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LESSONS LEARNED FROM SUPER BOWL

PREPARATIONS: PREVENTING INTERNATIONAL

HUMAN TRAFFICKING AT MAJOR

SPORTING EVENTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JANUARY 27, 2014

Serial No. 113–177

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

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

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

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

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

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Luis CdeBaca, Ambassador-at-Large, Office to Monitor and 

Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State .............................. 10

Ms. Maria M. Odom, Chair, Blue Campaign, U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 18

Ms. Polly Hanson, chief of police, National Railroad Passenger Corporation 

(AMTRAK) ............................................................................................................ 36

Ms. Nancy Rivard, president and founder, Airline Ambassadors International 43

Ms. Carol Smolenski, executive director, End Child Prostitution and Trafficking-USA ........................................................................................................... 47

Ms. Letty Ashworth, general manager of global diversity, Delta Airlines ......... 55

Ms. Holly Smith, survivor of trafficking and anti-trafficking advocate .............. 60

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Luis CdeBaca: Prepared statement .............................................. 13

Ms. Maria M. Odom: Prepared statement ............................................................. 20

Ms. Polly Hanson: Prepared statement ................................................................. 39

Ms. Nancy Rivard: Prepared statement ................................................................. 45

Ms. Carol Smolenski: Prepared statement ............................................................ 50

Ms. Letty Ashworth: Prepared statement ............................................................. 57

Ms. Holly Smith: Prepared statement ................................................................... 63

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 74

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 75

The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs: Prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 76

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

Texas: Prepared statement .................................................................................. 77

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

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

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: American 

Airlines statement for the record ........................................................................ 78

Written responses from the Honorable Luis CdeBaca to questions submitted 

for the record by the Honorable Christopher H. Smith .................................... 80

Written response from Ms. Maria M. Odom to question submitted for the 

record by: 

The Honorable Mark Meadows, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of North Carolina .................................................................................... 82

The Honorable David G. Reichert, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Washington ......................................................................................... 83

Ms. Nancy Rivard: Material submitted for the record ......................................... 84

(1)

LESSONS LEARNED FROM SUPER 

BOWL PREPARATIONS: PREVENTING 

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING 

AT MAJOR SPORTING EVENTS 

MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in room 

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

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. The subcommittee will come to order. 

And good afternoon to everybody, and thank you for being here. 

It is great to see so many friends and familiar faces who are champions in the fight in combatting human trafficking. 

Our hearing today will focus on the preparations for the upcoming Super Bowl to prevent human trafficking, and strategies employed by airlines, buses, and trains, as well as hotels, designed to 

mitigate human trafficking. 

In less than a week, New Jersey will be hosting the Super Bowl, 

and along with welcoming enthusiastic fans, the State also is preparing for the likely influx of both domestic and international traffickers. As a matter of fact, many of them are already there. Sadly, 

but almost certainly, they are bringing with them sexually exploited trafficking victims, many of them from abroad, in an attempt to cash in on the Super Bowl crowds. 

We know from the past any sports venue, and especially the 

Super Bowl, acts as a sex trafficking magnet. The National Center 

for Missing and Exploited Children, for example, reports that more 

than 10,000 exploited women and girls were trafficked to Miami for 

the Super Bowl in 2010. 

This must not happen again. New Jersey Governor Chris 

Christie has put in place a robust anti-human trafficking plan. For 

example, his Department of Homeland Security and Preparedness 

has stepped up efforts to combat trafficking at the Super Bowl, distributing flyers to emergency medical services, fire department, law 

enforcement, and other emergency care professions so that these 

front line professionals will know when to be concerned that someone is a trafficking victim and how to respond appropriately. The 

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transportation and hospitality training concept has proven 

straightforward, effective, and thankfully, it is catching on. 

On her way to yet another assembly and community awareness 

conference, this time at St. Elizabeth’s College in Morristown, New 

Jersey Assistant Attorney General Tracy Thompson, who is spearheading the Christie administration’s anti-human trafficking effort, 

told me earlier today that they have trained 10,000 people, including the Train the Trainer initiative. She noted that the Super Bowl 

creates an increased ‘‘breeding ground’’ for sex trafficking. She also 

said, ‘‘Today’s victims can be any race, age, or gender. Victims are 

exploited for prostitution, pornography, and forced labor.’’ She went 

on to say, ‘‘Traffickers control victims through force and fraud, utilizing physical and psychological abuse, threats, and isolation. 

Know it. See it. Report it.’’

According to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Super 

Bowl can be described as, as he puts it, and I quote him, ‘‘the single largest human trafficking incident in the United States.’’ Captain Doug Cain, Louisiana State Police spokesman, said after the 

2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans, ‘‘Any time you have a large influx of tourists in town, and they are spending a lot of money, there 

is a criminal element that moves in to take advantage of that.’’

Greece, which hosted the Olympics in 2004, saw a 95-percent increase in trafficking victims in the months leading up to and including the Olympics. Next month, Russia, a country ranked at the 

lowest tier, what we call Tier 3, by the annual U.S. Department of 

State’s Trafficking in Persons Report, as we all know will host the 

Olympic Games. Since Russia does not have in place any formal 

national procedures to guide law enforcement in the identification 

of sex trafficking victims, and does not fund trafficking victim care, 

I and so many others are very concerned that the 2014 Winter 

Olympics may turn out to be a trafficking nightmare. 

Later this year, Brazil will host the 2014 World Cup, and then 

the 2016 Summer Olympics. Although Brazil has improved their 

anti-trafficking laws, and I have actually been there, I have met 

with lawmakers in Brasilia, and is taking steps to mitigate trafficking risks, the fact remains that Brazil will have to do much 

more if they want to protect their children from sex tourism. Numbers from Brazil’s Federal Police indicate that between 250,000 to 

400,000 children are forcibly prostituted. 

Worldwide, the best estimates are that 600,000 to 800,000 trafficking victims are moved across international borders every year. 

Millions more victims are moved within national borders. But antitrafficking efforts have only recently turned to equipping transportation employees to identify victims in transit. The training is easy, 

it is inexpensive, and it is already saving lives. 

In July 2010, I chaired a conference here in Washington to bring 

together relevant U.S. agencies such as Customs and Border Patrol, various U.S. airlines, and nongovernmental organizations to 

focus on interdicting traffickers by training commercial transportation employees to recognize the indicators for trafficking. 

Speakers included Deborah Sigmund, who is here with us today, 

founder of an NGO called Innocents at Risk, and she explained 

how flight attendants were the first line of defense in the fight 

against human trafficking. As a matter of fact, I took her pamphlet 

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and handed out hundreds of copies of that pamphlet to other parliamentarians at the next Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

Flight attendants are in a unique position to observe potential 

trafficking in progress and then call a trafficking hotline or inform 

the pilot to radio ahead so that proper authorities can intervene. 

Former flight attendant Nancy Rivard, president of Airline Ambassadors International, one of today’s witnesses, told us how she 

and other flight attendants compared notes one day and were 

shocked and dismayed at how often they had noticed what they 

suspected was trafficking or a trafficked woman or child on their 

flight, but had no training or protocol to do something about it. 

Nancy has been doing a great deal about it ever since, training airline employees around the United States and around the world. 

Last year, I was privileged to join Ms. Rivard at a training seminar in Kiev, Ukraine. One of the earliest successes of the program 

was a call Ms. Rivard placed to the U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security regarding a child she had observed on her flight from the 

Dominican Republic to Boston. That tip led to the breakup of a 

trafficking ring that had transported more than 80 children to the 

United States. 

Just last year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a similar training initiative called the Blue Lightning program to domestic U.S. airlines. And so far Delta, JetBlue, Allegiant, and North American Airlines are on board. With minimal 

modifications, the training is also easily adaptable to bus drivers 

and station operators, train conductors, trucking associations, and 

other transportation industry professionals. At one time or another, 

every trafficking victim will be moved. We need to interdict that 

movement, rescue the trafficking victim, and put behind bars the 

person involved with the slave trade. 

The New Jersey Human Trafficking Task Force, which was originally started with seed money from a law that I authored, known 

as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, and subsequent 

reauthorizations, is working overtime to mitigate sex trafficking, 

and has released, like the governor’s office, anti-trafficking brochures to bus and train employees in New Jersey, as well as 

reached out to other major industries on the front lines of spotting 

traffickers and victims, including hotels. We have included at the 

press table some of that material, which I encourage you to take 

a look at. 

We have with us today the NGO End Child Prostitution and 

Tracking, or ECPAT–USA, which has been conducting hotel training on behalf of the task force in the lead-up to the Super Bowl. 

Hyatt, Hilton, Wyndham, Carlson, and Accor Hotels have been establishing a new industry standard to ensure that their properties 

are not used for human trafficking. 

In addition to reaching out to transportation employees and hotels, the New Jersey Human Trafficking Task Force has increased 

print and electronic public service announcements and training 

programs for law enforcement, health care workers, lawyers, and 

others on the front line. 

In December, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, or the OSCE—not many people have perhaps heard of it, 

4

but it is kind of like the human rights counterpart to NATO in Europe, it is comprised of 57 countries from Europe and North America—endorsed my plan to make anti-trafficking training for airline 

employees, other public and commercial carriers, as well as hotel 

employees a primary goal in the international strategy to combat 

human trafficking. 

I want to especially thank the Ukrainian Chair-in-Office, and the 

Ukrainian Government, who took the lead, working side by side 

with the United States and other interested countries, to make 

sure that that language was included in the action plan. So thank 

you, Ukraine. 

In Istanbul, Turkey at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly last 

July, members of Parliaments, well over 250, maybe as many as 

300, adopted my resolution to implement such a training in each 

and every country of the 57 nations. 

Any country that competes to host the next major sporting event 

must be fully aware of the human trafficking vulnerabilities associated with such events and the best practices for protecting and rescuing victims. In fact, the International Olympic Committee and 

the Fe ́de ́ration Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, 

should take into consideration a country’s anti-trafficking commitment and ability when awarding those games. 

We will soon be writing a letter to all of these associations asking 

them to make that part of the criteria. Standard anti-trafficking 

measures should be included along with the required security 

measures. 

Finally, the only standard that fits the crime of human trafficking is zero tolerance. And it must be rigorously and faithfully 

enforced by arrests of those engaged in this nefarious trade, modern day slavery. 

And there can be no higher priority than the liberation and protection of the victims. We have had many victims come to this committee and give their testimony. Through their tears and through 

their agony, they have asked us, practically begged us, to do more. 

We have to respond more aggressively. 

Combating human trafficking must be continuously prioritized at 

all levels of government, the faith community, civil society, and corporations, including the National Football League, the NFL. All of 

us must do our part to protect women and girls. 

I would like to yield to the vice chairman of the subcommittee, 

Mr. Weber, the gentleman from Texas, and would note Mr. Weber 

was the prime author of the legislation in Texas, the State law on 

combating human trafficking, and has been a leader for many, 

many years. 

I yield to Mr. Weber. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding 

the hearing. 

And thank you all for being here. I was privileged to be out in 

California with the Ambassador some months back. Chairman Ed 

Royce held, I guess, a forum out there to talk about this very egregious problem. 

We take pride in Texas in everything being bigger and better. 

And unfortunately, this is not one of the records that we want. 

Texas has the dubious distinction of having about 25 percent of the 

5

human trafficking in the country, so it is something that we take 

very seriously and we work very hard on. The chairman is very 

kind, we were able to pass some landmark legislation to heighten 

awareness, to increase penalties, to actually ferret out some of 

what I learned in California, the Ambassador might remember, 

they were calling POS’s, purchasers of sex. We call them POS’s in 

Texas, too, but it has a little bit of a different meaning. And I won’t 

repeat that here, so it is a very bad problem, and you are right, 

we need zero tolerance. 

And there is a human trafficking hotline. And for the record, it 

is 888–3737–888. It is really easy to remember. And we encourage 

people, if you think, if you suspect something is out of the ordinary, 

like the flight attendants were talking about, please call that hotline. It is important: 888–3737–888. 

And I will leave it at that for the time being, Mr. Chairman. I 

yield back. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Weber. 

I would like to now yield to our former Ambassador, Ann Wagner, who is not a member of this committee but is so concerned 

about this issue she has gotten here early and has joined us. Most 

Members are arriving somewhere around 6 o’clock tonight. 

I yield to the gentlelady, Ms. Wagner. 

Mrs. WAGNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I represent Missouri’s Second congressional District, from the St. 

Louis area. We also, Congressman Weber, sadly are in the top 20 

in the Nation for sex trafficking, and it is a deplorable statistic. 

Now I thank the chairman and committee members. I thank you 

all for convening this hearing today and allowing me to discuss the 

upcoming Super Bowl and the efforts to combat the surge in sex 

trafficking that often results from prominent sporting events and 

conventions such as these. I applaud the committee’s effort to increase awareness of this very important issue, especially Chairman 

Smith’s ongoing leadership and dedication to fighting this terrible 

crime, and the effects on the most vulnerable members of our society. 

As a former United States Ambassador, I was exposed firsthand 

to the horrors of human trafficking on an international level. I witnessed and reported on the devastating consequences of human 

trafficking, where innocent children were dragged into the dark 

abyss of sex slavery. I worked in close coordination with law enforcement, foreign governments, our U.S. State Department, and 

the private sector to stop this heinous exploitation from happening. 

But never, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that 

human trafficking was so rampant in the United States of America, 

in our neighborhoods, in our school districts, in our faith communities. While some of my colleagues might think that this could 

never happen in their own district, there are young women being 

forced into prostitution right now in virtually every district across 

this Nation. It is hiding in plain sight. 

According to the United Nations, human trafficking generates 

$9.5 billion in revenue yearly in the United States. The Department of Justice has estimated that approximately 300,000 children 

are currently at risk of being prostituted in the United States 

6

alone. Shockingly, the average age of entry into prostitution for a 

child victim in the U.S. is 13 to 14 years old. 

As a mother, and an aunt of teenage daughters, I am especially 

concerned that the victims be given a voice. They are not nameless, 

faceless children. They are our daughters, our granddaughters, our 

nieces, and our neighbors. They are the vulnerable youth of our society, the ones who should be protected the most, not exploited for 

money and greed. 

As legislators, we have an obligation to come together and do 

something because we can, because we should, and because we 

must. Partnership between the public and private sectors is a key 

to combating human trafficking at major events like the Super 

Bowl. That is why I am happy to see representatives from private 

industry here today. Many times front-line employees of the transportation industry—and I certainly recognize Delta Airlines is here, 

and has been a wonderful partner in this regard—and the hospitality industries are the ones best suited to identify trafficking victims and their predators. 

In addition to sporting events like the Super Bowl, conferences 

and conventions can also be magnets of sex trafficking. The conference and hospitality industry, along with corporate partners, 

have a vital role to play in combating sexual exploitation. 

I would like to highlight for just a minute the work of the St. 

Louis company that is a leader in this area, Nix Conference and 

Meeting Management. It has been especially active through better 

awareness and educating the industry on the signs of human trafficking. I applaud their efforts to host the 2014 IGNITE Conference 

in St. Louis on March 2nd through the 4th. It is dedicated to engaging, educating, and empowering a diverse group of supporters 

and stakeholders to combating sex trafficking. Increased awareness 

and training will lead to more victims being identified, which is a 

critical step in breaking the cycle of exploitation and victimization. 

But our work does not end there. Congress, Congress has the opportunity to take a stand to protect our children from the devastating consequences of sex trafficking. That is why I am supporting several pieces of bipartisan legislation that would give law 

enforcement, prosecutors, and social services the necessary tools 

and resources to combat human trafficking and boost support for 

the victims. 

I applaud Representatives Poe and Paulsen, Chairman Smith 

and others, Walberg, Carter, Royce, Reichert, Bass, and many, 

many others for their legislative efforts to fight the scourge of 

human trafficking. I am committed to making this a legislative priority in 2014. 

I would like to briefly mention another issue that demands legislative action. Over the last 10 or so years, prostitution has migrated to an online marketplace. Online classified services, such as 

Backpage.com, have become the vehicle for advertising the victims 

of the child sex trade to the world. Online customers choose Web 

sites like Backpage and other advertisers to order an underage girl 

to their hotel room as easily as if they were ordering a delivery 

pizza. 

Now, just think about that for a second. Close your eyes and picture your daughter, your niece, or any innocent young girl that you 

7

care about being sold for exploitation to a complete stranger. These 

publicly released pictures that are playing on the television right 

now could be that innocent angel that you just pictured. 

It is our moral obligation and our legislative duty to ensure that 

advertisements of child sex trafficking, like Backpage and others, 

are not allowed to operate and claim yet another victim. 

I end my testimony, Mr. Chairman, today, with the highest 

praise for your efforts and the committee and those that are here 

to testify today. I thank you. 

I thank you, Ambassador. I enjoyed having our conversation, and 

the work that you do at the State Department on an international 

level. 

Ms. Odom, I look forward to working with you and your office, 

and receiving the resources and tools and support to get the word 

out. 

The efforts of public officials to raise awareness of human trafficking are critical to combating this reprehensible crime. It is only 

through increased awareness, resources, and legislative action that 

we will one day realize a society that protects its most vulnerable 

victims from sexual exploitation and enslavement. 

I thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ambassador Wagner, thank you so 

much for your very strong, articulate, and passionate speech. It is 

nice to know we have somebody who comes from the ambassadorial 

ranks who brings that understanding and that gravitas. 

And I think your point about Craigslist and Backpage, I was 

talking to Jonathan Marino earlier today about Twitter. And we 

are planning on doing a hearing on those types of media, and Twitter’s very, very shameless record of promoting the exploitation of 

women and young girls. So thank you so very much. 

I would like to now yield to my good friend and colleague, Mark 

Meadows, who is also the delegate to the United Nations from the 

Foreign Affairs Committee, and a very faithful member of this subcommittee on all matters related to human rights, and a leader and 

a champion for human rights. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding 

this hearing. 

And I just want to speak very briefly, but from the heart. You 

know, these events, the Super Bowl, lets us highlight human trafficking as an issue just because of the sheer numbers. But day in 

and day out, we know, Mr. Ambassador, we have spoken before, 

this is something that continues to affect families and young girls 

across, not just this country, but across the world. 

And it is only through truly looking at this particular problem 

and believing that we can conquer it together that we will be successful, because Super Bowls come and go. Numbers continue to 

get reported over and over again. And it is very easy to get discouraged and say that we are not making a difference. 

But as a father, and as a father of a daughter who some 5 years 

ago highlighted this problem for me and started to share how tragic it is in our country and in our world, it was something that really wasn’t on the radar screen for me until she brought it out. And 

she is now a junior in college, about to graduate. And so her life’s 

calling is really to address this particular issue. I said, Honey, 

8

what do you want do after you graduate? She said, I really want 

to get involved to make sure that human trafficking is a thing of 

the past. 

And so for all the times that you may be discouraged, whether 

it is this panel or the panel to come, there are those who are starting to come alongside you to fight, to make sure that even if it continues, that we can make a difference, one girl at a time. And I am 

committed to work alongside each one of you. I thank you for your 

service and your heart that it represents. 

And I thank the chairman for holding this hearing and for his 

undying, relentless pursuit on behalf of those who many times can’t 

speak for themselves. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Meadows. 

We are also joined by another Member who is not a member of 

our subcommittee, but a former sheriff of King County in Washington State, the president of the Washington State Sheriffs Association and, in 2004, won the National Sheriffs’ Association Sheriff 

of the Year Award, two valor awards, and the Washington State 

Attorney General’s Award for Courageous Action. 

A man of action, a man who knows what it is to combat the bad 

guys, and has done so successfully. It is so great to have him here, 

and a real leader on human trafficking, combating it, Dave 

Reichert. 

Mr. REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting 

me to attend the hearing today. 

I came back yesterday especially to be here. I would be on an airplane right now, but this is important for all of us to be here. And 

thank you all for being here today to attend this hearing. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you, and I am grateful for your 

work in preventing human trafficking and especially as chairman 

of this subcommittee and as the co-chair of the House anti-human 

trafficking caucus. It is critical that Congress explore how sex trafficking is connected to major sporting events so we can better prevent it from happening. 

Now, I have a whole prepared statement here that I was going 

to read, but I am not going to do that. I might read parts of it. But 

the statements by the other members have really touched me. And 

I hope they have touched you. 

I saw some faces looking at the screen of the faces of the young 

girls and young women. It brought back memories for me. Maybe 

some of you in the room already are aware. But I look like I have 

been in Congress for 40 years, but this is my 10th year. So I had 

a previous career, and that was with the sheriff’s office for 33 

years. A good portion of my career was working on a serial murder 

case in Seattle called the Green River murder case. 

I was 32 years old when I started that case in 1982. It took 19 

years. He pled guilty to 49 deaths, murders. I am not even going 

to use his name. It sickens me. Forty-nine that he pled guilty to. 

He probably killed 70 to 80 young girls and young women. We 

closed 51 cases. I was the lead investigator in that case, and I was 

at almost every one of those dead body sites. I recovered their remains. I told the parents we found their victims, their daughters 

dead. Some were missing 6 years. 

9

For me, I am a runaway myself. I grew up in a family of domestic violence, and ran away and lived in a 1956 Mercury for a while 

that I happened to buy myself. Fortunately for me, I had a football 

coach that kind of grabbed me by the back of the collar and put 

me on the straight and narrow, kept me on the football team, kept 

me in school. But I understand why young women and young men 

today run away from home. They are victims of abuse, sexual 

abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, domestic violence, alcohol, 

drug abuse. 

You name it, I have seen it, I have been there, I have been to 

the homes. I have taken foster kids from one home to another foster home in the middle of the night, with phone calls from foster 

kids, from young girls and young boys on the street at a phone 

booth, just looking for a place to stay to get off the street to find 

some safety. 

Back in the 1980s, you know, when we had so many prostitutes 

on the streets of Seattle, and I would imagine similar to today, 

those young ladies, most of them are young girls and women, are 

invisible. People go from their job to home, from home to their job, 

and they don’t see them. 

We need to open our eyes. We need to see them. And I think 

today the people in this room clearly understand and can see them. 

And I know a lot of you are already working in this world to try 

to make it better for these young girls to find them places to stay. 

So as a runaway myself, and then going to the sheriff’s office, I 

happened to walk in front of the sergeant’s desk when a body was 

found, and that is how I was assigned the first Green River victim 

in 1982. 

So just by chance, for the next many years, that was my calling, 

to work with those young people on the street and those families. 

And now here I am in Congress, and I chair the Human Resources 

Subcommittee on the Ways and Means Committee. And what is my 

focus? Foster kids and human trafficking. We have got to do a better job, ladies and gentlemen. You have heard that message today 

loud and clear. There are a lot of young men and women in this 

audience. And maybe you have never even met a young girl or a 

young boy that has lived on the street. You have opportunities in 

front of you that they may never have. But we need to make it a 

world where they have those opportunities. 

So I really want to thank the chairman again for inviting me to 

be here. I want to say a special thank you to Holly Smith, who will 

be on the second panel. It takes a lot of courage to come before a 

group like this to stand and tell your story. And she is here to do 

that, to help us solve this problem. 

So Mr. Chairman, again, I thank you very much for inviting me 

to be here today, and very much for the opportunity to make this 

opening statement. And I appreciate, again, all the hard work by 

the members of this committee and others in Congress and all of 

you. 

Thank you so much. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Chairman Reichert, thank you very 

much. Or I should say ‘‘sheriff.’’ Thank you for that very, very incisive and moving account and testimony. 

10

I would like to now introduce our two very distinguished panelists. It is an honor and a privilege to welcome them to the subcommittee. 

Certainly with Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, I have worked with 

him for decades, and I thank him for his extraordinary service. 

Ambassador Luis CdeBaca coordinates U.S. Government activities 

in the global fight against contemporary forms of slavery. He 

serves as senior adviser to the Secretary of State, and directs the 

State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in 

Persons, which assesses global trends, provides training and technical assistance, and advocates for an end to modern day slavery. 

Ambassador CdeBaca formerly served as the counsel to the 

House Committee on the Judiciary, where his portfolio included 

trafficking issues. He has also served as a Federal prosecutor with 

the Department of Justice, where he convicted dozens of abusive 

pimps and employers, and helped to liberate hundreds of victims 

from servitude. 

Thank you for your extraordinary service. 

We will then hear from Ms. Maria Odom, who serves in the Department of Homeland Security, in the Citizenship and Immigration Services as ombudsman, and as chair of the department’s Blue 

Campaign, the unified voice for DHS’ efforts to combat human trafficking through training and public education. 

Ms. Odom came to the department as a legal expert with a wide 

range of immigration experience in the government, private, and 

charitable sectors. Most recently, she led the country’s largest network of charitable legal immigration programs as the executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. 

Mr. Ambassador, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LUIS CDEBACA, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE, OFFICE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you for the invitation to testify today, for calling this hearing 

to shine a brighter light on modern slavery and, more importantly, 

for your years of leadership on this issue. 

Today we are focusing on a specific concern that has garnered 

the attention of the entire anti-trafficking community, human trafficking around major sporting events, and lessons that can be 

learned, especially in the hospitality and transportation sectors. 

But before we dig down into that issue, it is important to remind 

ourselves that trafficking in persons does not just occur in isolated 

places or specific times, nor does it victimize a narrow set of individuals. Trafficking persons is all of the conduct involved in reducing someone to, or holding them in, a state of compelled service, 

whether for labor or commercial sex. Nothing short of modern day 

slavery. 

Affecting every country in the world, estimated to victimize approximately 27 million men, women, and children, it has no place 

in the 21st century. And every single victim deserves our focus and 

our attention. As Mr. Reichert reminded us, these are not statistics. These are people worthy of our compassion, deserving of our 

11

attention as people, with hopes, dreams, and needs, and increasingly, survivors with things to teach us if we only would listen. 

Despite the scope of this crime, around the world roughly only 

40,000 victims of trafficking are being identified each year. So 

when we suspect that there might be a heightened risk of trafficking, whether relating to a particular industry, a particular migration route, or a major event, we necessarily need to ramp up our 

efforts to confront this crime, to keep doing what works. And we 

need to develop fresh ideas for identifying victims, investigating 

trafficking cases, and enforcing trafficking laws, in keeping with 

Pope Francis’ exhortation to not look the other way when we see 

our brother or sister who is enslaved. 

In recent years, we have worked with governments and NGOs 

around the world to address these concerns. And if there is an 

overarching lesson we have taken away from these cases, it is that 

efforts to respond to modern slavery need to be sustainable and 

comprehensive, targeting all forms of trafficking. 

In many cases, major sporting events not only pose a challenge 

around sex trafficking, they also require massive construction 

projects, creating a demand for cost-effective labor and materials. 

In regions with sizable migrant populations, much of this labor 

force will cross a border at least once to reach the job site. Once 

the event takes place, the locations become major destinations for 

travel and tourism, including in the so-called sex industry. At every 

step of the process, the vulnerabilities with which we are all familiar, the vulnerabilities to human trafficking. 

And so addressing these risks for these events means putting 

safeguards in place every step of the way. What protections exist 

for the laborers and around the event? What methods are being 

used to screen those who may be victims of trafficking, including 

through debt bondage that resulted from paying hefty recruitment 

fees in their own home countries? How are law enforcement personnel and partners in the travel, tourism, and hospitality industry 

being trained to identify particular trafficking situations, and not 

just child sex trafficking, but that of adults, of men as well as 

women. 

These are questions governments should be grappling with every 

day and especially when a major gathering is on the horizon. And 

they are some of the things that we are watching for as we approach additional major events, whether the Winter Olympics in 

Russia, the World Cup in Brazil, or the World Cup in Qatar in 

2022. We will continue raising this issue with governments and 

gathering data to include in our annual Trafficking in Persons Report. 

And my prepared testimony addresses these situations in greater 

detail. I would ask that it be included in its entirety in the record. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Without objection, so ordered. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Thank you, sir. 

As we look ahead, the issue of trafficking at sporting events underscores one of the biggest challenges we face in the struggle 

against modern slavery generally: The relative lack of public data 

and research on this often hidden issue. 

At this point, when it comes to major sporting events, including 

those here in the United States, much of the information we have 

12

is anecdotal. Crime reporting statistics are painting an incomplete 

picture, and the handful of reports that emerge on this topic at 

times present contradictory findings. So we need to keep gathering 

data and information about this aspect of the crime. Where is it 

taking place? Who is it—the criminals that are driving this enterprise? And what is the most effective way to prevent it? 

Because while our top priority must always be getting victims 

out of harm’s way and bringing criminals to justice, the more we 

know about the crime, the better we will be able to stop it from 

happening in the first place. 

And we are well equipped to respond to the specific concern 

thanks to the partners that have rallied around the issue: In the 

transportation industry, like Airline Ambassadors and Delta Airlines; in hospitality like Carlson and Hilton; across government, 

whether the Department of Transportation; or State governments 

from Indiana to Arizona, Texas to New Jersey; partnerships like 

the 11 orders of Catholic women who worked with the Indianapolis 

hotels via the Coalition for Corporate Responsibility for Indiana 

and Michigan, and the continued work that those women have 

done since 2012. 

The work of all of our partners can help to make major sporting 

events safe for all people. But what is perhaps more important is 

that every person they reach becomes another partner in this effort. The knowledge they spread doesn’t expire when the clock ticks 

down to zero. Once people understand modern slavery, how it 

touches them, their lives, their communities, how to spot it, and 

who to call if they do, that knowledge doesn’t go away, just as the 

human traffickers do not go away when the stadium lights are 

dimmed. And perhaps it is that ripple effect that is just as important to stopping trafficking at major events. Because it is a 365-

day a year crime that requires a 365-day a year response. 

As Rachel Lloyd, who founded the New York-based service provider GEMS recently wrote, no matter what happens this week in 

New Jersey, she anticipates serving close to 400 girls and young 

women this year in the New York area. And she knows that she 

will need daily food, metro cards, stipends, toiletries, clothing, diapers, milk, and funds for education and leadership and employment 

training programs so that they can support and empower those 

young women every day of every year. As more and more people 

and institutions contribute to that response, we grow nearer and 

nearer to our shared goal, a world free from slavery. 

Thank you, and I am happy to answer questions. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. CdeBaca follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. Odom. 

STATEMENT OF MS. MARIA M. ODOM, CHAIR, BLUE CAMPAIGN, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Ms. ODOM. Thank you, Chairman Smith, members of the subcommittee, Congresswoman Wagner, and Congressman Reichert. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the 

dedicated men and women of the Department of Homeland Security to discuss our collective efforts to combat human trafficking. 

As Chairman Smith indicated, we are here today painfully aware 

that human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery. It is a 

crime that involves the exploitation of someone for the purposes of 

compelled labor or commercial sex through the use of force, fraud, 

or coercion. 

Every year, millions of men, women, and children worldwide, including in the United States, are victims of human trafficking. 

DHS shares responsibility with the U.S. Department of Justice for 

investigating human trafficking, arresting suspected traffickers, 

and protecting victims. 

To better coordinate our efforts, in 2010, the department established the Blue Campaign. We know that fighting the hidden crime 

of human trafficking is a collaborative effort, and DHS depends on 

strong partnerships with other Federal agencies, foreign governments, law enforcement, first responders, the faith-based and community partners, as well as members of the private sector. 

The Blue Campaign marshals resources from every corner of the 

Department of Homeland Security, from across the Nation and 

around the globe. DHS and the Blue Campaign focus on prevention 

through increased community education, a strategic public service 

awareness campaign, and sector-diverse partnerships. We focus on 

protection of victims through coordination of comprehensive victim 

services and prosecution of those responsible for this heinous crime 

through ICE’s investigations and our targeted training of State, 

local, and tribal law enforcement partners. 

Today, I would like to share information with you about our Blue 

Lightning Initiative. Blue Lightning is a voluntary training program initiated by DHS with the support and the leadership of U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Transportation. Other collaborators of our Blue Lightning Initiative include 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center, the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Air Marshals, the Federal Aviation Administration, NGO partners, and private industry. 

The core of Blue Lightning is the partnership with the airline industry. Airline personnel can be helpful in identifying potential victims, and reporting suspected human trafficking events to law enforcement. Beginning with ticket agents, who routinely handle 

travel documents and question passengers as part of their checkin and boarding, and continuing with flight crews, these employees 

have extended time with travelers and opportunities for interactions. They are skilled observers. And with the appropriate training, they, too, can be the front line against human trafficking. 

Blue Lightning provides educational materials for U.S. commercial airline employees. Once trained, airline personnel become a 

19

force multiplier in the fight against trafficking, enabling DHS to remove human trafficking victims from harm, while helping to disrupt occurring and ongoing potential trafficking events. Participating airlines voluntarily integrate the Blue Lightning training 

module into the airline’s initial or refresher training for flight attendants, customer service representatives, and other personnel. 

Blue Lightning training includes a computer-based training module which provides a basic overview of trafficking, an outline of the 

indicators of human trafficking, and lessons in how to report 

human trafficking through the use of flight deck communications 

in coordination with the Federal Air Marshals Service. Airline personnel may also submit tips and report potential human trafficking 

events to Federal law enforcement via ICE’s phone and online tip 

lines. These real-time reporting mechanisms provide law enforcement officials with needed time to coordinate an appropriate response before the plane arrives. 

Since the launch of Blue Lightning this past June, we have entered into agreements with five participating airlines, resulting in 

the training of tens of thousands of aviation employees in less than 

a year. Since its launch, CBP has received 13 suspected human 

trafficking tips, all of them through each of the Blue Lightning reporting mechanisms. The protocol is working. As professional stewards of flight safety, aviation personnel are important partners in 

our Government’s efforts to end human trafficking and protect 

lives. 

We look forward to our continued work with the airlines, and we 

look forward to working with all of you. We thank you for your 

commitment to this important issue. Thank you for your time 

today. My testimony provides additional information. We are always happy to supplement it. And I look forward to any questions 

you may have. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. Odom, thank you very much for 

your leadership and for your testimony today. 

Ms. ODOM. Thank you Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Odom follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would like to ask first of all, Mr. 

Ambassador, if you could, I know that you interact and not only 

travel but receive delegations probably almost every day. I know I 

meet with delegations often, legislative as well as executive branch 

people. And I always give them the TIP Report, whatever our best 

practices up to that date are, whether it be for the military, for any 

aspect, including trying to get this situation awareness campaign 

regarding airlines and other means of transportation across to 

them. 

And I am wondering, you know, since you especially meet with 

the Tier 2 Watch List folks, the Tier 3 countries, what has been 

the reaction from those TIP leaders who very often are very deeply 

committed themselves, often up against a very reluctant executive 

branch or prime minister or lethargic Parliament or Congress to 

really take on what the Blue Lightning Campaign is doing and 

what, you know, can actually save lives? Are they responsive to it? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I think, you know, one of the things that 

we have seen typically with the governments that we talk to as far 

as specifically the transportation industry, but I also try to raise 

the issues around the hospitality industry as well, knowing that 

there is often not the same posture of the government vis-a`-vis 

that. You know, you often have government ownership of rail or 

even airlines. 

You know, I think that it is an issue that governments are starting to come to. I think we have moved beyond the blank stare response with a few of the governments. I think that one of the hardest things, of course, is that often the countries that are on Tier 

3 and Tier 2 Watch List, as you have mentioned, are countries that 

don’t necessarily have the strongest intergovernmental structures. 

And so what we have seen, for instance, in the United Kingdom, 

where we have got some of the airlines that are looking at some 

of these issues, as well with the Virgin Atlantic specifically, and 

others, is that those are very functioning governments as far as 

ministries that truly do regulate their transportation, ministries 

that are able to talk to each other and to bring in the anti-trafficking ethos of the home ministry, of the justice ministry, of the 

foreign ministry into these other parts of the government. 

And frankly, we do see many of the Tier 3 and Tier 2 Watch List 

countries as not having as robust of a conversation across their 

ministries. So one of the things that we have been doing to try to 

start that up is to very much use the model of the senior policy operating group, the President’s interagency task force, et cetera, and 

not only across the agencies, but the things that we have seen, for 

instance, at DHS and others, who have done an internal survey 

across all of their components to drive these issues out. 

And I think that that is where we are seeing the difference. I 

can’t say that we have seen national airlines or national railways 

or others ramp up their efforts the way that we have seen here in 

the United States. But I think it is something that we are going 

to continue to push out to our foreign counterparts. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Can I just ask you, are you satisfied 

with the State-Federal cooperation? For example, on Friday, the 

U.S. Attorney General for our region in New Jersey joined the 

State Attorney General and other interested parties at a Friday 

26

rollout of many of the things they are trying to do to stop trafficking relative to the Super Bowl. 

Do you find that there is a good cooperation with States, not just 

foreign states but also in the United States, especially as it relates 

to this Super Bowl? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I think that we have certainly seen that. 

And I think that New Jersey is a good example of that. 

Frankly, we have seen that around a number of the last Super 

Bowls. I think that some of that actually flows from the 

prioritization of this in a bipartisan fashion by the National Association of Attorneys General. I think this was something that we 

certainly have seen in the last 3 or 4 years. And the leadership 

among the attorneys general often then has been able to piggyback 

on that. So if you see the leadership that Attorney General Abbott, 

for instance, had in Texas, that was very much in keeping with the 

work that he was doing on the Pillars of Hope campaign of the National Association of Attorneys General. 

So I think it is starting to come together. What is interesting is 

it is coming together more through political will and commitment 

on the part of both State and Federal actors than it is in the way 

that other projects sometimes come together. As you know, there 

is a very successful set of almost pilot project local task forces, the 

ACT teams, that the Department of Justice puts out. But that is 

not in every judicial district. That is not in every congressional district. And it is not in every State. 

And so I think that what we have seen is that kind of energy 

very much comes from the actors involved rather than necessarily 

the funding streams. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Let me ask you, Ms. Odom, and I 

will just ask a few questions and then yield to my colleagues and 

submit a number of questions for the record. 

And you, too, Mr. Ambassador, you might want to answer this. 

At previous Super Bowls, we have seen social media advertisements for prostitution increase in the lead up to the games. We 

know that Twitter, as I mentioned before, and again talking to 

some individuals before this hearing, we talked about Twitter at 

great length. Backpage, which was mentioned very strongly by our 

former Ambassador to Lichtenstein. Are you satisfied we are making a difference with the social media? Which we have seen it with 

Craigslist. 

Time and again, Members of Congress, including myself, have 

written to the Craigslist founder, and they are unmoved. There 

needs to be prosecution, and vigorous prosecution it would seem to 

me, for being a part of an absolutely horrific, scandalous, and illegal operation. Your thoughts on that. 

Secondly, Ms. Odom, if you could speak to how can we accelerate 

the buy in from the other airlines? You know, Delta is here. We 

will be hearing from them shortly. And I think it is very significant 

that the wife of the president of Delta is here with us as well, Anna 

Bastian, I hope I am pronouncing that correctly. Underscoring the 

commitment of that airline. 

Our hope was that all the airlines would be here. And I am not 

going to bash them. But please join the effort. The time has come. 

27

What are you finding? How do we accelerate that effort to get them 

on board? 

Ms. ODOM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I believe with regards to monitoring social media and incorporating the evaluation of social media activity as part of the investigative efforts is part of what ICE HSI continues to do. I believe 

that they are looking at it in a holistic way. And with regards to 

the Super Bowl preparation, for example, their outreach and training efforts as part of the Newark task force have proven to be very 

helpful. And their goal is to conduct their activities, all of their law 

enforcement activities, with a heightened level of awareness and 

screening for human trafficking. 

So I am satisfied that their engagement at the State and local 

level has been robust. The ICE HSI special agents in charge have 

shown a commitment, energy, and enthusiasm for working with 

their State and local counterparts. And I believe that is a key part 

of our work is to train, to educate, to be a resource to the State 

and local counterparts. 

And I am satisfied that that is happening. With regards to the 

expansion of the Blue Lightning Initiative to include other airlines, 

our partners at CBP continue very active efforts to educate, to visit 

with, to share information about Blue Lightning and the training 

materials that we continue to generate with the support of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center with other airlines. I am 

satisfied that their efforts are very meaningful. 

And I hope that when I come back next time, I can report on 

some progress and we can have more airlines. I believe hearings 

such as this one are important, because it does tell the other airlines what their counterparts are doing, how they are engaging and 

training their workforce, and why it makes a difference. 

So I think this hearing is very important and I thank you for 

holding it. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would respectfully suggest nothing 

sharpens the mind of a corporation or an individual more than a 

deadline. A deadline to try to have everybody on board might be 

helpful as a means to that end. Say everybody on board by the end 

of 2014. 

Ms. ODOM. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Just a thought. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. One thing that I would like to respond to, 

Mr. Smith, on the issue of the airline efforts, I think that with consolidation, hopefully, the American-U.S. Air relationship will be 

able to extend in the good work of Airline Ambassadors, which has 

done so much of its good work coming out of the relationships from 

the American Airlines staff who founded that organization. 

But I think you are right, it is that notion of something more formal. We actually I think would like to go even one further, which 

is after we see that kind of training, as you suggested, perhaps a 

universal or company-wide training by the carriers. 

Then starting to look at the other aspects. The Executive order 

that President Obama issued on government procurement, for instance, is in its final stages, with the notice and comment period 

having closed at the end of December, which basically is putting 

out the notion that if somebody wants to do business with the FedVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Sep 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\012714\86465 SHIRL
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eral Government, they need to have standards about tracking their 

supply chains, they need to have zero tolerance policies against 

their people engaging in sex trafficking and facilitating those 

things. 

And I think that that is one of the things that we are going to 

want to talk to the carriers and others about as well, which is making sure that folks have the skills to recognize and interdict and 

make the recommendations and the referrals to law enforcement if 

they see something happening in the equipment. 

But also where is that shrimp being bought? Where is the cloth 

on the seats being sourced from, et cetera? Looking at the entire 

business model of the transportation industry and what kind of 

footprint it has on the overarching issues of modern slavery around 

the world. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Weber? 

Mr. WEBER. Ms. Odom, you said that there were 13 tips from the 

airlines, and then you said there were five participating airlines. 

Ms. ODOM. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WEBER. And you may have this in your testimony, and I 

haven’t looked at it, what five airlines are those? 

Ms. ODOM. Sure. We have Allegiant Air, Delta Airlines, North 

American Airlines, and Silver Airways, as well as JetBlue Airways 

Corporation. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. As we were saying when you came up to introduce yourself, you know, Texas has that dubious distinction, as 

I said earlier, of having a lot of human trafficking. So we would 

love to get Southwest Airlines and American Airlines. Are you 

proactive in reaching out to them and saying, Please get on board 

with this? 

Ms. ODOM. Yes, sir, we are. And Secretary Napolitano sent a secretarial letter on the Blue Lightning Initiative to 93 airlines, including Southwest Airlines. And Customs and Border Protection, 

who is the agency that is leading the Blue Lightning Initiative, in 

collaboration with the Blue Campaign, constantly reaches out to 

the airlines. So they are very active in following up with all 93 carriers that received that initial letter from the Secretary. 

Mr. WEBER. Have they responded to you at all? 

Ms. ODOM. There is an ongoing dialogue back and forth. And 

there are some agreements in the works which we are not prepared 

to announce yet because they are not finalized. But I think it is 

promising. We are not talking about dozens, but I think it is small 

progress, and we are monitoring our program very carefully, 6 

months old, and we are very satisfied with the airlines that have 

joined so far in motivating airlines to do so. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, I would like for my office to write a letter to 

Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, and get involved in this and 

say, Hey, you all need to get on board with this, if that will help. 

Ms. ODOM. That would be very helpful, thank you. 

Mr. WEBER. If you get in touch with our office. 

And as I was saying when you all were up here at the front, Mr. 

Chairman, in Texas, we have the TABC, Texas Alcohol Bureau of 

Control, and they can go into a lot of these bars and things. And 

the great thing in Texas is they don’t need a warrant. They can go 

in, because of State law, to review alcohol purchase records, and to 

29

make sure there is no underage drinking going on, and there is no 

after hours drinking going on. And so they can basically show up 

unannounced. 

So I was encouraging Ms. Odom to incorporate that, because it 

is a great, great tool. Their representatives can go in there and get 

their eyes there. And you talk about somebody trained to recognize 

human trafficking, these are individuals that are trained and can 

spot that. And then they don’t have to have a probable cause, they 

are there. And then when they see it with their eyes, then they 

have got the probable cause. So I would encourage you all to try 

to form those partnerships. I don’t know how it works in other 

States, but at least in Texas it works well. 

I will leave it at that for the time being. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ambassador Wagner. 

Mrs. WAGNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. I am also 

interested, Ms. Odom, and thank you for your testimony, thank 

both of you for your fine testimony and work on this, any other 

modes of transportation, can you report at all on rail, on bus, car, 

caravan, what—is there any work being done in that regard? 

Ms. ODOM. We were—thank you, Congresswoman. 

We recognize that we need to expand this initiative to other 

modes of transportation. Our partners at the Department of Transportation are in very active and current conversations with us as 

we continue to draw strategies to reach out to the bus and the—

the bus—especially the bus industry, the cruise lines and other industries that we believe should be part of this effort. We are not 

prepared to report on any progress there, but I can leave you with 

my commitment that we are working very hard to expand this initiative to other modes of transportation. 

Mrs. WAGNER. Great. Thank you. That is great to hear. And I 

would tell the gentleman from Texas that I would also be pleased 

to help out on a letter to some of the other airlines. We certainly 

have interest in the St. Louis regional airport and travel area. 

You know, we have talked a lot here today about awareness, 

about education. I certainly legislatively am going to look at some 

prosecutorial things, some law enforcement things, resources, but 

much of this is us pulling together as a team. Awareness and education is absolutely clear, and we have seen this, I think, in the 

transportation industry in many instances, certainly in the hotel 

and convention industries, certainly among so many of our flight 

attendants and others. We need to talk about the corporate community, I think, somewhat, too. And I would encourage the chairman 

and perhaps other committees also to talk about awareness and 

educational policies and principles with different HR departments 

of corporates. We should have corporate partners that are involved 

in this. Oftentimes, it is those corporations that are sending their 

staff, their employees, their teams down to these conventions. And 

I know that there are sensitivity trainings that go on from HR departments on multiple different issues, but certainly including one 

on sex trafficking and human trafficking at all levels would be 

very, very important in this area. 

Also, I have spoken with some educators and school teachers. 

You know, there are also reasons why, at a counselor level, especially with these young girls, as I said, the average age, 13 to 14, 

30

girls and boys, I will say, that education among counselors to recognize the victims, to talk about how they operate. And we visited a 

little bit, Ms. Odom, about that earlier today and how quickly these 

predators can prey on these young, innocent children who then find 

themselves in a vicious cycle of sex slavery. So I would encourage 

us as legislators and as people involved in this cause to continue 

with that kind of awareness and education. 

And I, like the chairman, also agree and believe in deadlines and 

pledges and holding folks accountable through actual activity and 

actionable items, so I hope that we can also try to do this. It is in 

all of our best interests. I think that so often, as my colleague, Congressman Meadows said, until someone brings it to their attention, 

it is hiding in plain sight and people just don’t realize how prevalent this is in our society in the United States of America, and certainly across the world. So I thank you. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank each of you for your testimony. Certainly 

to hear about the Blue Lightning program is something that is encouraging. I guess my only caution would be that when we develop 

a program, there are certain companies who take it and run with 

it and are passionate about it. There are others who put it on as 

a resume, you know, that we are part of this. 

And so what you could do, Ms. Odom, to highlight those who 

take it on passionately, whether that is recognizing them annually, 

whether that is applauding their efforts, I want to certainly applaud Delta Airlines, not only for their involvement, but for them 

being here today. As a Member of Congress who lives less than 21⁄2

hours from Atlanta, they are a great corporate citizen, and I think 

this goes a long ways. And I know as someone who travels quite 

a bit, you know, if I have a choice between someone who is being 

a good corporate citizen and someone who is not, I will certainly 

make those choices, financial choices. So to the extent that you can 

do that, I would encourage that. 

Ms. ODOM. Congressman, I am happy to do that. What we have 

seen through the voluntary engagement of airlines with the Blue 

Lightning Initiative has been tremendous corporate leadership. I 

will go back and discuss with our team and our partners how to 

best celebrate corporate commitment and the deployment of resources to fighting human trafficking. I think that is an excellent 

idea. I would like to be able to highlight their passion in a way that 

serves to inform other airlines of these efforts. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And let me follow up on one other area, because 

it really gets to the heart of training for TSA. We are doing this 

with regards to the private sector and yet in talking to some of the 

folks at TSA, and I am not meaning this to be derogatory, but in 

talking to them, their training on this particular aspect is at best 

minimal and many times non-existent. So what can we do either 

legislatively or to encourage policy to make this a critical component for those TSA that see every single passenger? You know, we 

have to go through that. And, again, it is not meaning to be critical. I am looking for solutions here. 

31

Ms. Odom. Thank you, Congressman. I think this is a very good 

question, because we have been discussing, I have in preparation 

for this hearing and trying to understand how our own workforce 

at DHS has made progress in receiving training, our very own 

training modules on indicators of human trafficking. 

I learned that back in 2012, TSA implemented our basic indicators training and achieved 100-percent training of the Federal Air 

Marshals. They also achieved 98-percent training of the TSA workforce using the online learning center, but the numbers have declined, and I will go back and engage with TSA to find other operationally reasonable and feasible ways to continue to train their 

workforce. 

We receive support from TSA in the way of having staff in the 

Blue Campaign assist us coming from TSA, and they’re good Ambassadors, from their agency to the Blue Campaign. Not all of the 

Blue Campaign training models have been adopted by TSA; some 

have, but not all seven. So we continue to work with all of the department components at DHS to make sure that they continue to 

receive training. Right now it is mandated for all law enforcement 

personnel, and we have trained an incredible number of folks in 

our workforce across the country. So it is a work in progress. I appreciate the concern. We are very much aware of it, and we continue to make efforts. 

Mr. MEADOWS. What I would ask from you, then, and not in 

terms of your oral testimony today, but I would ask for you to submit to this committee, if you would, are three recommendations on 

how we could augment that training for our TSA employees, and 

the second part of that is, is what either legislatively we can do as 

Members of Congress to either require or encourage that particular 

training to happen. So if you would submit that for the record, I 

would greatly appreciate it. 

Ms. ODOM. We will. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Ambassador, I want to say thank you so 

much for continuing to work on this particular area. You have been 

here before this committee before. It is something that not only is 

near and dear to my heart, but as you have heard the passionate 

plea from Ms. Wagner to my left, it is something that internationally we are needing to address as well. I think if we focus on some 

of what is happening in our own backyard to highlight it, it helps 

us highlight it internationally. I know there are a number of Ambassadors’ wives who are working right now on this particular 

issue here in Washington, DC. 

It was a great encouragement to me to start to hear some of that 

and something my wife has been able to team up with them on, 

but I guess specifically as it relates to something that you mentioned in terms of Federal contracting, some of the other areas we 

need to do, how can we make more teeth on the economic side of 

that, whether it be with trade partners or whether it be individually? What can we do to highlight this issue? 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Well, I think that, and my former prosecutorial ways may be coming to the forefront here, but I do think 

enforcement is one of the most important things. And I think that, 

you know, what we have seen typically is we have rules in the 

United States that date back to the 1930s on the importation of 

32

goods that are tainted by forced labor and other things, and yet 

those often don’t get enforced. And it is not because our folks in 

the customs realm are trying not to, it is that there are—is my understanding, there are some legal issues out there as far as the 

consumptive demand requirement and some other things. 

I know that Senator Grassley has wrestled with this a little bit 

since he was in a garment factory in Jordan a couple years ago. 

And I think it is something that if there were to be a little more 

energy around that on both sides of the building, that we probably 

would respond and be able to sit down and have some ideas. 

I think that is—you know, one of the things that I know from 

working cases when I was at Justice is that nothing focuses the 

mind of an importer quicker than a shipping container that is not 

being let out of the port, and I think that that is something that 

we could look at. 

I think it is going to take engagement. It is going to take the development of industry standards. It is going to take not only the 

enforcement but then also the development, just like we have seen 

with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, of a practice area in the 

law firms and others who are doing the compliance advisory work, 

that are doing the risk analysis. If right now what we have is encouraging them to do well, then it is not risk analysis. At that 

point, it looks like good corporate citizenship, or it looks like corporate social responsibility, all of which are important, but we need 

to bring the folks from the compliance and the risk analysis parts 

of the companies to bear as well simultaneously. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well said. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you, Mr. Meadows. 

Chairman Reichert. 

Mr. REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, Ms. Odom, you mentioned there is a mandated training for law enforcement. Do you know if the curriculum in the 

academies for those law enforcement personnel includes this topic? 

Is it academy training? 

Ms. ODOM. Thank you, Congressman. It is training that has been 

designed by a human trafficking expert at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. In fact, that individual is detailed to 

the Blue Campaign on a full-time basis and helps us develop our 

training, which is what is deployed to the various components 

across DHS. 

Mr. REICHERT. So, around human trafficking, they get academy 

training and then what we used to call in our sheriff’s office in Seattle was retread, which is a yearly update of all the laws and additional training sessions. Do you have something like that in 

place? 

Ms. ODOM. We have initial training for law enforcement personnel, Congressman, and then, in addition to that, we continue to 

develop training videos and other Web-available resources. Right 

now, we are producing 11 training videos, many of which are 

geared to law enforcement. They can be used as rollcall videos to 

be shown right before a shift. They are also produced at rest stops 

around different sites where you would ordinarily see traffickers 

abusing their victims. So we have 11 new training videos that are 

33

being produced as we speak. So we are constantly trying to refresh 

the training, but we are also trying to create refresher trainings for 

those individuals who have taken initial training as well as resources that can be deployed to State and local law enforcement for 

those folks who have not had initial human trafficking awareness 

education yet. So we are trying to create different levels of training 

for folks who are more experienced and those who are newcomers 

to this particular issue. 

In addition to that, ICE, HSI special agents in charge across the 

country are also training at the State and local level, and they are 

bringing to the table the resources of the local HSI office, connecting with State and local law enforcement and conducting training. Also along with our NGO partners with USCIS, who also 

comes to the table to teach law enforcement about relief available 

to foreign victims of trafficking in their role as well in combatting 

human trafficking through the authorities that we have to provide 

relief to those individuals. 

Mr. REICHERT. I think those are wonderful efforts, and it goes to 

Mr. Meadows’ question as to how you might augment training 

within your organization. And I don’t know what sort of time is allocated in the academy, I went to the academy a long time ago. 

And those things that are important to the community and important to the police department or the sheriff’s office are those things 

that are trained and taught right upfront. And if you have a segment on human trafficking in your academies, I think that is a robust training academy package, I think it really sends a strong 

message to new employees that this is indeed an important issue 

for this country. 

Secondly, I am really excited to learn about the efforts that everyone has put forth in addressing all the modes of travel that people use in human trafficking. So I think back to 1982, and of 

course, the bus system was widely used back then. I spent a lot of 

time at a bus station in downtown Seattle. I won’t name the name, 

but it was a place where they met and arranged rides. Of course, 

cars were another, but even back in the 1980s, the travel from Seattle to San Francisco to Los Angeles to San Diego, up to Vegas, 

to Reno, back to Seattle again, up to Anchorage. I traveled to New 

York. I spent 21⁄2 weeks back here on the east coast tracking down 

a couple of pimps and two young ladies that were with them over—

one of the cases related to the Green River case. I ended up in New 

York and Buffalo, back to New York and then in Atlantic City and 

down to Reading, Pennsylvania, and all the way back up to Niagara Falls, where we finally caught them. So I just can’t imagine in 

today’s world how quickly they are able to move. And this is such 

a critical part of addressing this problem, so I am appreciative of 

the efforts that you have put forth there. It has to be done. 

The education and the training has to be done, but the most important thing, I think, is prevention, and I think everyone in this 

room recognizes that. And in the subcommittee that I chair on 

Ways and Means, we have been focusing on a particular group of 

young people in the foster care system who are just vulnerable 

kids, and I think I touched on that a little bit in my opening statement. One of the things that we learned in that hearing is that a 

large percentage of children who have been sexually trafficked had 

34

come from the foster care system. Of the children reported missing 

who are likely sex trafficking victims, 60 percent, 60 percent were 

in foster care or in group homes when they ran away, and I think 

we can make a huge difference in this arena. 

So my question is for Ms. Odom. So what is the Department of 

Homeland Security doing? Are you working with child welfare 

agencies, DSHS and others, to address the foster care issue and 

their likelihood of ending up in the human trafficking world as victims? 

Ms. ODOM. Thank you, Congressman. I believe personally from 

listening to the testimony of survivors during that hearing, I can 

share that one thing that stayed with me was the fact that survivors reported that they often saw their pimp as the one stable 

person in their lives, because they went from family to family, and 

that was home to them, that person for a long time meant stability 

for them. And I thought that was such a tragic statement; it stayed 

with me. I believe it is key for us to address children in foster care. 

The Blue Campaign has a long list of audiences that we are trying to reach, and that includes judges. It includes first responders. 

It includes faith-based communities, all of our partners, survivor 

networks, and we are very busy trying to create effective strategies 

so we are reaching all those audiences, and this is one audience 

that we can do better in reaching. Our partners at HSI recognize 

that the need is there to engage with social services providers, with 

folks who are working in the foster care system to understand the 

problem better, to understand the data, to understand the issue 

and find a way to investigate and bring these individuals to justice. 

I look forward to working with our colleagues at HSI to better understand their strategy to reach and rescue victims that are 

trapped in the foster care system. They are currently evaluating 

the information. They want you to know that they know it is a 

problem, that they are actively putting their arms around it and 

trying to figure out how to deploy resources to address this particular population. 

I would be happy to respond to you later with their strategy for 

reaching out to children in the foster care system. I will also be 

happy to report back to you on what activities the Blue Campaign 

will develop around outreach, education and engagement with the 

foster care community. We still have a long ways to go in that area, 

but we have so many audiences that we are trying to reach as well, 

and I think we are making progress. 

Mr. REICHERT. Well, I can tell you are passionate about this 

issue, and you have a lot of compassion, I can see that. 

Ms. ODOM. Thank you. 

Mr. REICHERT. I can hear it in your voice and see it in your face. 

My subcommittee staff and I would be happy to work with you on 

this issue. We will be introducing legislation here within the next 

few weeks regarding human trafficking and foster care, so we 

would look forward to working with you. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Before I go to the next panel, I would just like to ask Ambassador Luis CdeBaca if you would, with respect, ask U.S. Attorney 

35

General Eric Holder if he would really initiate an effort to crack 

down on Twitter, Backpage, Craigslist and these other social media 

that are a conduit for this terrible exploitation of women. Again, 

in a conversation with Jonathan Marino earlier, he went into a 

great detail as how to Twitter has exploded on the scene with trafficking promotion. So if you could bring that back to the Attorney 

General of the United States and ask him to crack down, deeply 

appreciate it. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. I will certainly relay that, sir. And I 

would love to hear more about the information on Twitter, and perhaps that is something that we can talk about directly with Mr. 

Marino, but if not, I hope that we can circle back through your office——

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Absolutely. 

Ambassador CDEBACA [continuing]. As necessary. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you. 

And thank you both. We will have other questions we will submit 

for the record. I appreciate, we all appreciate your very extraordinary work, and I thank you again. We thank you. 

Ms. ODOM. Thank you. 

Ambassador CDEBACA. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would like to now welcome our second panel to the witness table, beginning first with Ms. Polly Hanson, who is the chief of police for the National Railroad Passenger 

Corporation, better known as Amtrak. She has been in this position 

since December 2012. Chief Hanson spent 27 years with the Metro 

Transit Police Department right here in Washington, where she advanced up through the ranks from police officer and served as chief 

of police. She then worked at the Metropolitan Police Department 

in DC as the executive director of the Strategic Services Bureau 

and then as director of the Office of Law Enforcement and Security 

at the U.S. Department of Interior. 

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

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

world. Nancy has expanded Airlines Ambassadors International to 

include 6,000 members, including some outside the airline industry. She has started the Airline Trafficking Initiative at Airline 

Ambassadors International and created a training program that 

teaches airline personnel to identify and properly report potential 

cases of human trafficking. There is no way, having worked with 

her so closely for several years, that I or anyone else can overstate 

her tenacity, commitment, and effectiveness. 

We will then hear from Ms. Carol Smolenski from ECPAT–USA. 

She is executive director of the group End Child Prosecution and 

Trafficking USA and has been working in the field of children’s 

rights for over 20 years. She has overseen the development of numerous projects aimed at stopping the commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of children, including recent work in New 

Jersey and New York with the hotel industry in preparation for the 

Super Bowl. She has presented testimony in venues ranging from 

the New York City Council, to Congress, and to the United Nations. Her work over the years has been very informative and helpVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Sep 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\012714\86465 SHIRL
36

ful as we have crafted laws here, including the Trafficking Victims 

Protection Act of 2000 and the reauthorizations that followed. Her 

research has been very timely and accurate, which has helped us 

to really craft strategies, which she helped to craft as well. So 

thank you so very much. 

We will then hear from Ms. Letty Ashworth, who is general manager of global diversity at Delta Airlines, leading in Delta’s global 

strategy to further develop and advance an efficient, effective, and 

diverse workforce reflecting an increasingly interconnected world. 

She works closely with various Delta business units, including finance, commercial, and supply chain in their efforts to recruit diverse talent. She oversees the company’s seven employee network 

groups, the RISE mentoring program, and the Delta Wrenched 

Hearts support group. She has served on numerous boards, including the Globalist Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking, 

where she chairs the human trafficking subcommittee. 

Finally, we will hear from Ms. Holly Smith, who is a survivor of 

child trafficking and an advocate against all forms of human trafficking. She has submitted joint testimony to Congress and addressed the Virginia General Assembly. Ms. Smith has appeared on 

the Dr. Oz show and was featured in Cosmopolitan magazine. In 

addition to working as a training consultant for the AMBER Alert 

program, she works with survivors and anti-human trafficking organizations across the country. The film, ‘‘Finding Faith,’’ is based 

on portions of Holly’s story. When she isn’t speaking, she writes a 

weekly column with the Washington Times Communities and 

working on a book about child sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children in America. 

Chief Hanson, if you could begin. 

STATEMENT OF MS. POLLY HANSON, CHIEF OF POLICE, 

NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION (AMTRAK) 

Chief HANSON. Thank you, sir. 

Good afternoon, Chairman Smith and other distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to speak today. 

As stated, my name is Polly Hanson, and I am the chief of the Amtrak Police Department. 

Like you, we at Amtrak are deeply concerned about the problem 

of human trafficking, and I am honored to appear today on behalf 

of Mr. Boardman, our CEO and president, and the men and women 

of Amtrak and our police department. We are a police department 

of 500 sworn and civilian personnel stationed at more than 30 locations in 46 States, tasked with ensuring the safety and security of 

Amtrak’s passengers, 20,000-plus employees, and substantial infrastructure. 

The Amtrak police have always taken their responsibility to ensure every passenger has a safe and secure trip every day very seriously, and our commitment is supported by the partnerships that 

we have at State, local and Federal levels. 

Our work with the Department of Homeland Security is multifaceted, ranging from collaboration with TSA, Federal Air Marshals 

who serve as VIPR teams at stations across the country and an initiative with the Department of Homeland Security about human 

trafficking. 

37

Our participation in the initiative to prevent human trafficking 

began on April 5th of 2012, when DHS and the Department of 

Transportation formally requested a partnership with Amtrak that 

involved training and employing awareness about this important 

issue. In response to this request, all Amtrak police officers, train 

service, onboard service, station managers and their frontline employees were given training. Amtrak police officers were provided 

with training on human trafficking that involved the DHS training 

video and briefing materials developed by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. To train the larger workforce, we utilized 

the DHS human trafficking general awareness computer-based 

training program. We felt it was important for our frontline managers to take this training so they could brief and provide information to their employees who work directly with our passengers. 

Printed training materials were also distributed and discussed with 

frontline employees during job briefings and at our safety meetings. 

Following this initial phase of employee training, the computerbased training program and training materials were delivered to 

all our remaining employees through a company-wide employee 

communication managed by Amtrak’s Corporate Communications 

section. 

We have also participated in the Blue Campaign and DHS Council on Combating Violence Against Women stakeholder event that 

was held at the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in 

Washington, DC, in August 2013, and we continue to partner with 

DHS on the following: We are working with the Office of the Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security staff to develop a 

second round of human trafficking training material for Amtrak 

employees. The Amtrak Police is working with the Office of the 

Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of the Transportation Office of the Secretary of Transportation staff to develop co-branded posters that meet the requirements of the various State-level human trafficking campaigns. Amtrak will soon display, in fact, I am told it is supposed to be this 

afternoon, human trafficking videos on the television screens in all 

our stations, or the 16 that have them. 

In addition to those efforts, we have been partnering with the 

U.S. Border Patrol, and beginning next week, there will be a 7-

minute video on security and safety airing at the locations that 

where we have the TV screens, and it pertains to cross-border travel into Canada and will include a segment on human trafficking. 

Further, we are also an active partner with the FBI’s law enforcement online network, and we recently distributed an intelligence briefing specific to human trafficking concerns related to 

the Super Bowl. 

I want to close by reiterating our commitment to helping DHS 

and our law enforcement partners in the community to address this 

serious problem. While we are a transportation provider, the Amtrak Police Department is committed to working with our transportation community to prevent trafficking at a very vulnerable point, 

which is when people are in transit. With a strong workforce of 

well-trained law enforcement professionals who thoroughly understand our operations, we are working to ensure that our response 

38

is effective and adapts to both changing criminal tactics and identified law enforcement best practices. 

I want to assure you that our president and CEO, Mr. 

Boardman, strongly supports our participation in these initiatives, 

as I do, as a part of Amtrak’s mission for safety and security of our 

passengers every day. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I am happy 

to answer questions later. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you, Chief Hanson, so very 

much for your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Chief Hanson follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would like to now go—we will go 

from left to right, your right to left. 

Ms. Rivard. 

STATEMENT OF MS. NANCY RIVARD, PRESIDENT AND 

FOUNDER, AIRLINE AMBASSADORS INTERNATIONAL 

Ms. RIVARD. Thank you, again, Congressman Smith. And it is an 

honor to be able to testify to the committee. 

I am Nancy Rivard, president of Airline Ambassadors. 

It is documented that human trafficking activity increases 

around major sporting events and traffickers move their victims to 

these cities, using all forms of transportation, including airlines. 

Airline Ambassadors was established in 1996 as the only independent charity of the airline industry. We have been on the forefront of raising awareness on this issue since correctly identifying 

trafficking on four flights in 2009. One of these cases led to the 

bust of a human trafficking ring in Boston involving 86 children. 

After researching the issue, we learned that the U.S. had signed 

a Palermo Protocol in the year 2000, committing, among other 

things, to stop the use of commercial airlines as a means of transport for trafficking offenses. We were appalled to learn that no action had been implemented. 

As flight attendants, we knew that airlines have infrastructure 

to provide training at virtually no additional cost during annual 

emergency procedure training. An effective protocol could be established for ground personnel to receive calls from pilots regarding 

potential trafficking. We solicited Congressman Smith to provide a 

briefing to airlines in 2010, and as a result, American Airlines 

issued a bulletin to flight personnel and later incorporated the 

proper procedure in the crew manuals. 

We work closely with Customs and Border Protection to develop 

an industry-specific training consistent with the Blue Lightning 

protocol. We have provided complimentary trainings 20 times, 

starting in 2011 before the Super Bowl in Dallas, and up to last 

week at Mineta San Jose Airport with Congressman Honda as part 

of an effort to raise awareness in the Bay area before Super Bowl 

2016 in Santa Clara. 

The DSH-established protocol trains airline crew to pay attention 

to passengers boarding flights, be alert for children and who they 

are traveling with, as well as young people traveling alone, or anyone appearing nervous, unsure of their destination, or in control of 

someone else. Flight attendants are taught to interact with passengers in a friendly, nonthreatening manner, giving them opportunities to gather information and vastly increase intelligence regarding potential trafficking situations. We train crew to be alert for indicators, but never to try to rescue a victim or display unusual concern or alarm. If uncomfortable, they are to report the situation to 

the cockpit with the seat numbers of passengers. Pilots are to call 

station operation command at the arrival airport and, in turn, call 

the DHS tip line to alert law enforcement for proper assessment. 

Although positive momentum has begun with several airlines 

adopting the DHS Blue Lightning computer-based training, the 

truth is that major airlines are still not adequately training their 

staff by emphasizing this in classroom training and establishing 

44

procedures for ground personnel. The typical flight attendant 

glosses through online trainings as fast as they can, and very little 

of the information covered is retained unless emphasized in classroom instruction. 

When I attended emergency procedure trainings in June 2013, 

there was one slide out of several hundred on this protocol in the 

online portion, and it was not mentioned in the classroom. Afterwards, our team visited station operation command center, where 

flights all over the world were being monitored. We asked a supervisor what he would do if a pilot reported a potential human trafficking situation, and he said, ‘‘I would take no action in this situation. It is not a threat to aircraft security and not in my realm of 

responsibility.’’ This has to change. 

For the protocol to be effective, all employees must be aware of 

it and all employees must be trained. They must understand that 

human slavery is a reality and that their action can save a life. 

American Airlines has begun including a scenario in the classroom training for new hire flight attendants, and this is a move in 

the right direction. Silver Airlines uses both DHS computer training as well as Airline Ambassadors training in the classroom. They 

have told us that the classroom training is more profound and 

touching, therefore, more effective. 

Flight attendants carry flashlights as part of their uniform requirement, and we produced flashlight cards and wallet cards with 

key indicators and the tip line number for easy access, which we 

will gladly make available to U.S.-based airlines. 

We will also continue providing awareness trainings at major airports as a public service. Our next training in Phoenix, the home 

of Super Bowl in 2015, with Innocents at Risk, has over 120 flight 

attendants already committed from American Airlines, Alaska, 

Delta, Frontier, United, Southwest, U.S. Air, Sky West and more, 

who are spending their own time and money to attend. Flight crew 

are hungry for knowledge and want to be a frontline of defense in 

this horrific crime. 

Airline Ambassadors also hosted a meeting in late 2013 with 

every major flight attendant and pilot union, representing over 

100,000 flight crew. We received huge support on this issue, and 

in the words of the president of the Association of Professional 

Flight Attendants, Ms. Laura Glading:

‘‘We are committed not only to preparing our membership 

to recognize and report suspected instances of human trafficking but also to raise public awareness of the problem. 

Flight attendants have thwarted these criminals in the 

past, but putting an end to human trafficking will require 

a coordinated and sustained effort as well as the commitment of the entire transportation industry.’’

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rivard follows:]

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Ms. RIVARD. Thank you, and I ask that the wallet cards and 

flashcards be included as part of the report. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Without objection, so ordered. And 

all of your full statements or any materials you would like to attach to it will be made a part of the record. 

Ms. Smolenski. 

STATEMENT OF MS. CAROL SMOLENSKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, END CHILD PROSTITUTION AND TRAFFICKING–USA 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, Congress 

Members Weber and Reichert. So nice to see you here today. 

Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk to you about preventing human trafficking during major sporting events. Thank 

you for the very generous introduction as well. 

I am Carol Smolenski from ECPAT–USA, which is the U.S. 

branch of an international organization that works in 75 countries 

to protect children from sexual exploitation. I will only be summarizing my comments today, and I do have extended comments that 

I would like to enter into the record, and especially because we are 

international, I do have some comments about the international aspects of the issue that I probably won’t have time to tell you about 

today. 

I am also grateful to you for that really quite thorough overview 

of estimates about the size and scope of the problem, which I was 

going to say something about but which I can skip now. 

I just want to say that when we are asked questions about statistics, what I do say that we are sure about is that children are 

bought and sold in the commercial sex trade in the United States. 

These are children who are brought in from other countries and 

also American children, sometimes very young children. Adolescents from age 12 to 17 are integrated into the adult commercial 

sex market. They are not in a separate market. Anybody patronizing the sex market may very well be a child sex exploiter. 

Best estimates are that at least 100,000 American children are 

involved. I know you talked about that. It is important to remember, though, that this includes both girls and boys. And because 

this is a market in human bodies with a supply side and a demand 

side, we focus our advocacy on major events when the demand side 

becomes more concentrated in one geographic location for a short 

period of time before then dispersing again, so that is why we put 

so much focus on these sporting events. 

There are extensive prevention training, awareness raising, and 

other activities for the Super Bowl taking place in New Jersey. I 

am very pleased that we have been able to be part of the multistakeholder groups working on this since February in New Jersey. 

And I know you talked about some of this already, the New Jersey 

Anti-trafficking Coalition, the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible 

Investing, and also the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office have 

all been very hard at work for the last several months specifically 

on preparing for the Super Bowl. 

As part of this hardworking and creative team, I am pleased to 

report our specific projects in New Jersey. With the use of online 

classified ads, as we know, child trafficking has moved off the 

streets. Traffickers rent rooms in hotels, go online to create an ad 

48

in adult sexual services pages, and sell victims right out of a hotel 

or have victims meet purchasers at nearby hotels. Buyers prefer 

hotel rooms because they believe they are anonymous there, giving 

them a sense that there is little risk their behavior. In a study by 

John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Center for Court Innovation in New York City in 2008, researchers found that 45 percent of surveyed exploited youth were exploited in hotels in New 

York. 

So ECPAT promotes the Tourism Child-Protection Code of Conduct, six steps that companies can take to protect children from 

sexual exploitation. More than 20 U.S. companies and associations 

have signed the code of conduct, including Delta Airlines, of course. 

Nix Meeting Management, which was actually mentioned by Congress Member Wagner before, is also a member of the code. And 

we have recently had a groundswell of requests for information 

about the code from companies in Seattle, which we have been handling, and just recently a company in Seattle signed the code. 

The advantage of the code is that it calls for companies to use 

their resources to train staff and raise awareness about child trafficking. We couldn’t get this done on our own. We require the partnership of these committed partners putting all of their strength to 

meet our goals. And, in fact, everyone in this room has the power 

to decide what companies to patronize, and you can use your 

patronization of companies to indicate which companies that you 

appreciate when companies do training and awareness raising. 

We focused our attention in New Jersey on the hotel sector. In 

November, we co-sponsored a training session with the New Jersey 

Hotel and Lodging Association, where we gave a presentation on 

hospitality’s role in identifying and reacting to child sex trafficking. 

Later that month, we were invited by the New York City Hotel and 

Lodging Association Security Committee to train security representatives of major hotels and local law enforcement on that 

same topic, attended by about 40 law enforcement and industry 

personnel. On January 10th, we were invited by Jersey City to give 

that presentation, and 100 percent of Jersey City’s hotels were in 

attendance, around 25 people. Very great. 

Our industry partners have been active as well. Carlson Rezidor, 

a member of the Tourism Child Protection Code of Conduct has a 

policy of contacting hotels in cities prior to major events and asking 

properties to ensure responsible business training is up-to-date or 

to offer a refresher of their child protection training module. Hilton 

Worldwide, also a member of the code, reported that they completed training of hotels in New Jersey and New York in December 

and have done follow up in January. They trained over 250 team 

members that then cascaded down to their teams. 

Some noncode companies are also stepping up. Like Carlson, 

Starwood Hotels and Resorts contacts hotels and cities prior to 

major events to provide them with the company’s human trafficking awareness training. 

ECPAT–USA provided subject matter comments and suggestions 

for Starwood’s e-learning module, which was piloted in December 

and January in New York and New Jersey, again, in preparation 

for the Super Bowl. 

49

As for awareness raising, ECPAT is a co-sponsor of the U.N. Gift 

Box Project, now installed near Union Square in New York, to raise 

awareness about human trafficking. It is a walk-in piece of street 

art that looks on the outside like a giant gift-wrapped box, and 

then you learn inside about stories about human trafficking. And 

I am grateful to Holly Smith, in fact, for being willing to contribute 

her story to that gift box that is now open for the public to learn 

about trafficking. 

And finally, we have been working with the New York City Port 

Authority to bring the Department of Homeland Security’s Blue 

Campaign awareness-raising posters to the New York, New Jersey 

area. Just recently, the Port Authority Bus Terminal installed 25 

of the Blue Campaign posters. And we are working with DHS so 

that hopefully, by the end of the week, the New York area airport 

will also have posters in the airports as well. 

In my extended remarks, I have information from a conference 

last year that reviewed anti-trafficking preparation for the two previous World Cups in 2006 and 2010 as well as what Brazil is doing 

in preparation for the upcoming events in Brazil. 

Let me just conclude by saying that we have been doing this for 

23 years, and we have seen enormous changes for the better in our 

society, no less due to Congressman Smith’s leadership on this, no 

question about it. We now have a society willing to acknowledge 

that child sex trafficking exists, our legislators’ commitment to past 

legislation to combat it, our criminal justice system’s ability to 

identify exploited children, our child welfare system’s ability to 

help them, and the private sector’s acceptance of their role in protecting children. This is fantastic progress that we have made. 

We still have more to do. And I consider the major sporting 

events like the Super Bowl to be an opportunity for us advocates 

to further move the ball down the field to our goal, a world in 

which all children are free from commercial sexual exploitation. 

Thank you for your attention. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you so very much, Ms. 

Smolenski. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smolenski follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And we do plan on a series of followup hearings, Brazil will be one of those, so we do hope that you 

will come back, and as we often do, we will reach out to the Ambassador and others to further the cooperation between our own Government, particularly the legislative side. So thank you and I did 

read your comments. They were excellent. 

Ms. SLOMENSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would like to now recognize for 

such time as she may consume, Letty Ashworth, from Delta. 

STATEMENT OF MS. LETTY ASHWORTH, GENERAL MANAGER 

OF GLOBAL DIVERSITY, DELTA AIRLINES 

Ms. ASHWORTH. Chairman Smith and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to talk about Delta’s efforts 

to combat the scourge of human trafficking and child exploitation. 

Our CEO, Mr. Richard Anderson, says it best: Delta’s core values, 

along with the responsibility that comes with our global reach, 

have led us to be at the forefront among airlines in this fight 

against human trafficking. 

Human trafficking presents a serious and ongoing threat. Training Delta employees to spot the indicators of human trafficking, enhancing passenger awareness, and coordinating with law enforcement are essential tools to fight it. 

This year, thousands of people will make the trip to New York 

City for Super Bowl XLVIII. As New York’s largest air carrier and 

official airline of the Seahawks, Delta will fly the Seahawks and 

many thousands of fans from dozens of points of our global network 

to the game. 

Our customer-facing employees have received training, are in a 

prime position to be eyes and ears to spot potential cases of human 

trafficking, and point them out to law enforcement. All of us at 

Delta take seriously the responsibility to do what we can to stop 

trafficking. To that end, Delta has established a formal policy 

against human rights abuse that condemns human and child trafficking. Employees who participate in human trafficking or child 

sexual exploitation will be subject to termination. 

Beyond setting the right expectations for employees, Delta works 

actively to help highlight and combat human trafficking. In 2011, 

Delta became the first U.S. carrier to sign the End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking—ECPAT—International Code of 

Conduct for Tourism. As part of Delta’s partnership with ECPAT 

and implementation of the code, Delta has established an ethical 

policy regarding commercial sexual exploitation of children; implemented company-wide training requiring employees to report any 

suspected incidents of trafficking to their managers or law enforcement; introduced a supplier contract clause stating a common repudiation of child commercial sexual exploitation; committed to raising awareness about human trafficking and sexual exploitation of 

children; provided information to key persons in key locations who 

informally support the code; and reported annually on our antitrafficking and child exploitation awareness efforts. 

Delta has undertaken a number of efforts to highlight the problem of human trafficking. We participated in Human Trafficking 

Awareness Day in January 2012, invited a victim advocate to adVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Sep 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\012714\86465 SHIRL
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dress employees, and regularly update employees and shareholders 

through our internal news publications and in shareholder meetings. 

In 2012, Delta became one of 12 founding companies of the Global Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking, and in June 

2013, Delta became one of the first airlines to adopt the DHS Blue 

Lightning Initiative. Blue Lightning provides airline employees 

with tools to identify and report suspected instances of human trafficking. All customer-facing Delta employees were scheduled to 

have completed the training by the end of 2013. 

Delta also participates in events where businesses, governments 

and nonprofits connect to address the issue, including the Council 

on Foreign Relations, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, McKenna, Long and Aldridge’s Women’s Initiative, and the 

Delta-hosted January 10th One Step Forward Summit. 

Delta is also involved with the Transportation Leaders Against 

Human Trafficking, championed by the former Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood. 

Individuals at Delta and our extended Delta family feel passionately about the issue and are personally engaged. A wonderful example is Anna Bastian, who has joined us here today. Mrs. Bastian 

is the wife of Delta’s president, Ed Bastian, and she is extensively 

involved in the Polaris Project, dedicated to fighting trafficking and 

providing vital services to victims. Anna’s leadership on this issue 

helps set the tone and encourages others at Delta to get involved. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, we are 

honored to join you here today. We hope that this encourages others in transportation to take what steps they need, they can, and 

should to stop human trafficking and child exploitation. I would be 

glad to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. Ashworth, thank you very much 

for your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ashworth follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And I think I can say without any 

fear of contradiction that Delta is the quintessential example of 

corporate responsibility with a commitment to protect the most vulnerable. And we, the subcommittee, are so grateful for your leadership as well as Anna’s. 

I would like to now go to Ms. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF MS. HOLLY SMITH, SURVIVOR OF 

TRAFFICKING AND ANTI-TRAFFICKING ADVOCATE 

Ms. SMITH. Good afternoon, Chairman Smith and members of the 

committee. 

My name is Holly Smith, and I am a survivor of child sex trafficking within the United States. In 1992, at age 14, I was a shy, 

insecure and angry teenager. I had just graduated eighth grade 

middle school, and I was afraid of starting high school. I was afraid 

of getting beat up. I was afraid of never being pretty or cool enough 

to get a boyfriend. And I was afraid of losing my friends. I was also 

very depressed and in need of real help and guidance. 

I grew up in rural south Jersey, and my friends and I often hung 

out at the local mall. It was at this mall that I met a man who 

picked me out of the crowd and asked for my phone number. I felt 

special that he picked me, and he told me that I was special when 

we talked on the phone. He said I was too mature for high school, 

that I was pretty enough to be a model. He said he could introduce 

me to famous bands and that I could become a songwriter. As a kid 

who grew up on MTV, this was my dream. 

After we talked on the phone for about 2 weeks, this man convinced me to run away from home with him. Within hours of running away, I was forced into prostitution on the streets and in the 

casino hotels and motels of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Thirty-six 

hours later, I was arrested by police and treated like a criminal. 

Without appropriate aftercare services, I struggled for many years 

to overcome my victimization. 

As a young adult, I managed to put the past behind me, and I 

graduated college with a 3.6 GPA in biology and a minor in writing. I had been working as a microbiology analyst for nearly 10 

years when I happened to watch a documentary on sex trafficking 

in India. It wasn’t until then that I realized that what had happened to me as a child happens to women and children across the 

globe. 

Today, I advocate against all forms of commercial sexual exploitation of children and all forms of human trafficking against any 

person. I recently wrote an academic book on child sex trafficking 

in the United States, called ‘‘Walking Prey,’’ and through my research, I discovered many inconsistencies in much of what I was 

seeing and hearing in the media. 

I believe the biggest lesson to learn from past Super Bowl preparations is the importance of credibility and longevity in prevention 

and aftercare efforts. In a blog post last week, Rachel Lloyd, founder and CEO of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, explained 

that ‘‘shaky’’ and ‘‘overblown’’ statements and statistics can and 

has caused damage to the credibility of the anti-trafficking movement. ‘‘We want people to get engaged in this work and the movement for the long haul,’’ explained Lloyd. However, people are often 

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‘‘so put off by the hyperbole’’ and sensationalized statistics, that 

soon after the sporting event has passed, many are left in a state 

of ‘‘disillusionment and cynicism’’ toward the movement. 

This kind of awareness and prevention is counteractive. Statistics and claims must be studied and verified, and prevention efforts 

cannot begin and end with sporting events. 

In January 1992, the year I was trafficked, the Washington Redskins and the Buffalo Bills competed at the Super Bowl in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Had there been an anti-trafficking awareness 

campaign in Minneapolis, could the explosion of media attention 

reached me on the east coast? Could I have been warned? Maybe. 

I guess we will never know, but what I do know is this: There were 

significant awareness campaigns around the Super Bowl events in 

2010, 2011, and 2012, yet after I had presented my story in 2013 

to the very middle school from which I graduated in 1992, a girl 

raised her hand and asked me, ‘‘Why am I just now hearing about 

this?’’

I pose this question to the committee: Why had a 14-year-old girl 

and a group of at-risk youth never heard of child sex trafficking? 

It is because our nationwide efforts on child sex trafficking prevention are misplaced and lacking. 

The Department of Education needs to create and include programs for the education and prevention of child exploitation. Such 

programs should address media literacy, healthy relationships, 

healthy role models, mental health awareness, coping skills, volunteer projects, education about social issues in the community and 

abroad, including human trafficking, and education about community services. 

Commercial sexual exploitation of children and sex trafficking of 

any person can happen at many types of sporting events, from Bike 

Week in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to hunting season in South 

Dakota. However, there are many other risk factors in many communities in the United States that can raise the demand for commercial sex, thereby increasing the risk of commercial sexual exploitation of children and sex trafficking. These include, but are not 

limited to, the presence of a commercial sex industry, tourist and 

business attractions, proximity to military bases or other locations 

with transient populations of men, a high transit area, a subculture of homeless youth, a presence of gangs, and a proximity to national borders. 

Education and awareness campaigns about commercial sexual 

exploitation of children and sex trafficking of any person must be 

developed and maintained in all such communities in order to help 

prevent this type of exploitation. In addition, there must be outreach efforts to connect with potential victims and offer long-term 

aftercare services. Furthermore, programs must be created and 

maintained to address those factors that might predispose adults 

and children to being vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, 

including sex trafficking. 

In my book, ‘‘Walking Prey,’’ I list many predisposing factors to 

keep in mind for prevention programs specific to the commercial 

sexual exploitation of children, including school bullying and poverty, and everything in between. The same applies to other forms 

of child exploitation and human trafficking. Awareness, prevention 

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and aftercare programs must address all risk factors and root 

issues. 

If we are to continue the campaign against sex trafficking at 

sporting events, then we must use the opportunity to bring to every 

city both accurate information and resources for long-term awareness, education, and aftercare. This is because, as Rachel Lloyd 

points out, ‘‘commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking will undoubtedly happen in the New York/New Jersey area during the 

first week of February [with Super Bowl XLVIII], and the second 

and third and fourth week of February, and in March and April 

and every single day and every night throughout the year.’’ This 

applies to any community in the world that may be vulnerable to 

any form of exploitation. 

Thank you for providing me this opportunity to be here today. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. Smith, thank you so very much 

for your courage, your willingness to help others by talking about 

the ordeal you have gone through. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I do have a question. Did the Atlantic City Police recognize you as a trafficking victim or were they 

just tone deaf? 

Ms. SMITH. I was recognized as a victim later in the investigation, and all the traffickers in my case were arrested. But because 

of the way that I was treated initially, it affected the way I responded to law enforcement throughout the case. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. How long into that process, when did 

they finally realize it was trafficking? I mean, was it the first days? 

Ms. SMITH. They never used the word ‘‘trafficking,’’ but I think 

that they recognized that I was a victim, but they didn’t know just 

how to treat me. They sort of treated me like an adult, and they 

treated me like I got myself into a bad situation. It was never explained to me that I was exploited or manipulated. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Did female police officers handle 

your case or men? 

Ms. SMITH. Men. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. How old were you? 

Ms. SMITH. I was 14. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And no special provision was provided to you? 

Ms. SMITH. Nothing whatsoever as far as services afterwards. I 

was sent home. And it was really traumatic. I should have never 

been sent home that way. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Could you tell us who or what helped 

you get through this ordeal? Was it faith? Was it a shelter or someone who helped you? 

Ms. SMITH. It was my school teachers. It honestly, my school 

teachers played a very big role in keeping me on somewhat of a 

straight path enough. And they are the ones who really encouraged 

me to stay in school and to go to college. That is why it is very important to me that advocacy and awareness and prevention and 

training get into schools, because I really believe teachers want to 

be a part of the solution. They just need the tools. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Now, the traffickers who were convicted, how many other young women and young girls did they exploit? 

Ms. SMITH. I actually don’t know the answer to that question. I 

was removed from the case very quickly because my parents just 

didn’t know how to deal with it. And nobody really knew what to 

do with me or how to deal with it. So, as soon as they got my testimony, I really was never involved again until I drove to Atlantic 

City and retrieved my case files just a few years ago. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you. 

Let me just ask Nancy Rivard, if you could, you have been doing 

flight attendant training for years. You will recall that both you 

and Deborah Sigmund spoke at that conference that we had in 

2010. As a matter of fact, Deborah testified before a commission of 

Congress in 2010. That was 3 years ago. It seems as if we are making progress, but with the exception of airlines like Delta, the others have not climbed aboard to really make a difference here. And 

I am wondering if you have any thoughts on how we can further 

get the other airlines to step up to the plate. I mean, I think Delta 

66

provides a shining example of what can be done when there is commitment. 

Ms. RIVARD. Yes. I couldn’t agree more. And just to tell you, recently, a Delta flight attendant that is one of our members has put 

together a list of 64 activist flight attendants who want to take our 

Train the Trainer Program and help spread the word around the 

country. She will be coming to the training that Deborah and I are 

doing together, Airline Ambassadors and Innocents At Risk, in 

Phoenix February 10. 

I think that the committee, if you can help us by reaching out 

to the airlines to follow the example of Delta, and expand upon it 

with the importance of emphasis in classroom training. 

Frontier, I found out this month, trafficked three children into 

Denver. And as a result, they acknowledged that this had happened on their aircraft. And they are now anxious, according to a 

phone call yesterday, to jump on board, train their employees. They 

have invited us to provide a Train the Trainer to their staff, and 

also open a training to all the airlines in the Denver area. We are 

very excited about this kind of opportunity. And again, getting the 

word out with hands-on classroom training to people and flight attendants, flight crew, and all airline employees. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. How effective have you been with the 

international airlines? I sometimes feel like I am your and Deborah’s pamphleteer. Everywhere I go, I met with the foreign minister, for example, of Ethiopia recently. The Ethiopian Airlines certainly is a major conduit of exploited women, especially into the 

Middle East, as well as elsewhere. I recently spoke with the president of Peru and a couple of other presidents. I forever disseminating this information—Peru. And gave him the information. He 

showed a great interest as well. And yet we call back. We try to 

find out, well, what is being done? And we find out, well, they are 

looking at it. And I wonder if you have any sense of how we can 

get this off the concept stage to the true implementation stage. 

Ms. RIVARD. Well, I feel that the training that we gave together 

in Kiev, Ukraine, in June, was actually the first formal training I 

know of of the airline industry in Europe. And as a follow up to 

that, we attended the Interpol Conference on Human Trafficking in 

November and received huge interest from countries around Europe. As a follow up, we are going to Canada. The Ambassador of 

Hungary has asked us for a training. And also Ireland, the Ireland 

Immigrant Council is now focusing on airlines. So the problem is 

in the United States, we have the DHS tip line; in other countries, 

we are suggesting now that they follow the protocol we developed 

with Ukraine to call the Customs Border Protection—national airlines call the Customs Border Protection number in their area until 

Interpol is strengthened to act similar to DHS for all of Europe. 

But I am excited to see the movement. Again, we have three or 

four countries internationally requesting our services and realizing 

that this one action, this one implementation can affect millions, 

will impact millions of eyes, and potentially stop thousands and 

thousands of trafficking cases. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you. 

Ms. Ashworth, what has been the feedback from the 80,000 employees on identifying trafficking? Has it been a mind opener for 

67

them? Are they enthusiastic about it? And your code of conduct, 

how has that been received by some of the vendors from which you 

buy goods? 

Ms. ASHWORTH. Well, it was said earlier, I think the enthusiasm 

of our employees has been shown by the number who have actually 

taken the training since September 9. As of September 9, through 

our numbers last week, we have trained somewhere between 

58,000 to 60,000 of our 80,000 employees. Likewise with our vendors, they, too, are on board as part of our policy, and we have only 

received positive feedback. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Since you do so much abroad, so 

many of your flights obviously are international, do you find some 

of the other carriers showing an interest where they might want 

to say, ‘‘Let’s do what Delta has done’’? 

Ms. ASHWORTH. Absolutely. It is ongoing dialogue, and we are 

working with them daily. We are hosting events, as I mentioned, 

the January 10 summit at Delta Airlines. And we will continue to 

do so throughout the year. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. Smolenski, I was very happy to 

see you say that you are encouraged. We don’t hear that all that 

often. But you also point in your testimony that hotel rooms are 

the preferred venue for the sale of children because exploiters believe they are anonymous at hotels, giving them a sense that there 

is little risk in their behavior. Is any of that changing? I know that 

you have personally, and your organization has continually trained 

hotel individuals to spot trafficking at the front desk, by the concierge, everyone else in-between. And I am wondering if there is 

true buy in there? Are they really getting it? 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Absolutely. First of all, let me just respond to 

your comment about me being encouraged, because in fact, when 

you do this for a really long time you see real change taking place. 

So it takes several years. It is not like we are going to have big 

change by next year. Maybe we will. But when you have done it 

for a long time, it is really night and day, not that we still don’t 

have big problems of children being trafficked. It is really true. But 

from when I started in 1991 to today, there are huge changes for 

the better. 

I am always also extremely encouraged when companies take the 

training. I guess I can’t tell you specific cases, because I would 

need to check with the company about telling an anecdote about 

what they learned. But without fail, every company that has signed 

the code of conduct and has gone through training, there have been 

people who said, Oh, yeah, I saw something like that. I didn’t know 

what to do then; now I know what to do. Or even specific cases of 

kids who have been identified in New York City in particular. So 

it doesn’t take that much for people, because the people have an 

instinct. They see something wrong. They know something is a little wrong with this situation, but unless their company has a policy 

and has trained them that, yes, they are supposed to do something, 

are supposed to tell their supervisor, there is something they are 

supposed to do, too frequently they have looked away. And now 

when companies train, have a policy like Delta, now they know 

that they are not supposed to look away, and they are supposed to 

do something. And the response we are getting is that people, emVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Sep 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\012714\86465 SHIRL
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ployees are gratified by that. It made them feel uncomfortable 

when they didn’t know what to do, and there was something 

wrong, but they had to look away because they didn’t want to get 

in trouble with their employer. So I think that companies, and we 

have heard this over and over again, their employees are very, very 

happy about it. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And finally, Chief Hanson, if you 

could, Chairman Reichert talked earlier about the annual training, 

and I think he called it retread training. And I am wondering if 

that is what is contemplated at Amtrak. And secondly, could you 

provide some examples of success stories that you might have so 

far post-training? 

Chief HANSON. So, prior to our partnership with DOT and DHS, 

our members would have received training in the jurisdictions in 

which they are commissioned. So that is where they went through 

the retread. So I think for us to have the opportunity to launch the 

DHS training was really a huge opportunity. And in fact, in preparation for the Super Bowl, what we did was require our 500 members to go through that training again. I just did that this morning 

and then also took the DHS awareness training. So we are looking 

forward, we are in conversations now with DHS to do the next 

version of that for Amtrak police, and then with our own employees, particularly our onboard service. Here in the Northeast Corridor, the conductor and the onboard service crew is pretty busy 

there because it is pretty fast moving; those trains stop, they have 

got to get your ticket. But you get out of the Northeast Corridor, 

you get on a long haul, you go from here to New Orleans, or from 

Portland to Oakland, there is more of an opportunity for a crew to 

really put eyeballs on people. So there we do have a training opportunity here in 2014 with our onboard staff. And our police officers 

will be giving some training actually on active shooter. And then 

we intend, once again, to share, to do a refresh on the indicators 

and the awareness for human trafficking. 

Interestingly enough, just in October, we had a case where a gal 

went to the bathroom and called 911 and had been on the Northeast Corridor from New Jersey and, in this case, had been in Laurel, Maryland. They were in Union Station, where they had come 

down here. She was in an abusive relationship and was forced into 

prostitution. And working with the Metropolitan Police, a special 

squad that does sex trafficking, we were able to arrest the subject 

who was abusing and pimping this woman. And then, of course, the 

Metropolitan Police have strong relationships with NGOs to supply 

support once those cases are made. And that case actually is coming up to court in 2 weeks. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank each of you for being here, and truly for 

your testimony. 

But more importantly than that, I want to thank you for taking 

this on, when it is not something that is talked about. It is not 

something that many times is applauded. It is something that 

many times we have a difficult time grasping and understanding, 

whether it be with victims or whether it is how to really look at 

it. So I just want to say thank you for your work. I do want to folVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Sep 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\012714\86465 SHIRL
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low up a little bit, and my colleague here to my right has mentioned about the training. You know, you only really emphasize 

those things that you continue to train. Many of you are involved 

in training aspects way beyond just the human trafficking aspect 

of that. And if you don’t continue to train and continue to put an 

emphasis on it, it falls by the wayside. So how can we highlight? 

I think, Ms. Rivard, you said there are 64 people that are taking 

this on personally. Is that correct? 

Ms. RIVARD. Yeah. That is coming from Delta. They are the flight 

attendants that want more training, that have asked us to provide 

it. We are looking to train a pool of flight attendants that can go 

out and make this real for other airlines and other colleagues in 

the field. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And so can we as Members of Congress encourage 

them, whether it be letters, phone calls? If you will get us that list, 

I am sure I can work with Chairman Smith to make sure that 

those 64 people—right now, they are just a number. I would like 

to make sure that we thank them individually for their efforts and 

to encourage it. I sit on the Aviation Subcommittee. 

Ms. RIVARD. Oh, that is great. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And this is the first time that I am really hearing 

all of this. And so I am on Transportation, and so I plan to take 

it back to my committee to make sure that we start to highlight 

this, whether it is on the Aviation Subcommittee or on Rail or 

wherever it may be. Secretary Foxx is a father. And I plan, as I 

leave here, to call the Secretary and let him know about this, because I think if we redouble our efforts, what we will start to see 

is that we will make a difference. 

And so the optimism that has been shared here today, I want 

you to know that your efforts, I applaud your efforts, each one of 

you. I applaud your bold stand and willingness to not only come, 

but congratulations on a 3.6 GPA. I mean well done. 

Ms. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And I am just thankful for those teachers who invested in you, who have would never have known that you would 

be here on Capitol Hill testifying before Congress on something 

that is so intimate but so vitally important. 

So I will submit a few questions for the record. I just want to 

say thank you. 

And I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you, Mr. Meadows. 

Chairman Reichert. 

Mr. REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, you know, I forgot who mentioned this, but if I could 

say, Go Seahawks. 

I think there is an opportunity here to work with the NFL. I am 

imagining that you have all thought of that already. And I know 

that Coach Carroll is engaged in an effort in Seattle he calls A 

Brighter Seattle, in working with young people on the streets of Seattle, which I think certainly sounds to me like it would fit into 

what we have been talking about today. So I think the NFL would 

be a great partner with the airlines. They fly a lot, obviously. And 

I was in the airport yesterday when they left on Delta. I almost 

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wanted to get on their plane. I wanted to also touch on the training 

thing real quick. 

I am not sure that academies do this today, but it might be a 

great opportunity to sort of look at having someone like Ms. Smith, 

if they have the courage like she does, to go and share her story 

with the first line law enforcement officers and the detectives and 

those personnel who are dealing with young people on the streets. 

Maybe before they get the badge and the swearing-in ceremony occurs, might be a good idea for him to hear from someone who has 

been there on the streets, survived, and really could hear how serious a problem this is, how traumatic it is. And I think you recognize, from my earlier comments, that this really touches me, because I have seen a lot of tragedy. 

So I really want to commend Ms. Smith. I never did get a 3.6. 

So you are doing something right. And look it, I ended up here in 

Congress. I was lucky to get a 2.9, I think was probably the highest 

I got. 

But I wanted to really emphasize what you said about teachers. 

Because I mentioned that earlier in my comments, too. It was my 

geometry teacher, football coach that kept me from going further 

down the road to where I know I shouldn’t have been going. And 

I, too, wanted to commend your teachers, and you for listening to 

them, because sometimes teachers aren’t always listened to. 

And then I just wanted to say that one of the things we need to 

do, all of us in this room are here to work on this problem and 

eliminate it. That is the goal, not reduce the numbers, but eliminate it. And there is a team here, if I can call you Holly for a second, Holly, there is a team here with you now, of people. 

Ms. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. REICHERT. We want to help. 

Ms. SMITH. Thanks. 

Mr. REICHERT. And you mentioned prevention, education, 

aftercare, advocacy, awareness, and all those things. But I think 

we need to really listen to your testimony, act on your testimony. 

My question for you is, what do you think is the most needed service that would best help those victims and survivors of sex trafficking? 

Ms. SMITH. I think that prevention is really lacking. When I talk 

to young girls, they haven’t heard about sex trafficking. But even 

before a child reaches the point of being vulnerable to trafficking, 

I think that many of these girls are first vulnerable to sexual exploitation in itself, just being sexually exploited by somebody. And 

so I think there needs to be a stronger prevention program for atrisk youth that includes just a number of programs that can prevent sexual exploitation. 

And that would include media literacy and understanding for the 

messages. Kids are surrounded by media messages. And oftentimes 

these media messages are of sexualized women, objectified women. 

We kind of live in this culture that normalizes the sexual 

objectification and exploitation of women. And so I think that it 

needs to begin in schools, a deconstruction of media messages, not 

just to empower girls from being victimized but to educate boys 

that it is not okay to look at girls that way. 

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Mr. REICHERT. Yeah. Well, I want to thank you all again for all 

you do. 

And thank you so much, Ms. Smith, for being here. 

And Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I want to thank our five very distinguished and very effective women for testifying today, for your 

work on behalf of those who are commodified and exploited. You 

have made a huge difference, will continue to do so. And I do think 

that the five of you are trafficking victims’ best friends, and conversely, traffickers’ worst enemy. 

Without objection, all members will have 5 days to submit statements and questions for the record. That includes a statement by 

Committee Chairman Ed Royce, which is submitted for the record. 

And American Airlines will also submit a statement. And we may 

get some statements from a few other airlines. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(73)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

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


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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MS. NANCY RIVARD, PRESIDENT AND

FOUNDER, AIRLINE AMBASSADORS INTERNATIONAL

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