcohol or drugs. 

And I have seen it time and time again, that joy in the eyes of a 

woman who has been trafficked and cruelly exploited, but with a 

smile on her face because she has found new hope in her own life. 

And Sister Eugenia, I have been to her programs in shelters in 

Rome and met women, one woman who was from Nigeria. As a 

matter of fact, Greg and I, he will recall this. She had been trafficked for 5 years, and this woman had joy unspeakable about her 

new life and was soon going to be getting married. I mean, she 

really had turned her life around through that shelter. And the 

same way in Lima, Peru; name the place, I have seen them. 

And so, how do governments, how does our Government stop this 

arm’s length? I find it with the European Union approach. I am the 

Special Representative for Human Trafficking for the Parliamentary Assembly for the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. My counterpart a couple of years ago, she and 

I used to fight over it—she said no faith-based in the shelters; they 

are not allowed. 

I was in Sarajevo at a shelter and they told me in the shelter 

they wouldn’t allow any Muslims, Christians, or Jews, or anyone 

with faith, to come in and assist the women. I was not only 

88

shocked, but I was disappointed and argued with them for the better part of an hour. 

So, we need, it seems to me, to recognize the extraordinary value 

that faith-based brings to healing and prevention, so protection. If 

you could elaborate on that? 

Ms. LUMMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The meeting that I was at at the Vatican, one of the impetuses 

of that was the collaboration between law enforcement and the 

Catholic Church in England, and, in particular, for example, what 

they are doing there is the religious community, the religious Sisters are actually working in collaboration with Scotland Yard to 

identify victims of trafficking, because the law enforcement recognized that there is only so much they can do to identify victims of 

trafficking. And they recognized the Church can play a role in prevention, in awareness in the communities most at risk, and also in 

identifying more than the law enforcement can themselves. 

Here in the U.S. one of the initiatives that we have is working 

with the Customs and Border Patrol and the Inspection Officers to 

provide informational briefings on identifying victims of trafficking, 

in particular, children. And we have had positive response from 

that. The officers say that they feel like they can be more aware 

and know what to do as a result of those briefings. 

What we bring to that is child development expertise. We bring 

our expertise in knowing about particular cases of child victims of 

trafficking who have been identified in the U.S. and that education, 

then, is helpful to them. So, we are hoping to be able to expand 

that as an example of a collaboration with law enforcement. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Burns, you spoke, and it was very encouraging to hear, how 

the Philippines and Cambodia reacted to tier rankings, you said 

trafficking against women is truly enforced and that they are taking seriously their obligations, and it is making a difference in the 

lives of children. 

We have always believed, I and others, Mark Lagon I know as 

Ambassador, that when you chronicle something, when you honestly ascribe a real value to it pro or con based on the record, people stand up and take notice, particularly when there is a penalty 

phase down the line, or a potential one. 

What happens when we go the other way and take a pass, punt? 

When somebody should be dropped, as you said with Uzbekistan—

and I do think, Dr. Uddin, you would like to see Burma as a Tier 

3 country as well. You raised the question and I think your bottom 

line would be that it would be a Tier 3 country. When we don’t do 

it, what happens to the victims and to trafficking in that country? 

Do we unwittingly enable it? 

Mr. BURNS. I don’t think I would go as far as to say that we enable it because I think the responsibility to govern the country still 

rests with the country, but we certainly don’t help. I think what 

IJM would say is this goes to the point that the TIP office needs 

to be very independent. It needs to be free to, as I think Ambassador Lagon said, honestly and perhaps scientifically evaluate all 

the nations of the world and give them the appropriate tier ranking. So, we would favor anything that gives them more independence, such as we supported the bill to make them a bureau. 

89

But, yes, I think you can take the experience in the Philippines 

and see that the Philippines was quite motivated to protect its citizens because of the downgrading on its tier ranking. And had you 

not done that, they wouldn’t have had that motivation and we 

would have had great difficulty getting them to enforce the law. 

Mr. SMITH. Greg Simpkins and I and Piero, also on our staff, and 

two other Members were in the Philippines right after the typhoon. 

Mr. BURNS. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. And frankly, there seemed to be among the NGO 

community definitely—we were with CRS most of the time and 

USAID—but there seemed to be a great recognition that children 

could be trafficked, and women, of course, under the cloud of a catastrophe. 

We met with two high-ranking officials, the Foreign Minister as 

well as the Health Minister, and they seemed to get it as well. So, 

would that comport with your view that they are very serious? 

Mr. BURNS. Absolutely. In fact, my examples went to the government taking trafficking seriously in the Philippines. But the public, 

too—and this is probably a bit unique in the Philippines because 

the Philippines pays great attention to what the United States 

does—the public is very conversant in the trafficking issues. And 

I had people just on the street quote to me various aspects of the 

TIP Report. 

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Uddin, you note in your testimony that one of the 

trafficking routes for Rohingya victims runs from Burma to Malaysia. You also note that Thai authorities have participated in the 

trafficking of Rohingya. Have Malay authorities also engaged in 

trafficking of Rohingya who have arrived in or moved to Malaysia? 

And what happens once they arrive in Malaysia? 

Mr. UDDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question. 

As of now, there is no report of Malaysian authorities, Malaysian 

police force or immigration involved in trafficking like there is in 

Thailand with Thai forces. 

When the victim arrives in Malaysia, they are reported to be confined into hard laborers and forced laborers, underaged laborers, 

things like that. We have not seen any reports of sex slavery issues 

in Malaysia, but if there are any, they are reportedly near the Thai 

border. But primarily the sex issues of underaged and women are 

along the border of Malaysia and Thailand. There are camps there. 

On the other side there is a wooded area, forested areas. There are 

some isolated islands. That is where it is taking place. 

According to reports, the Malaysian Government reportedly is 

sympathetic to Rohingya refugees more than Thailand, and according to the report, they have responded somewhat positively to 

Rohingya issues. There are no reports of brutality against refugees, 

what we have seen on the Internet and the pictures. The Thai police is doing it. The Thai Government is refusing it. 

So, as of now, we have not seen anything from the Malaysian 

side, but that is not to say that it could not happen in the future, 

because this problem is escalating, getting bigger on a daily basis. 

More people are leaving Burma. More people are leaving Arakan 

State. Approximately 40,000 refugees, people, have moved through 

Thailand in 2013. That is a lot of people, 40,000 people. 

90

So now, are we going to prevent that or is it going to be more 

than 40,000 this year in 2014? So, once things escalate and spill 

over to Malaysia, this sex trade thing can spill over to Malaysia. 

Even Indonesia, we didn’t have many refugees in Indonesia a couple of years ago. Now we have several hundreds, probably in thousands, in Indonesia. This local issue in Burma in Arakan State, 

this normal local issue, is becoming a regional issue, and I am 

afraid it is expanding, escalating into a global issue. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Let me ask Ambassador Lagon, if you would speak to the issue 

of Vietnam, whether or not they ought to be a Tier 3 country, in 

your view? China as well, would you designate them or keep them 

on the Tier 3 list? 

You mentioned New Zealand and, then, the fact that there has 

not been any serious prosecutions in the last 9 years. That is one 

I didn’t anticipate. Maybe why New Zealand? 

Regarding the Japanese businessmen who are traveling to Southeast Asia, I mean, what is Japan doing to mitigate this terrible 

problem of trafficking? And that would go from some parts of South 

America as well, particularly Peru. 

And then, finally, you also note in your testimony that many EU 

nations, member states, have been discussing stronger attempts at 

combating demand by focusing on enforcement on the buyers of 

commercial sex in general. How does the commercial sex industry, 

which I think is an absolute nefarious industry—and I often get 

criticized for being whole-heartedly against it—and human trafficking overlap? Do you have any indication of the manner that an 

EU-wide ban on purchasing of sex would change the sex trafficking 

patterns of the EU? 

Ambassador LAGON. Lots of good questions. I will be brief. 

I am very concerned about the situation in Vietnam and the situation for Vietnamese citizens who migrate elsewhere, and the situation of labor recruiters. I also am concerned about trafficking 

within Vietnam, and I think it deserves close scrutiny for receiving 

the lowest of grades. 

As for China, you know, it is very good that it finally was subjected to the downgrade without any waivers. I think there are any 

number of reasons, some of which we talked about before—the demographic situation, and the vulnerability of North Koreans but 

also the movement of people within China without a social safety 

net which also makes them vulnerable to human trafficking. I, myself, am not in the trafficking office right now, but I don’t see any 

grounds for raising China’s ranking. 

I think we just need to look at the gap between a ranking and 

between a narrative. In the case of New Zealand, it is striking. You 

know what happens in the State Department? When there is a disagreement between a regional bureau and the trafficking office, 

and it is refereed at the most senior levels of the Department, if 

the trafficking office loses and the ranking is higher than it recommended, then it gets more of an opportunity to incorporate in 

the narrative the facts. And you will notice some gaps. 

A country which has not found a victim or prosecuted a perpetrator in 7 years is one for which you have to ask the question, is 

91

it really meeting the minimum standards? It shouldn’t get credit 

for just doing good work in less-developed countries in the region. 

Of the many problems in Japan, I am concerned about those who 

are tourists elsewhere. It is a fact that there are Westerners who 

are child sex tourists and customers of commercial sex that drive 

sex trafficking in the Asian region, but, in fact, there are Asian 

tourists that are the major drivers. And the Japanese tourists are 

among them. Government authorities and businesses in Japan 

need to take responsibility for that. 

On your final question about the commercial sex industry, I do 

not believe that prostitution and sex trafficking are one and the 

same, but prostitution is the enabling environment. If there was 

not a sex market, there would not be these huge profits to be made 

by sex traffickers. 

The situation of human trafficking around the world is one in 

which the traffickers reap big profits and seeks out a situation of 

low risk. I believe that if Europe as a whole took on the Nordic 

model, then some of the successes that one sees in Sweden would 

be enjoyed elsewhere. And the opposite model has been a manifest 

failure, most markedly seen in the case of Germany. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, Mr. Campbell, very quickly, the ILO 

Convention 182 enforcement, you know, the deployment of the ILO 

monitoring team, you did mention in your testimony that they were 

hindered, and yet, they still were able to come to some very profound conclusions. Could you just say how large was the team? 

How were they hindered? Were they threatened? Were people who 

talked to them threatened? Did they have to find clandestine ways 

to make contact with people, so that they could take accurate notes 

about what was happening? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Sure. Thank you for that great question, because 

it is complicated. 

The reason the ILO is hindered is because they view themselves 

as a body of social partners. That would be the governments, the 

employers, and the trade unions. It is the only U.N. agency that 

is set up with those tripartite partners. 

In the case of Uzbekistan, those partners are one and the same. 

The government, the trade union, and the employers are all agents 

of the government. They are not independent. So, therefore, the 

ILO social partner model breaks down significantly when entering 

into Uzbekistan. 

The way that the monitoring was conducted from the methodology in their report was one ILO monitor ran a team of up to 40 

local government officials who were designated by the Uzbek Government. The Uzbek Government required the ILO to only look at 

and report on violations of Convention 182; 182 is the Convention 

on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Included in that Convention 

as a worst form of child labor is forced child labor. 

But, with that extremely-limited definition, the ILO was not allowed to look at the issue of forced labor generally. So, therefore, 

they had to find very creative ways to get that information out in 

their report. For example, they had quotes that said, ‘‘We have concerns about the way labor is recruited.’’ They can’t come right out 

and say it because the report has to be approved by all the social 

92

partners, and in this case the social partners were the Uzbek Government. 

And so, I think in a different way that they were interfered with. 

And again, I am not holding the ILO responsible for this. It is their 

constitution. They have to follow their own rules. I suppose in this 

regard what I would say is that there were efforts across the country in advance of the ILO getting there to make sure that people 

who were going to report out on the harvest were saying what they 

were supposed to say. 

In one very stark example—and this is just a real shame—a journalist, his name was Sergei Naumov, he was just days before the 

ILO appeared in his area, where he had been documenting the continued enforcement of labor to harvest cotton; he was 

photographing it. He was arrested, held incommunicado for eight, 

I think between 8 and 10 days. I will have to double-check. He was 

not allowed to communicate out that he was even arrested and all 

of that happened while the ILO was out there trying to monitor in 

that region. 

So, I think the government has made extreme efforts in order to 

look like they are cooperating with the ILO, but they have used 

some very unknowable procedures, and they are very difficult to 

understand from the ILO perspective because it is all within the 

ILO. They have used some procedures to their advantage. 

I would strongly encourage the International Labor Organization 

and its social partners, which work very well together on this 

issue—the employers and the unions is the only case at the ILO 

where the International Organization of Employers and the International Trade Union Confederation are on the same page. 

This is a tremendous opportunity. Unfortunately, we are not, as 

an international community at the ILO, looking at the issue of 

Convention 105. Convention 105 prohibits the mobilization of labor 

for economic activity by a government. That is exactly what is 

going on here. 

And so, therefore, I hope this year the International Labor Organization at its meetings this summer, at the Committee on Application of Standards, will take up the issue of Convention 105. By 

doing so, the Uzbek Government will no longer be able to deny 

they violate that Convention. They are only able to do it now because they keep trying to push us in a different direction. They are 

trying to say, ‘‘See, look. Look at what we are doing for our children.’’ They want us to ignore what is happening to the adults. 

Unfortunately, the ILO’s hands are tied in this manner, but they 

will have a decent work program. And I hope that they can start 

these conversations. But, again, they have agreements to begin 

talking about talking about the problems. What we need is action, 

and that is not what is happening. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Just a couple of final questions. 

Again on New Zealand, we have had more trafficking prosecutions in my congressional district than the entire country of New 

Zealand. We just had a recent one in Lakewood, New Jersey, for 

example. And in and around the Super Bowl, in the days and 

weeks leading up to it, 70 women were liberated, including 25 minors, and some 40 pimps were arrested in connection—some were 

93

already being put under surveillance before the Super Bowl, but it 

was all released right around the Super Bowl time. 

In regards to the TVPA, in my opinion there has been somewhat 

of a disconnect between we do the right thing on, at least we hope 

we do, designating countries, and that is a tug-of-war within the 

State Department. The reason why we are having this hearing is 

to give advanced notice to the TIP office and others where you and 

us and others are thinking they ought to be going, because you are 

experts in the field. 

But the second shoe to drop is the penalty phase, and that often 

lags to the point of nothing happens. And if you don’t do something 

enough, the offending countries say it is a worthless gesture. Why 

have penalties if you are not going to impose them? 

Nowhere is that more clear than in the International Religious 

Freedom Act, where time and again individual countries are named 

as a Country of Particular Concern and they never get sanctioned. 

Anyone who would want to touch on that? Your thoughts on 

that? The penalty phase, China, were they ever penalized for being 

a new Tier 3 country? 

You mentioned, Ambassador Lagon, about Japan. Why is Japan 

given such a non-look, if you will. As you said, they have not signed 

onto Palermo. There has not been a whole lot done there, and there 

are problems with sex tourism, particularly of Japanese businessmen. 

Ambassador LAGON. Well, actually, the question on Japan is 

whether it goes down from Tier 2. Let me say that one of the greatest sources of friction that I have faced in my time as the Ambassador was the concern of Japan that it was not getting Tier 1 like 

every other G7 country. 

Even the U.S. Embassy, where there is often resistance to taking 

up tough human rights and human trafficking issues, was adding 

things to the list that we were taking to the Japanese Government 

about what it needed to do. 

As far as the sanctions that would go along with Tier 3, it is odd 

that the countries that get sanctions are the ones that already have 

sanctions. I will say that the moral opprobrium, the stigma, that 

goes along with the lowest ranking may be the most powerful element of Tier 3. But the United States is leaving on the table leverage that it might have by actually using those sanctions. 

And some of the cases that my colleagues have pointed out here 

of the United States using its voice and vote in international financial institutions show another way that the United States could 

help assert pressure. 

I will say that when Moldova faced Tier 3, its designation with 

status from the Millennium Challenge Corporation was put under 

threat when the United States gave it Tier 3 in 2008. That really 

matters. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Congressman, on the issue of sanctions, I think 

it is important to recognize that it is not just an issue of sanctions. 

And the voice and vote I think is the best example. 

What it is, it is a common-sense policy to avoid investing in a 

forced labor system in Uzbekistan. I wouldn’t view it as a sanction. 

I would view it as an instruction that the United States GovernVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:09 Sep 30, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00097 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042914\87712 SHIRL
94

ment should be avoiding what we prohibit already, which is investing in forced labor. 

And so, I would say that it should be a matter of course that, 

when a government is downgraded to Tier 3, if the international 

financial institutions are going to invest in those sectors that are 

the cause of that downgrade, we must, as a matter of course, use 

our voice and vote to prevent that from happening. Otherwise, we 

will just be throwing money after or into a forced labor system. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, like to add anything, Dr. Uddin? 

Mr. UDDIN. Yes. I would like to see that the waiver of the Burmese Government, President Obama giving the waiver, we need to 

monitor that very closely and designate any improvement. If there 

is no improvement, it has to be reevaluated. 

I would love to see the Burma, the great country that I know of, 

coming off this list, of Tier 2, from Tier 3 to Tier 2, Tier 1, and 

gone. I would love to see that, but we know what needs to be done. 

We need to make sure that the Burmese Government knows, and 

they know, also, what needs to be done, so they can get off the list. 

And I would like to give the opportunity to the Burmese Government with this incentive, this waiver. And we hope that the Burmese Government will take a look at it seriously and, then, address 

the issue on the ground, the root cause of the issue, rather than 

chasing the smugglers, arresting the smugglers, traffickers, and 

punishing them. That is clipping the tip of the leaves, not the roots 

of the tree. So, that is what we hope, that the Burma Government 

will cooperate with the international community and resolve the 

issue on the ground. I am sure that the rest of the sequence of 

events can be prevented. 

Mr. SMITH. Would anybody else like to add anything before we 

close? 

[No response.] 

You have been very gracious with your time. A thousand pardons 

for all those interruptions. 

But this transcript will be used. We will share it with our leadership, Republican and Democrat. We will get it down to the TIP office, make sure that Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, who is very responsive and very capable, will have the benefit of your testimonies. And as soon as we get a transcript, he will have the benefit 

of your incisive answers to questions, so that they have the most 

informed input from people who are truly expert. And that is the 

five of you. 

So, thank you. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:16 p.m., the meeting was adjourned.] 

(95)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

96

f


87712n.eps
97

f


87712m.eps
98

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, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


87712f-1.eps
99


87712f-2.eps
100


87712f-3.eps
101


87712g-1.eps
102


87712g-2.eps
103


87712g-3.eps
104


87712g-4.eps
105


87712g-5.eps
106


87712g-6.eps
107

Æ


87712g-7.eps