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ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSFORMATION:

TIER RANKINGS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 22, 2015

Serial No. 114–64

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 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

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 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

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 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Mark Lagon, president, Freedom House (former Ambassadorat-Large for Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State) ...................... 8

Fr. Shay Cullen, president/chief executive officer, PREDA Foundation ............. 21

Mr. Matthew Smith, executive director, Fortify Rights ....................................... 62

Mr. Jesse Eaves, director of policy and government relations, Humanity 

United ................................................................................................................... 80

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Mark Lagon: Prepared statement ................................................ 12

Fr. Shay Cullen: Prepared statement .................................................................... 26

Mr. Matthew Smith: Prepared statement ............................................................. 65

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 90

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 91

Questions 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, and written responses from: 

The Honorable Mark Lagon ................................................................................ 92

Fr. Shay Cullen .................................................................................................... 94

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith: AP investigation, ‘‘Are slaves catching 

the fish you buy?’’ ................................................................................................. 97

(1)

ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSFORMATION: 

TIER RANKINGS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST 

HUMAN TRAFFICKING 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2015

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 2:41 p.m., in room 

2200 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 welcome. First of all, let me apologize to all of you, our witnesses and our guests. We did have a series of votes that went a 

little bit longer than what we thought so, again, I want to apologize 

for convening this more than an hour late. 

Welcome to today’s hearing on the importance of accountability 

in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, the State Department’s biggest opportunity of the year to prod countries to fight 

human trafficking with greater effect, greater efficiency, and greater effort. 

There are some 20-plus million people around the globe who live 

in sex or labor slavery today. When one hears such a figure, over 

20 million people, one’s eyes begin to glaze over as a number of 

such magnitude becomes an abstraction. There is a cynical saying 

attributed to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that ‘‘The death of one 

man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.’’ Stalin knew 

that many would shrug their shoulders and avert their gaze. 

But we must never allow such cynicism to obscure the fact that 

each of those 20 million persons is a human being with inherent 

God-given dignity. Each one is a child that suffers from beatings 

and abuse, a woman raped, or a man who labors in the field as a 

slave, all for the commercial gain of others. 

The annual Trafficking in Persons Report required by the landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, legislation which 

I authored, ensures that countries making anti-trafficking efforts a 

priority are praised and supported, while countries that ignore the 

cries of the enslaved are justly shamed and considered for sanctions. 

The success of the TIP Report and rankings is beyond anything 

we could have hoped for. From presidential suites and the halls of 

2

Parliaments to police stations in remote corners of the world, this 

report focuses anti-trafficking work in 187 countries on the pivotal 

principles of prevention of trafficking, prosecution of the traffickers, 

and protection of the victims. 

Each year the trafficking office at the Department of State evaluates whether a government of a country is fully compliant with the 

minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking prescribed by the TVPA or, if not, whether the government is making 

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

see and summarized in a tier rankings narrative. Tier 1 countries 

fully meet the minimum standards. Tier 2 do not meet the minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to do so. Tier 

3 countries do not meet the standards and are not making significant efforts to do so, and indeed, may be subject to sanctions. 

Over the last 14 years more than 100 countries have enacted 

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

required to significantly raise their tier rankings. Some countries 

openly credit the TIP Report for their increased and effective antitrafficking response—kind of look at it as a mirror and look to us 

for examples of how to do even better. 

Last year, for example, I was invited by the speaker of Peru’s 

unicameral Congress to address legislators on how to protect victims of trafficking, meeting also with prosecutors, members of the 

multi-agency task force, victims and those who provide for the victims. 

The Tier 2 Watch List was created in the 2003 TVPA authorization, which I also authored, to encourage good-faith anti-trafficking 

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

steps late in the year. Unfortunately, some countries made a habit 

of a last-minute effort and failed to follow through year after year, 

effectively gaming the system. 

To protect the integrity of the tier system and to ensure that it 

worked properly to ensure progress, Congress in 2008 created an 

automatic downgrade for any country that had been on the Tier 2 

Watch List for 2 years but had not taken significant efforts to move 

up a tier. The President can waive the automatic downgrade for an 

additional 2 years if he has certified credible evidence that the 

country has a written and sufficiently-resourced plan that if implemented, would constitute significant efforts to meet the minimum 

standards. In 2013, the first test of the new system, China, Russia, 

and Uzbekistan ran out of waivers and moved to Tier 3, which accurately reflected their records. 

In 2014 reporting cycle, only Thailand and Malaysia were autodowngraded out of six countries. Russia and Uzbekistan retained 

their Tier 3 downgrades from the previous year, but China was upgraded from Tier 3 to the Tier 2 Watch List which I consider to 

be a very big mistake. 

I am very concerned that China fooled the State Department, 

which seemed to believe that China was abolishing its reeducation 

through labor camps, rather than simply renaming the camps and 

continuing the practice. The Congressional-Executive Commission 

on China reported that in 2013, Chinese authorities increasingly 

used other forms—their word—of arbitrary and administrative deVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Aug 18, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042215\94307 SHIRL
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tention such as legal education centers, custody and education centers, black jails, and compulsory drug detoxification centers. 

Moreover, the Commission reported that in 2014 the Deputy Director of China’s Ministry of Justice said at a press conference that 

‘‘The vast majority of China’s reeducation through labor facilities 

have been converted to compulsory drug detox centers.’’ The China 

Commission believes that these compulsory drug detox centers 

force detainees to do labor and do the custody and education as do 

those other centers. 

If true and I believe it is, then the Chinese Government is directly involved in human trafficking and profiting from it. The Chinese Government also continues, through its one-child birth limitation policy, to absolutely decimate the female population, creating 

a vacuum for sex and bride trafficking in China, as males confronted with a sentence of lifetime bachelorhood obtain or seek to 

obtain a mate. 

Despite a much-ballyhooed November 2013 government announcement of a relaxation of the one-child policy that affects only 

a small subset of the population, this fig leaf will not do enough 

to correct the gender imbalance in China, the missing daughters as 

we so often call them. 

Last summer a local official at the Mid-Year Family Planning 

Work Meeting in a municipality noted that ‘‘The intensity of family 

planning work has not diminished,’’ and of course that includes coercive abortion and coercive sterilization. 

The U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 

following its May 2014 review of China, noted that it was ‘‘Seriously concerned about reported instances of use of coercive measures, including forced abortion and forced sterilization, with a view 

to limiting births.’’ Of course this is absolutely unacceptable and a 

gross violation of women’s rights. 

Approximately 40 million women—and some put it far, far higher—girls and women are missing from the population and China’s 

birth limitation policy continues to increase that number making 

China a regional and maybe even a world, but certainly a regional, 

magnet for sex and bride trafficking of women from neighboring 

countries such as Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and North 

Korea. 

Indeed, an estimated 90 percent of North Korean women seeking 

asylum in China are trafficked as brides and yet China does not 

take responsibility for the government-made disaster and provide 

these women with aid. Rather, China denies the women refugee 

status, sends them back to punishment in North Korea, sometimes 

execution. Yet we gave China a pass last year turning our backs 

on these suffering women, and that really is objectionable. 

But Asia is not the only place where there are victims of trafficking. This afternoon’s hearing will also look at three African 

countries that must be automatically downgraded unless they significantly improve efforts to fight human trafficking in 2014—Burundi, Comoros, and Angola. The shared tragedy of these countries 

is that their children are being trafficked. Chinese nationals in Angola, for example, exploit the Angolan children in construction, rice 

farming, and brick making. In Comoros, poor families place their 

children with wealthy relatives who then exploit them in domestic 

4

servitude. Similarly, in Burundi, family members sometimes profit 

from the prostitution of children with tourists, or according to the 

State Department, teachers, police officers, gendarme, military, and 

prison officials. 

In 2013 as an automatic downgrade loomed, the President of 

Comoros finally admitted his country had a serious trafficking 

issues and the National Assembly changed its penal code. Angola 

and Burundi have also amended their penal codes while on the 

Watch List. Aggressive implementation of these anti-trafficking 

laws would keep people off Tier 3, as well as protect children from 

trafficking. And I very earnestly hope implementation has been a 

priority. 

The southeast Asia region continues to struggle with particularly 

acute and entrenched human trafficking. Thailand and Malaysia 

were downgraded to Tier 3 last year. Burma must receive a Presidential waiver this year to avoid Tier 3. 

One of the key drivers of intense human trafficking in the region 

is the vulnerability and desperation of the Muslim minority 

Rohingya people. Squalid living conditions in displacement camps, 

discrimination, child limitation, and violence are pushing the 

Rohingya out of the Buddhist-dominated Burma into the hands of 

human traffickers who claim to have jobs for them in Muslim-majority Malaysia. However, according to reports, including some by 

Reuters last year, many Rohingya never made it to Malaysia, instead ended up in tropical gulags in the jungles of Thailand, where 

they were held for ransom. Many die from abuse and disease. 

Those who cannot pay the ransom are sold into sex slavery or 

forced labor, often in the fishing industry. Thai General Prayut 

Chan-o-cha has vowed to crack down on many of the Thai authorities involved and to bring an end to the practice. 

While we have seen an impressive number and variety of antitrafficking efforts in Thailand during last year, including a new 

law in March that heightened penalties to life imprisonment for 

traffickers, prosecutions have significantly diminished in the last 

year. Prosecutions regarding trafficking of Rohingya migrants seem 

particularly low as well. Nevertheless, over the last year, Thailand 

has taken concrete steps to register nearly 100,000 migrants, 

amend laws related to the fishing sector, raise the minimum age 

for labor at sea to 18, set mandatory rest periods and employment 

contract requirements, and inspect hundreds of boats. 

And we also need to look at ourselves and ask whether we are 

complicit in abetting trafficking, perhaps unwittingly. Last month, 

for example, the Associated Press documented Thai boats picking 

up seafood in Indonesia caught by Burmese slaves who when not 

at sea are kept in cages on remote Indonesian islands. The seafood 

was taken back to Thai ports and processed by the company that 

owns Chicken of the Sea. Much of the tainted seafood may have entered the supply chain to reach the shelves of American grocery 

stores, and through vendors such as Sysco, have landed on the 

plates of our service men and women. 

There are nevertheless success stories as well, and Thailand has 

been a stalwart partner with the United States in fighting sex 

tourism that drives sex trafficking. The Philippines has also 

worked with us in fighting sex tourists and helping the victims of 

5

trafficking. Indeed, one of the witnesses we will hear from this 

afternoon is a priest, whose faith-based organization has helped 

thousands heal from the horrors of human trafficking. 

Finally, a word to those who think that our TIP Report embarrasses allies and undercuts our efforts to cultivate friendly ties 

around the globe, I will never forget when two of our closest allies, 

Israel and South Korea, at one point, were both on Tier 3, the 

worst rank. I remember meeting with their Ambassadors who had 

files demonstrating to all of us and anyone who would listen that 

measures were being undertaken to mitigate this terrible crime, 

and both of those countries got off Tier 3 when they backed their 

words with substantive action. Rather than alienating them, the 

exercise underscored that friends watch out for each other and that 

we must call upon our friends to live up to the high ideals that 

they profess. Ultimately, countries that do live up to their ideals, 

show they value and treasure their citizens, their greatest resource, 

in the long run will benefit the most. 

And before I recognize my friend and colleague Ms. Bass, I would 

like to recognize Christian Boujaoude who is age 16 who is in the 

audience. He is from my district from Eatontown, New Jersey. He 

and his parents, Elias and Maureen. A junior at Monmouth Regional High School, Christian, in recent months coordinated the labeling and shipping of 2,000 bars of soap with human trafficking 

messages to Arizona hotels prior to the Super Bowl there. He also 

successfully urged a number of Monmouth County towns to issue 

proclamations recognizing January 11th as National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. I want to thank him for his work in raising 

awareness about trafficking and for taking the time for being at today’s hearing. 

Ms. BASS. Where is he? 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Christian? In the back. 

Ms. BASS. Stand up. 

[Applause.] 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ranking Member Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see you are taking care of the 

next generation of leaders in your district. So I want to join in congratulating you. It is wonderful that you are here today. 

Again, I want to thank the chairman for your work and your 

leadership in this area, and I know that the TIP Report, you are 

one of the reasons why the TIP Report exists, your legislation and 

all that you have been doing over the years. I also want to thank 

our distinguished witnesses including the Honorable Mark Lagon, 

former Ambassador-at-Large for Trafficking in Persons at the State 

Department as well as tireless advocates from civil society, and I 

look forward to hearing your perspectives. 

During the hearing I also look forward to hearing strategies to 

address specific types of trafficking, both domestically and abroad, 

while embracing an inclusive approach that acknowledges that 

human trafficking affects U.S. citizens and foreign nationals. I 

think it is wonderful that other countries are looking to us for our 

leadership, but I think it is also critical that we always hold ourselves accountable as well, because we do have a domestic trafficking problem here. 

6

And as a matter of fact, today, I believe, or maybe tomorrow, 

over in the Senate, hopefully they will finish legislation that was 

passed out of this House, unanimously, to address sex trafficking 

domestically. One of the areas of sex trafficking domestically that 

I am concerned about are the children in the child welfare system 

who fall through the cracks, a lot of times have been cast as runaways and we find out now have been abducted and put on the 

streets and some of them being pimped by street gangs. So holding 

the rest of the world accountable is very important and it is critically important to holding ourselves accountable as well. 

So again I want to thank our witnesses today and all of your 

leadership in combating trafficking is inspiring and has truly made 

a difference around the world. With that I yield. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you so very much. 

Mr. Cicilline? 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I thank you and 

Ranking Member Bass for holding today’s hearing. And I particularly want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your long leadership 

on the issue of human rights. And certainly, on the issue of human 

trafficking and the work that you did, the really groundbreaking 

work, have produced the TIP Report and this ongoing responsibility 

for Congress to both understand this issue and be sure that we are 

demanding action around the world to eradicate human trafficking. 

Thank you to our witnesses who are here for your work and for 

your distinguished service, and I certainly look forward to hearing 

your testimony. 

It is hard to believe that in 2015 that slavery, which we now call 

human trafficking, is still so pervasive around the world. Victims 

of human trafficking are deprived of their individual freedoms and 

suffer through unimaginably harsh, coercive, and even extraordinarily heartbreaking conditions. It is horrifying that reports indicate there is no place in the world where children, women, and 

men are safe from human trafficking. 

This means that the United States must and will continue to 

lead efforts in combating human trafficking. Every single country 

has an obligation to dedicate resources to eradicate the trafficking 

of human beings. And although we have made significant progress 

in the last decade, much work remains, and the United States 

must be prepared to impose serious consequences on countries in 

the report that do not meet minimum standards. And as has been 

pointed out, be certain that we are doing our part to be sure that 

we are eradicating trafficking here in our own country. 

Again I thank the chairman and ranking member for calling this 

hearing and look forward to the testimony of our witnesses, and I 

yield back. 

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

Mr. Clawson? 

Mr. CLAWSON. Thank you for coming today to the four witnesses, 

and especially thankful to the ranking member and chairman for 

this hearing. Full respect for both you all. 

I think about human trafficking in business, and I always come 

at it in terms of competitiveness, meaning that low-cost labor or 

zero-cost labor creates a competitive advantage and therefore higher profits and that could be the driving motive here for folks that 

7

do things they shouldn’t. And from there I draw from my own experience a conclusion that says an advantage for everyone is an advantage to no one and a disadvantage to everyone, and a marketplace is a advantage or a disadvantage to no one. 

And therefore, any solutions with respect to human trafficking in 

a competitive marketplace would have to have a broad involvement. Otherwise, if you cut it off in one place you will by definition 

be creating an advantage for an immoral actor in a different part 

of the marketplace. Does that make sense to you all? 

And so while I think it is great to fight things on humanitarian 

grounds and moralistic grounds, as we well should, because everyone deserves a sliver of sunshine in their life and a chance, but if 

we view how marketplaces work in a global economy, we also have 

to think about it being how we make this disadvantageous to all 

actors which therefore eliminates the competitive advantage of taking advantage of people. 

So in your speeches today, if you can give me a little bit of insight on how we can make this broad enough to really have a global impact, I would really appreciate the thinking along those lines. 

Thank you. 

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

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will keep my remarks very brief so we can get to your testimony. I must admit 

though as we continue to have hearings with regards to human 

trafficking in a number of areas, it is an area that not only for the 

vast majority of Americans they don’t realize the extraordinary volume of children that are being trafficked across the country. And 

for me, I think my biggest concern is how we continue to have 

hearings and meet about this, and yet from being effective and actually making a difference, we are not making a difference in a lot 

of these areas. 

Specifically with the TIP Report, obviously the ranking of some 

countries at Tier 3, the moving of some countries from Tier 3 to 

Tier 2 it seems ambiguous, I guess, is the best way to put it, or 

disingenuous would be a more accurate way in that there are conflicting agendas, at times, it seems like for those ratings. That 

being said, I look forward to hearing each one of your testimony on 

how we cannot only have a hearing, but that we can move this 

along to make sure that this scourge that is on our globe at least 

gets diminished and hopefully one day gets eradicated. And I thank 

the chairman for his leadership on this issue. 

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

I would like to now introduce our distinguished panel, beginning 

first with Ambassador Mark Lagon, who was our third Ambassador-at-Large for human trafficking, as well as director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State. His record of involvement in human rights is 

long, spanning from Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of 

International Organization Affairs with responsibility for human 

rights, humanitarian issues and U.N. reform, through academia, 

where he was the chair for Global Politics and Security at Georgetown University’s Master of Science in the Foreign Service program 

8

and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Human Rights at the Council on 

Foreign Relations. 

He was also the executive director and CEO of the anti-human 

trafficking nonprofit, Polaris, and currently serves as the president 

of Freedom House. And he has a very distinguished resume and career. 

We will then hear from Mr. Matthew Smith who is a founder and 

executive director of Fortify Rights and a 2014 Echoing Green 

Global Fellow. He previously worked with Human Rights Watch 

and at EarthRights International. His work has exposed wartime 

abuses and forced displacement, crimes against humanity, ethnic 

cleansing, multi-billion dollar corruption, development-induced 

abuses, and other human rights violations. He has also written for 

a variety of major media and other outlets. Before moving to southeast Asia in 2005, Matthew worked with Kerry Kennedy of the 

Robert Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights on Speak 

Truth to Power. He also worked as a community organizer and an 

emergency services caseworker. 

We will then hear from Father Shay Cullen who is a priest from 

Ireland, a member of the Missionary Society of St. Columban and 

founder and president of PREDA Foundation. He has also worked 

protecting women and children from sex slavery and promoting 

human rights, peace and nonviolence in the Philippines since 1969. 

Father Shay established the PREDA Foundation in Olongapo, 

neighboring the old U.S. Navy base in Subic Bay to rescue children 

and women from sex slavery. He established the PREDA Fair 

Trade as a private enterprise to alleviate poverty. PREDA has 62 

professional staff dedicated to rescuing sexually abused children 

from traffickers, brothels, and prisons, and providing them with 

therapeutic homes. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace 

Prize three times. 

We will then hear from Mr. Jesse Eaves, who is the director of 

Policy and Government Relations at Humanity United. In this role 

he has worked to advance its policy priorities, which include antislavery projects, peacekeeping and atrocity prevention. Prior to 

joining Humanity United, Jesse was a senior child protection policy 

advisor for World Vision USA, where he managed an advocacy 

portfolio focused on child trafficking, child labor, child sexual exploitation, and child soldiers. He has worked with war-affected 

communities, assisting victims of human trafficking used as child 

soldiers and sex slaves and overseeing a community development 

program that includes counseling and education for war-affected 

youth. 

Very, very great contributions by all four of you, which this subcommittee deeply, deeply appreciates. I would like to now yield 

such time as he may consume to Ambassador Lagon. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK LAGON, PRESIDENT, 

FREEDOM HOUSE (FORMER AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR 

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE) 

Ambassador LAGON. Mr. Chairman, Ms. Bass, members of the 

committee, I want to thank you for inviting me. As the history of 

the TIP Report shows, seriously researched, credible reports assessing the performance of governments have a really demonstrable imVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Aug 18, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042215\94307 SHIRL
9

pact. I will say for 43 years, Freedom House’s Freedom of the 

World survey has gotten the attention of authorities. I am learning 

that now in my current job. The TIP tier rankings are a potent tool 

themselves for U.S. diplomacy. Of course I have to say that the 

State Department TIP office needs a permanent Ambassador 

named and confirmed to be fully effective for the report to be fully 

useful. 

Let me look at a few key countries starting in east Asia. In 2013, 

China was automatically downgraded to Tier 3 but moved to the 

Tier 2 Watch List in 2014, due to the abolition of the reeducation 

through labor policy. Well, decades of a one-child policy have resulted in a deficit of 34 million women, fueling China’s thriving sex 

slavery and bride trade industry. Just as Chairman Smith referred 

to, women have been kidnapped or trafficked from Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, and even from Africa and the 

Americas. Rather than treating these women as trafficking survivors, Chinese officials typically arrest them before deporting 

them. In the case of North Koreans apprehended, being returned 

home is worse than remaining in Chinese jails. 

Freedom House research has found that for political and religious activists, the abolition of reeducation through labor has 

brought little relief from the risk of detention. Prisons and detention centers appear to still be engaging in forced labor, including 

for religious detainees, political prisoners, and foreign nationals. 

And some of the products made this way appear to be imported 

into the United States. 

As for Cambodia, it is a testament to the threat of a potential 

downgrade that in February, the Cambodian Government launched 

a new national action plan on trafficking and restructured the national committee for counter trafficking. It is important that the 

2015 TIP score reflect whether the Cambodian Government demonstrates commitment to implementing this strategy. I will say 

that my colleagues at the International Justice Mission believe that 

it should graduate to Tier 2, based on their prevalent studies of 

child sexual exploitation going down, but I think the larger picture 

needs to take account of also the matter of labor trafficking. 

Thailand. Well, Thailand is on Tier 3; it was last year. Many of 

the problems I highlighted in testimony right here before this subcommittee last year still remain—defective mechanisms for identifying victims among vulnerable populations, lax investigation, prosecution and conviction of perpetrators, inadequate regulations concerning labor brokers and recruitment fees, and official complicity 

in smuggling of migrants. It is good that Thailand passed a law. 

It is not good that prosecutions continue to be anemic in terms of 

implementation. 

In sub-Saharan Africa we have seen progress in many countries, 

including the passage of anti-trafficking laws but there, too, implementation remains an obstacle. Lack of accountability for those 

guilty of trafficking is the result of governments who are attacking 

the very actors who would ensure that anti-trafficking laws would 

be enforced—civil society organizations and independent media. 

Many of the countries on the Tier 2 Watch List in Africa have 

passed laws to limit the ability of these non-government groups to 

expose forced labor, sexual exploitation and the use of child solVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Aug 18, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042215\94307 SHIRL
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diers. For instance, in Kenya, President Uhuru has tried to limit 

freedom of expression and association and efforts are underway to 

increase regulation of Kenyan NGOs. Freedom House operates 

there. Our partners say that that effort to increase regulation 

would give government control over NGO activities and their ability to accept foreign funding, and they wouldn’t be able to hold officials involved in trafficking or complicit accountable. 

In Rwanda, President Kagame pledged to increase efforts to end 

trafficking in late 2014, but let us look at the implementation 

record. In an effort to clean up the streets, hundreds of vulnerable 

individuals including prostituted people and street children have 

been arrested, often without charge. The government has eliminated independent human rights organizations. Press freedom remains severely restricted. One might say that the watchdogs on 

trafficking have been leashed and muzzled. A Presidential waiver 

to remain on the Watch List in my mind would be farfetched. 

In the Middle East, the vulnerability of migrant workers and females makes it a particular hazard zone. Qatar is particularly troubling as it prepares for the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament, an 

effort rife with corruption. And there is heightened trafficking in 

the construction leading to those games. Corporations investing in 

Qatar and American universities like the one I used to teach at 

with campuses there have an obligation to raise trafficking with 

authorities. 

Bahrain. Other than Assistant Secretary of State Tom 

Malinowski, the United States has been all too muted in raising 

human rights in Bahrain. The U.S. naval base and the effort to mobilize a coalition to take on the Islamic State don’t justify muted 

criticism on human rights. Bahrain got a waiver in 2014 to remain 

on the Watch List based on a written plan it presented. If it hasn’t 

met the TVPA standards, and it hasn’t fulfilled its own written 

plan, it should get downgraded. 

Finally Saudi Arabia. The repression of women is even more pronounced in Saudi Arabia than other Middle Eastern countries. 

Small Gulf countries say that they have to have sponsorship laws, 

they have to have passport confiscation, they have to have housing, 

which actually in reality is prison-like, because the population is 

outnumbered by these foreign nationals who are migrant workers. 

Well, that lame excuse doesn’t even exist for the Saudis. They 

aren’t outnumbered. Smaller states look to Saudi Arabia. If it 

doesn’t promote reforms there is very little hope its neighbors will. 

To respond to some of the points raised by Mr. Clawson and Mr. 

Meadows, I just want to say in terms of global trends let us remember that labor trafficking victimizes more people, but sex trafficking yields more profits to the traffickers. Both of those types of 

trafficking matter enormously. We must not forsake one to focus on 

the other. 

TIP rankings demonstrably propel the passage of laws, we know 

that. But absent external assistance you are not going to get the 

will and the capacity of countries to implement those laws. So, we 

need two things. We need to preserve the integrity of the TIP Report rankings, and then secondly we have to foster partnerships 

and leveraged resources in order to get that implementation. I commend the End Modern Slavery Initiative Act, S.553, championed by 

11

Senator Corker and endorsed by Freedom House, because in creating a partnership fund it would do just that. 

Let me close by saying a recent Freedom House report found that 

the U.S. and other democracies are less likely to press human 

rights issues with China due to strategic and economic interests. 

Well, there is a lesson to be learned for that for the TIP rankings. 

Countries failing to address modern slavery shouldn’t get a pass 

simply because they are so-called strategically important countries. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Lagon follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ambassador Lagon, thank you very 

much for your testimony and without objection your full statement, 

which went into even greater detail, will be made part of the 

record. 

Just starting from our left to your right, Father Cullen if you 

wouldn’t mind being next, and then we’ll go to Mr. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF FR. SHAY CULLEN, PRESIDENT/CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, PREDA FOUNDATION 

Fr. CULLEN. Good afternoon. I am Father Shay Cullen, Catholic 

Columban Missionary and president and founder of the PREDA 

Foundation. We are a Philippine social development organization. 

So in the interest of time I will just make a brief summary of the 

written testimony. 

Okay, so Honorable Chairman, Ranking Member Karen Bass, I 

will greet you and all the members of the distinguished subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me here today. And I just wanted to share with you really personal experience working to address 

the widespread situation of human trafficking and particularly in 

the Philippines. 

My remarks focus on human trafficking for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and exploitation of innocent and blameless street children who are trafficked for begging and drug deliveries for the criminal gangs. Many, but not all of the child victims 

of trafficking who are used for begging, prostitution or being drug 

couriers are frequently confined in jail-like, subhuman conditions, 

instead of being helped as actually victims, and some are as young 

as 8 to 12 years old. 

When I previously testified before this subcommittee, it was a 

testimony regarding street children, some victims of human rights 

trafficking who were incarcerated in jails with adult criminals. A 

letter signed by members of this subcommittee and other members 

of the House to the then-President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines 

recommending the separation of minors from adults in the prisons 

had a very immediate, strong, positive effect at the time, and President Arroyo ordered this separation. However, the situation is even 

more grave today. 

Prison officials all over, they made a separation but into very 

small, overcrowded cells where even younger children were confined. As young as 8 years old are now being confined in small cells 

with subhuman conditions and with accused youth offenders of the 

ages of 17 and 18 years old. 

They are deprived of their human rights, of course. They are 

placed in grave circumstances of being physically neglected, 

starved, and abused. The small children, when rescued by social 

workers of the PREDA Foundation, are given protective shelter, 

therapy, counseling, and then they are able to reveal the extent of 

the abuse. Many children are trafficked for the begging on the 

streets. There are thousands of children all over the Philippines 

into the begging industry. Some of these small children are victims 

of the trafficking and brought into the city to beg for organized 

criminal syndicates or else to be exploited as drug couriers. While 

the juvenile justice welfare law, R.A. 9344, disallows criminal liVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Aug 18, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042215\94307 SHIRL
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ability for children 15 years and younger, many are still imprisoned now in dire circumstances contrary to law. 

Now I will just give you a few quick pictures of what we are talking about here, very young children, and this is just over the past 

year or so. 

[Slides.] 

Fr. CULLEN. We are not talking about isolated incidents, no, of 

some children by accident put in a jail. This is going on for years 

in the Philippines. We are challenging it. We are trying to get it 

changed as much as possible. And it indicates the systematic neglect and the abuse, not of just a few isolated incidents, as some 

of the Philippine Government officials would like all of us to believe. 

Some are claiming, government officials, that the photographs 

you see here, shocking as they may be, are not genuine, or they insidiously say they were released for fundraising purposes. But I 

have taken many of these personally myself. 

The centers where these photographs of the—take for example 

we have the pictures here of the children behind these cages and 

children that are, like these starved children, this is like the image 

from a concentration camp. And this is genuine, taken in a Manila 

center for children under the Manila Government, until recently, 

and that is how they treat many of the children there. 

So this child—our campaign and rallies, we managed to close 

down that government center due to the result of good media coverage. There are still many other centers where reform is needed. 

This was also a violation of the children’s rights, this attitude, a 

complete disregard for the human rights and the concern and the 

suffering of children. And these are just kids who were accused of 

begging on the streets but controlled by the syndicates. 

So there are many other centers and we are challenging the government in this. It was a big controversy during the visit of Pope 

Francis, and even because of these images, our Web site was 

hacked and knocked offline. So we have since restored our Web 

site, indeed, our images of the truth. Pictures of the truth have to 

be displayed. We are not giving up. 

Human trafficking of young people and some as young as 18 

months old, this is the most, latest terrible tragedy of children 

which are being trafficked and sold to international pedophiles for 

making of these horrific movies, videos which are sold here in Europe and the United States, and the police have found these terrible images. 

The children for exploitation are used by this particular case, 

which we have on record which is quite horrific, making videos for 

the commercial exploitation and used by sex tourists. Some of these 

videos have been sold, and the Dutch police and the Australian police in recent months gave shocking evidence showing children as 

young as 18 months old being video taped, the one tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered. Other children 6 and 12 years old 

have been victims of torture and sexual assault and also videoed. 

One video is entitled ‘‘The Destruction of Daisy.’’ The videos are 

commercially distributed over the Internet and sold even in the 

United States, the UK and European countries. 

23

We also have a problem for many of the victims of trafficking in 

brothels used for sexual exploitation and the growth of this human 

trafficking is linked of course to the use of the Internet promoting 

sex tourism, which is a growing business, and for transmitting images of child pornography which are, as I said earlier, made in the 

Philippines. Some victims of human trafficking are subjected to 

several human rights violations and forced abortion is one of them, 

but these are quite difficult to prove because of the secrecy, the 

lack of medical and forensic evidence. And it is done illegally and 

secretly. It is revealed by the rescued victims in therapy and 

through their oral narratives they tell us what has happened to 

them and how they are forced into doing this. 

Anyway, the Philippine Anti-Child Pornography Law is something which we helped to, the NGOs, to pass this in 2009, and it 

mandates that Internet service providers in the Philippines filter 

and prevent such images of sexually transmitted sex acts. The 

cyber-sex is a big business there. Thousands of children are sold 

into these dens and shown live over the Internet for payment 

through credit cards. The telephone companies actually in the Philippines, many of the shareholders are U.S. nationals. You can 

check, we checked it out online and we submitted some evidence 

to that. 

But among the top 100 shareholders who are violating the law, 

the law is not practiced in any way whatsoever. There are no filters 

in place as demanded by the law. They seemingly have placed 

themselves above the law and it is possible they get away with it 

with collusion of Philippine Government officials. So the Philippine 

National Telecommunications Commission is responsible for the 

implementation of the regulations that would implement the law, 

so in addition to the Anti-Child Pornography Law they are also, allegedly, violating with impunity the Public Telecommunications 

Policy Act of 1995 and Executive order 546. 

Forty percent of tourists come for sexual exploitation. We must 

keep in mind they too from the side of the Americans say return 

to the U.S.A. and they will be endangering children in this country. 

And thousands of young people, many are underage, are very vulnerable to these foreign nationals and locals who will prey upon 

them and to supply this demand of the sex tourist industry. 

Well, as the former Ambassador to the Philippines, the U.S. Ambassador Harry K. Thomas said in his time in 2013, 40 percent of 

male tourists to the Philippines go there for sex tourism. It was 

quite a controversial statement. He withdrew that comment later 

under a lot public outcry, but there was no way they could really 

deny the reality and the truth. It has become a destination for sex 

tourists, despite Philippine denials. 

We just add a little note to say that the return of the U.S. Military into the Philippine Navy bases now in the last weeks alone 

the numbers are increasing very much, and we understand that 

they are already engaged now in the sex tourist business. Well, we 

made a little assessment of what the Philippine Government is 

doing to defend the children and stop this trafficking. There is a 

strong political commitment by President Aquino, and we recognize 

it. And also we work closely with the Justice Secretary de Lima, 

24

and the Office of the Ombudsman are fighting corruption quite 

strongly in the Philippines and have some notable successes. 

But their effort to address the widespread and the spreading of 

human trafficking, unfortunately, is not so very successful. And 

even the implementation of the law by police and prosecutors results in very low arrest and conviction rates. I think it is 15 years 

the TIP Report saying only 150 convictions and that is why the 

Philippines is on Tier 2. It is not so great. 

Anyway the grave, we know of course, economic inequality is 

quite shocking there in the Philippines, and the very rich elite, no, 

of a 140 families running the country of 100 million people. It is 

not a really true democracy in this sense. There is a developing 

middle class growing quite strong, but the gap between rich and 

poor is growing greater and greater. 

Corruption by some members of the prosecution and the Departments of Defense and the judiciary is preventing the prosecution 

and really creating the rule of law. It is a mockery in many cases. 

This is why it is spreading without control. They just don’t recognize the law for being the law. And what is right and good and 

true, they just don’t give it the value and dignity it deserves. So 

the slow pace of the judicial process, it can take 4, 5, 6 years to 

complete a single case. And others is the corruption where they reduce the charges against foreigners from trafficking, they reduce it 

to child abuse so they can escape. They get to the airport; they are 

gone. 

Another problem we heard earlier that we are dealing with is 

those of us defending human rights and trying to protect the children and implement the law as best we can because we prosecute 

as many offenders as we can and so we know the legal problems. 

But the death squads as used in the past, and I am sure it is being 

recorded, but still very active today, we are sad to say. And Human 

Rights Watch has done very thorough investigations about the 

death squads and interviewed some of the assassins. No, quite 

shockingly what they revealed, how they were paid by mayors to 

kill over 150 unwanted opposition people. 

So this is what we are up against. So we as in these places 

where there is a lot of trafficking and the traffickers operate they 

do so with impunity and human rights workers and anti-traffickers—we feel very vulnerable. There is in danger of retaliation. 

So all I can say in closing and draw to the attention of the subcommittee, we submitted the report of Human Rights Watch, ‘‘One 

Shot to the Head,’’ which is the death squads going on very recently up to the present in the Philippines, and that you know 

many human rights workers, activists, priests, pastors have all 

been assassinated, including many journalists. We are number 

three in the world as the most dangerous place for journalists. And 

as I, a journalist, writer myself, I am feeling the pressure quite a 

lot, the death threats and all that stuff. 

Amnesty International has a very strong report on torture, revealed the wheel of torture where they played with the victims before they torture them, and we know that some police are sadly 

protecting these traffickers. So the Philippine Government is striving to address the problem at the top, but unfortunately they are 

25

not able to solve it and going down to the bottom to the streets and 

where it is all happening. 

And the U.S. State Department is lauded because they work 

quite well in the Philippines with us and we have implemented all 

of these programs with the help of USAID very recently working. 

And what we need is a reform of police, judiciary, and local government because they issue permits for the sex brothels and the sex 

tourist places to operate, and so this must be greatly restrained to 

reduce sex trafficking. So children trafficked must have greater 

protection, shelter, and assistance. Suspects must be prosecuted in 

a robust manner with the greatest integrity. So thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cullen follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much for your testimony and also for your leadership in defending the weak and the 

vulnerable. Thank you. 

Mr. Smith? 

STATEMENT OF MR. MATTHEW SMITH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

FORTIFY RIGHTS 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, other distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the invitation to be here today. It is a real honor and we are very pleased 

to be able to share some of our work with you. On behalf of my 

colleagues I would especially like to thank you for your work to end 

human trafficking worldwide. 

I would like to focus my remarks on some of our findings related 

to a few of the countries we are working in, namely, Myanmar, 

Thailand, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. Specifically I would like to 

draw attention to the exodus of the Rohingya Muslims from 

Myanmar which the chairman mentioned in his introductory remarks, exodus of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladesh and to the situation of armed conflict on the Myanmar/

China border. 

Now we have recently conducted hundreds of interviews with 

witnesses and survivors of abuse, and I have also conducted interviews with more than a dozen brokers and human traffickers who 

are either directly involved in human trafficking or otherwise 

knowledgeable of the trade, the illicit trade. The Rohingya, as you 

may know, are an ethnic and religious minority from western 

Myanmar. There are currently more than 650,000 Rohingya displaced in Myanmar and in Bangladesh, and this particular segment of the Rohingya population is particularly at risk of human 

trafficking. 

With regard to why Rohingya are getting on boats, we heard a 

little bit about, and I will just share what we have documented 

over the last couple years, and in the last year. In Myanmar they 

faced killings and coordinated arson attacks. Rohingya are facing 

avoidable deprivations in humanitarian aid, protracted and targeted policies of discrimination. The Government of Myanmar has 

essentially implemented an apartheid-like segregation in Rakhine 

State. 

We have documented widespread and systematic forced labor of 

Rohingya by the Myanmar Army and other state security forces 

and this includes child forced labor. We have also documented systematic rape of Rohingya women and girls with complete impunity. 

The government continues to deny Rohingya citizenship and imposes restrictions on freedom of movement, marriage, childbirth, 

and other aspects of everyday life. 

These abuses and policies have given Rohingya very few options 

but to flee the country and essentially flee into the clutches of 

transnational criminal syndicates. Meanwhile, authorities have 

been complicit in and profited from the trafficking of Rohingya, in 

some cases taking payments directly from criminal syndicates and 

in other cases actually escorting boats out to sea. 

With regard to Bangladesh, following the violence in Rakhine 

State in June 2012, the Government of Bangladesh made the unVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Aug 18, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042215\94307 SHIRL
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conscionable decision to close its borders to Rohingya and to restrict humanitarian aid to the refugees. This of course has led 

many Rohingya, likewise, to flee into the clutches of transnational 

criminal syndicates and to take risky journeys by sea. 

When Rohingya board ships from Bangladesh or Myanmar, they 

are typically deceived into thinking they will be comfortably taken 

directly to Malaysia. Instead, passengers become abductees on 

these ships. They are held in conditions of enslavement for the purposes of exploitation. They are not destined for Malaysia of course 

but most typically directed through Thailand. These people have 

been crammed into boats, denied adequate food, water and any 

freedom of movement. We have documented killings and rapes, 

beatings and other abuses at sea. 

Once they get to Thailand, they are typically herded like animals 

into horrific camps that are located in remote jungle areas or on 

islands. At these locations they are given the option to buy their 

freedom for up to $2,000, or in other cases they are simply sold into 

another exploitative situation. We have documented how Rohingya 

women and girls have been sold into forced marriages in Thailand 

and in Malaysia. Thailand’s fishing sector, as has been mentioned 

here today, has become notorious for employing slave labor. 

I recently had the opportunity to meet with some senior Thai officials to discuss some of these issues, which was a welcomed opportunity. Thailand’s Military leader General Prayut, whom I have 

not met, has vowed to prosecute and punish traffickers, but Thailand as mentioned has prosecuted fewer traffickers in 2014 than it 

did in 2013. 

In 2014, Thai authorities reported a mere five trafficking cases 

involving Rohingya. General Prayut likewise warned the media to 

not publish news about human trafficking, and the Thai Navy has 

failed to drop charges against two journalists for reporting about 

human trafficking. 

In Malaysia, unfortunately, the situation is not much better. In 

many cases human traffickers transfer Rohingya to situations of 

debt bondage or similar situations of captivity. Like in Thailand, 

there is no real legal framework in place to regulate the status or 

protection of refugees in Malaysia, and this of course contributes 

to the problem of human trafficking. 

Refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia are treated as illegal 

migrants. They are subject to arrest, detention and deportation. 

Authorities routinely extort money from them in Malaysia. Predictably, asylum seekers rarely report abuse or exploitation to Malaysian authorities out of a fear they will be arrested or detained, 

rather than protected. 

Lastly, as mentioned we have been working in the conflict zones 

in northern Myanmar, where war between various ethnic armies 

and the Myanmar Army has raged since June 2011. This conflict 

over the last several years has displaced more than 170,000 civilians. We have documented torture, killings, attacks on civilians, 

and forced labor committed on the front lines of the conflict near 

the Myanmar/China border. The Government of Myanmar currently restricts aid groups from delivering assistance to displaced 

communities in Kachin and northern Shan States creating a ready 

environment for trafficking to China. Displaced women and girls 

64

are particularly at risk of being abducted, deceived or forced into 

marriages in China. 

The use of recruitment of child soldiers is another issue that we 

have been focusing on. This likewise continues to be a problem in 

northern Myanmar and other parts of the country. Accountability 

for the use of recruitment of child soldiers in Myanmar continues 

to be very, very weak. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we believe Myanmar, Bangladesh, 

Thailand, and Malaysia have failed to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. It is a view of Fortify Rights 

that these countries should be relegated to Tier 3 status. Thank 

you again for the opportunity to be here to share with you and I 

would be very happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you so very much. 

Mr. Eaves? 

STATEMENT OF MR. JESSE EAVES, DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND 

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, HUMANITY UNITED 

Mr. EAVES. Well thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for convening this incredibly important hearing and for inviting us to testify. Both you and Ranking Member Bass and the other members 

of the subcommittee have really been leaders in the fight against 

human trafficking, forced labor, and modern day slavery around 

the world and thanks to your tireless efforts, America remains a 

global leader in combating these atrocious crimes. So it is my 

pleasure to be here today representing Humanity United and our 

partners around the world who are working to combat modern day 

slavery. 

Humanity United is a philanthropic organization based in San 

Francisco, California, and it was started by Pam and Pierre 

Omidyar to build peace and advance human freedom around the 

globe, and we have been working on ending modern slavery for 

over a decade. Now this hearing is really an opportunity to shed 

a light on the critical importance of the United States in combating 

trafficking. 

In 15 years on since the Palermo Protocol, and the original Trafficking Victims Protection Act that you authored, Mr. Chairman, 

almost every country in the world has laws that address human 

trafficking to some degree. And much of the credit for the rise in 

action against slavery can be attributed to the work of the State 

Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. 

A strong TIP office with strong tools is a powerful catalyst for 

change and it holds countries, including the U.S., accountable for 

their actions or inactions against human trafficking. 

But if these tools are compromised or the TIP office weakened, 

we really stand to lose much of the ground that we have gained 

over the past 15 years. And the opportunity is now and the tools 

are definitely available to make U.S. engagement more coordinated, effective and efficient in tackling human trafficking. 

So Mr. Chairman, obviously the TIP Report is a critical resource 

to organizations like Humanity United and, though may loathe to 

admit it, countries around the world. Whether a country governments denounce the TIP Report or rejoice in their rankings, the 

TIP Report is a key driver for national change and we have seen 

that again and again around the world. 

The leverage and impact of the TIP Report is and remains that 

there are consequences to where a country is placed on the tier 

rankings. Countries don’t want to be known as having failed to 

meet the minimum standards or to be a safe haven for traffickers, 

and if they fail to meet those minimum standards, there are real 

consequences in the form of targeted U.S. sanctions. So between 

moving a country to act and then providing funds to help them 

take the first steps, the TIP Report and the resulting assistance 

programs that the TIP office manages create real change on the 

ground. 

So for instance in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2013, it included key provisions of the Child ProtecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Aug 18, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\042215\94307 SHIRL
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tion Compact Act which you wrote and championed, Mr. Chairman. 

This legislation allows the State Department to partner with a government and set measurable goals over a multi-year period to 

strengthen the protection systems for vulnerable children and improve justice systems so that they investigate and prosecute those 

that would exploit a child. 

And just this year, the trafficking office announced its intention 

to sign the first ever Child Protection Compact with the country of 

Ghana. So this is a tremendous opportunity to partner with a country that has historically not received much trafficking in persons 

program funding but has a high prevalence of trafficking, particularly of children. And there are several reasons for excitement over 

this new effort. 

So first, while attempts to address child labor and other abuses 

in the cocoa industry have been ongoing for a decade, other sectors 

such as fishing, gold mining, forced begging, domestic labor exploitation, and forced prostitution all remain a problem. Second, 

launching this pilot effort in Ghana is a regionally smart choice. 

Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa face extremely low capacity 

to adequately address the issues raised in the TIP Report. U.S. 

partnership will go a long way to elevate the work of our partners 

who are addressing the low capacity of these governments and of 

local communities to help enable them to tackle human trafficking 

more effectively. 

So, for example, International Justice Mission is working to 

strengthen the justice systems to address slave labor in the fishing 

industry in Lake Volta, and Free the Slaves is working in cocoa 

and gold mining communities to address the root causes of vulnerability through a focus on education. So the funding for the Child 

Protection Compacts bolsters U.S. credibility and should absolutely 

continue, but so should overall funding for anti-trafficking programs at large. 

The TIP office currently funds projects in 76 countries. However, 

these grants are typically very small and very limited in scope, and 

last year the TIP office received applications for a $107 million 

with the programming, but was only able to provide $18 million. 

So that is $18 million put up against a $150 billion industry. So 

we see from the testimony today that the TIP Report, the TIP office 

and the U.S. Government’s overall efforts to combat human trafficking raised the level of accountability and transformation that 

can occur around the world. 

So with this activity, however, there is one glaring gap, and Ambassador Lagon raised this right at the top of his testimony. The 

Trafficking in Persons Ambassador position at the State Department has been vacant for 5 months, and the absence of a TIP Ambassador jeopardizes U.S. leadership, period. Without an ambassador, the transformational impact of the TIP office is severely limited, so the administration has to appoint a strong TIP Ambassador 

immediately, especially as we enter this critical period prior to the 

release of the TIP Report. 

So Mr. Chairman, the TIP Report remains a critical element in 

this fight against human trafficking around the world, but we obviously still have work to do. Yourself, and Members of Congress, 

have given the administration good tools and it is critical that we 

82

work together so that these tools are not left to rust in the toolbox. 

We in civil society stand ready to deepen the conversation and 

work with you to ensure that together as partners we are on a path 

toward eradicating human trafficking and modern day slavery and 

advancing the cause of human freedom. 

So thank you so much for this opportunity and for holding this 

hearing and I look forward to your questions. 

[Mr. Eaves did not submit a prepared statement.] 

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

your leadership and for your testimony, all of you. 

We do have some votes that will be triggered in probably 5 or 

10 minutes, if not sooner, so I thought I would ask a series of questions and perhaps my good friend and colleague Mr. Meadows 

might, and as best you can if you could pick through those questions, and otherwise a lot of questions will lay on the table. We will 

get some additional ones to you and if you could get back to us in 

the record. 

Let me just begin, Ambassador Lagon. With you, with China, you 

were very strong in your statements about China. Do you believe 

China should be Tier 3? 

Ambassador LAGON. Yes, I do. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. You pointed out in your testimony 

one of the drivers, and when you were Ambassador was the one 

who finally put those two together that those missing daughters in 

China, many of whom now are—it is right through a couple of generations. The one-child-per-couple policy has been in effect since 

1979. 

But you point out that the missing girls, the missing females has 

become a magnet for the traffickers, particularly for the countries 

in proximity to China. That shows no sign of abatement, if anything it is getting worse. Unfortunately, Xi Jinping has shown no, 

I mean the talk of reforming the one-child policy was what they 

have done previously with talk. It is basically talk for international 

consumption but very little in terms of on the ground; if you could 

speak to that. 

And you did point out, and I thought it was a very important 

point that you brought out. When we did the Trafficking Victims 

Protection Act, there was a sea-change in how we look at the 

women who are exploited, the children, all of the exploited ones as 

victims, rather than perpetrators of crime. And you pointed out 

that the women, when they are apprehended by the Chinese Government, are treated by criminals. If you might want to expand 

upon that if you would. 

I would point out, and kudos to the Associated Press for the tremendous work they did with their year-long investigation. It might 

have even been longer with regards to Thai food, of tuna especially. 

I recently went to a store and picked out some Bumblebee tuna and 

one was made in Thailand, the other said made in China. They 

were right next to each other. So my thought is there is probably 

a whole lot of wrongdoing going on on the Chinese side, too, as well 

as exploitation of fishermen and right through the supply chain 

that needs to be looked at. 

But they did enormously good investigative work to bring all of 

this forward, and hopefully General Prayut will follow through as 

83

he seems to have indicated he would to end this egregious practice. 

But hanging in the balance is whether or not Thailand, again, is 

replaced or put back on I should say on Tier 3, and many of you 

wanted to speak to that. 

But again I want to thank Martha Mendoza and the Associated 

Press. Without objection, their report will be made a part of the 

record. 

And we also ask you, Father Cullen, your points upon the exploitation in the Philippines. In late 1980s, early 1990s and one of my 

brothers was a fighter pilot on the USS Enterprise. He flew A–7s. 

And he was appalled. 

We had talk after talk about how when our ships would come in 

they, would make a beeline to places of exploitation of young girls, 

many of them underage. And then when the guys came back, they 

would line up at sick bay to take care of an assortment of sexually 

transmitted diseases, but meanwhile leaving behind an exploited 

young girl. 

I have a bill that I have been working on for 8 years called the 

International Megan’s Law, which again coincides with what you 

talked about, U.S. citizens as well as others making their way into 

the Philippines to exploit little children. This would advise the 

country of destination in a timely fashion of any convicted 

pedophile, Megan’s Law registrees, of the travel plans of that individual. It has passed the House three times, just passed again in 

January. It remains in the Senate. My hope is that the Senate will 

take it up and pass it and get it to the President. 

But if we don’t start noticing and taking action, you can’t stop 

them, perhaps, from traveling but you can tell the Philippines they 

are coming. You can tell Bangkok they are coming. And they can 

deny them a visa or they can take other appropriate means. And 

you might want to speak to that. 

And you did mention in your testimony, Father Cullen, about the 

U.S. ships coming in, whether or not you are seeing a resurgence 

of that kind of exploitation. I say that because when we learned 

that in Korea, that many U.S. servicemen, and I actually got a 

video from an investigative reporter, not unlike at the AP, who 

worked for the Fox News from Ohio who showed me a video of 

women in Filipino juicy bars, as they euphemistically call them, 

where they were being exploited. There were Russian women there 

and mostly Filipino women and they couldn’t leave. 

And Bush, to his everlasting credit, President Bush issued a zero 

tolerance of policy and made it actionable under the Uniform Code 

of Military Justice if any service members are involved with trafficking or prostitution. So if there are those kinds of things happening and men are exploiting women in the Philippines, please 

give us that information because it is actionable. 

And it looks like we are being called for a vote, but if you could 

speak to that. I have many many other questions, but I will go to 

my friend Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I will be very brief. We have got a series of questions that we will get to all of you and you can respond. But Ambassador, I want to come to you. And one, thank you for your work, 

but piggyback on something the chairman was talking about in a 

meeting that he and I participated in almost 2 years ago now. 

84

I found it just interesting that the head of the U.N. was not 

aware of, according to him, of some of these issues that we have 

highlighted today in China, specifically in China, he acted like it 

was the first time he had heard about it. So my question is this, 

what can we do on the international scene? One is an awareness 

here in the United States to do something about it. What can we 

do to make more of an emphasis internationally, other than a TIP 

Report or sanctions or anything else that obviously doesn’t happen, 

how can we best do that? So I will let you answer that. 

And then the other is the Invisible Girl project as you know has 

looked at the root cause, primarily in India which is, I think, a Tier 

2 country right now. But that imbalance that the chairman was 

talking about in China and we are also seeing in India. Does that 

imbalance where really abortions create that imbalance, does that 

increase the trafficking that we are seeing both in India and in 

China? 

And I will leave it to you. I want to thank each of you for your 

work. My daughter first let me know about this unbelievable, horrific blight on our world when she was 15. She did a report on it; 

she has been actively involved in it. And so for all of those that are 

listening out there, you never know who is listening to you. And 

little did she know that her bringing, that up that her dad would 

be a Member of Congress and be here in a hearing today. And so 

I just want to say thank you so much for continuing to speak up 

for those who can’t, Mr. Ambassador. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And before we go to questions, we 

do have a few more minutes. Father, you talked about forced abortion for trafficking victims. That is the way that the traffickers deal 

with a woman, or a young girl, who becomes pregnant. 

We had a situation in my own state where a group called Live 

Action, a sting operation was done with Planned Parenthood. And 

a would-be, fake pimp with a young Hispanic girl went into one 

Planned Parenthood after another, including at Perth Amboy 

where I went to high school, and to my shock because I have 

watched the video, I have watched it many times, the Planned Parenthood representative said we can get her an abortion, she was 

13, and get her back on the street. 

And at one point the Planned Parenthood person said, again 

from an area where I went to high school, Perth Amboy, said she 

may not be all that good from the waist down but she will be usable from the waist up. I was sickened. I was angry. No action was 

taken by prosecutors against that. And yet we know throughout 

the world that the collaboration of the abortion industry and trafficking of victims is very real. And I’m wondering now or in the future if there are any NGOs that you know of that are participating 

in that kind of—this was Planned Parenthood in Perth Amboy, 

New Jersey, and just was an eye-opener to me because we know 

this is going on all over the world, and what other NGOs are 

complicit in exploiting that young little girl when she was like 13 

that they were talking about. So if you could speak to that as well. 

And then, Ambassador Lagon, on Rwanda you said watchdogs on 

trafficking have been leashed and muzzled. That is outrageous. We 

are planning a Rwanda-specific hearing in the coming weeks. I 

85

would like to elaborate on that at that hearing. So please proceed 

on all the questions. 

Ambassador LAGON. With apologies. As I told your staff in advance, I am co-hosting an event at the National Endowment for Democracy for just such journalists from Africa who are being muzzled, and I am going to need to go. If I may, in a minute, respond 

to your questions. 

You said, poignantly, that when numbers go into the millions 

they become statistics, and they are not treated as a human story. 

But the gender imbalance in places like India and China as a function of policy and a function of cultures that don’t value girls, it 

causes a problem. It is a market dynamic and it spikes the demand 

for both buying brides and for the sex industry. When added to it, 

is a heartless policy by China to treat refugees, people who are 

really refugees from North Korea as economic migrants and they 

just be sent home and their traffickers or their exploiters can hold 

that over their head, it is much worse. 

You asked for a larger answer. It is not only in the lap of business, but it is in my view that it is very important for the governments and the NGOs that are out there to work in partnership 

with businesses. They have an interest in not having their business 

operations tainted by this, so that those cans of tuna are not tainted by slavery on the high seas or in seafood processing plants like 

those that I visited in Samut Sakhon in Thailand. 

I am sorry I have to go, but I thank you for your leadership. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Ambassador. 

Fr. CULLEN. Okay, I will just answer quickly. I know time is of 

the essence. But the abortion, forced abortion of young girls. Of 

course when they get pregnant, in the sex bars and clubs it is common knowledge. It is evidence of a crime. It is evidence that the 

child can point to the father. Sometimes at the sex bars in our 

areas, especially Angeles City, the big areas, Olongapo, they are operated by U.S. nationals, some of them foreign nationals, and 

therefore if the young girl in the bar, many of them underage, get 

pregnant, of course they have to eliminate the evidence. So that is 

one of the big drives behind the abortion in the industry. It is not 

to recycle the girl again, they can get so many from the countryside. So that is how we see it. 

And they get away with it because of the rule of law in all areas 

and anti-trafficking is so miserable. It is so I mean prevalent that 

is just so hard to implement even basic laws, never mind the AntiChild Pornography Law, which is totally ignored. And we could 

have saved a lot of children from being abused if only make it quite 

problematic for them to transmit this one. 

The second is tourism. The business of the name of sex tourism 

has to be damaging the whole economy of it and government officials just can’t see it. However, corrupt politicians who own the hotels, the properties and so on, they will promote sex tourism because of—their hotels are full of these people. And even the other 

kind of tourism, you will find on the Internet, as we have researched, and you will see like a diving school in a remote island, 

and the advertisement is bring your own girls. Pick them up in Angeles City and bring them with you. 

86

So the military, just that one and now coming back in again, and 

this new extended Visiting Forces Agreement is opening up Philippines as a gimmick to get around the constitutional ban on military facilities in the Philippines. So we see that more and more of 

these Philippine Military bases are being turned into the sort of 

proxy military bases for U.S. troops. 

Now that is all good, but they have a way around the law. We 

are aware of the good law that was banning these. They don’t go 

to the sex bars even though there’ll be advertisements, welcome 

you as Navy or Air Force, but what they are doing as we have discovered very recently with my staff, they are renting hotels. Somebody is promoting this. rent hotels, they stock them with young 

girls, and then the sailors check in the normal way but their room 

is already occupied. It is a technique to get around this and of 

course the poor women are already trapped and there is no way 

out, so those few remarks kind of focus on how the tricks of the 

trade go. 

But local government is for us, okay, the national government, 

they cannot, I mean at the level of the national government they 

cannot reach this problem. It is local government who are the most 

corrupt. They give the permit to the sex bar, and as I say foreign 

nationals run a lot of these bars. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Smith? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir. With respect to the question about Thailand, 

as mentioned it is our view, and we do regret it, but it is our view 

that Thailand should continue at Tier 3. There have been some efforts that have been made which you have highlighted particularly 

registering migrants, I would just like to emphasize this is still an 

ad hoc policy. Thailand has had an enormous population of refugees and migrants for quite a long time so this is still an ad hoc 

policy. 

The government is currently directing migrants who want to register, which of course would help them avoid situations of exploitation, the government is still directing them to brokers. When 

they are directed to brokers there are situations of corruption and 

exploitation. In some cases it is exploitation on top of exploitation. 

Refugees are still held in detention, and this is of course a word 

that the authorities do not like to use, but the facts of the matter 

is that refugees are still behind bars. We have visited them. 

I regret actually not bringing pictures after seeing Father 

Cullen’s photos. There have been preventable deaths in detention, 

so we are talking about not only refugees being held in detention, 

people are dying in detention. They don’t have enough food. And 

these are primarily the cases that we focused on, Rohingya Muslims. Local Muslim communities are providing food and basic necessities to people who are within government custody because the 

government is not providing that for them. 

There is still a help-on policy, thousands of boats arriving. And 

as I mentioned there were only five cases involving Rohingya, trafficking cases in 2014. This is a policy that continues today. It is 

our understanding, as right now, as we speak there are over 1,000 

people being held in a torture camp on the border of Thailand and 

Malaysia, right at this moment. We are not seeing any raids on 

these camps. It is our understanding that the authorities know 

87

where these camps are, but the objective is to usher the asylum 

seekers to Malaysia. And the justification for this is that, well, the 

Rohingya want to go to Malaysia. 

So there are some serious problems still happening there, and of 

course this help-on policy where boats are just pushed back out to 

sea is in violation of the principle of non-refoulement, so we remain 

very concerned about that as well. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Eaves. 

Mr. EAVES. Well, in relation to Thailand we have seen yet again, 

as we see every year, the debate between the regional bureau in 

the State Department and the Trafficking in Persons office over 

where to place a country. This year in particular there has been 

incredibly strong pushback. You have the Trans-Pacific Partnership 

in play, you have Thailand as a potential regional ally militarily 

and otherwise, so the pressure is very strong. But based on what 

we are seeing on the ground, based on the media reports, the partners that we fund, we definitely feel that Thailand would need to 

remain on Tier 3 for another year. We have seen some positive 

vocal statements, but nothing has actually been implemented yet. 

And I think to what Representative Clawson was saying earlier, 

we are actually seeing the marketplace and the corporate sides 

start to add some pressure as well. Corporations are being forced 

to deal with this and we are seeing the private sector step up and 

start to put pressure on the Thai Government to create a regulatory framework that they can work under so that they can start 

to address this entrenched issue of exploitation within their supply 

chains. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you so very much. We do have 

to vote. They are out of time on the floor so I am going to have 

to run, but I thank you. Anything that you want to send to us to 

augment your testimonies, all of which will be made a part of the 

record, and I thank you for not just the preparation and the 

thought that went into it but above all, your leadership. And it is 

so deeply appreciated, and thank you for defending those who are 

at risk. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:04 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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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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