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85–505 PDF 2014

S. Hrg. 113–455 

COMBATING HUMAN TRAFFICKING: FEDERAL, 

STATE, AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 23, 2013 

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

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JEFF CHIESA, New Jersey 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Deputy Staff Director 

BLAS NUN ̃ EZ-NETO, Senior Professional Staff Member 

HOLLY A. IDELSON, Senior Counsel 

STEPHEN R. VIN ̃ A, Deputy Chief Counsel for Homeland Security 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Minority Staff Director 

CHRISTOPHER J. BARKLEY, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

ANDREW C. DOCKHAM, Minority Chief Counsel 

DANIEL P. LIPS, Minority Director of Homeland Security 

WILLIAM H.W. MCKENNA, Minority Investigative Counsel 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Chiesa .................................................................................................. 3 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 5 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 5 

Senator McCain ................................................................................................ 22 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 55 

Senator Chiesa .................................................................................................. 57 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 59 

WITNESSES 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2013 

Hon. Alice C. Hill, Chair, Blue Campaign, U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security, and James A. Dinkins, Executive Associate Director, Homeland 

Security Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security .......................................................................... 8 

Anne C. Gannon, National Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention 

and Interdiction, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, U.S. Department 

of Justice, and Joseph S. Campbell, Deputy Assistant Director, Criminal 

Investigative Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department 

of Justice ............................................................................................................... 10 

John J. Farmer, Jr., Senior Vice President and University Counsel, Rutgers, 

The State University of New Jersey ................................................................... 34 

Suzanne Koepplinger, Executive Director, Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center ........................................................................................................ 38 

Lisa Brunner, Program Specialist, National Indigenous Women’s Resource 

Center .................................................................................................................... 40 

Daniel Papa, Director, Project Stay Gold .............................................................. 43 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Brunner, Lisa: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 40 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 409 

Campbell, Joseph S.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 72 

Dinkins, James A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61 

Farmer, John J., Jr.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 34 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 83 

Gannon, Anne C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 72 

Hill, Hon. Alice C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61 

Koepplinger, Suzanne: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 38 

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 91 
Page

IV 

Papa, Daniel: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 43 

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 412 

APPENDIX 

Posters referenced by Ms. Hill ................................................................................ 69 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Ms. Hill and Mr. Dinkins ................................................................................. 419 

Ms. Gannon and Mr. Campbell ....................................................................... 464 
(1) 

COMBATING HUMAN TRAFFICKING: FEDERAL, 

STATE, AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVES 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2013 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

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

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, Heitkamp, McCain, Ayotte, and 

Chiesa. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER 

Chairman CARPER. I was going to say the Committee should 

come to order, but the Committee is already in order, and we thank 

you for gathering with us today. 

I really want to thank Senator Heitkamp, who is en route—not 

from North Dakota, but she is, I think, in the building. She will 

be here momentarily. But she and Senator Chiesa, both new Senators, actually recommended that we hold a hearing on this subject. I do not know if this is something they coordinated or not. I 

know Senator Ayotte is a former Attorney General (AG). All three 

of them are former AGs from their respective States. But they have 

a strong interest in this issue, and they brought it to my attention 

and to the attention of Dr. Coburn, who is Ranking Republican on 

the full Committee, and we are very grateful to each of you for 

coming. 

We have a second panel, I think, that is going to follow you, and 

we are going to go ahead and get started. I am going to ask, since 

Senator Chiesa is actually filling in for Dr. Coburn today, he moves 

from over there to right here, and Senator Heitkamp, is going to 

move from over there to right here. So we will figure this all out, 

and we will get in our right seats and get on with the hearing. 

But human trafficking has been described as ‘‘modern-day slavery,’’ and that is because its victims are in some cases forced to 

work, including as prostitutes, sometimes in sweatshops, against 

their will. Trafficking victims may not be physically imprisoned, 

but they are trapped in often hellish conditions through physical or 

mental coercion that makes escape impossible, or at least seem impossible. 

It is easy to think of human trafficking as something that happens somewhere else—in countries far away from ours that are suffering through war or maybe poverty. But, sadly, human trafficking 
2 

is a real and a growing problem all over the world, including right 

here at home. And it can be invisible unless officials and citizens 

alike are trained to recognize the telltale signs. 

By some measures human trafficking is the second most significant criminal enterprise in the world, generating an estimated $32 

billion in revenue. To me that is stunning, and maybe to you as 

well. The statistics for one type of human trafficking—prostitution—are particularly shocking. I am told that every year more 

than 100,000 children in the United States are forced into prostitution. The average age of entry into prostitution is roughly 13 years 

of age. In fact, I understand that there have been reports of teenage girls forced to work as prostitutes by gangs and literally branded with tattoos to mark them as property. 

While the word ‘‘trafficking’’ sounds like a crime that involves 

moving people, the truth is that human trafficking does not necessarily involve victims smuggled in from other countries—or even 

other States. Human traffickers prey on vulnerable people in our 

own communities. While some victims are undocumented immigrants, many are teenage runaways or other vulnerable individuals 

born and raised in the United States. 

Just last year, in Wilmington, Delaware, a man was found guilty 

of forcing a 15-year-old girl to work for him as a prostitute. And 

just last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) conducted a 3-day operation in 76 cities that led to the rescue of 105 

children who had been trafficked into the commercial sex trade. 

Two of the children were found in the Philadelphia suburbs, roughly 20, 25 miles from my home. 

This issue reminds me of a passage from the Book of Matthew 

in the Bible. Some of you have heard it. I guess many of you have 

heard this. This is the reference to ‘‘the lease of these.’’ But when 

Jesus describes how God looked on those who perform acts of kindness for the disadvantaged by saying ‘‘in as much as you did it to 

the least of my brothers, you did it to Me.’’ And these vulnerable 

people being preyed on by human traffickers are clearly ‘‘the least’’ 

of our brothers and sisters, and I believe that we have a moral responsibility to make sure that they are being protected. 

I am always looking to understand the underlying causes of 

things so that we are not just focusing on treating the symptoms. 

We are pretty good at treating symptoms. We do not always go 

after the underlying causes. In the case of human trafficking, I am 

hoping that our witnesses today can help us to better understand 

three key things: 

First, we need to know what drives human trafficking so we can 

be more effective at stopping it. 

Second, we need to get better at identifying victims so that we 

can more successfully intervene and remove them from their terrible situations. 

And third, and last, we need to better identify potential victims 

of trafficking so that we can intervene before they are ensnared 

and offer them effective treatment or services before they fall prey. 

Today we are fortunate to have two panels of witnesses who can 

help us understand the current efforts underway at the Federal, 

State, local, and tribal level to attack human trafficking head on. 
3 

On our first panel, we have four senior witnesses from the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) who will 

speak to how the Federal Government has made human trafficking 

a priority for law enforcement and hopefully address some of the 

underlying causes. 

On our second panel, we have four witnesses who will speak to 

how human trafficking impacts our communities and how State 

and local officials—and even school children—are tackling this 

problem. 

I said just before Senator Heitkamp joined us how much I appreciate both of them suggesting that we hold this hearing. Dr. 

Coburn is not going to be able to join us at the hearing, and Senator Chiesa has grudgingly agreed to sit here and sit in as the 

Ranking Member of the full Committee. 

We have been joined by Senator Ayotte, and it is interesting. I 

am the only person who is not a former AG. They are all recovering 

Attorney Generals. [Laughter.] 

It is probably not a coincidence since they are all here and they 

have an intense interest in this because of their roles as law enforcement officers. But we are delighted that you are here, and we 

are going to start off with our friend from New Jersey who is sitting in for Dr. Coburn as the Ranking Member. And I am going to 

ask if Senator Heitkamp would like to speak for a while, and to 

also offer that to Senator Ayotte, if she would be interested in saying anything. You do not have to. If you would like to, feel free. 

Senator Chiesa. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHIESA 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for convening this hearing. Thank you for your leadership of this Committee. And thank you for your leadership on the issue of human 

trafficking. 

As the Chairman said earlier, human trafficking should be called 

exactly what it is: ‘‘modern-day slavery.’’ It is a plague on our Nation and the world. It is, to put it bluntly, a crime against humanity. It is a crime against the dignity of every person who is victimized by the ruthless criminals who trade in human beings. And it 

is a crime against society. As Dr. King said, ‘‘injustice anywhere is 

a threat to justice everywhere.’’ And it is happening, not just in 

some foreign land; it is happening here, in our own country. Indeed, it is past time—to put an end to it. 

We must not be content to make just a dent in human trafficking. We must do everything we can do to abolish modern-day 

slavery from our country and around the world. This is an ambitious goal, but not an impossible dream. We must commit ourselves 

to ending the nightmare that the millions of victims of human trafficking are living every day. Because none of us would give up our 

freedom for even a day, all of us must dedicate ourselves to ensuring that no one else suffers that fate. 

There are more people in slavery around the world today than 

at any other point in our history. As many as 27 million people 

around the world are being held in bondage, forced to work in unsafe, degrading, and inhumane conditions. That is the equivalent 

to 3 times the entire population of New Jersey or 30 times the en-
4 

tire population of Delaware. And an estimated 100,000 of them are 

right here in the United States. Deprived of their liberty, subject 

to unspeakable abuse, the victims of human traffickers cry for help. 

But, too often, their cries are unheard. Today in this hearing we 

are giving them a voice. We are hearing their pleas for rescue and 

for freedom. And most important, we are committing ourselves to 

answering their cries. 

The war to eradicate human trafficking must be fought on many 

fronts. It requires the concerted, sustained efforts of law enforcement—Federal, State, and local. Intergovernmental cooperation is 

also essential to success. It requires legislators at every level to 

provide the resources that law enforcement needs to sustain an effective effort to bring human traffickers to justice. And it is not 

adequate to provide just enough resources to fund a limited effort. 

Without dedicated resources there cannot be a dedicated effort. It 

requires lawmakers to make changes to the laws that allow human 

traffickers to sell their victims with impunity. Modern slaves are 

no longer auctioned in the public square. They are sold on the 

Internet and on the back pages of newspapers. Human traffickers, 

and the publishers who take their advertisements, hide under the 

cloak of the First Amendment even though the First Amendment 

was never intended to protect criminal enterprises. 

Eliminating human trafficking requires the active involvement of 

concerned citizens working together to raise awareness about this 

terrible problem and advocate change. Modern-day slavery exists in 

the shadows, but it leaves clues to its existence that informed citizens can recognize and call attention to. And it requires the close 

cooperation of Federal, State, and local governments. We must 

work together to uncover the crime where it exists, prosecute the 

criminals to the fullest extent of the law, and assist the victims so 

they are not twice victimized—first by their captors and then by 

the system that often treats the victims as criminals themselves. 

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney and as the Attorney General of 

New Jersey, I was in a position to ensure that we put in place the 

dedicated resources to sustain a dedicated effort to combat human 

trafficking. But I know that the vast majority of law enforcement 

agencies across the country and at every level find themselves limited in their efforts by the limitations on their resources. To our 

witnesses today, I ask you to be very candid in your assessment of 

where we stand in the fight against human trafficking and to tell 

us exactly what more we need to do to bring about its eradication. 

We have seen over the years effective, short-term efforts to combat human trafficking in places where it seems to grow overnight 

and disperse just as quickly. International sporting events, such as 

the Super Bowl—which is being played in New Jersey this February—often attract huge numbers of human traffickers. And in 

New Jersey, we are seeing a coordinated effort to let human traffickers know that they are not welcome, and that if they decide to 

bring their evil trade to our State, they will pay a heavy price. 

But as important as such efforts are, they are just part of the 

solution and they are temporary in nature. For human traffickers, 

there is no off-season. And for their victims, there are no bye weeks 

or time-outs. Their captors exploit them day in and day out for as 

long as they can. 
5 

Mr. Chairman, I am very much looking forward to the testimony 

of our witnesses today. I want to again thank you for conducting 

this hearing today. 

Chairman CARPER. You bet. I want to thank you. We want to 

thank you and certainly Senator Heitkamp for suggesting that we 

do it and encouraging us in a very strong and forceful way. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you so much, Chairman Carper, and 

I want to once again reiterate how much we appreciate the opportunity to bring this level of attention to a problem that I think is 

way too often in the shadows of our society. 

I am joined, I think by no small coincidence, by former AG’s as 

we look at victimization and as we look at the challenges of providing services to provide effective enforcement of this kind of act. 

But we desperately need to take this problem out of the shadows. 

We need to identify what the causes are, as the Chairman has 

said, but also what we can do to provide an effective deterrence to 

make this our shock value of this problem, we need to have that 

shock value reflected in our prosecutorial system. We need to make 

this one of our highest priorities, because as the Senator from New 

Jersey has said, this is, in fact, human slavery. There is no other 

way to, I think, identify it. There is no other way to talk about it. 

And I think way too often we think about this problem as a matter 

of the sex trade, but yet we know it even goes beyond that. We are 

looking at trafficking in domestic workers, and these are people 

who are not here as a result of which is a completely different 

issue. They are here without any activity on their own. They are 

here because they are providing a source of revenue. They are 

being treated as a commodity, not a human being, and we are not 

that society. 

And so, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony. I look 

forward to hearing not only what the problem is, but what the solutions are and how we can move forward in a very bipartisan way, 

as you see the panel up here today, to identify a path forward to 

prevent this horrible activity from occurring within our borders. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Heitkamp, thank you, and again, 

thank you very much for your strong encouragement of me. 

Senator Ayotte, you are here. I know this is something you care 

about, and, please, if you want to say a few words, feel free. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. I want to thank you, Chairman Carper. I want to thank Senator Chiesa and also Senator Heitkamp. 

We do share, having been former Attorneys General and I think 

seeing what a horrible crime this is of human trafficking in each 

of our States. 

I also want to point out, as Senator Chiesa has, that human trafficking is obviously an international problem and an international 

crime. And, in fact, one of the problems with human trafficking is 

that it is used to fund terrorism around the world. 

So today we are going to be talking about domestic human trafficking, and it is absolutely horrific what happens to victims of 
6 

human trafficking. And they are treated like things instead of people, and that is so wrong. So we need to do everything that we can 

to learn from you about how can we be more effective in allowing 

these vulnerable victims to come out of the shadows, to properly 

enforce the crimes, and make sure that we have the right laws in 

place. And, frankly, we need to send a message that the Federal 

Government and State governments are working together, that we 

are not going to tolerate human trafficking in our country, and that 

we are going to make sure that victims are treated with dignity 

and respect and that we prevent future victims from falling prey 

to such horrific crimes. 

And I will also say that we know the act of trafficking itself is 

a horrible crime, but it often fuels other criminal activities. And so 

we would like to hear from you today what other criminal activities 

are being fueled by human trafficking and how do we make sure 

that we come down on those criminals as well as those types of activities that are actually encouraging more trafficking rather than 

making sure that we stop these types of crimes. 

So I thank all of our witnesses for being here, and most of all, 

I want to thank my colleagues for holding such an important hearing, and I look forward to working with all of you together on a 

bipartisan basis to address a problem that should not exist in the 

United States of America. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Ayotte, thank you. And thanks a lot 

for joining us today. A lot of our colleagues are not here. We have 

no votes today, and so some may wander in during the course of 

the afternoon, but the folks that are here convening this hearing 

care deeply about this issue and want to make sure we address it. 

I am going to take a moment to introduce each of our witnesses 

on the first panel and then later the second panel. But our first 

witness is Ms. Alice Hill, who I think was one a judge. A superior 

court judge in L.A.? 

Ms. HILL. Yes, Los Angeles Superior Court. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Should we call you ‘‘Judge’’? Do people still call you ‘‘Judge? ’’ 

Ms. HILL. Occasionally they do, but I will take ‘‘Alice.’’ I will take 

anything. That is fine. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. I had 1 day last week when somebody called 

me ‘‘Congressman,’’ somebody called me ‘‘Governor,’’ somebody 

called me ‘‘Senator.’’ And then I got a phone call from my 23 year 

old son Ben, who called me ‘‘Captain.’’ He likes to call me ‘‘Captain.’’ I said, ‘‘At ease, sailor. At ease.’’ 

Our first witness is Ms. Alice Hill, Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security and Chair of the Blue Campaign, 

which we will be hearing about today. Before joining the Department in 2009, Ms. Hill served as a Los Angeles Superior Court 

Judge and as a Federal prosecutor in the Los Angeles United 

States Attorney’s Office. Before her career in public service, Ms. 

Hill was a lawyer in private practice in Paris, France. 

Our next witness is Jim—do you go by James or Jim? 

Mr. DINKINS. Jim. 

Chairman CARPER. Jim Dinkins, Executive Associate Director of 

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) for U.S. Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement (ICE). As the Director, Mr. Dinkins has di-
7 

rect oversight of ICE’s investigative and enforcement initiatives 

and operations. Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Dinkins 

held a number of leadership positions within ICE, including Special 

Agent in Charge for Washington, DC, and Baltimore. Mr. Dinkins 

began his law enforcement career with the U.S. Customs Service 

in 1986. 

Our third witness is Anne Gannon. She is currently the National 

Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction at 

the Department of Justice. Prior to holding this position, Ms. Gannon served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Central District 

of California for 9 years where she coordinated child exploitation 

investigations and prosecutions. In 2009, she was named one of the 

top women litigators in California for her work combating child exploitation. Ms. Gannon began her career as a law clerk to a U.S. 

district court judge in Arizona. Who was that judge, do you remember? 

Ms. GANNON. Yes; Judge Raner Collins in Tucson. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. I do not know if that somebody who 

rings a bell with our colleague here from Arizona or not, but he 

probably had something to do with that guy getting to be a judge. 

You never know. [Laughter.] 

Our final witness is Mr. Joseph Campbell, Deputy Assistant Director for the Criminal Investigative Division at the Federal Bureau of Investigations. He is responsible for national level leadership of complex financial crimes, public corruption, civil rights, and 

criminal investigations. Mr. Campbell has held a variety of leadership positions within the FBI and began his career at the Bureau 

in 1990. 

It is my understanding that only Ms. Hill and Ms. Gannon will 

be providing oral statements for the panel, so we will begin with 

Ms. Hill and then move to Ms. Gannon. And as questions come 

along, gentlemen, you will be invited to join in that. 

Before you speak, let me just say a number of years ago—I think 

I was in the Senate, so it would have been in the last 12 years— 

I was on an Amtrak train heading north to home, something I do 

almost every day going back and forth. And I ran into one of my 

former colleagues from the House of Representatives. I believe it 

was John Miller, and I said to him, ‘‘What are you doing these 

days?’’ And he said, he worked at the State Department, maybe, 

and his principal focus was human trafficking. I do not know if it 

is someone you have ever worked with or knew, but he said—— 

Senator MCCAIN. Human rights. 

Chairman CARPER. Pardon me? 

Senator MCCAIN. Human rights. 

Chairman CARPER. There you go, human rights. But, anyway, he 

said it is a big issue. This is a big issue. And he said even then 

that it is something I ought to think about and focus on as well. 

So I have thought about it for a while. We are really glad that you 

all are here. Your full testimony will be made part of the record, 

so feel free to summarize it as you wish. And I think at least one 

of you may have some video for us to see as well. Judge Hill. 
8 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Hill and Mr. Dinkins appears in the Appendix on page 61. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. ALICE C. HILL,1 CHAIR, BLUE CAMPAIGN, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, AND 

JAMES A. DINKINS, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, 

HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS, IMMIGRATION AND 

CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

Ms. HILL. Thank you very much, Chairman Carper, Ranking 

Member Chiesa, and Members of the Committee. The Department 

of Homeland Security welcomes and appreciates the opportunity to 

speak with you today. 

The men and women of DHS are dedicated to combating the heinous crime of human trafficking. The Department’s Blue Campaign 

coordinates and unites the Department’s work. 

Before discussing specific initiatives of the Blue Campaign, I 

would like to show you a short public service announcement (PSA) 

that illustrates what the Senators have been speaking about: That 

human trafficking occurs in the United States and that there is a 

need for the public to open its eyes to trafficking victims hidden in 

plain sight. We will play this now. 

[Videotape played.] 

This is an example of our attempt to engage the public in a conversation about what is occurring here in the United States. As has 

been mentioned, traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to lure 

their victims and force them into labor or commercial sexual exploitation. As Chairman Carper and Senator Heitkamp noted, it is important to distinguish trafficking from smuggling. The two are 

often confused, and certainly in our Department, given our authorities, we want to make clear that there is a difference. Human trafficking is exploitation based and does not require movement. Smuggling is movement based across our borders illegally. 

I want to share with you the story of a girl named Shyima Hall. 

Shyima’s parents sold her into slavery when she was 8 years old. 

She was smuggled into the United States when she was 10 years 

old. She worked as a domestic servant in Orange County, California, 16 hours a day, scrubbing floors, cooking meals. She was 

rarely allowed outside. She never visited a doctor, and she could 

not speak English. 

When she was 13, a concerned neighbor called in a tip to law enforcement, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement opened an 

investigation. Her captors were prosecuted, imprisoned, and then 

deported. Today Shyima Hall is a United States citizen, and her 

goal is to be an ICE agent because she wants to rescue others like 

her that she knows are hidden in plain sight in the United States. 

Shyima’s story helps us understand the important role the government can play in identifying, investigating, and prosecuting human 

trafficking. 

DHS is one of the lead Federal law enforcement agencies engaged in combating human trafficking. Through its Homeland Security Investigations, DHS is responsible for investigating and preventing human trafficking, both domestically and internationally. 

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is in a unique position to detect human trafficking on our borders, as is the U.S. 
9 

Coast Guard (USCG) on our high seas, the Transportation Security 

Administration (TSA) at airports and mass transit facilities, and 

the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in disaster 

areas. 

Our investigatory authority, screening authority, and most of our 

assistance programs are authorized by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), and its subsequent reauthorizations. 

In 2010 DHS launched the Blue Campaign to combat human 

trafficking. The Blue Campaign began and continues with no direct 

appropriations. It reflects a belief that we can be highly effective 

when we work collaboratively with our internal and external partners. 

The Blue Campaign focuses on trainings so that we can detect 

human trafficking, as well as outreach so that we can prevent it 

from occurring. We have created specialized trainings and videos to 

educate State and local and tribal law enforcement officers at all 

levels on indicators of human trafficking. We want law enforcement 

to know how they can assist victims to be aware of the full range 

of resources available to them when investigating trafficking. 

The Blue Campaign collaborated with the Department of State 

to create a general awareness training to educate the public on the 

indicators of human trafficking. We produced an informational 

video to help first responders identify possible victims of human 

trafficking. Just this summer, we entered into a partnership agreement with the National Association of Counties (NACo) to work 

with county personnel to identify human trafficking. 

In 2012 DHS, along with the U.S. Department of Transportation 

(DOT), and Amtrak entered a partnership to train all 20,000 Amtrak employees and the Amtrak Police Department to recognize indicators of human trafficking, as well as how to report suspected 

cases. 

We also work with the airline industry. CBP recently, together 

with DOT, launched the Blue Lightning Initiative, a training program to educate airline employees on human trafficking and how 

to notify law enforcement. 

In fiscal year 2012, the HSI Tip Line received more human-trafficking tips than ever before—588 tips. We think that our efforts 

are working. 

During that same year, ICE HSI investigated more cases with a 

nexus to human trafficking than ever before, resulting in over 950 

criminal arrests, 381 convictions, and seized assets of more than $1 

million. This year, we are on pace to exceed last year’s record numbers, having already initiated 940 human-trafficking investigations. 

We take a victim-centered approach in our investigations. We 

have victim assistance specialists across the ICE offices all over the 

United States. We have also expanded our Forensic Interviewing 

Program so that we have specially trained personnel to conduct the 

important interviews with the victims. 

One disturbing trend we have encountered is increased gang activity. This has been observed right here in Washington, D.C. ICE, 

in collaboration with the Northern Virginia Human Trafficking 

Task Force and our Federal partners, recently investigated and 

successfully prosecuted cases where MS–13 gang members re-
10 

1The posters referenced by Ms. Hill appear in the Appendix on page 69. 

2The prepared statement of Ms. Gannon and Mr. Campbell appears in the Appendix on page 

72. 

cruited girls as young as 12 years old from our schools, on the 

street, and through social media into sex trafficking. 

DHS, through its U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 

(USCIS) and ICE, provides immigration relief to eligible foreign 

trafficking victims. Immigration relief options assist law enforcement in stabilizing victims so that they may begin to recover and 

rebuild their lives. 

I am proud of what DHS has accomplished, but there is still so 

much to do. We are working more every day to expand our partnerships. We regularly interact with our stakeholders for new ideas 

and new innovative ways to combat this crime. 

The posters1 that we have here are a great example of exactly 

that, and they are available at DHS.gov/BlueCampaign for anyone 

to download, print out, or we will give them hard copies. 

The first here says: ‘‘Lured by fairy tale promises, she learned 

not every prince is charming,’’ picturing a teenage girl. That relates 

to sex trafficking. 

The next poster is in connection with labor trafficking. It states: 

‘‘What good is a time card when his freedom clocked out long ago?’’ 

And our final poster goes to domestic servitude. It reflects a person like Shyima enslaved in the home. It states: ‘‘Some prison cells 

have metal bars, and some have picket fences.’’ 

I appreciate the opportunity to represent the Blue Campaign and 

DHS before this Committee, and I would be pleased to answer any 

questions you may have and work with you to find the answers to 

the very important questions that you have already posed. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Judge Hill. Thanks very much. 

Mr. Dinkins, thank you for being here as well. 

Ms. Gannon, I think you are next up. Please proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF ANNE C. GANNON,2 NATIONAL COORDINATOR 

FOR CHILD EXPLOITATION PREVENTION AND INTERDICTION, OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, AND JOSEPH S. CAMPBELL, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Ms. GANNON. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Carper, 

Ranking Member Chiesa, and Members of the Committee. Thank 

you for the opportunity to testify today about the Department of 

Justice and FBI’s efforts to combat the scourge of human trafficking. As evidenced by the broad spectrum of investigative, prosecutorial, training, outreach, victim services, and research efforts 

by a wide array of components, the Department is fully committed 

to fighting human trafficking. 

Human trafficking is a crime that strikes at the very heart of the 

American promise: freedom. Today in this country people are 

bought, sold, and exploited like slaves each and every day. They 

are trapped in lives of misery—often beaten, starved, and forced to 
11 

engage in prostitution or to take grueling jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay. 

The Department and its partners are working hard to identify 

and support victims and bring their abusers to justice. We provide 

significant resources, training, and technical assistance to our Federal, State, local, and tribal partners. 

The FBI’s efforts to investigate human trafficking are coordinated by the Civil Rights Unit (CRU) and the Violent Crimes 

Against Children Section (VCACS). The Civil Rights Unit investigates forced labor, sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, and 

the sexual exploitation of foreign minors, while the Violent Crimes 

Against Children Section focuses on the commercial sexual exploitation of domestic children under the age of 18. Sex-trafficking 

prosecutions involving children do not require proof of the use of 

force, fraud, or coercion. 

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the FBI’s most prominent initiative to combat the growing problem of sex trafficking of 

children within the United States. In June 2003, the FBI and the 

Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) 

joined the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 

(NCMEC) to launch the Innocence Lost National Initiative (ILNI). 

The FBI and its partners execute Operation Cross Country—a 3- 

day nationwide enforcement action focusing on underage victims of 

prostitution. Our seventh and most recent operation in July 2013 

concluded with the recovery of 105 commercially sexually exploited 

children and the arrests of 150 pimps and other individuals. 

To date, the task forces have rescued more than 2,800 children, 

and investigations have led to the conviction of more than 1,400 

pimps, madams, and their associates. These convictions have resulted in multiple life sentences and the seizure of real property, 

vehicles, and monetary assets. 

Our Civil Rights Unit investigates trafficking involving foreign 

nationals, which is often aimed at recent migrants and other economically disadvantaged individuals, particularly women and children. 

Together with our law enforcement partners at DHS, appearing 

here today with us, as well as the Departments of Labor (DOL) and 

State, we are working hard to combat trafficking in any form—not 

only because of the physical and psychological toll it takes on individual victims and their families, but also the profits generated by 

this exploitation fuel further unlawful migration and organized 

criminal activity. 

The Department’s prosecution efforts are led by two specialized 

units, the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution 

Unit, and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity 

Section, which provide subject matter expertise and partner with 

our 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices (USAOs) on prosecutions nationwide. 

Taken together, these units initiated a total of 128 Federal 

human-trafficking prosecutions in fiscal year (FY) 2012, charging 

200 defendants. During fiscal year 2012, DOJ convicted a total of 

138 traffickers in cases involving forced labor and sex trafficking 

of adults and children. 

The Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit (HTPU) works to enhance investigations and prosecutions of significant human-traf-
12 

ficking cases, particularly novel, complex, multi-jurisdictional, and 

multi-agency cases and those involving transnational organized 

crime and financial crimes. 

DOJ units have continued to lead the six anti-trafficking coordination teams (ACTeams), in collaboration with the FBI, DHS, and 

the Department of Labor. These ACTeams, through enhanced coordination among Federal prosecutors and multiple Federal investigative agencies, have developed significant human-trafficking investigations and prosecutions. 

The Department and DHS have collaborated with Mexican law 

enforcement counterparts on the U.S./Mexico Human Trafficking 

Bilateral Enforcement Initiative, which has contributed significantly to restoring the rights and dignity of human-trafficking victims through outreach, interagency coordination, international collaboration, and capacity building. 

The Child Exploitation Section coordinates and participates in 

training for Federal, State, local, and international prosecutors and 

investigators engaged in efforts to enforce Federal child exploitation laws. For example, in 2013, staff presented on best practices 

for investigating and prosecuting child sex-trafficking cases at a 

human-trafficking seminar in California and participated in a 

crimes against children training conference located in Vietnam. 

All U.S. Attorneys’ Offices established or participate in humantrafficking task forces and collaborate with private partners in several ways. Eighty percent of these task forces include members 

from a diverse set of nongovernmental organizations—community 

groups, faith-based organizations, victim advocacy groups, academic organizations, medical professionals, and legal aid offices. 

The Department does more than investigate and prosecute those 

who exploit victims of trafficking. For example, the DOJ’s victims 

specialists and non-government victim assistance service providers 

work with human-trafficking victims to advise them of their rights 

and to ensure they get the help they need to address their shortterm and long-term needs—such as legal and repatriation services, 

immigration relief, housing, employment, education, job training, 

and child care. 

In fiscal year 2012, the Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) jointly made awards to 

seven task force sites to execute a comprehensive approach to combating all forms of trafficking, including sex and labor trafficking 

of foreign nationals and U.S. citizens. 

During fiscal years 2012 and 2013, the Office for Victims of 

Crime represented DOJ by serving as a co-chair along with DHS 

and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the 

development of the first-ever Federal strategic action plan to 

strengthen services for trafficking victims. The plan is scheduled 

for release in January 2014. 

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has maintained the most 

active research portfolio on trafficking in the United States, making dozens of research awards over the past decade. Recent awards 

are tackling the toughest questions asked about human trafficking, 

including measuring the prevalence of labor trafficking, exploring 

the perpetration of trafficking, and evaluating best practices in 

service provision. 
13 

In April 2013, the Attorney General, on a recommendation from 

the Defending Childhood Task Force, called for the formation of the 

American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence 

Task Force. An initial focus will be actions to improve the Federal 

response to the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native children exposed to violence. This vulnerable population has been identified as being particularly susceptible to being lured by traffickers. 

On behalf of Deputy Assistant Director Campbell and myself, we 

thank you again for the opportunity to testify here today and would 

now welcome any questions you may have. 

Chairman CARPER. Ms. Gannon, thank you, and, Mr. Campbell, 

thank you for joining us as well. 

Before I start the questioning, I just want to make just a note, 

a quick note, if I could. Senator McCain’s wife, Cindy, as many of 

you may know, has been involved in the fight against human trafficking for some time, both in her own State and as the co-chair 

of the Governor’s Task Force Against Human Trafficking or on 

Human Trafficking. She has worked outside of her State. She has 

worked even internationally, I think most recently with the first 

lady of Mexico, and I know you are very proud of her, and would 

you just convey our thanks to her for the great work that she is 

doing, John. 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. I want to go back a couple years. The year 

I was elected Governor, I said, Why don’t we focus this Administration for 4 years or 8 years, however long I was going to get to be 

Governor of Delaware, and just focus on the underlying causes of 

why does a kid start school behind, why do they fall further behind, why do they become disruptive in classes, why do they drop 

out, get suspended, expelled, end up in crime, or dependent on all 

of us on welfare and that sort of thing. Why? And we focused really 

for 8 years on underlying causes. 

We focused on teenage pregnancies, how to reduce them. I saw 

the other day that teen pregnancies are down by half in this country since 1992, the year I was elected Governor. And we are encouraged by that. 

We focused a whole lot on parenting training for people, including people in prison, because almost all of them were parents. They 

were not very good parents. They did not have very good parents 

either. 

We focused on the value of early childhood education. So we went 

after the root causes. 

And what I want to do in my questioning, that is a way of 

telegraphing this pitch as I mentioned in my opening statement, is 

focus on root causes. In some cases the causes are what makes the 

traffickers want to traffic, $32 billion could be part of the reason, 

and what makes those who they end up recruiting or basically 

pressing into servitude, what makes the victims willing to do that 

or unable to escape that. Could we just talk about underlying 

causes? We will just start with you, Judge Hill, if you will, please, 

and then we will go from our left to our right. Please, Judge Hill, 

underlying causes. 

Ms. HILL. Looking at the perspective of the traffickers, I think 

for them, unfortunately, this has proven to be a lucrative form of 
14 

criminal activity, and it is difficult to prosecute these cases. The 

victims are so traumatized, they have suffered such psychological 

damage, they have fear for their children, fear for themselves, their 

families, that they are sometimes unable to tell their stories. 

Indeed, when ICE HSI encounters victims in the field, often they 

do not recognize that they are victims. They have suffered such 

brutalization that they are unable to recognize what has occurred. 

And often they are unable initially to testify regarding what occurred. 

I speak as a former judge and a former prosecutor—— 

Chairman CARPER. I am going to interrupt you, if I may. Go back 

just a little bit before they actually have been recruited—or pressed 

into this kind of servitude. Just go back before that, if you will. 

How does it get started? 

Ms. HILL. What we know is—— 

Chairman CARPER. And is there anything that we can do at that 

very early juncture? 

Ms. HILL. Certainly what we know is that, with regard to sex 

trafficking in the United States of girls and boys, we know that 

many of these children have suffered trauma in the home and have 

suffered previous sexual abuse. We also know that many of them 

are runaways and that the more times—a study in Texas has 

shown that the more times a child runs away, the more likely that 

they are going to be the victims of human trafficking. 

So we also know that poverty may drive this crime. We know 

that we have individuals who are seeking affection. This is common 

for some of our international victims, they ‘‘fall in love’’—I will use 

that in quotes—ostensibly with their trafficker. We have seen families where the victim moves in with the trafficker’s family. A child 

is born to the victim and the trafficker, and then the child is held 

by the family, and the trafficker takes the victim north to the 

United States in many instances to be trafficked here. 

So there are a whole host of reasons. I do not think we have full 

understanding, but we certainly have some indicators that help us 

know what populations are more vulnerable. And one of them, we 

are very concerned about what is occurring in our schools, as is the 

Department of Education in our work with them, to make sure that 

our schools are also not an opportunity for traffickers who recognize that this is a profitable form of crime. 

And I will just say, because these cases are difficult to prosecute, 

the victims have challenges in coming forward to tell their story. 

It makes it an attractive crime because the deterrence is not there. 

It is harder to prosecute. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Those are great points. Thank you. 

Mr. Dinkins, do you want to add to that, or take away? 

Mr. DINKINS. Yes, sir, real quickly. One of the things we have 

seen with our foreign nationals that come into the United States 

and end up becoming victims of sex trafficking or labor trafficking 

is those are individuals who are coming to America to live the 

American Dream. So they are coming here with some type of idea 

that they will get educated or they will work in a home and get 

stable employment when really they are coming here to fall prey 

to criminals who are seeking to exploit individuals, gang members 

who—that is their mode of operation, to prey on weak people, and 
15 

they find foreign nationals here. They do not have the support system of their family. They find their travel documents are held by 

their traffickers, and so they have no place to turn in a foreign 

country. But ultimately they came here to live the American 

Dream. 

And as far as what we have seen, I think we have to also remember that many of these children, as you have mentioned, as young 

as 13 years old, become sex-trafficked. There are pedophiles that 

are out seeking them. So there is another underlying industry that 

is actually seeking to have sex with a minor, which is something 

that we also have to look at, as much as those who are trafficking 

them and those who are actually seeking to have sex with young 

children. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. Gannon, underlying causes, please. 

Ms. GANNON. Thank you. Yes, in terms of traffickers, traffickers 

view these victims as a commodity. For drugs they can be sold 

once. For individuals that are smuggled, they can be transported 

once. But a person who is held in a trafficking situation, whether 

it be labor or sex, can be used and sold multiple times. And, unfortunately, everyone from transnational organized crime to gangs to 

individual traffickers have realized this, and they view this as a 

business, and they use these victims to gain monetary advantage. 

In terms of the underlying causes for the victims, unfortunately 

poverty is an issue that drives people to seek a better life and to 

seek economic and employment opportunities where the traffickers 

have no intention of complying with the compensation that they 

promised. 

In addition, we see victims with no or precarious immigration 

status, as my colleague from DHS mentioned, and that makes 

them particularly vulnerable and reluctant to report. 

In addition, we see young girls and boys with a desire to be 

loved, who may be, as Judge Hill mentioned, runaways from the 

foster care system. And that makes them particularly vulnerability 

as well. They may be living on the streets and a trafficker presents 

themselves as the first person to show them security and love, and 

that person then betrays them as well and forces them into prostitution or a forced labor situation. 

Chairman CARPER. Thanks. 

Mr. Campbell, please. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes, Chairman. I would reiterate what Ms. Gannon said as far as the children who are homeless, from disadvantaged homes, or just have low self-esteem. And quite often we understand that within 48 hours of being on the street as a runaway, 

they are quite often approached by traffickers and lured into the 

trade with this person who actually says that they love them, 

starts to take care of them, brings them into their home, sort of 

lures them into the trade itself. 

Some are affiliated with gang members. They might be family 

members of gang members, friends of gang members, and the gang 

itself is involved in trafficking or becomes involved in it. And then 

those people are either lured into it or violently persuaded to become prostitutes, child prostitutes and so forth. And in some cases, 

individuals are simply kidnapped and forcibly held. And I think it 
16 

brings home the importance of training local law enforcement, our 

tribal partners, community organizations, school educators, et 

cetera, as far as recognizing where this can happen. I am sure 

many of you know of stories where children have been lured from 

so-called prominent high schools, places that you would know, 

where your kids or other kids of your friends go, and it would come 

as a surprise to you that kids could be lured from a place like that. 

But it happens all the time, unfortunately. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Again, we have focused for 8 years in Delaware on how do we 

strengthen the basic building blocks of a society of families, and the 

thought occurs to me, to the extent that we did that in order to 

make sure that kids did a better job in school, started prepared, 

finished, did not drop out, ended up not being a burden to the rest 

of us, not ending up in the criminal justice system, and we did it 

by focusing on the basic building blocks of our society. And I am 

just reminded here that maybe that is part of addressing the underlying symptoms. 

I am going to telegraph my next pitch when we come back. In 

the National Governors Association (NGA)—I do not know, John, 

what it was like in the Attorney Generals Association, but the National Governors Association, we had a Center for Best Practices 

that is like a clearinghouse for good ideas. And I always used to 

say to my cabinet, every problem that we are facing in Delaware, 

some State has addressed that problem and figured out how to address it, how to solve that problem. And when we come back, a 

question I am going to ask you is: Are there any other countries 

out there that we ought to be looking at to see what they are doing, 

how they have dealt with the underlying problems and also the 

symptoms of those problems? 

Senator Chiesa, you are going to be with us for too short a time. 

Senator Chiesa is only here for a limited duration, and we have 

very much enjoyed his presence and membership on this Committee and in the Senate. Again, I want to thank him and Senator 

Heitkamp for suggesting we have this hearing. Jeff, you are recognized. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to all of 

you for being here. I appreciate not only your expertise on this 

issue but your passion for it. 

We talk about this horrific act by identifying the people as property, and that is a concept that is so foreign to anybody that lives 

in this country. And one of the things that is particularly troubling 

to me is the way certain aspects of our business community can reinforce this concept, and I will tell you what I am talking about. 

This February, the Super Bowl is going to be in New Jersey, and 

we have been preparing for that for a number of years on a bunch 

of security levels for sure—but also because we know that traffickers follow these international events and we know that there is 

an increased demand for it. We saw it in Dallas. We saw it in Indianapolis. And one of the really troubling things that we see as a 

result are web-based companies that advertise people as property 

on their websites. 

I have had a chance to review some of these ads, and you will 

see children advertised in these ads with obvious signs of abuse on 
17 

their bodies. They do not even try to hide it. They put girls on 

these ads, young girls on their ads with bruises all over their bodies that prosecutors and detectives and agents will tell you are obvious signs of physical and sexual abuse. And they do not even 

care. 

And what I want to talk to you about is I understand that we 

are not in the business—or I do not believe we are in the business 

of regulating speech and content. I have no interest in doing that. 

But I do have an interest in talking about businesses whose business model it is to advertise people as property. And what I want 

to ask each of you—and I will start with you, Judge Hill, and I appreciate the chance to meet with you last week—what can the Federal Government do with web-based companies that are engaging 

in these advertisements that promote and encourage child exploitation; what can the Federal Government do to better monitor and 

take action against these companies? 

Ms. HILL. This is a challenging area for us, because as soon as 

we hone in on a particular advertiser, it is pretty elusive. They can 

disappear and reappear in some other format. So it is a challenge 

for us on an investigatory basis. 

Certainly we applaud the efforts that are happening in the private business world of companies saying that they will not participate in human trafficking, either with their supply chains or in 

other methods of simply not having them participate in this effort 

at all. And we believe that we need to continue to educate the 

American public so that they will also express similar outrage, as 

we have with other issues, and see the change in the public view. 

But at first, we need to have the American public recognize that 

there is a problem here in the United States, and, frankly, in my 

discussions, as I have gone out, I do not think that necessarily 

State and local law enforcement even believe that there is a problem. And they may not even believe that these ads would affect 

their community. 

Once we have had a chance to share with them our training and 

our knowledge, almost universally—and this is borne out by the research of the Department of Justice—there is a recognition and 

then there is a heightened scrutiny, and that is where I think we 

need to start. We need to have all of our law enforcement partners 

recognize that this is a challenge for us and collaborate and find 

those best practices that will help us attack it. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you. Mr. Dinkins. 

Mr. DINKINS. Absolutely, I think this is an area that we can all 

agree on, that we cannot arrest our way out of it. And I think by 

educating people, it really bears out the results that we have seen 

on the enforcement side, because we are able to identify, early on, 

red flag indicators of abuse. 

You are talking about the web-based companies, and this was not 

my idea, but we certainly got some good investigative leads out of 

it. There was a private institution, a banking institution, that did 

just what you did. They searched the Internet looking for individuals advertising commercial sex on the Internet. Then, they looked 

at the same web addresses, phone numbers, and contact information, to see if they were advertising overseas in at-risk countries for 

au pairs or for employment opportunities in the United States, to 
18 

do a bait-and-switch. And, we actually came up with some very 

good leads on there. And that is great to create investigations, but 

the best way to do it is not have the ads and not have those web 

housers housing that type of material in the beginning. And usually, as Judge Hill mentioned, once we educate private businesses 

and web companies, they take action very quickly to rid themselves—nobody wants to be contributing to human trafficking. 

Senator CHIESA. Thanks. The same question, Ms. Gannon. 

Ms. GANNON. Thank you. The Department shares your serious 

concerns about the use of the Internet to perpetrate these types of 

crimes, and particularly against these vulnerable victims. The Department has had successful investigations and prosecutions related to online advertisements of minors for sex trafficking. 

Just 2 weeks ago, I attended meetings where I was informed 

about the utilization and leveraging of technology to look for missing children in these ads, something the Department takes very seriously. 

As a general matter, any prosecution of a website or an individual who is purchasing these types of services requires the government, whether it be State or Federal, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the website operators actually knew or had reasonable cause to believe that the advertisement was for a sexual act 

as opposed to a legal service, and that the individual depicted in 

the advertisement in the instance of minor sex trafficking is under 

the age of 18. 

We will continue to aggressively combat human trafficking, 

whether it takes place online or off, and we are certainly cognizant 

of the unique factors that this type of trafficking advertisements 

present. 

While our primary focus is on the traffickers of these victims, because they are primarily responsible for the caused harm to the 

victim, we have also engaged the Department in demand-side enforcement, and through operations we have looked at the purchasers of these type of sexual services on the Internet. And in the 

case of United States v. Jungers out of the Eighth Circuit, the Department pursued an affirmative appeal when the district court rejected those charges against a purchaser, and the Eighth Circuit 

agreed with the Department and found that the existing humantrafficking Federal statute 1591 does apply to purchasers of sexual 

services on the Internet. 

Senator CHIESA. OK. And I hope you will continue to let this 

Committee know about things that they can do the strengthen your 

ability to bring those prosecutions, because they are so important. 

And, Mr. Chairman, if I may have Mr. Campbell also respond to 

the same question. 

Chairman CARPER. Sure. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes, Senator. Where these websites are in some 

way supporting, according to the criteria of the statute, human 

trafficking, sex trafficking, we are certainly going to work closely 

with the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute those. 

Some of those companies are more cooperative than others in regard to that issue, and we continue to work with them to increase 

that cooperation and really focus in this area. 
19 

If I may, I wanted to say something about these special events. 

You alluded to the Super Bowl. One thing that these ads do is demonstrate to us when there might be an increase of human trafficking, prostitution, et cetera, at these types of special events. It 

could be a sporting event. It could be a large business convention, 

some other type of event at any location in the United States. And 

we see from the proliferation of ads that there might be an influx 

of pimps bringing in their adults and children, because children are 

normally embedded also in adult prostitution rings. And in that 

case, what we do through our Crimes Against Children Interagency 

Task Forces is we begin gathering more intelligence about where 

this might occur. We look at social media sites. We look at the 

areas, the street tracks where they are being trafficked. We work 

through our other sources of information, even in drug areas and 

other gang areas to obtain information. We train our local partners 

on what to look for as well. We partner with local community services for them also to be focused in case we can do a rescue and they 

can provide services to them in that event. We use our Victim Assistance Services as well. 

So it is an important focus area for us, and we are going to continue to be focused in that area as these events do occur around 

the country. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. You bet. 

Senator Heitkamp, thank you again so much for bringing this 

here. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is just so critically important that we get on top of this. 

I look at this problem as kind of an hourglass, and Senator Carper I think has done a great job asking you to think about all of 

the potential victims out there and how do we avoid sending them 

into the pipeline to continue to be victims. And we all know that 

a lot of the runaways that we are talking about already were sexual assault victims, and that is the dirty little secret about runaway kids. They are usually running away from a condition like 

that. 

Now, we have all the bad guys who would exploit all those kids. 

But then we have all the people who serve to be the customers of 

the bad guys. And we have learned from our work in domestic violence that there is a way to begin to have deterrence against those 

people who would participate on either end in terms of—I hate to 

use the word ‘‘shaming,’’ but certainly before, if this was simply a 

family matter, it was a lot easier. But when it became a public 

matter and a crime against everyone in this country—which this 

one is. It is not just these victims. It is crime against every person 

in this country and the sensibility of every person in this country. 

So I want to go to the demand side, and you have already begun 

that process of talking about it. But somehow we have to reduce 

the demand and the sense that it is OK to do this, it is OK to hire 

someone into domestic servitude, it is OK to use a prostitute, and 

maybe I do not know her age or his age, it is OK to run your factory on less than minimum wage, all of that is OK. 
20 

So I want you all to give me a couple ideas on how we build better deterrence into this system, and I want to start with you, Mr. 

Campbell. I am sure you have horrific stories that you could tell 

this Committee of situations, but I want to know what additional 

kind of tools we could provide or that could be provided to law enforcement to investigate the demand side. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Right. Well, certainly, the types of media campaigns that we conduct, such as when we did Operation Cross 

Country, where we put the word out to the public in regard to how 

to look for child trafficking, the vulnerable communities to look in, 

and partnering with community agencies and so forth, and exposing to the public, as you said, the fact that this does exist and that 

it is illegal and it is being vigorously investigated by partnerships 

of Federal and local agencies. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I understand that may lead to more investigations and more complaints. But I am talking about preventing 

the marketplace from working. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. 

Senator HEITKAMP. We used to talk about publishing the name 

of every person who was engaged in spousal abuse. You have the 

ten most wanted. I mean, I am trying to get at what is going to 

stop people from demanding these services or using the services of 

human beings who are trafficks. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, certainly we have named individuals to the 

top ten most wanted, in fact, who are egregious offenders even at 

an international type scale as a way of exposing individuals, and 

we support local law enforcement in regard to what they do with 

information that they can use to expose these individuals as well 

and put them in local newspapers and that type of thing. 

But I would respectfully also submit that a vigorous prosecution 

of these individuals that is nationally known, that is very effective, 

that results in large sweeps of rescuing victims, arresting pimps, 

a lot of times either ourselves or the locals arresting the johns, as 

they call them, that type of thing, I would submit that media exposure of that activity acts as a deterrent as well. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Ms. Gannon. 

Ms. GANNON. Thank you. I think your comparison to the domestic violence situation is very appropriate. Trafficking is not a private matter. As Judge Hill was talking about the young girl who 

was held in Orange County, it was a neighbor who came forward 

and reported that. And many years ago, perhaps in a domestic violence situation people would have turned the other way and 

thought that it was not their problem. But through public awareness of trafficking, we are encouraging people to come forward 

when they see something that looks wrong. When they see a young 

girl on the street, they might think twice and call law enforcement 

and say, this girl is in an area known for prostitution, she does not 

look to be 18, she does not look to be of age. And that would raise 

particular concern for them. 

The Department has conducted research in this area. Specifically, the National Institute of Justice commissioned a study regarding demand-side enforcement and its effectiveness, and there 

is a website that provides information on the effectiveness of those 

programs as it relates to prostitution specifically. 
21 

As my colleague from the FBI stated, the Innocence Lost National Initiative and Operation Cross Country, through that media 

attention it does create a dialogue, and hopefully that dialogue is 

happening at schools when students read about this operation, it 

is happening at the dinner table where people can talk about it and 

discuss how this is an affront to the very basic nature of our country. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Ms. Gannon—and I do not mean not to ask 

the other witnesses, but I did want to get a specific question in on 

Indian country. 

Ms. GANNON. Absolutely. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Because of its jurisdictional complexities, it 

presents some real challenges, and obviously Federal officials have 

a great deal of jurisdiction and are looked to as the savior. 

I know that you were recently in North Dakota. Thank you for 

that visit. And I am wondering if you can offer any insights about 

strategies in Indian country that we should be pursuing. 

Ms. GANNON. Actually, I have not had the opportunity to go to 

North Dakota, although I would love to. But specifically with regard to Indian country, I think there are opportunities that we 

have and that need to be addressed. Specifically, I have been working with members of the Office of Tribal Justice to increase public 

awareness, and I know that the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices have been 

very active and have been looking to increase their number of Special Assistant United States Attorneys from tribal prosecutors’ offices who are best situated to be in the community and to work together with the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to encourage reporting and 

to successfully prosecute Indian country cases. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. Did you want Mr. Dinkins and Judge Hill to 

respond? If you do, go ahead. Then I will recognize Kelly if she 

comes back and John if she does not. 

Senator MCCAIN. Go ahead. 

Chairman CARPER. Go ahead. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I mean, I would love to hear the other two 

responses. 

Chairman CARPER. Please. Just be fairly brief. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I do not want to use up all my time. 

Chairman CARPER. Just be fairly brief. Thanks. 

Mr. DINKINS. Reducing the demand, as you suggested, I think is 

a key. I think that having strong sentences, which we have seen, 

for servitude-type cases has been very powerful and puts folks on 

warning. 

It is probably a little more challenging when it comes to the commercial sex environment, particularly if it does involve children. As 

I mentioned earlier, that is a social illness that unfortunately is too 

common. And I do not think that even sending pedophiles away for 

30 years will prevent another pedophile from possibly taking action. So I think that we need other avenues for treatment and to 

deal with that type of issue. 

But definitely the heavy sentences, we are seeing life sentences 

in some cases for—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. I do have a question, Mr. Dinkins, because 

I was one of the leaders on civil commitment of sex offenders, many 
22 

of whom are pedophiles, repeat offender pedophiles. Have you seen 

anything coming out of those treatment programs that would encourage the Department or encourage us to believe that this is a 

treatable problem? 

Mr. DINKINS. I am not really that suited to respond but I am 

very skeptical that this is a treatable problem. 

Ms. HILL. I would like to address the demand-side question. The 

National Association of Attorney Generals approximately 2 years 

ago started their four-pillar campaign, and one of the pillars was 

to address the demand side. 

As all you former Attorney Generals are well aware, much of this 

prosecution occurs in the State courts. There is an estimate that 

95 percent of criminal conduct is addressed in the State courts. 

One of the things that we have been working on at DHS, given 

my prior background as a State court judge, is to educate the 

judges. I believe that when I was on the municipal court, there 

were victims of human trafficking coming through my courtroom as 

defendants. I believe that they were pleading guilty to prostitution 

charges. I can remember someone sitting in the back, the pimp, 

staring me down, and the prostitute. But I simply did not understand the dynamics of what was occurring. I did not know that person in all likelihood could not enter a voluntary plea because they 

were being coerced into prostitution. 

This is an area where the judges need to be educated, as they 

were with domestic violence. They were taught about the cycle of 

violence and why a victim would recant her testimony or his testimony at trial. Similar education is needed here to help address the 

issue of victims being revictimized through our court system. I 

think that will also help drive the discussion on how the State 

courts should address the demand side, particularly for sex trafficking. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Senator McCain. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

At least six departments and agencies are authorized to receive 

$127 million in funding to combat human trafficking. Of that $127 

million, $21 million is for investigations and prosecution of human 

trafficking in the United States. Maybe the witnesses could provide 

for the record what that $106 million that is not spent for investigations and prosecution is spent on. So if the witnesses would 

provide for the record what their various agencies spend and on 

what, I would be very interested. 

Ms. Hill, was that you in that film there? 

Ms. HILL. No, it was not me. 

Senator MCCAIN. It is someone who looked a lot like you. I know 

about advertising. That is not a very good message. That showed 

two people bumping into each other and spilling their lunch. If you 

really want to have a message that will strike home to people, 

show the young lady that Ms. Gannon was talking about, show the 

people that have been victimized in a way that makes us so repulsed that we do not even want to think about it. That has been 

the most effective ads on things like smoking. 
23 

I do not know how much you spent on that, but it is a muddled 

message. People knocking each other down while having lunch is 

not a very effective message. I hope you will review it. And there 

are enough compelling stories associated with this horrible crime 

that I think you could get the message through a lot more effectively. 

Mr. Dinkins, how strong is the linkage between drug cartels and 

human trafficking that are operating across mainly our southern 

border? 

Mr. DINKINS. There is definitely a linkage. While not all drugtrafficking organizations that we have seen in Mexico and throughout the United States are engaged, we definitely have seen some 

trafficking organizations, drug-trafficking organizations involved in 

both human smuggling as well as human trafficking. 

Senator MCCAIN. Did you see the July 31st Time magazine article, ‘‘Mexican Drug Cartels’ Other Business: Sex Trafficking,’’ that 

pointed out particularly that Mexican cartels like the Zetas have 

become heavily involved in the human-trafficking business from 

Mexico? 

Mr. DINKINS. I definitely have seen that many of the Mexican 

drug-trafficking organizations have morphed into more organized 

crime. They are willing to make money in any way that they can, 

sir. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, you have seen it. How serious is the problem? 

Mr. DINKINS. It is drug smuggling, as well as human trafficking, 

is very significant. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, the subject of this hearing is about 

human trafficking. 

Mr. Campbell, what evidence have you seen? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes, well, as Ms. Gannon mentioned in her statement, we have the bilateral agreement with Mexico, and the purpose of that then is to share information and work against those 

cartels in all of the criminal activities that they are engaged in. 

And certainly this is an area of primary focus for the FBI. 

Senator MCCAIN. And have you seen it grow larger? Less? The 

same? What trends are you seeing on that? The information we 

have is that organizations like the Zetas originally were simply in 

drug trafficking, and they have branched out into other areas, including human trafficking, including money laundering and some 

other activities. Have you seen an increase in human trafficking 

across the Mexican border by the cartels? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Senator, I do not have the information right now 

on the specifics of the growth of human trafficking related to—— 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, have you got an estimate? 

Mr. CAMPBELL [continuing]. The border. I can provide that. 

Senator MCCAIN. Do you have an estimate? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I do not, sir. I can provide you some other information. But I can tell you that human trafficking in general across 

the United States is unfortunately a growing problem. It is 

trending upward, Senator. 

Senator MCCAIN. Ms. Gannon, one of the disturbing facts of this 

horrible stuff is that 95 percent of the young women and men who 

are subjected to this have a cell phone, and yet they never call in 
24 

to get relief from the terrible situation they are in. That is because 

of physical and mental debasement. What is your take on that? 

Ms. GANNON. There is definitely an element of fear and retaliation. These traffickers are ruthless in manipulating their victims 

and putting fear of physical violence—and substantiated fear. They 

beat them, they tattoo them, they hold them in isolation. And so 

even if they do have a means of communication, many are reluctant to come forward. 

I think the way to address that is by increasing public awareness, getting that hotline out there in the right places, whether it 

be truck stops, transportation hubs, so if they are moving they 

have a chance to see it; and also the engagement of community and 

faith-based organizations. So if that trafficking victim does go to a 

juvenile shelter at some point, that person at the shelter is trained 

to identify the signs of trafficking, knows what to do, who the appropriate person at the local police department or Federal agency 

is to call, and gives that victim some assurance that they will be 

treated with respect; law enforcement is there to help them, not arrest and hurt them; and that they can trust them in order to come 

forward, and they will receive the victim services that they so desperately need. 

Senator MCCAIN. The Texas Attorney General said the Super 

Bowl is the largest single human-trafficking incident in United 

States history. That is a stunning statement. Do you think maybe 

we ought to have some of our people on hand, Mr. Dinkins, during 

the Super Bowl? 

Mr. DINKINS. Absolutely, Senator. We are actually already working on that. Both myself and the Bureau have teams preparing in 

advance of the Super Bowl to educate the State and locals, as well 

as businesses and the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to 

be on the lookout for human trafficking. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, if it is the largest single human-trafficking incident in United States history, you should not have too 

much difficulty detecting that, I would think. 

Finally, I am somewhat interested in the six different departments and agencies that are involved in this. Are you satisfied with 

the level of cooperation, Ms. Hill? 

Ms. HILL. I am. I think that there has been a remarkable partnership among the personnel that are present here, as well as DHS 

has entered into partnerships with agencies across the Federal 

Government and with the National Association of Counties. I think 

that on this issue, the folks that are involved work remarkably well 

together. All of us share a belief that modern slavery has to come 

to an end. Certainly there may be minor instances, but in my experience, we have worked closely together and shared resources, 

shared ideas, shared best practices to become more effective. Just 

in the time that I have been working on this issue, I have witnessed this myself. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, I am glad to hear of your confidence. I 

am sorry that since it seems that human trafficking is on the rise, 

your dedication has not shown the results that perhaps we might 

like to see. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
25 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Senator McCain. And, again, our 

thanks to Cindy for all of her efforts in this regard. 

John and I spent a lot of years in the Navy at about the same 

time, actually. He was a hero. I was just a guy who flew around 

in a plane. I was lucky enough that we did not get shot down. But 

this is an all-hands-on-deck moment. And there is also a real 

shared responsibility here. It just cannot be law enforcement. It 

just cannot be the Federal Government. It just cannot be the State 

government. It just cannot be nonprofits. It has to be all of us. And 

John’s point is a really good one. We are spending a fair amount 

of money, and the question of how well we are coordinating what 

we do, and as much as we are trying to do a good job, everything 

I do I know I can do better, and obviously this is something we 

have to do better as well, and making sure we are not duplicating, 

that we are coordinating, and each of us is playing an appropriate 

role. 

Senator Ayotte, Recovering Attorney General Ayotte, please. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. I want to thank the witnesses. I 

wanted to get at the issue to followup on what Senator McCain was 

asking about. I was struck, Judge Hill, when I heard you testify 

about the numbers from 2012, that these were improvements on 

the past, with 950 arrests, 381 convictions, and $1 million in forfeiture. And that struck me as fairly small given some of the estimates of what the problem is here. 

How big is this problem in our country that obviously is a horrific criminal problem? But those numbers, just looking even from 

a State Attorney General perspective, I am glad that you are working really hard to improve them, but I just was really struck by, 

given the size of the United States and given the issues that we 

have heard about this afternoon. 

Ms. HILL. Good data in this area remains a challenge. There are 

a number of efforts, as you have heard, in the Department of Justice and elsewhere to get good data. 

One caution I would give with regard to the data that I gave, I 

am confident that underestimates what is actually occurring across 

the United States, and the reason for that is because prosecutors 

and judges may not choose to prosecute cases under a new statute, 

the human-trafficking statute. It requires additional proof that 

they may not need for a rape or kidnapping charge. It requires 

proof of forced fraud or coercion. To prove that, in almost all instances you will need the testimony of the victim, and sometimes, 

as we have discussed, the victim is going to be unable to tell his 

or her story in the courtroom. 

So the prosecutors may choose another charge that requires a 

lower level of proof, or hopeful that they will get a similar sentence. 

They will use their discretion to make sure the conduct is addressed, even if it is not addressed under the Federal anti-humantrafficking statute or the statutes that we now have in close to 50 

States. 

I do not think that those statutes are used as widely as we know 

the problem is because—and this is based on my experience as a 

prosecutor and as a judge—an unfamiliar statute is a deterrent to 

the prosecutor and the judge. They want to make sure that the 

prosecution, if it is successful, does remain a successful conviction, 
26 

and this is probably a little inside baseball, but for a judge, the 

most likely place of reversal is on jury instructions, and the time 

that will occur was with a new statute, untested statute. 

So there are built-in deterrents. The Department of Justice has 

looked at this as well, in terms of prosecutors, of why there are not 

as many human-trafficking convictions. So these numbers, the 

trend is positive. The absolute numbers I do not believe reflect 

what is actually occurring in the United States. But I do not have 

those numbers for you. I can only share my own experience in how 

these new statutes play out. 

Senator AYOTTE. Do we have the right statute, meaning have 

there been any difficulties with the statute itself? Ms. Gannon, you 

mentioned the Jungers case in the Eighth Circuit in which the circuit court of appeals overturned the district court decision on basically holding the purchaser accountable under the trafficking statute. So has that been settled, is there any conflict among the circuits? Is there any issue that needs to be clarified from us in terms 

of the Federal statute? 

Ms. GANNON. Just to make sure I was clear, in the Jungers case, 

the Eighth Circuit said that the statute does apply to purchasers. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right, but it is obviously one circuit court of appeals. Is there any conflict there? Or is that issue fairly resolved 

in terms of prosecution across the country of these types of crimes? 

Because if we cannot prosecute the purchasers, then we are not obviously going to get at this crime, because the purchasers need to 

be fully prosecuted, held up, and the public needs to understand 

that those purchasers are going to be prosecuted, they will be—as 

my colleague Senator Heitkamp certainly said, they will know publicly the crimes that they have committed, because that is how we 

are going to discourage this also on the purchasing end. So I just 

want to make sure that there are not any legal issues that we 

should be aware of. 

Ms. GANNON. No, Senator. There is no conflict among the circuits 

with regard to the application of 1591 to purchasers, and I can tell 

you that enforcement actions focused on purchasers, the demand 

side of trafficking, have occurred throughout the country. A few 

years ago, the Justice Department expanded the Project Safe 

Childhood Program to include minor sex trafficking domestically, 

and there is a very active list serve among Federal prosecutors 

about techniques, jury instructions, how to apply these laws, in addition to the subject matter experts here in Washington which field 

calls. 

So we are working to make sure that the prosecutors in the field 

know how to use this law and how to apply it appropriately. 

Senator AYOTTE. And one thing that leapt out at me as we talked 

about the issue of coordination—and obviously many of these victims, vulnerable victims, too many of them children—is part of the 

group that is coordinating all this, the Internet Crimes Against 

Children (ICAC) Task Forces. 

Ms. GANNON. Absolutely. 

Senator AYOTTE. Because I had the familiarity of working with 

my ICAC Task Force in New Hampshire, and, frankly, it is just 

shocking the amount of child pornography and sexual exploitation 
27 

that is occurring over the Internet. And so I see this as obviously 

a tool that these traffickers could be using as well. 

Ms. GANNON. Absolutely. The Internet Crimes Against Children 

Task Forces are active in this effort as well, and they are funded 

and organized through our Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which I should have mentioned earlier as one 

of the organizations which really can address the root causes and 

reasons why some of these children find themselves in such a vulnerable area. 

And another nice thing about the task force program in this instance is it really builds a bridge that has already existed for many 

years now between the Federal, State, and local law enforcement. 

And so adding trafficking awareness in a way that already has a 

structure in which the Department of Homeland Security and FBI 

participate in this program can maximize. And then in my experience as a Federal prosecutor in California, what happened was I 

then began speaking with the local district attorney’s office, and so 

there is coordination as the State Attorneys General have focused 

on this issue, the State legislatures have focused on this issue and 

passed State laws, which may be very similar to the Federal laws, 

or slightly different, that the prosecutors at that level can also sit 

down and have a discussion about where most appropriately to 

pursue the case, factoring in everything from the elements necessary to the possible penalties to what is appropriate for the victim, the duration of the case. And I engaged in many conversations 

with my local prosecutor colleagues. 

So that is an area where the numbers also—I think we are going 

to see an increase both in Federal investigations and prosecutions 

and as the States continue to engage in this issue, we will see it 

in both systems. 

Senator AYOTTE. I want to thank all of you, and I know my time 

has expired, but one of the things we did when I was Attorney 

General is we did an Internet safety booklet that went into all of 

our schools, and I did that in partnership with the ICAC Task 

Force, getting their advice to see what that should say. And so I 

think that is a natural partnership because they are doing—at the 

local level, a lot of the partners in the ICAC Task Force are doing 

education in the schools in addition to their law enforcement function of enforcing the laws. So I am glad to hear that you are working with that task force because I think that is a natural partner 

right there. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Ayotte, thank you, and thanks so 

much for joining us today and for all that you bring to this hearing. 

You know what I was thinking? I was thinking, Senator 

Heitkamp, about some things you said the other day when you 

were in Delaware, talking about the Truth Campaign. I am sure 

our Attorney Generals remember not that many years ago, maybe 

a dozen or so years ago, the Attorney Generals of our country—and 

Senator Heitkamp was one of the leaders in this—all 50 States negotiated a settlement with the tobacco industry to deter young people from starting to use tobacco, and if they already started, to encourage them to quit. Remarkably successful. A remarkably successful effort. And I ended up being the founding Vice Chairman 

of the American Legacy Foundation, which was created out of this 
28 

effort. And in terms of a public awareness campaign, literally 

shaped by young people, by kids, teenagers, pre-teens who helped 

shape the message. It was called the ‘‘Truth Campaign.’’ Hard-hitting, really to the gut, and all kinds of multimedia efforts, a lot of 

places like TV shoes, movies, venues that people our age—or at 

least my age—would never see. But, boy, it worked with the kids. 

I am thinking about best practices and what worked in terms of 

reducing young people’s use of tobacco, the desire to find it attractive, incredibly successful. 

The teen pregnancy campaign, I alluded to that earlier, teen 

pregnancy rates in this country since 1992 are down by half. A 

pretty amazing achievement if you think about it. And the challenge that is before us in this regard is daunting, but in terms of 

maybe some campaigns, teen pregnancy, tobacco use among young 

people, that have been remarkably successful literally in the last 

decade or two, maybe there are some lessons we can learn from 

them. 

I said earlier that I would telegraph my pitch. I said I was going 

to come back to you and ask you to look around the world at other 

countries. This is a problem not just here but in a lot of other countries, advanced countries, developing countries, developed countries. But just think for us out loud about some best practices in 

other parts of the world where they are grappling with this and 

they are having some success, either on the supply side or the demand side, please. And, Judge, would you go first? 

Ms. HILL. I think that we have looked internationally, certainly, 

at the Blue Campaign, and I will just explain how we came up with 

the term—— 

Chairman CARPER. And I am going to have to ask you to be pretty brief, if you would. 

Ms. HILL. Sure. The Blue Campaign, it is a reference to the 

United Kingdom’s efforts to combat human trafficking, the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime Blue Heart Campaign to combat human 

trafficking, as well as a reference to the Thin Blue Line. 

We have also entered into bilateral agreements with a number 

of nations to work together on capacity-building efforts with them. 

All of this similar in other nations, they need to build their capacity just as we need to build here. And so we look to their trainings 

and their other offerings to make sure that ours make sense. 

Finally, we have entered into an agreement with Interpol so that 

we can learn together the best ways internationally to combat 

human trafficking. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Thank you. 

Mr. Dinkins, just very briefly. 

Mr. DINKINS. Sure. I am not sure if one country anywhere in the 

world actually has found the silver bullet to combat human trafficking, but—— 

Chairman CARPER. I like to say there are a lot of silver BB’s. 

Maybe one of them has—we can pick up silver BB’s from different 

places. 

Mr. DINKINS. But we definitely are sharing ideas and practices, 

and as Judge Hill mentioned, I think a big important part of what 

we are doing is for those—making sure that the weaker countries 

that do not have that experience, we are bringing them up to the 
29 

same level as the rest of the developed world, and we are actively 

doing that. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thanks. Ms. Gannon. 

Ms. GANNON. Yes, we work with the Department of State who 

issues an international Trafficking in Persons Report, and that is 

a good tool to look at the challenges and successes that other countries have engaged in to address this issue. 

Our subject matter experts in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit work extensively with international partners to address exactly what you are 

discussing in terms of best practices, and in particular, the Child 

Exploitation and Obscenity Section is quite active in international 

trainings and meetings. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Mr. Campbell. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes, we recently had an arrest of a top-ten fugitive involved in this type of activity in another country, a lot of cooperation there. We are seeing cooperation from the Philippines, 

Thailand, and we work very closely with Interpol and Europol as 

well, and we are involved in 40 different international task forces 

regarding child trafficking, child sex tourism, that type of thing. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Senator Chiesa? And I mentioned to Senator Chiesa and Senator 

Heitkamp that I would like for us to try to limit ourselves to 5 minutes in this round, so it is in your hands. 

I am going to take a quick phone call, and I will be right back. 

Senator CHIESA [presiding.] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have 

talked about how we are continuing to evolve as a law enforcement 

community and as legislative community in trying to educate ourselves about human trafficking. Part of that obviously is reminding 

people every chance we get that we have modern-day slavery, because that is something that shocks people when they hear it and 

they hear the statistics and they hear about the numbers that we 

have in this country and in other places. 

So what I would like to talk to each of you about now is one of 

the issues we tried to deal with in New Jersey was when we come 

on a crime scene, our law enforcement officers are expertly trained 

to identify it, take it down, and then take steps to prosecute whoever might be involved in that criminal activity. 

One of the things we started to ask them to do was to dig a little 

deeper and find what may not be obvious at first glance. I know 

that you have talked a lot about the sharing of information. Some 

of the questions went to that. I would like to know, as a result of 

the tremendous amount of knowledge that you are beginning to 

buildup, how much of that is shared with State and local law enforcement and through what methods is it being shared? I will 

start with Judge Hill. 

Ms. HILL. At DHS, one of our primary focuses is law enforcement. So one of the very first products we produced after we had 

reviewed the academic literature was a computerized training for 

State and local law enforcement specifically designed to capture in 

video segments, for example, a brothel scene or a traffic stop or encountering a young teenager on the street dressed in a manner and 

in a place where you might believe prostitution was occurring, to 

alert the officers to what the indicators are from those scenes that 
30 

could lead you to believe that trafficking is possibly occurring, and 

then what should you do based on that. 

We also have trained them on immigration relief because we 

know that our foreign-born victims will be interested in immigration relief, and it will help us as we investigate the case, help stabilize that victim. 

So we have then worked internationally as well with the capacity 

building that Mr. Dinkins has referenced, so we go to many conferences, including the National Native American Law Enforcement Association, just last week in Las Vegas DHS was represented and presenting. 

So wherever we can, we try to share our materials and also live 

programming to raise the level of understanding of trafficking. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you. Mr. Dinkins. 

Mr. DINKINS. I will point out a couple different—because I do 

think this is a key for our successful investigations. Our State and 

local partners and tribal partners, are really the front line in detecting so much of the criminal activity. So, we do both formal 

training, for example in their different academies, but also informal 

training during roll call in the mornings, and afternoons at the 

change of shifts, recognizing that not everybody is going to go back 

through the police academy. So we do it, both informally and formally with our State and local law enforcement partners. 

But also, I will point out another way that we have been able to 

hit a large number; that is through associations, like the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering (ACAMS) investigators; 

they are over 15,000 investigators from different financial institutions. We created webinars working with them to actually educate 

the investigators and the financial industry to identify red flag indicators for human trafficking. So we are doing it on many different fronts, sir. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you. Ms. Gannon. 

Ms. GANNON. I agree that the coordination with State and local 

law enforcement and education and training for them is vital to 

combat this issue. The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and Office for Victims of Crime, which are two grant components have been very engaged in this issue. They have provided 

grants to State and local law enforcement task forces, which are in 

addition to the FBI task forces, to examine comprehensive ways to 

combat this issue and provide them with the training and best 

practices. 

In addition, the Office for Victims of Crime provides training on 

how to respond to victims of trafficking, which is an integral part 

to addressing this issue because a victim who is receiving the services that they need can assist with the prosecution of the offender. 

And so from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, these grantees trained 

over 28,000 professionals representing schools and educational institutions, faith-based organizations and religious institutions, victim service providers, in addition to State, tribal, and local law enforcement. So we are doing that both through the FBI and the U.S. 

Attorneys’ Office task forces, but also through these grant programs. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
31 

Chairman CARPER [presiding.] You bet. 

Senator Heitkamp. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Probably just to talk to you, Ms. Gannon, 

about the kind of challenges of working with these victims and the 

difficulty that we have. 

One of the things that we did in domestic violence is we began 

to prosecute cases without victim testimony. It was a huge training 

effort, and it changed the way we looked at these cases. And one 

thing that the judge mentioned is the difficulty in having traumatized victims provide testimony. If our prosecutions are going to 

rely on victim testimony, we are not going to be very successful. 

And so what strategies has DOJ advocated for to get beyond relying on victims and to do investigations and prosecutions that are 

not victim centered? 

Ms. GANNON. The Department, through its Project Safe Childhood coordinators—and each U.S. Attorney’s Office also has a civil 

rights/human trafficking prosecutor coordinator, and they receive 

training and information via e-mail list serves that provide them 

the best practices. So an essential part of a successful prosecution 

is finding the corroborating evidence. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Of the number of prosecutions that you have 

had under the Federal anti-trafficking law, how many of them were 

done without a victim? 

Ms. GANNON. I apologize, Senator. I do not have that information. 

Senator HEITKAMP. It would be really interesting to find out because I think that if we are just always going to rely on repairing 

a victim, you are going to miss the statute, No. 1. And, No. 2, you 

may never get victim testimony for a whole lot of reasons that involve threats against family, threats against them. I mean, live in 

their world and you know why they are not cooperating with you. 

They have been told since they were this high that you are 

untrustworthy and that no one cares about them and only that person who trafficked them cares about them. And so, there is just a 

whole lot of things that we need to do better. 

We focused a lot on the sex trade and sex trafficking, but I want 

to ask you, Ms. Gannon, what industries are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking on the labor side, and what are we doing 

to address those industries and making the users aware that they 

may, in fact, be buying shoes or may be eating at a restaurant that 

has a notorious reputation for using human slaves. 

Ms. GANNON. If I just may answer your prior question, technology presents some challenges, but it provides a lot of opportunities, and I think that the Federal law enforcement community and 

prosecutors are looking to technology. A question was asked about 

cell phones, correctly, forensically examining those cell phones that 

a victim may have to look at text messages corroborating their information. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Or social media. 

Ms. GANNON. Social media. Culling through all of the information and evidence seized to build a successful prosecution and to 

support the victim is something that we absolutely look into and 

are concerned with. 
32 

In terms of labor trafficking, just last year there was an Executive Order (EO) addressing the issue of human trafficking and government contracting domestically, and that issue has also been addressed internationally as well. And we are working with the Senior Policy Operating Group, which is a group of many agencies 

across the government who meet and discuss important issues, and 

one of them is identifying industries. The Department of Labor is 

working on this issue and has issued a list of initial industries, and 

we are looking at that in order to maximize the effectiveness of the 

Federal Government’s efforts to remove human trafficking from its 

supply chain. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Just a point here. How helpful would immigration reform be to dealing with the labor issue on trafficking? 

Ms. GANNON. Senator, at this time, I cannot comment on that 

but would be happy and the Department would be happy to provide 

you with any technical assistance on pending legislation. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Because it would seem to me that if people 

knew that there was a path forward for coming out of the shadows, 

there would be less of this kind of activity. 

Ms. GANNON. Well, that is something that we do focus on in 

terms of the immigration relief that is available through the T and 

U visa programs that are options for victims of trafficking to obtain 

status in the country, along with Continued Presence. So education 

is occurring on that in terms of specific immigration status for trafficking victims. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Heitkamp, the guy sitting next to 

you over there, John McCain, who just had to leave us, but John 

has worked a whole lot on comprehensive immigration reform. And 

when you asked that question, I thought immediately underlying 

causes. That could actually help address one of the underlying 

causes. That was just a great point. 

Sometimes when we do these hearings, if we have time, I like to 

ask our witnesses to take maybe half a minute, just no more than 

half a minute, just go back—you gave opening statements. I am 

going to give you a chance to give a closing statement, and it is 

going to be a real short one. And just like one point, maybe just 

pick one point that you especially want us to remember to keep in 

mind that maybe you have said, that others have said, and part of 

what we are trying to do here is to find how do we better coordinate this effort across government, across our country, but also 

look for common ground between statements that you are giving 

and the testimony you have given. 

Mr. Campbell, just give us one good takeaway, please. And I 

know that there are a lot of them, but give us one. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I would ask the public that if they suspect any 

child sex trafficking or human trafficking or something just does 

not seem right, maybe it is related to forced labor, to please call 

1–800–CALL–FBI and report that information. 

Chairman CARPER. Say that again? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. It is 1–800–CALL–FBI. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Or even just call local law enforcement if they 

have any concerns at all, and somebody can start working on that 

and perhaps end up rescuing someone. 
33 

Chairman CARPER. If you see something, say something. Now we 

have the number. Thank you. Say it again. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. It is 1–800–CALL–FBI. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Ms. Gannon. 

Ms. GANNON. Thank you. I would just like to state that the Department is fully committed to this issue. It is one of the Attorney 

General’s priority goals as part of the Vulnerable People Priority 

Goal. We are committed to investigating this crime, prosecuting the 

offenders, and providing victims the services that they need. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

Mr. Dinkins, a short statement, please. 

Mr. DINKINS. Sir, awareness, awareness, awareness. And thank 

you for having this hearing to bring awareness to this issue. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. And my thanks to Senator 

Heitkamp and Senator Chiesa for making sure I was aware of the 

importance, more aware of the importance of this. Judge Hill. 

Ms. HILL. Thank you for having us. Most of the Federal Government’s efforts as well as State efforts are based on the three P’s: 

prevention, protection, and prosecution. I think this hearing has revealed that there has to be—— 

Chairman CARPER. Say those again, the three P’s. Those are 

good. 

Ms. HILL. Prevention, protection of the victim, and prosecution, 

and this hearing has revealed what others have already said before 

me. We need to have a fourth P: partnership. That is the way we 

are going to be able to really fight this and end modern slavery. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Those were great closing statements. Thank 

you all. 

Again, you are going to be asked some additional questions for 

the record. I would just ask that when you receive those that you 

respond to them as promptly and as fully as you can. We are really 

grateful for your being here and for the work that you do. Thank 

you so much. 

Now with that we will bring our next panel forward. Thank you. 

We want to welcome our second panel today, and I am going to 

give very brief introductions for each of you. We are happy to see 

you. How many of you, raise your hand, were you able to be here 

for part or all of the first panel? Well, that is great. That is excellent. 

Our first witness today is John Farmer, Jr. He became dean of 

the Rutgers School of Law—and I am tempted to say ‘‘New-ark’’ 

but we know it is ‘‘New-irk,’’ New Jersey, in July 2009. In April 

2013, he was appointed to serve as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Rutgers University. His legal career has been service in high-profile government appointments, private practice, and 

teaching and law school administration. Mr. Farmer began his career as a law clerk to Associate Justice Alan Handler of the New 

Jersey Supreme Court. I am sure that the two of you know each 

other pretty well. Welcome. 

Our next witness—and I am going to probably screw this one 

up—Suzanne—I am pretty good on your first name, but it looks 

like ‘‘Koplinger,’’ ‘‘Koplinjer’’? 

Ms. KOEPPLINGER. Koepplinger. 
34 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Farmer appears in the Appendix on page 83. 

Chairman CARPER. ‘‘Caplinger.’’ ‘‘Cap.’’ OK. Executive Director of 

the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resources Center. Ms. Koepplinger 

serves on a number of boards, including the American Indian Community Development Corporation as a consultant for the Office of 

Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center. She is 

also one of 15 national leaders selected for the 2011–12 Move to 

End Violence Initiative hosted by the NoVo Foundation. Welcome. 

Nice to see you. 

Next, our third witness is Lisa Brunner, Program Specialist for 

the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. Ms. Brunner 

has worked in the domestic violence and sexual assault field for 

over 15 years and is also Executive Director of a nonprofit organization whose work addresses violence against Native Americans 

and Alaska Native women. Ms. Brunner has advocated on the 

local, State, national, and international levels to raise awareness 

about the violence against Native women within tribal communities, something that Senator Heitkamp has discussed with me 

earlier. 

The final witness is Mr. Daniel—how do you pronounce your last 

name? 

Mr. PAPA. Papa. 

Chairman CARPER. Mr. Papa is a world history and government 

teacher at Jefferson High School in Jefferson Township, New Jersey. He is the director of Project Stay Gold, a student movement 

to abolish modern-day slavery. Under Mr. Papa’s leadership, his 

students have recently launched a new campaign called ‘‘Not on 

Our Turf’’ to raise awareness of human trafficking surrounding the 

Super Bowl, which is being held in New Jersey next year. 

All right. Please proceed. Your entire testimonies will be made 

part of the record, and so, Mr. Farmer, if you want to lead us off, 

we will get going. Thank you. And, again, I want to especially 

thank my colleagues Senator Heitkamp and Senator Chiesa for 

their encouragement and recommendation of witnesses for this 

hearing, which I think has just been very helpful, at least to me, 

and I think to a lot of us. Thank you. Mr. Farmer. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN J. FARMER, JR.,1 SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND UNIVERSITY COUNSEL, RUTGERS, THE STATE 

UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY 

Mr. FARMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 

Committee for inviting me here today to speak about human trafficking, one of the most important and significant civil and human 

rights issues of our time. Human trafficking is an issue that, like 

terrorism and drug trafficking, challenges both the categories we 

use to think about crime and, ultimately, the very structure of law 

enforcement itself. 

It is also an issue that, like terrorism and drug trafficking, has 

touched my career at different times and in different ways. I served 

as New Jersey’s Attorney General over a decade ago when the law 

enforcement community first became aware of what we now call 

human trafficking on a scale that transcended local, State, and national boundaries. New Jersey conducted one of the first under-
35 

cover investigations of East European prostitution trafficking to 

bars and massage parlors and cooperated in an investigation of 

sweatshop labor conditions. Through these efforts, we had an early 

glimpse of the international dimensions of the trafficking issue. It 

was clear even then that this was an issue that defined ideological 

categorization even as it defied geographical boundaries. It is a 

tribute to our system that the issue has unified politicians as diverse in their orientation as Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, who 

sponsored pioneering Federal human trafficking legislation in 2000, 

and President Obama, who echo each other in recognition of its 

evils. 

Last year, Rutgers Law School in Newark, where I was serving 

as Dean—I am currently on leave from that job so that I can serve 

as General Counsel of the university—hosted a conference on 

human trafficking. That conference, which we hosted in partnership with the Bergen County Prosecutors Office and Seton Hall 

Law School, was the second annual event intended to highlight the 

most serious criminal law issues of our time; it followed a symposium on cyber crime in 2011. The human-trafficking symposium 

brought home to me how far we have come in combating human 

trafficking, but also how far we have to go. I would like to highlight 

both issues in my testimony this afternoon. 

First, there is no question that our States, Nation, and, to a lesser extent, the world have come a long way in terms of both awareness and action. In the 1990s, as awareness was beginning to 

dawn, we were as likely to see the women who were being trafficked as criminals as we were to see them as victims. To a lesser 

extent, this is still an issue. But in the intervening years, as the 

magnitude of the problem we face became clear, awareness has 

also grown and, with it, the tools available to law enforcement to 

combat the problem have multiplied. A few recent real-world examples should suffice to make the point. 

Earlier this month, a prostitution ring operating out of Lakewood, New Jersey, was taken down. The women involved, who 

were all from Mexico, were reportedly promised jobs as house 

cleaners or baby sitters and lured across the border. Prior to the 

recognition of trafficking as an international law enforcement 

issue, the problem of prostitution in Lakewood would likely have 

been seen as an issue strictly for local or county or, at best, State 

law enforcement. Now, however, law enforcement has become accustomed to going beyond the local manifestation of criminal activity to the underlying and broader issues. The Lakewood ring, for 

example, is alleged to have been part of a broader ring operating 

out of New York and other surrounding States, with additional ties 

to Mexico itself. 

This case follows closely upon the announcement in July 2013 of 

the arrests of 150 alleged traffickers and the recovery of 105 sexually trafficked children between the ages of 14 and 17 in the largest 

nationwide crackdown in history. Operation Cross Country took 

place in 76 cities across the country and involved the cooperative 

efforts of 4,000 law enforcement officers in literally dozens of local, 

State, and Federal law enforcement agencies. In my home State of 

New Jersey, 70 arrests resulted, mostly in the area around Atlantic 
36 

City. This kind of effort and cooperation was inconceivable back in 

the days when we did not recognize the scope of the problem. 

Such complex investigations reflect more than just growing 

awareness; they also reflect substantive changes in the law and in 

the structure of law enforcement. According to the Polaris Project, 

some 39 States have passed anti-trafficking statutes as of August 

2013. Under the leadership of Senator Chiesa, in his prior role as 

Attorney General of New Jersey, our State passed a cutting-edge 

anti-trafficking statute earlier this year that has been highlighted 

by the Polaris Project as a model for the Nation. The New Jersey 

legislation treats trafficked people as the victims that they are, 

making it easier for them to expunge convictions, to seek assistance, and to serve as witnesses. It builds on the existing criminal 

statutes to make it easier to reach trafficking networks. Senator 

Chiesa also as Attorney General created a Human Trafficking Office within the Division of Criminal Justice and issued a statewide 

law enforcement directive ordering an increase in trafficking investigations and prosecutions, an increase in law enforcement training, and an increase in services available to victims. 

Trafficking has also been highlighted at the national level by the 

American Bar Association (ABA), which identified human trafficking as its signature issue for 2012, and by the Uniform Laws 

Commission, which adopted a Uniform Act on Human Trafficking 

in June 2013. This uniform act was approved by the ABA at its annual meeting in San Francisco in August. The adoption of a uniform State law will be a significant step as it will minimize the potential confusion and disparate treatment of both victims and perpetrators that could arise from differing laws in multiple jurisdictions. 

We have, in short, come a long way in recognizing the scope of 

the trafficking problem and in aligning our laws and the structure 

of law enforcement to meet the threat to human liberty and the insult to human dignity posed by human trafficking. The question, 

then, is what remains to be done. What are the short-term threats 

and the long-term solutions? In the balance of my time, I would 

like to highlight a short-term threat and three areas in which more 

progress needs to occur. 

The highest profile short-term threat—and a real test of the new 

laws and structure of our anti-trafficking efforts—will come with 

the festivities that will envelop New Jersey and New York surrounding the 2014 Super Bowl. Although the numbers are debated, 

experience has demonstrated that high-profile events like the 

Super Bowl attract an upsurge in human-trafficking incidents. One 

woman, who was enslaved as a child and now works to eradicate 

child prostitution, estimated that she would be expected to have 

sex with over 20 people per day during Super Bowl week. Considering the most effective ways to prepare for the Super Bowl will 

be a good way to talk about next steps in combating trafficking 

generally. 

First, although we are on the road to having the right laws, having the right laws is a major achievement, but it will not be sufficient. The devil will lie in the details of the enforcement of those 

laws. 
37 

Second, because human trafficking is a crime that respects no 

boundaries, the geographic and bureaucratic boundaries that exist 

between and among law enforcement agencies themselves must be 

overcome. This has become, in an age of transborder crimes like 

terrorism or money laundering or illegal arms smuggling, the most 

challenging issue for law enforcement. The reality is that our law 

enforcement structure, with its emphasis on local police departments, augmented by statewide and Federal law enforcement, is 

largely a product of an age when threats were overwhelmingly local 

and isolated. The frustrations law enforcement experience, for example, in solving unsolved homicides is largely a function of the reality that law enforcement is trapped within the boundaries that 

do not constrain criminals. 

A new kind of structure is required to cope with this reality. I 

am aware that the effectiveness of fusion centers in fighting terrorism has been controversial in Washington. My own view is that 

they are absolutely essential to effective law enforcement in a borderless criminal environment. I have visited the centers in New 

Jersey and in Las Vegas and have spoken with fusion center leaders from around the country. While they are, as a group perhaps 

too autonomous, they are in my view nonetheless essential, for they 

bridge a critical gap. In human trafficking, as in other borderless 

crimes, the scope of the conspiracies may transcend boundaries, but 

the first evidence of criminal conduct is likely to occur locally. Local 

reports of suspicious activity, reported to fusion centers capable of 

sifting and collating the intelligence, can be essential to identifying 

and interdicting the potential criminal conduct. Without fusion centers, or something like them, we have no hope of taking advantage 

of the street-level acumen of the vast majority of law enforcement 

officers. 

This brings me to my final point of emphasis: awareness and 

training. If our local law enforcement officers are not trained adequately, they may not know to report suspicious precursor activity 

so that the dots can be connected. The Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) initiative undertaken by the Justice Department and the 

Department of Homeland Security—which I assisted in developing 

by conducting roundtables in Denver, Boston, and Chicago—in 

which precursor conduct and other indicators of criminal activity 

are identified in training modules designed to guide discretion toward objective factors such as conduct and away from inappropriate indicators such as race—afford a useful template that could, 

in my opinion, be adapted easily to the human-trafficking context. 

Finally, in my view, the suspicious activity reporting concept 

must be extended beyond law enforcement to the general public. 

Hotel workers, for instance, if properly trained to look for the signature conduct of human trafficking, might be in the best position 

of all to report criminal activity. In New Jersey, training in human 

trafficking is, in fact, being extended to the hospitality industries 

in anticipation of the Super Bowl. This kind of training should 

occur nationwide, in my view. 

Human trafficking, like terrorism and other transborder crimes, 

challenges us to adapt our laws and our government structures to 

make our own borders irrelevant. Thanks to the work of Senator 

Chiesa and others, we have put the right laws in place, and we 
38 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Koepplinger appears in the Appendix on page 91. 

have begun to raise awareness. A further commitment to fusion 

centers and to initiatives like suspicious activity reporting will be 

an important next step, in my opinion, in enabling us to eradicate 

human trafficking. 

Thank you again for your invitation to share my views. 

Chairman CARPER. Mr. Farmer, thank you very much. Ms. 

Koepplinger. 

TESTIMONY OF SUZANNE KOEPPLINGER,1 EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, MINNESOTA INDIAN WOMEN’S RESOURCE CENTER 

Ms. KOEPPLINGER. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Chiesa, 

Senator Heitkamp, thank you very much. On behalf of the women 

and children we serve at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource 

Center in Minneapolis, I want to thank you for this opportunity to 

bring to your attention an egregious human rights violation that is 

being perpetrated against vulnerable Native American Children. 

Sex trafficking of our children is a growing concern. In 2009, my 

organization published the first research in the country to analyze 

the scope of sexual exploitation of any demographic group. Copies 

are provided to you. The Shattered Hearts report found disturbing 

patterns of Native women being targeted by traffickers. 

For example, of women and girls screening into direct service 

programs during this study, 40 percent of the women reported 

some involvement in commercial sexual exploitation, and 27 percent reported activities defined as sex trafficking under the TVPA. 

Our current program for Native girls is screening for risk factors 

and involvement. We have found that almost three-quarters of the 

girls who are coming into our program have experienced long-term 

homelessness and had a family member diagnosed with mental illness and had experienced harassment, either physical or sexual violence. The same percent, 86 percent, also had a mental health diagnosis themselves, had child protection involvement, and 86 percent had experienced exposure to the sex trade. That is no coincidence. 

At the 6-month followup, this program is really finding good results. About three-quarters of these girls were now getting housed 

safely and receiving mental health care themselves. Our program 

is the only one of its kind that is serving Native girls with a culturally strength-based service. It has a wait list, and we are receiving more recommendations and referrals from law enforcement officials every week. 

We continue to receive reports that Native girls are being targeted for recruitment by traffickers to the oil fields of North Dakota and being sold in the ‘‘man camps.’’ One alleged incident involved a 14-year-old Native girl who was reportedly sold to 40 men 

in one night. One 15-year-old girl in our program has told us that 

her brother’s best friend has repeatedly tried to get her up to the 

man camps because, as he told her, ‘‘You can make us a lot of 

money, honey.’’ 

We also know that boys and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender 

and questioning (GLBTQ) or our ‘‘Two Spirit’’ relatives are also 

being perpetrated against, but we do not have any data. We recog-
39 

nize that they are vulnerable, and more research needs to be made 

into this population. 

We believe that the data we have is only a snapshot, a small portion of the true numbers being trafficked for a number of reasons. 

The widespread normalization of sexual violence in American Indian communities has numbed many youth to the point where they 

minimize and rationalize what is happening to them just as domestic violence victims do. Some girls are gang raped by Native Mob 

or other local street gangs and live in fear of the consequences of 

snitching. Methods of recruitment can involve ‘‘guerrilla pimping,’’ 

which is essentially gang rapes and brutal beatings, or ‘‘finesse 

pimping,’’ which is much more difficult to detect and interrupt. 

This is a grooming process and has a manipulative pattern similar 

to domestic violence perpetration, where the initial relationship is 

loving but becomes increasingly more controlling, until the end result is the girls are caught up in a web of abuse and violence that 

they cannot get out of. Drugs are often used to ensure compliance. 

Most of these girls have multiple risk factors such as homelessness, early sexual abuse, and parental addiction or mental illness. 

Willingness to report or cooperate with law enforcement is rare due 

to the lack of secure housing and the complex traumas that these 

children suffer from. As they are reluctant to report to law enforcement, they are not counted in the national data sets as trafficking 

victims. The current requirement to make a law enforcement report 

and be certified by law enforcement in order to be counted as a 

trafficking victim is hindering our ability to get a true snapshot of 

what the scope of the problem is. 

The damage to the victims is severe in both human and economic 

terms. Our 2012 research report, ‘‘Early Intervention to Avoid Sex 

Trading and Trafficking of Minnesota’s Female Youth: A BenefitCost Analysis,’’ found the quantifiable damage to a girl recruited 

into sexual slavery includes traumatic brain injury, damage to reproductive systems, and injuries from violent assaults. Mental 

health issues such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and 

dissociative disorders are common. Yet we cannot quantify the 

damage to a child’s spirit, to her self-esteem, to her family or her 

community. 

This analysis shows a definitive return on investment to the taxpayers of Minnesota of $34 for every $1 that is invested in early 

intervention and prevention services. We know what works, and we 

have the evidence that it not only saves lives but saves taxpayer 

dollars. It is now a matter of prioritization. 

Since the publication of our Shattered Hearts report, my organization has engaged our local community and tribal partners in solutions. For example, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is working to collect more data and create systemic responses 

to trafficking. I have conducted multiple trainings across the country, including with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Fort 

Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Across all systems, there is 

a need for more awareness of the tactics being used by perpetrators 

and for technical assistance in identifying and responding to the 

crime. 

Again, in North Dakota, tribal sexual assault advocates are telling us of multiple young women who are reportedly being victim-
40 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Brunner appears in the Appendix on page 409. 

ized by traffickers but are too terrified to report the crime. The 

Bakken oil fields are indeed a boom to the economy of the region 

and have also created an explosive market for sex traffickers who 

find vulnerable victims among Native American children. This presents an opportunity for the businesses that are profiting there to 

step into their leadership role. There is a great need for more law 

enforcement, more victim services, more awareness, and more education. I hope that the industry will seize this opportunity to invest 

in the wellness of the entire community where they now live and 

work. 

In Minnesota, our Human Trafficking Task Force has created a 

strong multidisciplinary response. In 2011 we passed a safe harbor 

bill, which recognizes juveniles sold into sex as victims of a crime 

and aligns the State’s statute with the Federal TVPA. Last year, 

we presented to the State legislature a model services and housing 

program called ‘‘No Wrong Door,’’ which is the result of a comprehensive team approach analyzing how we can better identify 

youth and get them into protective services and healing services 

rather than the juvenile justice system. We were successful in securing a modest amount of funding to begin that program, but we 

need additional resources to fully complete the data analysis and 

the training requirements that are part of the plan. And we are 

collectively beginning to design more effective approaches to reducing the demand for sexually exploited children, for without the demand there would be no supply. 

So again I want to thank the Committee Members for their leadership in holding this hearing. No person should be viewed as a 

commodity. We need more resources, and we need to stop this as 

a market-driven enterprise and go after the demand where it 

starts. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you so much, Ms. Koepplinger. 

Ms. Brunner, please proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF LISA BRUNNER,1 PROGRAM SPECIALIST, 

NATIONAL INDIGENOUS WOMEN’S RESOURCE CENTER 

Ms. BRUNNER. Boozhoo. 

Chairman CARPER. Boozhoo. 

Ms. BRUNNER. Thank you for the invitation to be here to the 

Committee Members, thank you to Senator Heitkamp and your office reaching out with the invitation for the National Indigenous 

Women’s Resource Center to be here. 

Human trafficking of Native women in the United States is not 

a new era of violence against Native women but, rather, the continuation of a lengthy historical one with the colonization of America through wars, forced removal from their homelands to reservations, boarding schools, and forced urban relocation. Domestic 

human trafficking in the United States has a longstanding history. 

Native women experience violent victimization at a higher rate 

than any other U.S. population. Congressional findings are that 

Native American and Alaska Native women are raped 34.1 percent, 

more than 1 in 3, will be raped in their lifetime; 64 percent, more 
41 

than 6 in 10, will be physically assaulted. Native women are 

stalked more than twice the rate of other women. Native women 

are murdered at more than 10 times the national average of the 

United States. Non-Indians commit 88 percent of the violent crimes 

against Native women. 

Given the above statistical data and the historical roots of violence against Native women, the level of human trafficking given 

the sparse data collected can only equate to the current epidemic 

levels we face within our tribal communities and nations. 

As an enrolled member of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation in 

Minnesota, I live, work, and raise my children on my reservation. 

I have worked for over 15 years addressing domestic violence and 

sexual assault of Native women and have witnessed and heard 

countless stories of human trafficking occurring to the point that 

we have girls as young as 12 years old who are victims. With the 

introduction of heroin, we now have an epidemic of the same age 

group, and women who are trafficked now have heroin needles in 

their arms. Native women and girls are sold for $20 worth of heroin. 

We have mothers who call local county sheriff departments reporting their daughters missing only to be told, ‘‘We have better 

things to do with our time,’’ or, ‘‘Why don’t you be a mother and 

know where the hell your daughter is.’’ 

It is difficult, given the jurisdictional complexity of the 566 federally recognized tribes in the country with non-Public Law 280, Public Law 280, 638 Contract, Land Claim Settlement States, Oklahoma’s checkerboard, and Alaska Native villages. To add to the 

complexity, if the perpetrator is non-Native, then the tribes and 

Alaska villages do not have criminal jurisdiction. 

With the recent wide-range impact of extractive industries such 

as oil fracking and pipelines is predatory economics at its worse for 

the Fort Berthold Nation in North Dakota and Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. With the fracking of the Bakken formation comes 

‘‘man camps.’’ The victim advocates responding to calls for service 

on Fort Berthold said there has been a doubling and tripling of 

numbers of sexual assaults, domestic violence, and human-trafficking incidents since 2008. 

The multiple layers of issues that have come to the forefront are 

the lack of documentation of these man camps. Emergency services 

often cannot find their locations, and since they are located in isolated and desolate areas, there often are no cell phone services 

available. There are two types of man camps: documented and undocumented. Undocumented camps are often 50 to 100 trailers that 

a rancher or farmer has set up on his land to rent out and make 

money. These undocumented camps present a special problem for 

emergency services and organizations since they do not exist on a 

map or have addresses. 

The other issue involved with the man camps in Fort Berthold 

is lack of monitoring and registration of sex offenders whether they 

are in documented or undocumented man camps that pose a serious threat to the safety of women and children in the area. 

In Montana, the Bakken oil boom has impacted the largest reservation, Fort Peck, and residing counties have experienced both a 

population and crime explosion. 
42 

The majority of employees from the oil rigs are not from Fort 

Peck tribes or Roosevelt County or even from Montana. There have 

been documented increases in drug use and human trafficking, 

theft, alcohol-related incidents, and assaults within the last year. 

Law enforcement response, tribal domestic violence/sexual assault 

services, and medical responses to these crimes have tripled in the 

last year. 

Within northeastern Montana there are currently three man 

camps with several more only 70 miles away in the neighboring 

State of North Dakota. Many tribal advocates have responded to 

victims that have been trafficked at the man camps often preying 

on young Native women. Groups of men from the man camps use 

free access to drugs and alcohol as a method of coercion for young 

Native women to ‘‘get in the car’’ and go party. This has resulted 

in 11 young Native women ranging from the ages of 16 to 21 years 

of age reporting rape, gang rape, and other sex acts. The majority 

of these victims are afraid to report due to fear and shame. 

The Fort Peck Tribes Sex Offender Registration and Notification 

Act (SORNA) program reports that 1 year ago there were 48 registered sex offenders. Now there are over 600 registered sex offenders. The struggle has been that non-Native sex offenders do not 

recognize the tribal jurisdiction and feel they do not have to report 

to the tribal SORNA program. However, the U.S. Marshals and 

other law enforcement agencies have assisted in gaining registration of known sex offenders on the tribal registry. 

Another aspect of the domestic human-trafficking issues in the 

United States and Tribal Nations is the U.S. Adoption Industry. An 

article in Indian Country Today titled ‘‘Trafficking of Native Children: The Seamy Underbelly of the U.S. Adoption Industry,’’ brings 

to light the practice of selling Indian infants and children to the 

highest bidder which brings in revenue for lawyers from $25,000 to 

$100,000 per child. In this article, it is stated that in 2012, 50 Native children were adopted out from North Dakota to South Carolina. These adoptions are done without the tribes’ knowledge or 

consent or that of the biological fathers. 

To really gain insight to domestic human trafficking in the 

United States, one must examine the many sectors in which this 

is facilitated, whether it be extractive industries, pimps, gangs, cartels, family members, or lawyers working in the adoption industry. 

Many different avenues must be examined and taken into account 

to fully understand what leads to this epidemic of human trafficking that not only impacts Tribal Nations and Alaska villages 

but all citizens of this country. 

I am a program specialist with the National Indigenous Women’s 

Resource Center. Our role as an organization is to serve as a National Indian Resource Center that provides technical assistance 

and training, resource development, policy development, research 

activity, and public awareness that also seeks to enhance Native 

American and Alaska Native tribes, Native Hawaiians, Tribal and 

Native Hawaiian organizations to respond to the violence against 

Native women. 

Thank you for your time. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you for your time, and thank you for 

just terrific testimony. Compelling testimony. 
43 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Papa appears in the Appendix on page 412. 

Mr. Papa, welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF DANIEL PAPA,1 DIRECTOR, PROJECT STAY 

GOLD 

Mr. PAPA. Good afternoon. I would like to thank the Committee 

for this opportunity to share the great work that my students have 

done, and I especially would like to thank Senator Chiesa for his 

commitment to fighting human trafficking and also his support of 

the modern-day student abolitionist movement. 

As we gather here today, we have heard the statistics: 27 million 

slaves on Earth, more slaves than ever before, 100,000 people trafficked throughout the United States. In the face of this global crisis, my students have proposed a solution, and I believe that today 

is also about a day of solutions and a day of collaboration. 

I believe that a solution to human trafficking within our country 

is inside our classrooms. I am proud to represent the great work 

that the students have done in my school. 

The journey begins in October 2010. I was teaching about the introduction of slavery in America’s past, and while teaching that, I 

made a connection to modern-day slavery. I have observed as a 

teacher that young people have a sensitivity to injustice. 

As I have taught issues of injustice in the past throughout history, whether it has been the Holocaust, whether it has been slavery, I have noticed a different level of engagement in the room. 

Young people have a sensitivity, and that sensitivity to injustice 

has fueled Project Stay Gold. 

While I made the connection, I had a student come to me and 

say, ‘‘Mr. Papa, we have to do something about this.’’ With that, 

we had 35 students sign up, and we organized an awareness campaign inside of our school. The 35 students created a PowerPoint 

lesson, and they went into the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade social studies classrooms, and they taught a lesson on modern-day 

slavery and human trafficking. They created posters and posted 

them around the school. They made announcements on the morning announcements. They sold wristbands that say ‘‘Abolitionist’’ 

on it. The first day that we actually had the wristbands, we sold 

400 wristbands in 24 hours. 

We had teachers coming up to us from all around the school saying, ‘‘What are these posters about? What are these kids talking 

about? What is this issue?’’ Our young people are educating the 

educated. It was an unbelievable experience. 

The students were so moved by the experience of sharing and exposing this crime. They came to me and they said, ‘‘Mr. Papa, we 

have to do more. What more can we do?’’ And so with that, we 

launched the website, ProjectStayGold.org. We created videos 

where the students spoke to the issue and they raised awareness. 

They used statistics, and so on, that they have learned and we 

launched these videos. And through that, the students were invited 

to many different events. They presented 2 years in a row at National Human Trafficking Awareness Day in Trenton, New Jersey, 

at our State Capitol, and that is where we met Senator Chiesa. The 

students also presented at the Department of Health and Human 
44 

Services Awareness Day in New York City. They have presented at 

colleges, universities, public libraries, churches, and other communities. 

With the Super Bowl coming to our State, students have 

launched a campaign called ‘‘Not on Our Turf’’ (students for a traffic-free Super Bowl). They have launched a website. They have created a video, and they have taken to social media as well. 

Part of their vision is they have also organized a student summit 

on October 15 at Caldwell College in New Jersey, where they have 

invited students from all over the State to come, not only to learn 

the issue, but they are going to give students action kits and action 

packs that they can go back to their school and launch an awareness campaign with the Super Bowl coming to our State. 

One of our students has initiated a petition on Change.org. He 

initiated it 3 weeks ago, and within 3 weeks he has 4,000 signatures calling for the National Football League (NFL) host committee, the Super Bowl host committee, to address the issue of 

human trafficking. And also part of their vision for Not on Our 

Turf Super Bowl Campaign is to create public service announcements that could be on radio and also on cable TV, where they will 

speak to the issue and raise public awareness. 

I also want to mention that part of what our students are doing, 

it is not just awareness. Educating young people is prevention, and 

what we have seen, actually our students have gone out into other 

schools, they have gone to other middle schools and high schools, 

and they have taught lessons to others, and others schools are now 

joining in this effort. And what we have found is that, as young 

people educate young people, this is a solution. This is part of a solution. 

There are three ways that I believe the Federal Government and 

State and local governments can partner with schools and with 

young people. 

First, as we have mentioned already today, I believe that Federal, State, and local governments could work with the Departments of Education on bringing more of an awareness to the way 

harassment, intimidation, and bullying education has come into the 

schools, education regarding human trafficking. 

I also believe that, grants could be offered to student movements 

who meet certain criteria to bring attention and awareness to 

human trafficking. 

And I just also believe that government supporting the movements of young people is a very powerful step toward prevention 

as well. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. That is pretty amazing work that you are 

doing there, Mr. Papa. 

Mr. PAPA. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. 

On the first panel that presented, I asked each of the witnesses 

to talk about underlying causes. And we talk a lot about symptoms, 

but underlying causes, I am going to ask each of you to take a shot 

at that, and we will start with you, Mr. Papa. Speak to us about 

underlying causes and how we might address this huge problem by 

going after underlying causes. And just be fairly brief, if you would. 
45 

Mr. PAPA. Sure, absolutely. Thank you. My students have identified one underlying cause, and that is the acceptance of ‘‘pimp culture’’ in America, the idea that a Grammy was awarded to a song 

called P–I–M–P, Pimp; the fact that MTV has a show called ‘‘Pimp 

My Ride.’’ My students have identified a ‘‘pimp’’ as a modern-day 

slave owner. And I believe that if we could educate America’s youth 

of what a pimp really is, that could be a No. 1 step toward prevention. 

Chairman CARPER. That is a great point. Thank you. 

Ms. BRUNNER. Thank you. No. 1 would be poverty. Human traffickers prey on the vulnerable, and the vulnerable are in poverty. 

The other is the lack of education, understanding that this is for 

all involved, whether it be the community members themselves, 

victim advocates, law enforcement, court personnel, judges, and 

schools to raise that awareness. 

The other is drugs and alcohol because this ties hand in hand 

with that. Drugs and alcohol are used in order to entice victims 

and the fact that our women are being sold for $20 worth of heroin 

on our reservation where others it may be meth, that is significant, 

so addressing that issue also. 

The other is there needs to be more training for law enforcement. 

When we look at our tribal law enforcement, we look at the complexities of our jurisdictions—you listening earlier to DHS’ response and to the other lady that was sitting in this seat, they are 

talking about, special attorneys and you are talking about Federal. 

Well, when you look at the 566 federally recognized tribes in the 

country, the majority are Public Law 280, which is not Federal jurisdiction. That is State and counties. So the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), through DHS, they created the Domestic Violence Indian Country Training Program, which is not 

currently being delivered. Currently what is being taught at the 

Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Artesia, New Mexico, training 

our law enforcement, is to do dual arrest. This was done September 

2 by Sergeant Greenwood at the BIA, but this is what they are 

doing. They are teaching dual arrest, which is setting us back 20, 

30 years. And if this is what the capacity is for the training for law 

enforcement in order to respond to a massive epidemic, which 6 in 

10 of us are going to be victims of, how are they supposed to be 

responding and educated on sex trafficking that is going unnoticed? 

They do not know what to look for. 

Then funding to support victims; there needs to be more help and 

support. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you so much. Ms. Koepplinger. 

Ms. KOEPPLINGER. I would agree with what has been said, and 

to carry out a little bit what Mr. Papa said, it is the 

hypersexualization of our culture which tells young girls that their 

only value is in their sexuality and how attractive they are. I 

mean, selling Halloween costumes to 9-year-old girls that make 

them look, like they—how they should not look. That is one part 

of it, I think. 

And I think until there is a real honest dialogue about a culture 

of impunity—sex trafficking is part of a systemic exploitation of 

those who have the least power; which tend to be women and children who are not Caucasian more often than not, although not ex-
46 

clusively. It has similar dynamics to domestic violence, rape, sexual 

assault. It is a culture of impunity that has largely identified females as commodities or property. And until we have an honest 

dialogue about that, I do not think we are going to make any big 

headway. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, ma’am. Mr. Farmer. 

Mr. FARMER. I would agree with what Suzanne said and note 

that trafficking has many faces, and there are many causes. It is 

a very complex phenomenon. But what they have in common, in 

my view anyway, is where there is an erosion of sustaining social 

institutions whether it be the collapse of the Soviet Union, even 

that caused a vacuum that the Russian organized crime filled—or 

the collapse of the family in parts of America where you have teenagers running away from home and being victimized. 

So my experience in law enforcement is that crime fills vacuums, 

and when there is a social vacuum created of whatever kind, crime 

is going to fill it. And in this context, it is filling it with our most 

vulnerable people. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. My next question goes back 

to actually a word, one of the words that was used by, I think, our 

judge a little bit earlier, and maybe a word that has been used by 

one of our witnesses here. Remember the judge mentioned—I think 

it was the judge who said there are three P’s she went through, 

and then I think she mentioned a fourth one—partnership. I believe it was the judge who said that. And I heard the word ‘‘collaboration,’’ and I think—was that you, Ms. Brunner? 

Whenever I run into people who have been married a long time, 

I ask them, ‘‘What is the secret for being married a long time, 40, 

50, 60 years?’’ And the best answer I have ever gotten is the two 

C’s: communicate and compromise. And that is also the secret for 

a vibrant democracy: communicate and compromise. I think if we 

are going to be successful here on this front, there has to be a third 

C, and that C would be collaboration. Collaboration. 

And as I said earlier, after Senator McCain had spoken and 

asked a question or two, I mentioned this is an all-hands-on-deck 

time, and that there is a shared partnership and a shared responsibility. 

Let me ask you to focus on the Federal piece of that. Our role 

in this collaboration our role in this partnership And just speak 

very briefly, and then I am going to yield to my colleagues. Mr. 

Farmer. 

Mr. FARMER. Well, I agree with the witness on the first panel 

who indicated that the Federal cooperation has been better in this 

context than in some others. I have been a Federal prosecutor and 

I have been in State law enforcement, also. And there is a tendency 

among Federal law enforcement to overlook the value of State and 

local law enforcement and to view themselves as sort of the be-all 

and the end-all. 

I think that has improved since I was in office. 9/11 helped improve that. But it is still there, and really the intelligence on the 

ground is so important, especially in the context of human trafficking. So entities like fusion centers I think can play a vital role 

in bridging the gap that exists between Federal and State and local 

law enforcement. 
47 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Ms. Koepplinger and I would ask 

you to be brief, if you would, please. 

Ms. KOEPPLINGER. I think one of the key things is that the Federal law is really framed as a law enforcement problem, but this 

is a human rights problem, and we really need to understand the 

role of the advocates and the NGO’s on the ground who are serving 

the victims and how they can be helpful and how their work can 

help identify more victims and serve more victims. The data sets 

will never be complete if we do not allow the front-line advocates 

to determine who is a victim of human trafficking. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Ms. Brunner. 

Ms. BRUNNER. Real quick, I would like to see the development 

of a Human Trafficking in Indian Country Task Force that is inclusive of all Federal, State, local, but also the NGO’s and the advocates that are on the ground. Often we have a lot of Federal people 

with good intentions but who have no understanding of what we 

deal with in Indian country. They speak very little to that. 

So if we could have a little bit more dialogue with that, I would 

appreciate it. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, ma’am. Mr. Papa. 

Mr. PAPA. If the average age of entry into human trafficking in 

the United States is between the ages of 12 to 14, what better advocates are there than their peers who are middle school and high 

school age. So I think that if the Federal Government was able to 

support, through the Department of Education, a nationwide educational program brought to the school system, that would be an 

excellent step. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Heitkamp, that reminds me of that 

truth campaign, doesn’t it? Just a little bit of that truth campaign 

on the American Legacy Foundation, which you helped create, was 

all about. 

All right. Senator Chiesa, please. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. And this will probably be the last round of 

questions, but go ahead, if you will. We will go at least 7 minutes. 

Senator CHIESA. Thanks to all of you for being here, and thanks 

for sharing your expertise. But, most importantly, thanks for sharing your passion on this issue. All of you have spoken with great 

passion about it because you have seen yourselves the impact it 

has on the people that are devastated by it, so thank you. 

I do want to thank in particular my friends from New Jersey: 

Dean Farmer, who has distinguished himself at every level of 

public service in New Jersey, as a line prosecutor, as the Attorney 

General, as a senior aide to the Governor, and now as the dean of 

our law school, jumping in to help Rutgers when they asked him 

to go over and be their in-house lawyer as they get through some 

struggles there. So thank you for being here. 

And Mr. Papa, whom I have now known for a little less than 2 

years, but whose students really had a big impact on me. I had 

done cases, and I had talked about it, but I watched young students talk about the issue of human trafficking with such passion 

and such creativity, I thought it really moved me, and it really 

helped me, helped focus me on the importance of spending my time 
48 

and my energy as Attorney General and doing everything I could 

to combat it, so thank you. 

Dean, you talked earlier about the SARs and the role they can 

play. Can you talk a little bit about how you—I know you talked 

in panels that you sat on and things that you had done maybe in 

an academic setting. But talk about the role they played when you 

were—when I think of those, I think of those in financial crimes, 

in that context. Talk a little bit about how you have seen—in your 

own mind, how that has evolved into a tool that we should be using 

in this area of human trafficking. 

Mr. FARMER. The thinking behind suspicious activity reporting is 

that you do, to some extent, academic studies of criminal conduct, 

and from those studies you extract objective factors that people can 

look for to identify precursor conduct that leads to crime. And then 

the object is to train people so that they can spot those indicators, 

notify law enforcement, notify the Federal law enforcement, or 

State or local, whatever the appropriate level is, and at that point 

it gets filtered up through the fusion centers and it gets proliferated through the government. And it is a way to bridge the gap 

between the different levels of government, and what it provides is 

a template that can be exported from the context of terrorism to 

other contexts, and there is no more important one that it can be 

exported to really than human trafficking. 

Senator CHIESA. And you talked a little bit about making sure 

that our boots on the ground, the people you described as having 

the best instincts to recognize these cases. And one of the things 

that we talked about in New Jersey was to better prepare our law 

enforcement personnel. They have great instincts. They have great 

commitment. What I thought we had not done, I had not done a 

good enough job on was explaining to them that it is OK to take 

a longer look; it is OK to drill down a little bit further. 

Can you tell us your thoughts on that? Do you think that is a 

worthwhile way for our law enforcement community to be trying to 

eradicate this crime? 

Mr. FARMER. Absolutely. And, the tremendous pressure on local 

law enforcement is to solve the crime that exists today, and that 

discourages the longer look. And so raising awareness that there 

is a longer look to take I think is critical in dealing with State and 

local law enforcement. 

So once they know there is a bigger problem, as we found with 

what turned into the undercover investigation of the East European trafficking in bars and massage parlors, it started as just a 

prostitution case, and then it grew. And we realized it was a much 

bigger problem. And once they are alerted to that, better investigations will follow. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you. As the son of a retired school teacher, Mr. Papa, I cannot say that does not influence my respect and 

my admiration for all that you are doing. I have had four or five 

chances to sit face to face with your students and talk about this 

issue, and their level of comprehension astounds me. 

You talked about some of the cultural things that you are seeing. 

Talk to us very candidly about the way those things are talked 

about in your classroom, not just by the leaders who are involved 

in the programs that you are pursuing that are so terrific, but 
49 

maybe some of the kids who would be more apt to find themselves 

in this situation because they do not have either a familiar support 

network or they do not feel part of a group at this school. 

You hear these conversations every day, whether it is in the hallways or in the classrooms. Talk a little bit more about that and 

how you think that is a sign that we have become desensitized to 

the things that can lead us to the spot we find where people are 

enslaved. 

Mr. PAPA. I will never forget my second year teaching. I had a 

girl come into the classroom, and she had a shiner. She had a black 

eye. We obviously took the proper steps and called the Division of 

Youth and Family Service (DYFS) and so on. 

A few weeks later, I noticed she was not in my classroom. She 

was not there for a few days. A few days turned into a week or two. 

And I asked one of her friends where she was, and she told me that 

she ran away because she could not take her dad hitting her any 

longer. And she was in eighth grade, and she ran away to Pennsylvania. 

So I think that it is systemic in, I think, every school throughout 

the country. And the one thing that I have seen, though, is I have 

seen the ability for young people to reach out to other young people 

within schools who are hurting like a girl like that. 

Senator CHIESA. And that is the thing I would like you to give 

us a little bit more information on. Your students are now going 

out to other schools and educating other students. 

Mr. PAPA. Right. 

Senator CHIESA. And I think that is a great thing to be doing. 

Can you tell us about some of the reactions you are having from 

both the students and the teachers at the other schools that you 

are going to when you talk about human trafficking? 

Mr. PAPA. I do not know if this is surprising or not, but from 

teachers, there is a lot of skepticism, and the students are coming 

back, and they are saying, even students who are wearing the 

wristbands, they have initiated conversations with parents or family members, and the parents or family members say, ‘‘What are 

you talking about? This does not exist. This is not true.’’ 

So it seems as if the students are really on the front lines of even 

trying to convince adult communities. As Mr. Farmer mentioned, 

when we did an awareness night at our school back in January, we 

had two police officers from our town come. And afterwards they 

came up to us, and they said, ‘‘We had no idea that this even existed. We did not know anything about this until we came here tonight.’’ 

So I think the reaction is pretty shocking. The main reaction, 

though, which is the reaction of success, is the ability for a young 

person to communicate to another young person. And I think, the 

most important step in education is not what we learn, but it is 

what we do with what we learn. And if our young people are able 

to educate their peers and teach them that it is not enough just 

to know, but it is more than that; it is about doing something with 

what you know, starting a campaign, starting a Twitter account, 

starting a Facebook account, and really getting the word out. I 

think that is the biggest key. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you very much. 
50 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. You bet. Senator Heitkamp. 

Senator HEITKAMP. You all are just excellent, and you have just 

done such great work in this area, and you really have put a 

human face on this problem. I think the last panel was all about 

kind of the bureaucratic response, assuming everyone knew. But 

you are at that level where you are dealing every day with victims, 

and you are dealing every day with this problem, and looking at 

it from a systemic, long-term view, because this is not going to 

change overnight. This is a problem that has been with us since 

the beginning of humanity. And it is something that I think we 

thought we eradicated, kind of like eradicating smallpox or polio, 

and then all of a sudden it comes back because we lose focus and 

we lose attention and we think it is OK, because it is not us, because it is their kids not our kids, because it is those people and 

not all of us. 

And so we are all in this together, and just from every one of 

you, I just feel a lot more optimistic than I did before I got here 

knowing that you are out there thinking about it, thinking about 

it in fusion centers and how you are going to look at jurisdictional 

challenges, thinking about how you are going to educate kids and 

not let them be victims, and then thinking about the special needs 

of very vulnerable populations. 

Dean Farmer, if you think jurisdiction is complicated between 

you and New York City, you try and figure it out in Indian country 

and a large land-based Indian center. 

I want to raise another symptom of this problem—especially in 

Indian country, and I would like both of you to respond to an observation that I have, which is, as we look at the high rate of suicide, 

young teenage suicide, on the reservations and really off the reservations within our Native people population, how much of that 

do you think is related to abuse, neglect, trafficking? 

Ms. KOEPPLINGER. Well, I do not have any good data, but I think 

that there is a very strong correlation. We see extraordinarily high 

rates of child abuse in many of our families. That historic trauma, 

multi-generational trauma that so many families experience has 

not really been unpacked, and until we understand how to heal 

whole families, we are going to continue to struggle with this. 

I think the suicide rate is absolutely linked with alcohol and 

drug addiction and mental illness, and those in many cases are an 

offshoot of early sexual trauma that has not been dealt with and 

the child has not had a chance to heal. So I think there is a strong 

correlation. 

Ms. BRUNNER. I would agree with Suzanne. I would say a majority of the suicides of our children is due to violence, due to child 

abuse, due to drugs and alcohol. 

Just last year, we had a 14-year-old girl hang herself because she 

was raped. A month later, we had another 14-year-old hang himself 

with a shoestring on a bathroom doorknob. And then the following 

month, we had a 19-year-old girl found hanging 3 days from a tree 

who was 12 weeks pregnant. The level of suicide is at epidemic levels, and we really do need to look at the level of the violence that 

is being perpetuated and which our children are trying to navigate. 
51 

Senator HEITKAMP. If we could give the United States Government’s effort a grade in this area, I guess my question is: What 

grade would you give us? And I will start with you, Dean Farmer. 

Mr. FARMER. Why can’t you just start with the teacher at the 

other end? [Laughter.] 

Senator HEITKAMP. He is used to this. 

Mr. FARMER. Well, I am an easy grader. I would say a B-plus. 

I think the level of awareness has risen. The effort is there. The 

coordination could be better. 

Ms. KOEPPLINGER. So is this a grade on its work in Indian country or—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. Well, both. 

Ms. KOEPPLINGER. C-minus, maybe. I mean, I am encouraged. I 

am seeing progress. But there is still a lot of work to be done, particularly with—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. And just for maybe some of the folks who are 

not as familiar with Indian jurisdiction, the Federal Government 

has a unique relationship, whether it is the trust and treaty relationship or whether it is primacy in jurisdiction. And you both 

raised the specter of the problems that we have right now in Fort 

Berthold. We could use five FBI agents in Fort Berthold right now. 

We have 3,000 pending criminal cases in tribal court. A vast majority of those cases are drug related. But we know we have these ongoing problems. So just so we know that what we are grading here 

is a different jurisdictional challenge. Lisa. 

Ms. BRUNNER. I would have to say on a national level a C, just 

because it was only a few years ago that Suzanne and I, with her 

invitation, were at HHS talking with their human trafficking division where the funding that was available was not available to address domestic, it was only international. So to see the change occurring is good. 

For Indian country, I give it a D just simply because of the jurisdictional issues, the lack of funding coming into Indian country, the 

lack of education and awareness and training for law enforcement, 

and building those collaborative relationships that are necessary 

between tribal, State, and Federal agencies to have a united front 

to address this issue. 

Thank you. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you. Mr. Papa. 

Mr. PAPA. From my perspective, I would say a B. I think that 

even what we are doing here today, the fact that President Obama 

has made speeches about it, there has been such a greater attention brought, as I have seen even over the last 3 years from the 

Federal Government as I followed it. 

However, I really believe very strongly that there needs to be far 

more outreach into the school systems in order to prevent and educate young people of their risk factors and the warning signs, especially from Departments of Education, at the Federal and State 

level as well. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I just have a few minutes, and I just want 

to make a comment about victimization and about the work that 

we have done over the years dealing with victims. It is not easy 

for victims to come forward. It is not easy for victims to talk about 

their victimization. It is not easy because there is a lot of shame, 
52 

especially in Indian country with young girls who may have used 

drugs and alcohol and ended up in a very bad situation. 

And so we need to be more concerned about how we deal with 

victims so that they know that there is justice for them, regardless 

of what their behaviors were. And I think there is a lot of blaming 

that goes on, and we need to step back and spend some time talking about how we are going to deal with this problem from a holistic standpoint. 

I just thank you all for putting a very human face on this and 

some great expertise. I think you gave us some great ideas. 

Chairman CARPER. Amen. Senator Heitkamp, I just mentioned to 

Senator Chiesa, the two of you came up with this idea, and I really 

did not know fully what to expect. This has been a terrific hearing. 

We have had great witnesses. I thank you both for recommending 

several people to testify and for really providing leadership. Although you are both fairly junior in the U.S. Senate, you have really provided great leadership on this point. 

I have said, Senator Chiesa, in the first panel, we gave the first 

panel a chance to make brief closing statements. I am going to ask 

Senator Chiesa to make a very brief closing statement. I am going 

to ask you if you would make just a very brief closing statement 

after Jeff, and then we will wrap it up. Thank you. 

Senator CHIESA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is hard to believe we are talking about people as property in 

2013, but we are. But I think it is encouraging that, thanks to the 

Chairman’s leadership and people like Senator Heitkamp, we are 

able to talk about it at the highest levels of government so that we 

bring attention to it—in our schools, in our communities, everywhere that we can. 

So I really appreciate the passion that all of you brought to this 

issue today. I really appreciate the chance, Mr. Chairman, to talk 

about this issue today. And I hope that we will continue to talk 

about it and that everybody who is sitting in our chairs will continue to listen so that we can make sure that people understand 

it is out there and that we are using every resource we can and 

considering every community. I come from a prosecutor’s mentality 

because that is where I worked. From a victim’s perspective as 

well. All of these perspectives are really important so that we get 

to a solution that addresses all of it, eradicating it, deterring it, 

and returning some quality of life to the victims. 

So thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Senator Heitkamp. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I am reminded of a story of a gentleman that 

I used to work with in North Dakota. He was around the juvenile 

justice system in North Dakota, and he did a series of meetings 

across the State, and everywhere he went he got a lot of suggestions, and a lot of times he was told what he could not do. And they 

would say, ‘‘You cannot do this, and you cannot do that, and you 

cannot do this, and you cannot do that.’’ And at the end of one of 

these meetings, an elder lady came up to him—actually, it was on 

the reservation—and she said, ‘‘Mr. Lick, what you cannot do . . .’’ 

And he thought, ‘‘One more.’’ And she said, ‘‘You cannot give up.’’ 

And we cannot give up on these victims. We are better than that 

as a country. We are better than that as a people. We are better 
53 

than that in our humanity. And we will lose ground if we lose 

focus. 

And so human slavery has never been OK. It will not be OK on 

our watch. And so I want to thank the great Senator from New 

Jersey and the Senator from Delaware for their allowing me to be 

part of this important hearing, and thank you all again for putting 

a very human face on this problem. 

Chairman CARPER. Well, again, I want to thank our witnesses. 

Just a wonderful panel. And thank you for your heart and thank 

you for your conviction and for your steadfast determination to 

make sure we do not ignore these problems, that we say something, 

say something constructive, and keep saying it until we deal even 

more effectively with this problem. 

A special thanks to Senators Heitkamp and Chiesa. We would 

not be here but for your encouragement. 

But, last, as my colleagues know, every Wednesday there is a 

prayer breakfast. Imagine this, Democrat and Republican Senators 

gather at a prayer breakfast. We read the Scripture together. We 

pray together. We even sing a hymn every now and then. I usually 

do not get to go because they do it fairly early on Wednesday mornings, and I am usually on a train trying to get here. But they asked 

me to speak last Wednesday, and one of the things I mentioned 

was how should our faith guide us in what we do. And the Golden 

Rule just rings loud and clear here for me, and it probably does for 

you as well. 

The other thing I mentioned was: what is the role of government? Whatever the problem or issue that we are facing, what is 

the role of government? And I oftentimes rely on the words of 

Abraham Lincoln, who said a lot of memorable things, but he used 

to say, ‘‘The role of government is to do for the people what they 

cannot do for themselves.’’ 

There is a role here for the Federal Government, and there may 

well be a role for this Committee. It is Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Long before it was Homeland Security, it was 

Governmental Affairs. And we have broad investigative powers into 

the whole range of the Federal Government, and we use those not 

just in a ‘‘gotcha’’ kind of mode, but in a way to see how we can 

foster collaboration, how we can foster greater partnership, how we 

can realize what is the role of government, not just Federal, not 

just State, not just local, not just law enforcement, not just nonprofits, the faith community, what is the role of all the families, 

our families. There is a shared responsibility, and this is an allhands-on-deck moment. 

I am encouraged, having certainly reminded us that we have a 

problem here, to also realize there are a lot of things that are working that we ought to be doing more of, and I am more encouraged 

that we just might do that. 

All right. With that having been said, again, Senator Chiesa, 

Senator Heitkamp, and to all of our witnesses, thank you so much. 

Thank you. The hearing record will remain open for 15 days— 

that is until October 8, my sister’s birthday—at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements and questions for the record. 

With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you so much. 

[Whereupon, at 5:17 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(55) 

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Æ