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TIER RANKINGS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 18, 2013

Serial No. 113–55

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 

TREY RADEL, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

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

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Mark Lagon, International Relations and Security chair, Master of Science in Foreign Service Program, Georgetown University (former 

Ambassador-at-Large for Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State) 9

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D., executive director, Boat People SOS ...................... 20

Ms. Suzanne Scholte, president, North Korea Freedom Coalition ...................... 28

Mr. Brian Campbell, director of Policy and Legal Programs, International 

Labor Rights Forum ............................................................................................. 35

Ms. Esther Choe, victim of human trafficking ...................................................... 84

Mr. David Abramowitz, vice president, Policy & Government Relations, Humanity United ...................................................................................................... 90

Ms. Carol Smolenski, executive director, End Child Prostitution and Child 

Trafficking-USA ................................................................................................... 108

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Mark Lagon: Prepared statement ................................................ 13

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................. 23

Ms. Suzanne Scholte: Prepared statement ............................................................ 31

Mr. Brian Campbell: Prepared statement ............................................................. 39

Ms. Esther Choe: Prepared statement ................................................................... 87

Mr. David Abramowitz: Prepared statement ........................................................ 94

Ms. Carol Smolenski: Prepared statement ............................................................ 112

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 144

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 145

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

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

statement .............................................................................................................. 146

Mr. David Abramowitz: Material submitted for the record ................................. 148

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record .......................... 152

Ms. Suzanne Scholte: Material submitted for the record ..................................... 159

(1)

TIER RANKINGS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST 

HUMAN TRAFFICKING 

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013

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 1:12 p.m., in room 

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

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing will come to order. 

Good afternoon and welcome to this afternoon’s hearing on the 

role of tier rankings in the fight against human trafficking. Many 

of you joining us this afternoon have been in this fight from the 

very beginning. From the year 2000, when my Trafficking Victims 

Protection Act of 2000 created not only the Office to Monitor and 

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

the annual TIP Report. At the time, I don’t think anyone could 

have predicted that this report and the work of the trafficking office would become the international gold standard and the primary 

means of anti-trafficking accountability around the world. From the 

halls of Parliaments to police stations in remote corners of the 

world, this report is being used to focus anti-trafficking work in 

186 countries on the key areas of prevention, prosecution, and protection. 

The fact that it has been so successful is a credit to the hard and 

careful work of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in 

Persons. Each year this office evaluates whether the government of 

a country is fully complying the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking or, if not, whether the government is 

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

world to see and summarized in a tier ranking. Tier I countries 

fully meet the minimum standards; Tier II countries do not meet 

the minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to do 

so; Tier III countries do not meet the standards and are not making significant efforts to do so. Along with the embarrassment of 

being listed on Tier III, Tier III countries are open to sanction by 

the United States Government. 

Since the TIP Report’s inception, more than 100 countries have 

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

steps to required to significantly raise their tier rankings, citing 

the TIP Report as a key factor in their increased anti-trafficking 

2

response. In the 2003 Trafficking in Persons Reauthorization Act, 

I and my colleagues in Congress created the Tier II Watch List. 

This list was intended to encourage anti-trafficking progress in a 

country that took positive anti-trafficking steps late in the evaluation year, especially those countries that took last minute measures 

to avoid a Tier III designation. We wanted to reward good faith efforts and to encourage them to continue. 

However, some countries made a habit of last minute efforts and 

failed to follow through year after year, gaming the system. Consequently, in 2008, Congress created an automatic downgrade for 

any country that had been on the Tier II Watch List for 2 years, 

but had not made enough significant effort to go to Tier II. The 

President can waive a Tier III downgrade for an additional 2 years 

if there is credible evidence that a country has a written and sufficiently resourced plan to meet the minimum standards. 

The automatic downgrade would protect the integrity of the tier 

system and ensure it worked properly to ensure real progress in 

the fight against human trafficking. It has now been 4 years since 

the 2-year limit or 4 years with a waiver limit was instituted. 

China, Russia, Uzbekistan, the Republic of Congo, Iraq, and Azerbaijan have now had at least 4 full years of warning that they 

would face a downgrade to Tier III if they did not make significant 

efforts to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and prevent trafficking. Now their time on the Tier II Watch List is up. 

In this hearing today, and it is the first of a series, we will take 

a close look at the records of these countries in 2012. If these countries have once again failed to make significant efforts to meet the 

minimum standards, the State Department must downgrade them 

or risk undermining the credibility and demonstrated power of the 

TIP Report. I am particularly concerned about the Government of 

China’s record. The Government of China has been on Tier II 

Watch List for 8 consecutive years, in large part because its plan 

to fight human trafficking is inadequate, unevenly implemented, 

and the Government of China has not been making significant efforts to comply with minimum standards. Law enforcement in 

China is still not trained to identify or respond properly to sex or 

labor trafficking victims. I have heard reports that local police are 

often unwilling to help parents find missing children who may have 

been enslaved in a local brick kiln, and that officials have been 

known to profit from brick kilns that exploit children. 

As we will hear from a brave trafficking survivor today, the Government of China continues to forcibly repatriate North Korean 

trafficking victims who face severe punishment, including execution, upon their return to North Korea. I would note parenthetically that we have had several hearings in this subcommittee, and 

I have chaired them, where we have had victims tell that story. We 

met with the High Commissioner for the UNHCR on the issue of 

sending them back, which obviously violates the Refugee Convention, and we have had no progress, none whatsoever, in that area. 

Moreover, the Government of China’s continued one-child-percouple policy has absolutely decimated China’s female population. 

As a matter of fact, I mentioned yesterday when Secretary Kerry 

was here that there is a book by Mara Hvistendahl in which she 

points out that because of sex selection abortion and the gendercide 

3

that has occurred in Asia, there are 160 million missing women 

and girls. That is across all of Asia; of course, India and China 

being the two leading. Not only is it a crime of gender and a crime 

against humanity, because it is selecting-out those children because 

they are girls, it also has become a huge magnet for human trafficking. 

Tens of millions of girls, as I said, are missing from the population of China alone, making China a magnet for sex and bride 

trafficking, as men reach marrying age but cannot find a mate. 

One estimate puts it at 37 million to as much as 50 million men 

who cannot find brides right now. And that will not change because 

the demographic nightmare has been in the process of being made 

since the one-child-per-couple policy of 1979. 

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

trafficking problems, but is creating an incentive for human trafficking problems in the whole region. The Government of 

Uzbekistan’s record is also of great concern, as the government 

itself continues to force hundreds of thousands of school-aged children and adults to work in fields during the cotton harvest each 

year. The Government of the Republic of Congo, despite making 

some progress in 2010 with the passage of a law that would prevent child trafficking, has failed in the last 2 years to convict a single person under the law, despite the pervasive child trafficking in 

their country. 

The Government of Russia has had 9 years of warning, 9 years 

without significant change. They, too, should be downgraded. I 

would note parenthetically that I wanted to go to Russia just a couple of months ago and was told I couldn’t get a visa—denied a visa. 

During the worst days of the Soviet Union, when I was going along 

with Frank Wolf and others into gulags, we got visas. Couldn’t get 

a visa just during the Lincoln Day, Presidents’ Day break. Denied 

a visa. I am going to apply again. One of the top issues we were 

going to discuss was human trafficking. 

The Government of Russia does not have in place a formal procedure for identification and referral of trafficking victims by law enforcement, labor inspectors, and other government officials. The 

Government of Russia still has not established a government body 

to organize government anti-trafficking activities, nor does it adequately fund shelters or services for victims. Russia’s citizens are 

trafficked from Russia to countries all over the globe, as well as 

within Russia, and many are now coming in, particularly labor 

trafficking, to Russia. And the government does not have a national trafficking education or prevention plan. 

The Government of Azerbaijan continues to use administrative 

fines for traffickers, allowing traffickers to write off the crime of 

trafficking as a simple business expense that is less expensive than 

hiring their workers. 

The Government of Iraq has been on the Watch List since the 

TIP Report first began to hold them accountable in 2009. Like trafficking victims elsewhere in the world, the victims in Iraq need 

protection. Those who are vulnerable to trafficking need prevention 

measures, and traffickers need to be brought to justice. We will 

also be focusing on Vietnam. 

4

But the importance of accurate tier ratings cannot be overstated. 

Over the last 12 years, we have seen countries begin in earnest the 

hard work of reaching the minimum standards after the TIP Report accurately exposed with a Tier III rating each country’s failure 

to take significant action against human trafficking. I would note 

parenthetically that great friends like Israel and South Korea were 

Tier III countries, and they moved mightily not just to get off the 

list but to clean up the egregious practices that were occurring 

within their countries. By the same token, a premature boost to 

Tier II, such as what occurred in Vietnam last year, may not only 

undermine progress, but fail to inspire any kind of action. 

The tier rankings were meant to be and in large part have become a powerful tool in the fight against human trafficking. I look 

forward this afternoon to a candid discussion. And we do have assembled a great group of experts who are in the know to tell us 

their views, and hopefully the administration will be listening. 

I yield to Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Once again, I want 

to commend you for your unwavering commitment to end human 

trafficking around the world. Your tireless work on the 

groundbreaking Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and its 

subsequent reauthorization has been remarkable. It has been very 

important to me to learn about your work on this topic, and I look 

forward to working together to combat human trafficking internationally, as well as domestically. 

In 2012, according to the International Labor Organization, nearly 21 million individuals worldwide were subjected to conditions of 

human trafficking. Throughout the same year, the United Nations 

reports that trafficking victims have been identified by authorities 

in 118 countries and comprised at least 136 nationalities. I appreciate that this hearing has been convened today to examine the impact of the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report, or 

the TIP Report, and specifically the tier rankings included therein. 

The TIP Report rankings have undoubtedly proven to be strategic 

tools to incentivize anti-trafficking policies, as well as to hold countries accountable for their inaction. 

The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 

2008 smartly limits the amount of time a country could remain on 

the special Tier II Watch List. And I agree, it is critical that the 

United States closely examine the countries that have exhausted 

their time on the Tier II list. An up-and-down tier determination 

reflecting the best interests of the victims and survivors of human 

trafficking will help maintain the integrity and power of the TIP 

Report. 

In 2010, for the first time, the TIP Report also evaluated our own 

Nation’s efforts to address human trafficking. While the assessment has been helpful in highlighting certain types of trafficking, 

it does not include alarming data that was recently reported about 

domestic minor victims. This issue is particularly important to me 

because it greatly impacts my city of Los Angeles and our Nation’s 

foster youth, a vulnerable yet resilient population that we pledge 

to protect and to care for. So, for the record, in my congressional 

district, hundreds of domestic youth are commercially exploited 

each year. In 2012, Los Angeles County reported at least 60 perVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:05 Sep 25, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041813\80464 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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cent of the youth identified as victims of sex trafficking were in the 

foster care system. Similarly alarming statistics have emerged from 

jurisdictions across the country. In Connecticut, 98 percent of child 

victims of sex trafficking were child welfare involved, 85 percent in 

New York, 70 percent in Florida were also in the child welfare system. 

Worse still, recent headlines indicate that pimps are now targeting foster youth group homes as hubs to recruit vulnerable girls, 

and increasingly gangs are engaged in commercial sexual exploitation. Yet few child welfare employees have been adequately 

trained or prepared to respond to child victims of trafficking, and 

fewer still have incorporated policies, protocols, and case management techniques to serve this population appropriately. One young 

survivor shared with me that she felt that our foster care system 

actually set her up to be trafficked, because she said that while she 

was moved from foster home to foster home, it wasn’t until she was 

recruited by a pimp that she actually felt that someone cared about 

her. And that is a sad statement to say about our system. 

Unfortunately, this story is far too common. In an effort to drastically decrease the number of foster youth who participate in this 

horrible exploitation, I plan to reintroduce the bipartisan Strengthening Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act, along with my 

colleague on the subcommittee, Representative Tom Marino. The 

bill will provide child welfare employees with appropriate tools to 

document, identify, educate, and counsel child victims of trafficking 

and those at risk, require child welfare agencies to report the numbers of victims of trafficking in foster care, as well as their plans 

to combat trafficking to the Federal Government. 

This is just one of the strategies that we should explore to address human trafficking domestically. In fact, the White House, in 

conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services, 

Homeland Security, and the Justice Department recently released 

the Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services for Victims of Human 

Trafficking. This plan aims to create a more coordinated victim 

services network where identified victims of human trafficking 

have access to the full array of services needed for recovery. And 

the recent reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection 

Act, although not perfect, solidified the ongoing bipartisan commitment of the United States to end human trafficking. 

During this hearing, I look forward to further exploring the impact and specifics of the recently reauthorized law. I am also interested in discussing strategies to address specific types of trafficking, both domestic and abroad, while embracing an inclusive 

approach that acknowledges that human trafficking affects U.S. 

citizens and foreign nationals, as well as millions of adults and 

children, men and women worldwide, who are victimized across a 

wide range of commercial sex and forced labor schemes. 

In closing, I would like to recognize and thank our witnesses 

today. Your leadership in combating trafficking is inspiring and 

has truly made a difference throughout the world. I look forward 

to hearing your testimony today and gaining a better understanding of where the gaps in our effort to end human trafficking 

may exist. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for your statement. 

6

I would like to now yield to Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank each of you for being here today to testify and obviously on this very important topic. We have had a number of hearings on this particular issue, and none more important than today’s 

hearing where we talk about how we identify and how we address 

this issue, not only as a Nation, but as the State Department grapples with this particular issue on how to integrate this as part of 

their ongoing strategy with negotiations with other countries. 

And yet here we are talking about human trafficking, and we 

must find some standard to be able to tie the economic interest 

globally that we have. We would not tolerate this type of behavior 

with our own companies here in the United States, and yet we 

seem to turn a blind eye to it internationally. Even as recent yesterday, with Secretary Kerry here speaking and testifying, we 

talked about, one of my colleagues opposite brought up, is there a 

standard. And the response to that was somewhat troubling in that 

there was not a standard there when we talk about ongoing negotiations. 

And so what I am interested in hearing from each one of you is 

how Congress can get involved and perhaps be the bad guy here. 

We understand the State Department has a tough job to do as they 

negotiate. But we need to put forth legislation. And as the ranking 

member was just pointing out, there is a bipartisan resolve on solving this and making sure that human trafficking is not something 

that we not only talk about doing away with, but that we are active 

in doing that. And I, for one, am committed to working with each 

one of you to do just that. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Meadows, thank you so much. 

Mr. Bera. 

Mr. BERA. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing on 

an important issue of human trafficking. I am pleased that our 

subcommittee is calling attention to this tragic and persistent problem. 

And thank you to the witnesses for being here and helping elevate the conversation. It is absolutely essential that we take a 

stand. 

And despite efforts by the United States and the international 

community to eliminate trafficking, it continues to occur in virtually every country in the world. According to the International 

Labor Organization, some 20.9 million individuals worldwide in 

2012 were likely subjected to conditions of human trafficking. That 

is unacceptable. 

Women and children are especially vulnerable. In 2009, it was 

estimated that 1.2 million children were trafficked worldwide for 

sexual exploitation, including prostitution or the production of sexually abusive images. Again, that is intolerable. As a planet and as 

a community of nations, we can’t tolerate that. 

Fortunately, there are individuals taking a stand against this 

heinous crime. And again, Mr. Chairman, I applaud you for making 

this a focus of our committee. 

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to meet three brothers 

from New Delhi, Ravi, Rishi and Nishi Kant. They were honored 

7

by Vice President Biden at the Vital Voices Global Leadership 

Awards held at the Kennedy Center for their humanitarian work 

and efforts to end violence and human trafficking. In 2001, the 

three brothers founded Shakti Vahini, an organization that works 

for the rights of women and children in India. Over the past decade, Shakti Vahini has rescued more than 2,000 people, 70 percent 

of whom were children. 

The brothers have combined their unique skills. Ravi is a supreme court advocate and works on legal issues, Nishi is a licensed 

social worker, and Rishi handles public affairs and works to garner 

media attention about their important work to help build a highly 

successful social service organization. 

According to the Indian Government, 19,524 minors went missing in Kolkata in 2011, of which only 7,227 were traced; 8,725 were 

women. Most of the missing persons end up in prostitution, forced 

marriages, or begging rackets. The National Human Rights Commission of India reports that only 10 percent of human trafficking 

in India is international, while almost 90 percent is interstate. 

Nearly 40,000 children are abducted every year, of which 11,000 remain untraced. Unacceptable. 

For more than a decade, these three brothers have been fighting 

violence against women, honor killings, human trafficking, child 

labor, and slavery. They have proposed new laws while demanding 

that current rules be enforced. They have also improved access to 

social services and empowered victims to take action. Shakti 

Vahini has helped train more than 6,000 policemen and has helped 

develop specialized training units that can work closely with law 

enforcement. Thanks to the hard work of the Kants, India’s Parliament has passed a broad law last month making stalking and 

sexual harassment a crime. 

We still have much more to do. The Kants believe they are witnessing a sea change not only for the victims of violent rapes, but 

also for victims of human trafficking. I was proud to meet Ravi, 

Rishi, and Nishi Kant to discuss their work to combat violence 

against women. Their organization Shakti Vahini is a great example of how men can be leaders in the fight to end violence again 

women. 

I am interested to hear the testimony of our witnesses and learn 

how the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report can be 

improved and what we can do to help fight this horrible injustice. 

And, again, I applaud you, Mr. Chairman, for shedding light on 

this. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate it very much. 

I would like to now yield to Mr. Stockman. 

Mr. STOCKMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just going to 

briefly say this, that I was reading in National Geographic that 

there is actually more slavery now than there was in the 1800s, 

whether it is the Lord’s Resistance Army or other Iranian or 

around the world. So I am anxious to hear what you have to say, 

and really appreciate you guys stepping forward. I wish this was 

a much more popular cause than it is. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Stockman. 

I would like to now introduce our very distinguished panel. And, 

without objection, your full statements and any additional mateVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:05 Sep 25, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041813\80464 HFA PsN: SHIRL
8

rials you would like to be made a part of the record shall be done 

so. 

Beginning with Ambassador Mark Lagon. Ambassador Lagon is 

chair for International Relations and Security and a professor in 

the practice of international affairs at Georgetown University’s 

Master of Science in Foreign Service Program, and is an adjunct 

senior fellow for human rights at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Previously, he served in the Bureau of International Organization 

Affairs at the U.S. Department of State as Deputy Assistant Secretary, with the lead responsibility for the U.N.-related human 

rights and humanitarian issues, U.N. reform and outreach. He was 

a member of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s policy planning staff. 

From 2007 to 2009, as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large, Ambassador 

Lagon directed the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in 

Persons at the U.S. Department of State. As such, he chaired by 

statute, the Senior Policy Operating Group coordinating all U.S. 

agency efforts to combat human trafficking domestically and internationally. He was also a staffer at the Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee. And he and—I know Mr. Abramowitz knows this very 

well, as he was also a key player in that legislation, working on 

the Senate side—worked very hard to make sure that the TIP legislation passed in the first place, because it had very significant opposition. 

We will then hear from Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang, who came to 

the United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1979. After earning 

his Ph.D., he began volunteering with Boat People SOS in 1998, 

now serving as the head of Boat People SOS. Dr. Thang has 

worked for the past 25 years to resettle more than 20,000 boat people to the U.S. after they escaped from Vietnam and has worked 

to rescue more than 4,000 victims of human trafficking. He has received numerous awards for his extensive work on human rights. 

Dr. Thang travels to Asia frequently, where he documents ongoing 

human rights abuses and works to help rescue victims. 

We will then hear from Ms. Suzanne Scholte, who is the president of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, who does extensive 

work focused on protecting human rights in North Korea. She was 

recognized in 2010 with the Walter Judd Freedom Award and in 

2008 with the Seoul Peace Prize. Ms. Scholte has helped rescue 

hundreds of North Korean refugees and helped bring defectors to 

speak to the United States. In addition, she has participated in 

hearings before this committee and other committees of the Congress on North Korea and has brought in trafficking victims who 

have told harrowing stories about how they were forcibly repatriated to North Korea from China and tales of unbelievable courage, 

but also of terrible degradation by government officials. 

We will then hear from Mr. Brian Campbell, who is responsible 

for the International Labor Rights Forum’s policy, legal and legislative advocacy, and runs its campaign to end child labor. For several 

years, Brian has had a leading role in advocating for an end to 

state-sponsored forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry, and 

he works closely with child labor NGO partners in Uzbekistan to 

elevate the role of civil society in the country. He works to promote 

enforcement of existing laws, policies, and standards to protect 

9

workers’ core labor rights, and to develop and improve legal and 

soft law instruments. 

We will then hear from Ms. Esther Choe, a victim of human trafficking. She was a textile worker in North Korea when she learned 

that she could make 20 times the amount of her current pay caring 

for children in China, so she decided to go to work for a short period of time. She was subsequently caught in human trafficking 

and was sold as a ‘‘wife’’ to a Chinese man who locked her up. After 

she escaped, with no one to help her, she went back to the trafficker who sold her and pled for him to help her get back home. 

But, instead, he sold her again to another Chinese man. Through 

the help of American Pastor Phillip Buck, she was able to come 

under the care of the UNHCR and eventually made it to the 

United States in 2008. 

We then welcome back a member of what used to be this staff, 

sitting right over here, David Abramowitz, who is vice president for 

Policy and Government Affairs at Humanity United, responsible for 

informing their policy-based advocacy activities, leading outreach 

efforts in the U.S. Government, multilateral institutions and international NGOs, and providing strategic counsel and advice to a 

broad range of grantees. Before joining Humanity United, Mr. 

Abramowitz worked for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs as 

chief counsel, working diligently on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, later reauthorizations, as well as the 2008 legislation, and many other foreign policy initiatives that this committee 

undertook. Prior to his work in the House, Mr. Abramowitz worked 

for the U.S. Department of State. And it is always good to have a 

member of the staff back who is so knowledgeable and so effective. 

We then will hear from Ms. Carol Smolenski, who is the executive director and one of the founders of ECPAT, or End Child Prostitution and Trafficking-USA, and has been working in the field of 

children’s rights for over 20 years. She is a longtime, nationally 

recognized leader working to stop the commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of children. She has overseen the developments of numerous projects aimed at stopping the commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of children. She has spoken at numerous conferences, presented testimony in venues ranging from 

the New York City Council to the United States Congress and to 

the United Nations. 

And welcome all. 

Ambassador, if you could begin. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK LAGON, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY CHAIR, MASTER OF 

SCIENCE IN FOREIGN SERVICE PROGRAM, GEORGETOWN 

UNIVERSITY (FORMER AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE) 

Ambassador LAGON. Thank you very much for inviting me, and 

with Representative Bass for welcoming me to offer my observations. 

Mr. Chairman, you played a central role in equipping the State 

Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons 

with the tools to elicit cooperation from other countries. And as a 

primary author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and mulVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:05 Sep 25, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041813\80464 HFA PsN: SHIRL
10

tiple reauthorizations, past victims of human trafficking, potential 

victims of human trafficking, and people like me, who have worked 

as diplomats in this function have you to thank. 

The TVPA works because of candor and tough love. And so when 

I was the Ambassador-at-Large to Combat Human Trafficking, I 

was asked by Democrats and Republicans alike in the Congress 

what I thought of the possibility of nations being able to stay indefinitely on the Tier II Watch List. I am delighted that a time 

limit was placed on that because a ‘‘watch list’’ is meaningless if 

there is no palpable prospect for a downgrade. 

Now, since the time that that was put in place in the 2008 reauthorization, one case that is quite striking was that of India, which 

faced a legislative time limit on its Tier II Watch List ranking. The 

State Department upgraded India to Tier II in 2011. And while 

there have been veritable advances on national law establishing 

that bonded labor is indeed a form of human trafficking and some 

intensified efforts at the state level in India, my own suspicion is 

that strategic reasons had as much to do with this upgrade as the 

issues on the merits. When I was confirmed by the Senate to be 

the Ambassador-at-Large, I learned that just days earlier a decision had been made at the very top level of the State Department 

to pull back from giving a Tier III ranking to India, accounting for 

its importance geostrategically. 

One other case I want to mention besides the ones that Chairman Smith has highlighted here is in the heart of the Western 

world, and far higher in the rankings: The Netherlands. The Netherlands deserves some praise: Praise for victim identification, prosecution of traffickers, and not harming or punishing victims. But 

having a legal prostitution policy and no accountability for sex buyers sends exactly the wrong signal, and creates an enabling environment for the worst sex trafficking. Moreover, the TVPA is very 

clear about accountability for officials of governments that are 

complicit in trafficking. And I am troubled by the case of the retired Dutch Justice Ministry Secretary General Joris Demmink, 

who is alleged to have raped two males in Turkey when they were 

minors. That kind of thing needs to be looked at seriously, and, as 

a result, so should the Netherlands’ ranking. 

Now, of the six nations that are facing their time limit on the 

Tier II Watch List, first and foremost is China. I am delighted that 

Suzanne Scholte is here to address issues that relate to North Koreans who flee the horrible situation there, and because of how 

China treats them, they end up being human trafficking victims in 

all too many cases. A couple of the members of the committee have 

referred to the International Labor Organization report indicating 

that 21 million people in the world are human trafficking victims. 

Notably, that study points out that 10 percent or 2.2 million are 

actually in forced labor implemented by governments and militaries and armed groups. Well, in China, a large number of those 

2.2 million are, in fact, in the laogai, in the ‘‘reeducation for labor’’ 

camps. 

Among the standards that are set in the State Department’s report about what key steps should be taken by nations, the top one, 

the first one, is closing those reeducation for labor camps. That is 

where one should look: The paragraph in each annual report that 

11

indicates the recommendations of the Department. That is the nub 

of what is being asked of a government and it is delivered quietly 

in a demarche, as well as publicly. That, and the national action 

plans that states have taken on as the price of their delay of getting Tier III, should be the grounds for looking at whether they deserve to stay off Tier III. China has been on Tier III for 8 years, 

and whether it is based on lack of transparency of government efforts, not even publishing its national action plan, or the laogai, it 

deserves to be seriously considered to Tier III. 

Of the nations we talk about today, Russia is the one that is 

most clearly moving backwards on human trafficking. The demographic and economic situation has changed since the time of the 

Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Back then, in the year 2000, the 

pattern was females migrating within and from Russia into sex 

trafficking. The main issue now is people moving into or within 

Russia for labor trafficking. And so, as the State Department has 

argued, it would be essential for the Russians to look into improving victim identification and victim assistance. 

Bill Burns, the Deputy Secretary of State, was Ambassador to 

Russia when I visited as Ambassador. He told me how Russia considers this an immigration enforcement problem, not a human 

rights problem. He is going to adjudicate differences in the Department on this matter. 

Azerbaijan has been on the Tier II Watch List for 5 years running. Most appalling is the fact that their government has been 

found to be complicit in labor and sex trafficking, and an Internal 

Affairs Anti-Trafficking Department has actually been found to be 

corrupt and part of the problem. 

When in 2008, I was the Ambassador at the State Department, 

Moldova was found to be also suffering from complicity of its own 

anti-trafficking unit, which was funded by the United States. It 

was put on Tier III, and that really got their attention. We should 

look at Azerbaijan in the same regard. 

Of all the nations that we are talking about today, the most appalling case to me, and it is in the neighborhood of the former Soviet Union as well, is Uzbekistan, with its vestige of Soviet command style economic practices of compelling younger people to pick 

cotton. Think about this. Our history of slavery is based on cotton 

picking. It would be wrong for the United States to slough off the 

issue of forced labor. And while Uzbekistan has in its most recent 

harvest moved up the age of those who have been compelled to 

work and reduced the number of people under the age of 16 or 17, 

forced labor is still going on there. No alleged strategic reasons of 

the Northern Distribution Network for supplying troops that we 

are pulling out of Afghanistan anyway should be an excuse for not 

downgrading Uzbekistan. They should let ILO inspectors come in 

and see what they are doing as a Party to two ILO conventions on 

child and forced labor. 

So, too, Iraq should not be let off the hook. Indeed, there has 

been no one who has been convicted of trafficking in the last year 

there. They need to put in place legislation. And other allies indeed 

have had their minds focused by a Tier III ranking. There is no 

reason why we would necessarily have to put economic sanctions 

on them for getting Tier III. 

12

And, finally, I want to address the Republic of Congo, where, for 

instance, child prostitution is rampant. They have a 2010 Child 

Protection Code, and yet they have not convicted a single person 

with it. They don’t have any government coordination between 

their government ministries to speak of, and they desperately need 

to ratify the U.N. Palermo Protocol. They, too, need to be seriously 

considered for Tier III status. 

The scholars Beth Simmons of Harvard University and Judith 

Kelley of Duke University have established by rigorous quantitative methods that the rankings in the TIP Report have actually 

driven countries to change their laws. That is dependent upon 

tough love. We need to make sure that the provisions that exist in 

the law that give the State Department some flexibility to figure 

out which tools are going to be most useful to elicit the most cooperation don’t let countries off the hook. And that worries me 

when the Senate-authored Trafficking Victims Protection Act reauthorization of 2013 adds well-intentioned provisions about countries taking part in multilateral fora and having partnerships with 

NGOs and businesses being given credit for that. I hope there 

won’t be grade inflation. As a professor at Georgetown, the last 

thing that countries deserve is grade inflation. If partnerships are 

more like cotton candy—pretty, sweet, fluffy, and empty—instead 

of transformative ones, they shouldn’t get higher rankings. 

It would undercut U.S. and universal values of dignity, as well 

as undercut the great success story that you helped launch at this 

end of Pennsylvania Avenue of U.S. leverage and public diplomacy 

if we weren’t to make the calls on the merits about whether countries are degrading people or helping prevent that. 

Thank you. 

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

comprehensive testimony and your leadership on this issue. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Lagon follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Dr. Thang. 

STATEMENT OF NGUYEN DINH THANG, PH.D., EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, BOAT PEOPLE SOS 

Mr. THANG. Mr. Chairman and Madam Ranking Member and all 

the distinguished members of the subcommittee, today I speak on 

behalf of the Coalition to Abolish Modern Day Slavery in Asia, or 

CAMSA, which was co-founded in February 2008 by Boat People 

SOS and other international organizations. Over the past 5 years, 

we have rescued or assisted over 4,000 victims of labor and sex 

trafficking in different destination countries, including 300 Vietnamese in Russia. 

Of all the victims that we have assisted, these 300 in Russia 

have faced the most horrid slave-like conditions and the near impossibility of escape. And note that all the perpetrators in these 

cases are Vietnamese nationals who enjoy the backing and protection of officials at the Vietnamese Embassy in Moscow. And therefore, even though I focus on Russia at this hearing, I would like 

to point out that there is a clear and direct linkage to Vietnam as 

a source country. 

Now, the number of Vietnamese victims in Russia could be in the 

tens of thousands. According to our reliable sources in Russia, 

there are approximately 3,000, yes, 3,000 Vietnamese-owned sweatshops in and around Moscow alone, each employing from a few to 

over 100 workers. Many of these workers are subjected to forced 

labor. 

There are also numerous brothels run by Vietnamese nationals 

in and around Moscow. They lure young Vietnamese women to 

Russia with a promise of employment and then force them into 

prostitution. 

Most victims that we have identified have been held captive and 

incommunicado for 3, 4, or 5 years. The factories, these garment 

factories, operate out of formerly abandoned Soviet-era military 

buildings located in isolated areas frequently patrolled by Russian 

security guards. Usually after 15 hours, 18 hours, or sometimes 20 

hours of work during the day, the victims would be herded into 

rooms without windows and locked on the outside. Most of them 

have developed skin diseases for lack of sunlight. One victim reported that she was allowed to get out into the backyard of the 

building only twice over 2 years. Those were the only times that 

she could breathe fresh air. 

Last April, a fire broke out at a sweatshop killing 12 Vietnamese 

victims because they could not escape. And then 5 months later, 

another fire broke out in another sweatshop near Moscow killing 

14 Vietnamese migrant workers because they, too, couldn’t escape. 

In very rare instances where victims manage to escape, there is no 

place for them to hide, no place for them to go to for help. There 

is no shelter. There are no NGO service providers coming to their 

assistance. There is no government agency that would protect 

them. 

Two months ago, four Vietnamese victims of sex trafficking, all 

very young girls, ran away from their traffickers, and one of them 

had a sister who testified here before this subcommittee just last 

week. They rent a small room with whatever little money they had 

21

at a private home and called us for help. We tried to contact numerous Russian NGOs that we had known for years, in 2009, only 

to find out that none of them were in operation. They had all closed 

operation because they couldn’t operate in such a hostile environment. The four escapees called the Vietnamese Embassy, but it 

turned out the Vietnamese Embassy worked hand in hand with the 

traffickers. And soon they were all recaptured by the traffickers, 

beaten savagely, and forced back into prostitution. 

It is a known fact among Vietnamese in Moscow that the local 

Russian police work for the traffickers. There is even a name for 

that, ‘‘bao ke,’’ literally translated into ‘‘insurers.’’ So these police 

officers are insurers, meaning that the police would act at the request of the traffickers to ensure that noncooperating victims will 

cooperate. 

In February of last year, two victims, husband and wife, escaped 

their sweatshop, owned by the traffickers. The local police had an 

arrest warrant on them on a fabricated charge of fighting. A month 

later, the police caught them and delivered them back to the traffickers instead of to the police station for investigation, and they 

were tortured for 2 days, fined $2,000 for the escape, and forced 

back to work. We reported this case, which involved a total of 102 

victims, to the Federal Investigative Committee of the Russian 

Federation. They responded relatively promptly and promised investigation. Soon labor inspectors visited the sweatshop,fined the 

employer for not having valid work permits for the employees, and 

left without talking to any of the victims. 

We then wrote another letter to the Investigative Committee 

alerting them that the owner had changed his company’s name and 

had relocated the factory to another location along with all the victims. Months later, actually, late January of this year, the Investigative Committee wrote to us again informing us that the local 

police had talked to the landlord at the old facility and found no 

sweatshop. Case closed. Most of the victims are still trapped in 

Russia. 

In 2003 and 2004 the Russian Federation did issue a new legal 

framework to fight human trafficking. However, that doesn’t mean 

much if the victims of human trafficking themselves are rarely 

identified as such by law enforcers, even in cases with overwhelming evidence. Last year, we reported to Russia’s Investigative 

Committee another labor trafficking case, this time involving 150 

victims who were left to starve after they stopped work to protest 

slave-like conditions. The BBC news service managed to enter the 

factory and interview the victims with lots of evidence. Weeks 

later, the Russian police mounted a raid. All victims were rescued 

and repatriated except five. These were the five strike leaders. We 

later found out that just prior to the raid the trafficker had had 

the local police send them to a local prison. And many weeks later, 

they were quietly repatriated to Vietnam. There was no investigation into the allegations of human trafficking despite a lot of evidence on tape. 

Even though my experience is limited to Vietnamese victims of 

labor and sex trafficking in Russia, the problems they face and we 

face in trying to rescue them appear to be systemic in nature. I 

don’t foresee any improvements in the near future. I don’t see how 

22

Russia could be elevated to Tier II. And since all these cases involve victims, some from Vietnam, trafficked from Vietnam to Russia, I would like to express my surprise and amazement that Vietnam was taken off the Tier II Watch List last year without demonstrating any real progress. And I would like to echo my concern—I mean Ambassador Lagon’s concern here—that taking off 

countries from the Watch List might be an evasion tactic that 

would allow them to evade the automatic drop to Tier III after 4 

years. 

And with that, I would call to this subcommittee’s attention not 

only human trafficking in Russia, but also from Vietnam to Russia 

and to other countries. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Thang, thank you so very much for your testimony and leadership. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thang follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. I would like to just say, without objection, the statement of the full committee Chairman Ed Royce will be submitted 

for the record. And Chairman Royce was here earlier on and is a 

great supporter of all our efforts and the efforts of Congress to combat this terrible human rights abuse called human trafficking. So, 

without objection, his statement is made a part of the record. 

Ms. Scholte, if you could proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MS. SUZANNE SCHOLTE, PRESIDENT, NORTH 

KOREA FREEDOM COALITION 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Congressman Smith, I want to thank you so much 

for your leadership on this issue. 

And thank you, Congressman Meadows, for being here and showing your interest in this issue of fighting human trafficking. 

In your hearing announcement you mentioned the halls of Parliament to small police stations in remote corners of the world to 

consider how governments are dealing with human trafficking. I 

would like to make clear that it is the respective Government of 

China and its small police stations that are not only failing to stop 

human trafficking in China but are, in fact, causing human trafficking. I am specifically referring to the North Korean refugees 

that have fled to China and the fact that China has refused to 

abide by its international treaty obligations regarding these refugees. 

North Koreans face a well-founded fear of persecution when they 

are repatriated back to North Korea, which clearly obligates China 

not to force them back to a country where they will most certainly 

be tortured, most certainly be imprisoned, and in some cases even 

executed. 

Regarding the small police stations, I am specifically referring to 

the police station in the provinces near the China-North Korea border that are offering rewards for those turning in North Korean 

refugees and severe punishment of their own citizens if it is known 

that they have helped North Korean refugees but failed to turn 

them in to the police. I submit with my testimony a photograph 

and a translation of just such an order from the Yanbian police station from last month, March 2013, which was obtained by Donga 

Ilbo reporter Joo Sung Ha. 

China’s repatriation policy has created the environment for 

human trafficking because it puts these refugees, who are mostly 

women, at the complete mercy of the traffickers. I want to be clear 

that it is not the citizens of China that are causing this problem, 

but the Government of China. In fact, I fervently believe that the 

citizens of China are sympathetic and appalled by their government’s actions. The Chinese people are increasingly complaining 

about their government’s continued support for the Kim Jong Un 

regime, and Chinese citizens have been jailed for helping North Korean refugees. We also hear stories from North Koreans jailed in 

China who said Chinese police smuggled medicine and food for 

them, and in some cases even allowed them to escape. 

Two main factors helped create the environment for this trafficking problem. The first is China’s one-child policy, which we discussed earlier, which has led to a shortage of women. And the second is the chronic hunger situation in North Korea. North Korean 

29

refugees cross the China-North Korean border to try to find work 

and food to feed their starving families. Understandably, China 

started labeling them economic migrants. Yet the moment a North 

Korean enters China, they fit the definition of asylum seeker because it is a crime punishable by death in North Korea for their 

citizens to leave their country without permission. 

Rather than working with the UNHCR, who has an office in Beijing, China has chosen instead to work with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to force these refugees back to North Korea. 

But it is even worse than that. China authorities are literally 

marking North Koreans for death. According to Kim Seong Min of 

Free North Korea Radio, China began separating North Korean defectors into two groups, based on whether they were trying to escape to South Korea, starting in at least 2008. We suspect this was 

part of the crackdown before the Beijing Olympics as China feared 

the world would see their cruel treatment of these refugees. 

Joo Sung Ha, the Donga Ilbo reporter, and Kim Yong Hwa, an 

activist recently jailed in China, revealed how China used a different color stamp on the interrogation papers indicating which refugees were trying get to South Korea. Because of this collusion, the 

Chinese Government is complicit in premeditated murder because 

it knows that North Koreans trying to get to South Korea will be 

executed when they are forced back to North Korea. 

China’s brutal and unlawful repatriation policy has led to the exploitation of North Korean women who in their vulnerability become the victims of traffickers. Americans, Japanese, Chinese, and 

South Korean citizens have all been imprisoned in China for helping North Koreans. And just last year, South Korean citizen Kim 

Young Hwan was imprisoned and tortured in China, while a South 

Korean missionary, Kim Chang-Whan, was murdered by North Korean agents, and another, Ho-Bin Kang, survived an assassination 

attempt, only to be killed last May in a suspicious head-on car 

crash. 

How ironic that China will allow North Korean assassins to operate freely in its country, hunting down refugees and assassinating 

humanitarians, but it will not allow the UNHCR any access to 

these refugees. 

There is also a suspicious incident that happened to a Chinese 

citizen last summer. The father of Kim Do Hyeon was contacted 

and told to claim the body of his son and daughter-in-law. Kim and 

his wife had been taken in for interrogation by the Changchun police when Kim was caught in the process of trying to rescue five 

North Korean refugees. 

I want to cite just a few examples of North Korean women I have 

interviewed. Mrs. Bahng brought her children to China because 

they were starving to death. The moment she crossed the border, 

she was seized by a trafficker and taken to be sold at a market for 

North Korean women, where the traffickers describe the North Korean women as pigs. She was sold as the best pig for $586. Before 

she eventually escaped and made it to South Korea, she had been 

sold as a wife, a so-called wife, three times. 

In the case of Mrs. Kim, she was lured out of North Korea by 

a trafficking ring. She was told a job awaited her as a nanny in 

China. But the moment she got to China, a hood was placed over 

30

her head and she was taken to a trafficking market where she was 

sold to a Chinese man where she said she lived a life of hell. 

These so-called wives live with a constant threat that if they do 

not do what their so-called husbands demand, they will be turned 

in to police and repatriated to North Korea. North Korean women 

are also sold into brothels, so-called massage parlors. Other North 

Korean females end up being forced to do Internet pornography. I 

brought a witness with me today who will share her own personal 

story about what happened to her. 

I would also like to bring to the committee’s attention a publication by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea entitled, 

‘‘Lives for Sale: Personal Accounts of Women Fleeing North Korea 

to China.’’

We now have a new President of China, and we hope that President Xi Jinping will reverse this policy to solve this human trafficking issue. It is absolutely in China’s best interest to do this for 

several reasons. First of all, China’s repatriation policy is not only 

leading to the trafficking of North Korean women, it is prolonging 

the North Korean refugee crisis. China’s actions are ensuring that 

there will always be refugees trying to escape North Korea by relieving any pressure on the Kim Jong Un regime to adopt basic reforms that would create a better life in North Korea so that people 

did not want to flee. Second of all, China’s future would be much 

better for its own people if it works with South Korea rather than 

continues to kowtow to the dictator in North Korea. The two countries celebrated the 20th anniversary of their diplomatic ties last 

year, and they enjoy a robust trade relationship that is expected to 

top $300 billion annually by 2015. Third, all the remedies for resolving this issue are immediately at hand to ensure that no burden falls on China, including the fact that the UNHCR has an office in Beijing, and there has been a strong commitment by South 

Korea, the United States, and other countries to resettle North Koreans that have fled to China. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, the 

Chinese people are increasingly questioning their government’s 

support for Kim Jong Un. In fact, Deng Yuwen, who is the editor 

of Study Times, the journal of the Communist Party’s Central 

Party School, actually wrote an article stating that China should 

give up on Pyongyang and press for the reunification of the Korean 

Peninsula. 

The 10th annual North Korea Freedom Week is coming up later 

this month, and in coordination with that event we are organizing 

a worldwide North Korean Refugee Awareness Day and calling 

upon citizens around the world to send petitions to President Xi requesting that China change their policy toward North Korean refugees. I hope that the United States Congress will join us in this 

appeal. I just want to close to say this is a perfect opportunity for 

us to assure China’s new President we want to work with China 

to end the trafficking of North Korean women and help resolve this 

refugee crisis in accordance with international law. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Scholte, thank you so very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Scholte follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Campbell. 

STATEMENT OF MR. BRIAN CAMPBELL, DIRECTOR OF POLICY 

AND LEGAL PROGRAMS, INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS 

FORUM 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bass, thank you 

for the opportunity to testify today. While I am here representing 

the International Labor Rights Forum, as a member of the Cotton 

Campaign I hope to share the collective voice of our members of the 

Cotton Campaign, which is a global coalition of companies, human 

rights NGOs, industry organizations, investors, and trade unions 

coalesced to end the forced labor of children and adults in the cotton sector of Uzbekistan. But more importantly, I hope to share 

with you as best I can the collective voice of victims of forced labor 

in Uzbekistan, especially since they cannot be here safely to testify 

today. 

In 2012, the Government of Uzbekistan continued to forcibly mobilize farmers, adults, and children to grow and harvest cotton on 

a widespread scale. The government sets the production target 

each spring. This number is then broken down by region, and the 

district governors are responsible for making sure that the delivery 

quota is filled, including by using forced mobilization of farmers to 

meet the share of the government-imposed cotton quota. 

The U.S. Embassy has reported that virtually all farms in 

Uzbekistan are still tied to the state-order system, which means 

that all cotton is produced under the state-order system of forced 

labor. Each province and region of Uzbekistan has an established 

infrastructure, complete with police enforcement, that monitors 

farms, schools, and mandates teachers and businesses to mobilize 

children and adults. Once the cotton is ready for harvesting, the 

children and adults are sent to the fields. 

In 2012, authorities enforced cotton production quotas on farmers 

and forced children as young as 10 years old to help with the harvest under the threat of punishment. Now, while the number of 

young children appears to have decreased over the 2012 harvest, 

we saw a troubling increase in the number of older children and 

adults who were being forced en masse nationwide to pick cotton. 

And when I say older children, I mean very specifically children 

who are 15 years old to 18 years old. These aren’t adults. And so 

overall the problem of forced child labor still exists on a widespread 

scale. 

If they refuse to participate, they face expulsion or other forms 

of coercion. They live under appalling conditions. They lack adequate potable water, food, and hygienic sanitation facilities do not 

exist, and many were victims of public beatings by government authorities for failing to meet their quotas. 2012, as in previous years, 

almost all the high schools across the country were closed until the 

end of the harvest. And as of November, most kids hadn’t spent a 

single day in school. 

According to one student, ‘‘To avoid cotton harvest, one has to 

have either power or money. Last year, two students were expelled 

from the Institute of Agriculture. They did not go and pick cotton. 

As soon as the studies began, they were expelled for their absence. 

36

After this, how can you not be afraid?’’ This was a quote from a 

third-year student at Andijan University. 

Another quote: ‘‘For the first time in many years, college students from Tashkent were sent to pick cotton. Some 300 students 

and 18 teachers were sent. Even those exempt from going to the 

cotton fields due to illness had to pay money.’’

And this was according to a teacher at Tashkent College of Communications. A college teacher observed, ‘‘This year, in order to 

avoid refusals, the authorities morally prepared parents for a cotton campaign.’’ And on September 2nd—and the cotton season begins in September—college administration and local government 

representatives held meetings with parents to explain to them that 

it is their duty to harvest cotton. Parents who tried to protest were 

asked to write explanatory notes to justify their refusal to send 

their children to the cotton field, and the government authorities 

told parents that their explanatory notes would be sent to their 

places of work so that their superiors could consider their unpatriotic behavior. 

Another common threat was to expel the student, and so parents 

and students both reported that they feared reprisal. High school 

students were required to fulfill daily quotas. Penalties for poor 

work included, as I mentioned before, expulsion and verbal and 

physical abuses. According to one student in Samarkand, ‘‘If someone did not come to the fields, the teacher came home and scolded 

them.’’ The director of the college beat two boys. He ‘‘hit them several times in the face.’’ This was a college student. Now, a ‘‘college’’ 

in Uzbekistan is a high school in the United States as we would 

understand it. 

When 19-year-old Navruz Muysinov tried to return home early, 

eyewitnesses reported that a police officer stopped him and beat 

him. After that, the policeman took him to the hospital, where he 

died. The results of the investigation into the cause of the death 

of that young man remain unknown. 

About one out of every six government employees were forced to 

pick cotton in 2012, including teachers, doctors, nurses, members 

of the military, ministry officials, and others. Among teachers, the 

percentage soared to 60 percent of all teachers were forced to work 

in the fields. And the mass mobilization of government employees 

began in September. 

Increased adult forced labor, which is the trend we are seeing, 

has a severe impact on the delivery of vital government services 

during the harvest. 

Medical personnel, who are government employees, who are 

forced to pick cotton in large numbers, were not at the hospitals 

and clinics when people needed medical help. Eleven thousand 

nurses and doctors from Tashkent, the capital, alone were sent to 

work in the fields. And when one resident from Bukhara, a different city, took her children to the hospital, she said that there 

were no doctors available. 

An estimated 60 percent of school teachers forced to work in the 

fields required that they combine the classes. So there were 50 to 

60 students for those that were able to stay in school in each classroom. And the lessons were either shortened or cancelled. 

37

Private-sector employees from both domestic and multinational 

corporations were forced to contribute to the cotton harvest either 

by providing labor or by providing a tax, which is corruption. 

For years, the Cotton Campaign has been calling for a Tier III 

placement for Uzbekistan. It would be consistent with the facts 

presented by the State Department themselves in the report. According to the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report, in 

2011 Uzbekistan made no advancements in the efforts to eliminate 

the worst forms of child labor. Excuse me, that is the Department 

of Labor report. 

The U.S. Department of State wrote, ‘‘The Uzbekistan Government continued to force children and adults to pick cotton. The government continued to refuse to allow the international labor organization to monitor the cotton harvest, and they continued to deny 

that forced labor of children in the cotton sector exists in 

Uzbekistan.’’

Despite this very accurate statement, the State Department has 

failed year after year to hold the Government of Uzbekistan accountable under the standards set by this Congress in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. In 2012, when the State Department decided to prevent Uzbekistan’s automatic downgrade to Tier 

III, which would have required a written plan, that if that had 

enough support behind it, that it would end the problem, the Government of Uzbekistan had their representative in Washington testifying before the United States Trade Representative steadfastly 

denying that forced labor even exists or that there is a quota system. 

This is the quote from the Ambassador in that hearing: ‘‘That is 

why during Soviet time it was compulsory to pick cotton by children. But today it is not compulsory because 100 percent of the cotton is being produced on farms.’’ And what he means is private 

farms. The State Department has already identified that virtually 

all farms are tied to this coercive system. 

Again, less than 3 weeks ago, Ambassador Nematov from the 

Government of Uzbekistan testified at the United States Trade 

Representative, ‘‘There is no compulsory forced labor.’’ Another 

quote from the Ambassador: ‘‘Today cotton is hard currency. If 

somebody who has an interest to pick up cotton and make money, 

there is no compulsion. He can go to the farmers, and they will 

pay. For schoolchildren, it is not compulsory.’’

These are the statements from the Ambassador to the United 

States Government. One last one: ‘‘No, children do not participate. 

Farmers invite some companies or some people to help pick cotton, 

but not children.’’

Failure to downgrade Uzbekistan to Tier III would reward the 

Government of Uzbekistan for flagrant disregard of its own national laws and international commitment, and it will guarantee 

that state-sponsored forced labor of over 1 million children and 

adults in Uzbekistan would continue this coming fall in the 2013 

harvest. 

It would also contribute to placing United States companies in a 

position of increased risk. Companies operating in Uzbekistan continue to succumb to pressure to contribute to the forced labor system. And companies using cotton around the world continue to face 

38

the risk of forced-labor-made cotton from Uzbekistan tainting their 

supply chains. 

Given the continued massive government mobilization of forced 

labor during the 2012 harvest, the only way the Uzbekistan Government, in our view, could still demonstrate any commitment, 

even as low as it is, to making significant efforts to combat this 

form of human trafficking—that is, to drop them—to avoid a drop 

to Tier III placement—they must invite the International Labor 

Organization’s high-level, tripartite mission to monitor next fall’s 

harvest, and they must do so before June. 

We hope the members of the committee will join us in pressing 

this point with senior officials at the State Department, not just 

the trafficking office—their reports reflect what is happening—but 

also the Office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, and especially the Bureau for South and 

Central Asia, whose responsibility it is to witness and to ensure 

that the State Department policy reflects the laws of our country. 

Thank you very much. 

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

specific recommendations, as well. We will follow up. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. I would now like to invite the testimony of a woman 

who has been victimized. And we are very grateful that she has 

had the courage to come forward and to speak. 

Ms. Choe? 

STATEMENT OF MS. ESTHER CHOE, VICTIM OF HUMAN 

TRAFFICKING 

[The following testimony and answers were delivered through an 

interpreter.] 

Ms. CHOE. Hello. My name is Esther Choe, and I am currently 

living as a new American citizen, which I consider to be a great 

honor. 

Through the grace of God, whom I believe in, and also through 

the help of a Korean-American missionary named Phillip Buck, I 

was able to be resettled in the United States via the UNHCR. 

As the airplane I was in was flying into America, I saw the land 

below me brightly lit up with electricity, as if sparkling jewels were 

splashed about. And I remember thinking to myself that if I had 

this kind of electricity and lights, I would have never left behind 

my child in my hometown and escaped from North Korea. 

I woke up every morning at 5 o’clock am and worked until 11 

o’clock p.m. At night, working and doing needlework under an oil 

lamp. Since there was no electricity, I had to use my legs to turn 

the sewing machine and used briquettes to heat the iron needed to 

iron clothes. And I was also in great pain because I was working 

all day with my head bent down. During the wintertime, I also had 

to endure the bitter cold. 

Because the sewing work I did to try to feed my family was not 

enough, I decided to go to China to earn extra income. Just like 

many North Korean citizens hear about the outside world from 

North Korean defectors, I too found out information about China 

from a woman from my hometown who had been repatriated from 

China. I sought her out and heard many great stories about China. 

What I heard from her surprised me immensely. In China, just 

by working for a family at a house as a babysitter, one could earn 

approximately 1.2 million North Korean yuan. Since I could earn 

in 1 month what it would take me months of hard work in North 

Korea, I made a decision to go to China. 

In North Korea, the trains do not run regularly, so if a person 

wanted to go visit a relative or go somewhere else to work or sell 

goods, it would take up to 2 months of travel. And I thought that 

if I went to China and came back, I would not arouse suspicion or 

be detected. And through the contacts introduced to me by the 

North Korean defector woman who had been arrested and repatriated to North Korea, I crossed into China via the Tumen River. 

That evening when I arrived in China, I changed clothes and got 

into a car and rode for 14 hours. I naturally thought that I was 

being taken to a place where the contacts would introduce me to 

a new job. But once we arrived at our destination, I realized that 

I was getting involved in a human trafficking situation. 

And I started to cry and plead with the people who had taken 

me in. I begged and pleaded with them that I was a married 

woman with a child and a husband and that I needed to go back 

to my home, but they were cold and detached in their response. 

85

The human traffickers said that they had invested money and 14 

hours of their own time to bring me to my destination, so they 

needed to at least break even financially, and though they could 

not help me right at the moment, after I was sold, depending on 

the situation, they would try to send me back home. 

The place where I was sold to in tears for 16,000 Chinese yuan 

was to a Chinese man in his 50s who was still not married because 

he was so poor and had no money. And this man was living with 

his 80-year-old mother in a very poor and destitute situation. Because he was afraid I would run away, I was followed everywhere, 

even to the bathroom, to the stream near the house, wherever I 

went. When they needed to leave the house, I was locked inside the 

house and I could not leave. For 2 months, I spent the time just 

crying, thinking about my child and my husband and how to get 

back to them, and looking for the right moment to escape. 

And when I did barely escape, I went to look for and sought out 

the broker who had sold me. I cried and begged with the broker 

again to send me back home to my family, but this broker, who had 

no humanity in him, instead of showing compassion and kindness, 

looked at me as a way to make a profit and instead sold me to another old, unmarried farmer in the countryside. 

I really had no hope to continue living and wanted to die, but I 

thought of my child back home and just barely survived and succeeded in escaping again. And knowing that I had a distant relative who lived in China, I made inquiries looking for my aunt and 

found her. 

Other North Korean defector women have been caught trying to 

escape from trafficking and have been beaten mercilessly. And 

some women are locked up for months and mistreated, and some 

are even forced to become pregnant so that they cannot escape. 

There are countless stories like these, but I believe that God protected me, and I was able to escape successfully. 

The last place I escaped from, there were four other North Korean refugee woman who had been sold and were trafficked into 

that location. Among the four, the most pitiful one was a 15-yearold girl who was intentionally falsely announced as a 19-year-old 

and then sold. She was sold to a 35-year-old single man and one 

day escaped successfully. And she, too, sought out her broker who 

had sold her in order to try to get back home, but I heard that she, 

too, was sold again to another human trafficking situation. 

I was sold twice by human traffickers in China, and in that time 

I found God and also found my relative. And through this relative’s 

help, I was able to meet Pastor Phillip Buck and then was able to 

find help from the UNHCR. I truly believe myself to be a woman 

who found great fortune and luck in finding this help. 

Even now, there are so many North Korean refugee women who 

are going through extreme difficulties and hardships and being sold 

in these human trafficking situations. There are countless North 

Korean refugee women who are sold into Internet online sex sites 

and into karaoke bars. And because they want to keep their chastity and virginity, some try to commit suicide. 

If caught, they are beaten and abused until literally bones break 

and then handed over to the Chinese police, who then repatriate 

them in North Korea at the hands of the Bowibu, the national seVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:05 Sep 25, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041813\80464 HFA PsN: SHIRL
86

curity agency agents. These women are then tortured and beaten 

and called dirty women and prostitutes who sold their bodies. And 

many die silent deaths like this. 

Some women are forced to have babies with men they are sold 

to. And when they are arrested and forcibly separated by the Chinese police, the North Korean refugee mother will cry out in broken Chinese, ‘‘I will come back for my baby.’’ There are countless 

women like these. 

I really did not want to come here and testify today because I 

too want to live a happy life and I too want to meet a nice person 

and because I also fear that harm may come to my husband and 

child, from whom I am separated for life because I cannot return 

now to North Korea. However, I am here today because I want to 

tell the world about what is going on and appeal to the world and 

be a voice for the countless North Korean women and the mothers 

of the North Korean children who died and were killed in trying 

to keep their honor. 

Right now, Kim Jong Un and the regime is testing nuclear weapons and threatening the world and claiming that they are strong. 

They must feel ashamed and embarrassed that their own citizens 

have become targets of derision and ridicule in the world and that 

their own people are being sold like animals and mistreated in another country. And when the people were tearfully trying to survive 

and eat, the regime took the aid and the food that the international 

community sent and instead used that make weapons to threaten 

the world that only desires peace. They must feel ashamed that 

they are the leaders of such a brazen-faced nation. 

I also sincerely pray that God and the whole world will judge the 

regime that does not even care for or plan anything for its own people. And I earnestly plead that the world will help the weak and 

helpless North Korean refugee women who are dying today from 

hardships that are far worse than what I endured. 

I close my testimony by asking for God’s blessings, the blessings 

that he has bestowed on me to be with all of you here today in this 

place and with all the people who have a heart and compassion for 

the people of North Korea and who will help the North Korean defectors. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Choe, thank you very much for being here. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Choe follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. You are a blessing. And I personally, and I am sure 

I am joined by members of the panel, thank God for your extraordinarily brave witness and for taking the time to tell us and the 

world exactly what you have been through and what so many others are going through as we meet. Thank you. 

I would like to now yield to David Abramowitz. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ABRAMOWITZ, VICE PRESIDENT, 

POLICY & GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, HUMANITY UNITED 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bass, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Weber, 

thank you for the kind introduction and for holding this very important hearing on one of the most terrible human rights abuses 

of our time and on one of the most effective tools to try to end it, 

the Trafficking in Persons Report. 

Mr. Chairman, the TIP Report, which you helped create, increased the understanding of the scope of modern-day slavery and 

has raised the voices of the victims of this scourge. 

And I also want to join you and everyone in the room in thanking Ms. Choe for having the courage to come forward today. Many 

of us have spoken to witnesses, and no matter how prepared you 

are, it is always a huge challenge to talk about your story, but it 

has a huge ability to enlighten all of us on what is really happening. And so I really wanted to thank her and Ms. Scholte for 

helping to bring her here today. Because it is imperative that the 

voices of the victims, who hopefully will all become survivors, are 

out in front in discussing this debate. 

But not only does the TIP Report talk about the victims and survivors, but it also has been an incredibly effective tool to try to 

eliminate trafficking, reduce it, and to save lives. 

And, Mr. Chairman, per your suggestion, I would love to have a 

document from the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking which 

lists a number of very important successes that the TIP Report has 

had over the years and helped save lives be entered into the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. However, Mr. Chairman, the sharp edge of the 

TIP Report must constantly be honed by applying the strongest 

facts and most rigorous analysis to its edge, or its value, as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, will diminish. 

This is not easy. Ever since the initial TIP Report, regional specialists in the Department of State and elsewhere have clashed 

with those who argue for the strictest possible application of the 

legal standards in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as they 

assess individual countries. As I detail in my testimony, Mr. Chairman, these clashes, in part, led to the swelling of the number of 

countries on the Tier II Watch List, which you mentioned, Mr. 

Chairman, which came to be viewed as a parking lot for countries 

whose efforts to combat trafficking were stagnating. 

In order to address this situation, Mr. Chairman, as many of you 

have mentioned, in the 2008 Trafficking Reauthorization Act, a 

new requirement was put in that stated that after 2 years a country that was on the Watch List had to go down to Tier III, but giving the Secretary of State some discretion for an additional 2 years 

to keep them off of that Tier III list, which is where it is indicated 

91

that they are not making significant efforts, if they have a written 

plan to try to stop trafficking, if there are funds for that plan, and 

if they are making efforts to implement the plan. 

The automatic downgrade provision has led to successes over the 

last few years. Because of the concerns that countries had that 

they would be moved to Tier III, a number of countries did make 

a number of very important steps. And I mentioned a couple of 

those in my testimony. But now the Department faces the question 

of demotion to Tier III or promotion to Tier II for the six countries 

we are discussing today. 

Mr. Chairman, when that provision was adopted by Congress 

and was signed by the President, what could not have been anticipated is that, at just the time when these decisions were coming 

due, there would be a new Secretary of State who would be going 

through these issues for the first time and that there would be a 

vacancy in a key position, which my colleague mentioned, the 

Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and 

Human Rights. 

I cannot tell you how important it is that the lack of a high-level 

voice because of that vacancy is very problematic. The Under Secretary can make sure that there is appropriate vetting of these decisions at the highest level in the Department. And it becomes difficult for those who are pushing for these issues to actually move 

forward and try to get the best possible results where that Under 

Secretary position is vacant. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I think, as a couple of my fellow witnesses 

have indicated, we shouldn’t be just focusing on these six countries. 

There are a number of other countries that are looming on the horizon—I mention a couple in my testimony—that could well be promoted this year so that they don’t have to face the automatic downgrade next year. So while I really think this is a very important 

set of countries to be focusing on, as we look at the report when 

it comes out in June, we need to make sure that we are looking 

across a number of different countries to see what is happening. 

Mr. Chairman, this automatic downgrade provision has had an 

important effect, I think, about how the Department does its analysis. Previously, the TIP Report really was a snapshot of what was 

happening in the particular country that was being assessed, what 

were the facts that year. And there were, as I discussed, disagreements about what those facts meant. But now, because of these efforts, people are looking at previous years or they are looking at 

what might happen next year in trying to determine how hard to 

fight on a particular country, how much emphasis there is. So I 

think that we need to think about that as we move forward. 

Mr. Chairman, I am not an expert on the countries that are—

the six countries. We have heard some very compelling testimony 

in the last few days. I do take two cases, two of the six cases, the 

Russian Federation and Uzbekistan, which have been described by 

my colleagues here. 

My understanding is that Russia has done very little. And as we 

just heard from Mr. Campbell, to the extent that Uzbekistan has 

done anything, it seems that it substituted one form of forced labor 

for another. 

92

These two countries suggest a key methodology for reviewing all 

six cases as well as the others. And Ambassador Lagon referred to 

this, I think, as did some of the other witnesses. There is a written 

action plan, supposedly. I wonder, after Mr. Campbell’s testimony, 

whether Uzbekistan really ever had a real adopted national action 

plan. But under the provisions that extended these countries from 

being not put down on the Tier III list, there is supposed to be a 

written action plan. That was the basis for the waiver. 

So when we look at this coming report, what have they done with 

that action plan? Which parts of it were implemented? Which parts 

were funded? That is actually an objective basis for determining 

whether the State Department has actually applied the law to the 

facts. 

Similarly, what were the recommendations in the TIP Report for 

each country? Each country has a list of a number of recommendations. Several of those were read. They are listed out in my testimony for those two countries. Were any of those recommendations 

adopted? Was only one of them? 

For example, in Russia, we understand that there was a shelter 

that was opened in St. Petersburg. I laud that step—or is about to 

be. I laud that step. But when you look at all of the other criteria 

and all the other recommendations, as was described by my colleagues, it seems that that is a very small step compared to what 

our own State Department says it should be doing. So we have 

some objective criteria to base these countries on when we do that 

analysis. 

In terms of Uzbekistan and the Russian Federation, Mr. Chairman, you know, as far as I can tell, with respect to both those 

questions, the action plan and the TIP Report, the answer is 

‘‘nyet,’’ they have not done what they are supposed to have done. 

And it seems difficult for me to think that either of them would be 

promoted to Tier II. And, as I said, I suggest that a range of countries should face a similar analysis. 

Mr. Chairman, there are a number of recommendations in my 

testimony for steps that we can take to try to support those who 

are trying to have the most honest report possible. I think that 

President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry need to speak out 

about how they expect a report that has integrity, that is based on 

facts, is actually going to be produced. Often, in these cases where 

there is a transition like this, the mid-level officials at the Department have a lot more discretion on anything other than the top key 

issues. So I think they need to send a signal to the staff that they 

are going to be looking carefully at this. 

Congress needs to speak out early and often. And I really commend you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Bass, for holding 

this hearing. It is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be done. 

But more needs to be done over time. As I have said before, Mr. 

Chairman, and as Mr. Campbell was suggesting, we need to bring 

these issues to key officials of the Department every time they 

come and appear before Congress. You often have assistant secretaries coming up. There are issues that can be raised to say that 

this is really a priority for all the members of the committee across 

a wide range. 

93

We need to maintain or increase key anti-trafficking assistance 

programs. Mr. Chairman, with your support, the TIP Office has 

had foreign assistance money that they have been able to use 

where the TIP Report has identified key weaknesses, and said to 

the bureaus themselves and to the country, we can offer resources 

to try to create change in this area. That increases collaboration, 

and that also allows for the country to feel that they are not just 

being lectured to but the United States is prepared to make a 

change. 

This is a program that has been oversubscribed; it gets hundreds 

of grant applications every year. The TIP Office has really increased its ability to implement these programs. And I was pleased 

that the President in his budget request maintained this account 

at last year’s level, when other accounts were facing cuts. But I do 

think it is one of those programs, because it really makes a difference, that is worthy of consideration in terms of an increase. 

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated, I think that we are really going 

to have to look at this TIP Report very carefully because of the absence of the Under Secretary, because of these key decisions. 

And I really think that you should consider talking to the Congressional Research Service and seeing if they can do an analysis, 

historically and what is happening today, talking to some of the regional experts, to try to provide us with the best possible analysis 

of how this report actually stacks up against others. Sometimes we 

in the nongovernmental organization community, civil society, we 

don’t have access to the written plans. You can get access to some 

of these written plans, and it could really help us understand what 

their analysis is. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, depending on how things go, you know, 

we should think about whether we have the right mechanism in 

place. I don’t think we need to answer that question. We have to 

see what happens this year with this report, and maybe even in 

next year’s report, to see what is happening with this provision. 

But I do think there are some questions about whether we have 

the right mechanism. I list some of those in my testimony. 

Mr. Chairman, my written testimony discusses a number of lessons we have learned over the last 10 years and gaps that are still 

in the field, including areas that the TIP Report might want to address in the future, issues like supply chains, issues like foreign 

labor recruiters, child welfare reform that Ms. Bass has been so engaged in. All these issues are really frontier issues that we need 

to focus on here but also other countries need to focus on. And I 

would be happy to talk about those when we get to questions and 

answers. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, we have obviously 

learned much since the TVPA was enacted, but we still have a long 

distance to travel. We in civil society stand ready to work with you 

to try to see how we can march further toward the path of eradicating modern-day slavery from the world today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very, very much, Mr. Abramowitz. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Abramowitz follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. I would like to now yield to Ms. Smolenski. 

STATEMENT OF MS. CAROL SMOLENSKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, END CHILD PROSTITUTION AND CHILD TRAFFICKING–

USA 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Smith, 

Ranking Member Bass, and other distinguished members of the 

committee. 

I am very daunted and impressed by the amazing work of my fellow panelists here today. So I really applaud you, and I am amazed 

by the expertise up here. 

I am Carol Smolenski, executive director of ECPAT–USA. We are 

the U.S. branch of an international network of organizations that 

works in 73 countries to protect children from sexual exploitation. 

So I am with the ECPAT–USA group, but we are part of an international network, so we kind of have a foot in both worlds. 

I am going to be discussing today the U.S. position, and the U.S. 

position in the TIP Report, but kind of with a little bit of a tinge 

of the international perspective. 

ECPAT came into existence in 1991 in Asia with the recognition 

of the large number of kids being sold into the sex trade, partly to 

meet the demand coming from foreigners. As a representative of 

what we call the tourist-sending country in the United States, we 

started ECPAT here to stop this horrific international child sex 

tourism trade, but since 1996 we have expanded our mission to 

fight against all forms of sexual exploitation of children. We do advocacy, awareness, policy, and legislative activities still on the child 

sex tourism issue but also to end the exploitation and trafficking 

of children in the United States. 

So as a member of this international network, I am proud to 

serve as the representative from the U.S. The U.S. is a leader on 

child welfare. My colleagues in other countries often look at the 

child protection system in the U.S. as a model because it is worthy 

of emulating. So I also bring this perspective to my comments 

today. 

So it was an important step in 2010 when the U.S. Department 

of State included the U.S. in the tier system. I had so often received questions from my colleagues around the world about why 

the U.S. did not hold itself to the same standard as it held other 

countries. So it was of powerful symbolic and diplomatic importance for the U.S. to now list itself in the tier ranking. 

I think we benefit as a society when our Government publicly reports honestly and transparently how it addresses the crimes relating to human trafficking. As part of this reporting process, we also 

see that much more can be done for child victims of human trafficking in the U.S. 

The 2012 report, for example, shows that children who are sexually exploited are still being arrested, rather than offered support 

and protection, although the numbers are lower than in previous 

years, so that is good. It also shows that few children trafficked 

from other countries are being identified and offered assistance as 

trafficking victims. 

The government, of course, does support various initiatives to 

counter human trafficking, but we are far from achieving a level 

109

of care for trafficked youth in the United States that I expect from 

my country. 

Prevention is everything. It is a disappointment that we do not 

yet have a laser-like focus on preventing vulnerable children from 

being ensnared by traffickers in the first place. 

As shocking as it is to most people, in the United States children 

are exploited and sold in the sex trade. Frequently, they are children who were sexually abused at home by a family member or a 

family friend, children who ran away or were thrown out of their 

homes, or children in the foster care system, as Ranking Member 

Bass has eloquently pointed out. 

Despite having a nationwide child welfare system in place that 

is very admirable in many ways, clearly there is something wrong. 

What we have found is that the majority of workers in the child 

welfare system are not effectively equipped to identify a trafficked 

child. They don’t know the indicators of human trafficking, and 

they don’t know how to help them when they do identify one, partly because of the myriad special needs that these children have. 

Some State child welfare agencies are coming around to understanding this population of children, but we need our existing system to come around faster because no one wants to think of a child 

spending one more night in the hands of a pimp or a trafficker. 

And it is for this reason that we strongly support legislation that 

was introduced last session, led by Representative Bass, to 

strengthen the child welfare response to human trafficking. Legislation like this will help us get to a place where we can find and 

assist the most vulnerable children living among us. 

And we have to get this right. We have to do it right here in the 

U.S., because when we do it right, the U.S. will be able to report 

on this in the TIP Report and in other international fora and become a model for other countries to look at this is how the U.S. 

does it, this is how we should be following along. I love it when we 

are in the lead on these issues. 

As an anti-trafficking organization, ECPAT has often led the conversation on the diverse populations of youth who are at risk for 

trafficking. We have a long history of partnering with other trafficking groups. Today we are an active member of the Alliance to 

End Slavery and Trafficking, or ATEST, a coalition of 12 anti-trafficking groups. But it is clear that there are many other interest 

groups and communities that also need to work with us to protect 

children and have to be part of this discussion. The juvenile justice 

system, runaway and homeless youth organizations, and schools all 

have to be part of an energetic network taking responsibility for 

making sure every child in the U.S. is safe from trafficking and exploitation. 

We hope that the new Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services 

for Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States will take on 

this challenge and drive all child- and youth-focused agencies to 

play an active role. We will be commenting on that new plan and 

specifically recommending that it include a set of strategies aimed 

specifically for child victims of human trafficking, both sex and 

labor. 

Another area where the U.S. needs to live up to international 

standards is in combating child sex tourism. Many countries have 

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put in place public and private educational awareness campaigns 

to educate travelers that it is against the law to exploit children 

in every country. In the airport in Costa Rica, there are signs reminding incoming tourists that it is a country that protects its children. A similar campaign has taken place in Brazil. A number of 

countries’ airlines have run in-flight videos; Air Canada is currently considering one. Some countries, like the Netherlands and 

France, have made posters and fliers available to outbound tourists, again, reminding their citizens that it is against the law everywhere to sexually exploit children. 

The U.S. Government and U.S. industry have never taken on 

this type of overt public campaign, despite the fact that we have 

a strong Federal law against child sex tourism. We have to do 

more. Also, how can the U.S. give countries a low ranking for having a large sex tourism industry when it is often Americans who 

are the ones who are traveling there to exploit the local population 

to begin with? We have to do something about this, and I really 

recommend a public education campaign. 

Let me just talk for a minute about international standards for 

protecting children. ECPAT, of course, believes it is in the U.S.’s 

best interests for the U.S. to join the community of countries that 

have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

The U.S. Government has ratified the optional protocol to the 

U.N. Convention on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and 

Child Pornography. Our implementation of the optional protocol 

was recently reviewed by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the 

Child, and the committee recently published its concluding observations and expansive 14-page report, which I can give you if you 

want. And I am attaching to my testimony a 3-page summary of 

the committees’s recommendations. 

But just briefly, in general, the committee’s recommendations fall 

into five areas: One, the U.S. should be sure that all crimes in the 

optional protocol are covered in Federal, State, and local responses, 

as well as laws, procedures, awareness efforts, and training of relevant professionals who work with children, along with appropriate 

financial support. 

Two, as crimes against children occur across the country, a 50-

State, all-territory response is required. Only strong coordination 

and communication of a national plan like the one that the U.S. 

is already considering across Federal and State agencies and stakeholders can result in an effective effort to prevent and address the 

crimes in the optional protocol. 

Three, the U.S. must make efforts to synthesize Federal and 

State legal definitions of optional protocol crimes, including creating standardized definitions across agencies and jurisdictions. 

For example, one place where this is obvious is in data collected 

by, one, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, two, the 

National Center on Missing and Exploited Children, three, the 

Runaway and Homeless Youth Hotline, among others, who might 

all be receiving calls from or about child trafficking victims but 

classifying them differently. If we could get those definitions in 

line, that would be a big step forward. 

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Four, the child’s best interest and health is of paramount concern, whether the child has been a victim of pornographic images, 

illegal adoption, egregious labor practices, or sexual exploitation. 

And, five, without data, it is hard to effectively target our actions 

and to measure our results. 

One last thing. I am attaching to my testimony a copy of the 

ECPAT report on child sexual exploitation in Russia that the subcommittee might want to consider as it continues to look at tier 

rankings. 

And, in conclusion, I would just like to thank you so much for 

your amazing leadership over all of these years, both here and 

abroad, and for your interest in ensuring that the TIP Report remains this really strong and powerful tool. 

Thank you very much for your attention. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much. Thank you for your leadership. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smolenski follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Let me ask a few questions. You know, as I fully expected, your testimonies are not only comprehensive, they were 

filled with actionable items. And my hope is, because we will convey this to the Department of State, that they will look at it very 

carefully as well, not just to the TIP Office, but to the regional bureaus as well. 

I think, Mr. Abramowitz, you know, you point out the sharp edge 

of the TIP Report must be constantly honed by applying the strongest facts, most rigorous analysis to its edge, or otherwise it risks 

being dulled to the point of being unusable. 

I was concerned, and still am, because I think this 2013 TIP Report will be another test as to whether or not unwittingly Congress 

has moved to weaken our efforts vis-a`-vis the most recently passed 

Leahy amendment. I was very concerned, and I had hoped to offer 

an amendment to change that but was not given the opportunity 

when the bill came over here. We could have ironed out our differences in a House-Senate conference, which now will not happen. 

But the shifting of power to the regional bureaus, as you recall, 

David, that was one of our prime reasons for creating the TIP Office in the first place. It now has about 55 people, a very effective 

Ambassador-at-Large in Luis CDeBaca. But if the regional bureaus 

are further empowered and the balance shifts even more in their 

direction, information and data that we need to be on the table and 

then acted on in an appropriate way simply will not happen. 

And I say that not just in the area of trafficking. I have tried repeatedly and asked Secretary Kerry yesterday, and he seemed 

quite responsive to take up the issue, even when it came to an 

American citizen, Jacob Ostreicher, who was languishing in a prison in Bolivia for 18 months. He has never been accused of anything, but had his assets and rice farm stolen. And I have been unable to get the Assistant Secretary to speak out. And we have 

found that repeatedly with other Assistant Secretaries, who have 

many important jobs to do; nobody would suggest otherwise. But 

human rights often take a huge back seat, and trafficking is among 

the human rights abuses that take that back seat. 

Same goes for our Ambassadors, our DCMs. I do travel a lot and 

speak out. I am a special representative for trafficking for the 

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. And it is bewildering, no matter 

who is in the White House, how the Ambassadors seem to trivialize 

and put in a nice little compartment our actions to combat human 

trafficking. Some are very robust, so you can’t make a blanket 

statement, but, frankly, there are many others who want it all to 

just go away and do a minimal effort against it. And when it comes 

to the tier rankings, that is catastrophic. 

So the reason for this hearing was to try to begin a process, as 

you pointed out. And it is not the last hearing we will hold before 

TIP—or before those rankings are meted out, so that we don’t get 

it wrong. We have had hearings in the past, but this year is a test. 

And Vietnam, I think, without a doubt should be on Tier III, 

given what they have done. As a matter of fact, the first case prosecuted under the TVPA in 2000 was the Daewoosa case. And those 

Vietnamese Government officials were never held to account for 

that horrific sweatshop that they were running. And now we know 

that it is continuing in so many ways. 

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And you might want to comment on that, because I do think we 

have seen a shift. I am not sure how sustainable the TIP Office will 

be in terms of personnel when the authorization goes from $7 million to $2 million. And, of course, authorizations can always be 

breached, and hopefully they will in this case, so that additional resources will be made available to Ambassador CDeBaca. 

If anyone would like to comment on this, because, again, I have 

great respect for the regional bureaus. I plan on asking the regional Assistant Secretaries, hopefully, and perhaps their DASes, 

as well, to come here before all of this is done, certainly after the 

fact too, to hold them to account. They are very good people, but 

trafficking isn’t always very high on the prioritization list. 

So, anybody want to comment on that? 

Yes, David? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Well, just briefly, Mr. Chairman, you know, obviously, you and I have both met Ambassadors who are very committed to this issue and have made a lot of real change. Cambodia 

was one of those cases early on, where there are Foreign Service 

officers who have done some great work on this. But it is often the 

case that these issues are often the ones that are not their focus 

as they move forward, and often they are not, even at the political 

level, they are not given the priority they should. 

I will note, Mr. Chairman, just on a couple of minor points, I 

think, you know, the reauthorization bill did also have some very 

good provisions in it, including the child compact provisions that, 

you know, you championed for a number of years and finally got 

it done. 

And my understanding is that, on the authorization level, that, 

in fact, that number is really for the efforts of the office with respect to the interagency task force. At least that is the way the Department is interpreting it. We will see what the budget request 

comes out as, but my understanding is that there may be some 

minor cuts, because everybody is going to take a cut at the Department, but the budget request will be at least reasonably robust. 

And we will definitely have to follow that up. 

I did note that when the bill was passed, Chairman Royce, because he has been a great champion of this issue, did put an explanatory statement in the record to address some of the concerns 

on the regional bureaus to make sure the TIP Office was not degraded in any way. And hopefully that message will get through, 

that there continues to be very strong interest in ensuring that the 

regional bureaus need to become more engaged. They can be important partners in this effort, but these provisions were not designed 

to undermine the TIP Office. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Let me just ask, if I could, I know that Ambassador Lagon might 

have been able, because he mentioned it in his testimony, to speak 

to the issue, but, you know, there are countries like Holland, a very 

sophisticated and mature democracy, and yet there are very serious 

allegations that have been made. And I actually chaired a hearing 

on that specifically and heard from a young man who was a boy 

at the time when the Justice Minister, Secretary-General 

Demmink, allegedly raped him. And we have very serious allegaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:05 Sep 25, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00125 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041813\80464 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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tions being made and yet not the commensurate action being taken 

by the Dutch Government to investigate in a robust and thorough 

and comprehensive way. 

So I just put that—I do hope, and I know we have briefed and 

passed on information to the TIP Office, but it seems to me when 

you have a country that actually houses The Hague and is known 

as a center for justice, adjudication, that for someone in such a 

high-ranking position to go without thorough investigation when 

serious and seemingly very credible allegations have been made 

does a grave disservice to all the efforts we are trying to make in 

combating sex trafficking. 

And I would just say parenthetically, on one trip in Brazil, when 

I spent several days in Brasilia working on combating human trafficking and working with their lawmakers, I spent half a day in Rio 

de Janeiro and went to a shelter and, sure enough, there was a 

woman, who thankfully was saved from being sent to Amsterdam, 

where an overwhelming number of foreign women are trafficked. 

And the Dutch say they come there on their free accord. She 

wasn’t. And it is very hard, as we all know, when women are rescued even, to tell their story, because they fear police, they fear retaliation against their loved ones. And through her tears, I will 

never forget how she was—and she was one of the lucky ones who 

was rescued. 

I will go to Ms. Bass first, and then I will come back to some of 

my other questions. 

Please. 

Ms. BASS. Sure. 

Well, I want to join the chairman in thanking all of the witnesses 

for really incredible testimony. 

I did want to ask, you know, several questions to the witnesses. 

And I am not sure who to direct these to immediately, so whoever 

wants to respond. 

I was trying—I think maybe it was Mr. Campbell, you were talking about Russia and Uzbekistan. And I wanted to understand 

about the forced labor, especially of teenagers. And I wanted to understand, are these businesses that are owned—you know, the 

farms, are they owned by government? Is it government-owned industry? Is it private industry? And then, do we do business with—

you know, do we get cotton from Uzbekistan? 

I do understand some of the politics involved in why we don’t 

move, you know, countries from Tier II that should be on Tier III 

because of their strategic importance. And we can debate whether 

or not that should happen or not. I don’t think it should. But 

Uzbekistan? I don’t know how they fit into that. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you, Ms. Bass, for the questions. 

So, to tackle your first questions on the farms, the answer is the 

farms are, as I understand, are 99-year leases from the government 

to the farmers. But that was, what I believe, a cosmetic implementation of land reform, when, in reality, one of the forms of coercion 

that we are able to identify is the threat of loss of your farm by 

the government. So if you are a farmer and you refuse to plant 

crops, you can lose your farm. 

And while the government may say, well, that private person 

owns that private farm, what the State Department has been very 

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clear about is those ‘‘private farms’’ are all tied in this state-controlled system, this state-ordered system. So the state sets the orders, tells people when to implement them, and tells people when 

to bring the crop in. 

Now, what the government will let them do is perhaps grow another crop on some of that land. So they may only make a farmer 

set aside a certain amount of their land, and they may get to grow 

vegetables or some other crop. And I am not saying, although I 

don’t know for sure because it is a closed society, they might—you 

know, I don’t know if there is forced labor in those other crops. All 

we know is that there is forced labor in the cotton crop through 

this coercive system. 

In terms of what is coming to the United States, what we do 

know is that cotton from Uzbekistan does come into the United 

States from time to time, but Uzbekistan is an exporter, just like 

the United States is, for cotton. Now, we don’t produce a lot of garments anymore in the United States. 

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. That production has gone overseas in the race to 

the bottom. So much of the Uzbekistan cotton that we know of goes 

through Bangladesh and other countries and are processed into 

clothes in those countries and then brought into the United States. 

We have been able to identify some very specific companies. 

Daewoo International, a Korean company, purchases around 20 

percent of the domestic cotton crop of Uzbekistan, processes it into 

yarn in Uzbekistan. And while we haven’t seen many shipments, 

we don’t have the full information, we do know that they have exported into the United States several times since 2008. We saw a 

$70,000 shipment come into the United States of Uzbekistan yarn 

just in February. 

And, finally, we have a company known as Indorama. It is, I believe, a Southeast Asian company; I would have to get the specific 

country. And they recently shipped some yarn into Puerto Rico. 

And while we don’t know what that factory or what that yarn is 

being used for, it does raise concerns that that yarn is being spun 

in American factories——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. CAMPBELL [continuing]. Into, whether they be possibly military garments or other products that are manufactured in Puerto 

Rico. So these are important issues. 

Our big concern is and my request back to the committee is it 

is not just the State Department, it is also other agencies, so working with the committees that would have oversight of these other 

agencies, such as Customs. There is a law that prohibits the importation of these goods that is not being enforced. 

And so I would encourage that these examples be taken and 

pushed and that the government from across the board, not just 

the State Department, but the U.S. Government across the board 

use all the tools at its disposal to end this forced labor scourge in 

Uzbekistan. 

Thank you. 

Ms. BASS. Well, I appreciate that. And if you have some recommendations as to what we should do about that to end it, I 

would certainly appreciate it. 

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Were you going the say something? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Ms. Bass, just one point is that, as part of the 

President’s initiative from last fall, he did promulgate an Executive 

order on U.S. Government contracting to——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ [continuing]. Make sure that trafficking does 

not involve any goods that the U.S. Government produces. And 

that can reach a wide range of different types of products, including products made with cotton. 

And the Office of Management and Budget, GSA, and the State 

Department are all working on a joint draft regulatory rule that 

will address exactly how that Executive order is going to be implemented. And those regulations really bear close watching, because 

if the U.S. Government is not importing——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ [continuing]. Its cotton and other things, and 

contractors that we contract with as a government are looking at 

their supply chains, that can really create change across the entire 

waterfront. 

So those regulations are really worth looking into, and I am sure 

that there would be an opportunity for Members of Congress to 

weigh in. 

Ms. BASS. I know last year we were certainly concerned about 

some of our contractors within the Defense Department, and maybe 

they were contracting with companies, you know, overseas that 

were involved in trafficking even on some of our bases. 

When you talk about the young people that are forced into labor, 

who are these young people? Do they take young folks in the criminal justice system in these countries, or are they just schoolkids 

that are rounded up and forced to pick cotton? Who are the young 

people? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. They are everybody in Uzbekistan. They are the 

young people of Uzbekistan. And it is done on such a wide scale 

that it touches all aspects of life in Uzbekistan. And so these are 

children in schools, or should be in schools, these are children in 

high schools, young adults in universities, and also adults who 

work in the private and public sector. So it touches everything. 

Ms. BASS. And I had the same question about the industries in 

Russia that are involved in the forced labor, in terms of the companies, who are they, do we do business with them, are they stateowned? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I will say that I am not an expert on Russia, and 

so I will have to defer that question to perhaps another of my colleagues. 

Mr. THANG. Yeah, may I answer that question? 

Ms. BASS. Sure. 

Mr. THANG. Yes. As far as the Vietnamese community in Russia, 

we are aware that most of the forced labor involves sweatshops. 

Ms. BASS. Oh. 

Mr. THANG. And they even form an association of such sweatshops under the tutelage of the Vietnamese Embassy in Moscow. 

And there are also construction companies that employ Vietnamese 

migrant workers, and they, too, have been subjected to forced labor. 

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tories, manufacturing factories, that also are involved, and they are 

owned by Vietnamese nationals. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much. 

You know, I wanted to direct some questions to Ms. Smolenski, 

and please forgive me if I am mispronouncing your name. But I appreciated your comments in terms of the U.S. should hold ourselves 

to the same standards that we are holding other countries to, and 

sometimes I feel it can be a little bit hypocritical. We are looking 

at the rest of the world, but we need to look in the mirror sometimes, and I wanted to know if you could comment some more. 

When I look at the TIP Report and I am reading the section on 

the U.S., you know, there is not a lot of information there about 

U.S. trafficking of U.S. citizens, whether we are talking about girls, 

you know, females and males in the child welfare system, or you 

mentioned a point that I think is really important and that is sexual tourism, and so our folks going to other countries. And one 

country that comes to mind right away is Cambodia and the children that are involved there. 

So I wanted to know if you could expand on that, if you could 

talk about some changes that might need to be made in the TIP 

Report, but it seems like we need to do more here. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Yes, of course. I am delighted to expand a little 

bit. ECPAT has been around for 20 years trying to find good data 

to describe the issue in the United States and we still don’t really 

have the number, which of course is the first question you always 

get from a policymaker or a journalist, how many sexually exploited kids are there in the United States. We still don’t know 

that. So we don’t have a round number, nor do we have the different categories of child trafficking and child sexual exploitation. 

We just haven’t put any resources into doing anything about the 

data that we need to have as a baseline and the Committee on the 

Rights of the Child keeps asking the U.S. to start with. 

Ms. BASS. But, you know, sometimes I wonder that because, you 

know, and the chairman and I were talking about this yesterday, 

I mean, the FBI, there is the Innocence Lost Task Force. You 

know, I question it. I think we probably have the data. It is a question as to whether or not the left hand is talking to the right hand, 

you know. Maybe it is a question of doing something that would 

help our Government compile that. 

Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SMITH. Will the gentlelady yield? And we do, you know, the 

Attorney General obviously puts together an analysis, as you pointed out. The FBI has increased its reporting—they always need to 

do more. There is no doubt about that. And there have been independent surveys that have been done. One working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and some other 

NGOs showed the approximate number of runaways who turn into 

regrettably being bought and sold like commodities is about 

100,000 per year, average age 13. 

So there is data, but you are right, we can always do better and 

get a much more precise number. The task forces feed into that, 

you know, the FBI task forces. But it obviously needs to be 

prioritized even more. So thank you for that. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Yeah. 

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Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Bass, I 

think this is a really critical issue. I think that there are things 

that are happening. The FBI in their uniform crime reports is also 

putting in something that will collect more data from the States 

across the United States. But I do think that the issue of really trying to figure out in a very serious and granular way what is happening so we can figure out which interventions can go best where 

in the United States is something we need to work on. 

We, the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, has been talking to the National Academy of Sciences who do have a very strong 

social sciences division, and they have expressed an interest in 

doing some work on this. So we are trying to get back to them and 

try to see what kind of proposal they can come forward. There may 

be some need for some for some funding from the Federal Government, but we can get you apprised of that, you know, to get data 

from the full range. 

Ms. BASS. You know, as I look at the TIP Report and the section 

on the United States, you know, again it looks like it is primary—

and, you know, maybe I need to read it closer, maybe there is 

something I am missing here—but it looks like it is primarily a report about women from other countries in the United States versus 

what I certainly know is going on. I mean, I know that the average 

age that our girls are being recruited into trafficking is 12 years 

old. They are recruited in middle school, and some of them don’t 

survive beyond 7 years. 

So it seems like we need to do something in the TIP Report that 

reflects more about what is happening with our own girls. And I 

don’t know, you know, we will see when it comes out in June 

whether it includes it, but it isn’t included in this one. And maybe 

you might be able to offer some kind of guidance that we could give 

that would have more information about U.S. girls. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. And boys, by the way. 

Ms. BASS. And boys. No, absolutely. That is absolutely right. 

Also, I have heard a few of you make reference to an Under Secretary that is not—I know, you know, again at the beginning of the 

report there is an Ambassador-at-Large and I think Ambassador 

Lagon maybe was the first one. So what is missing? Who is this 

Under Secretary? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Yeah, Ms. Bass, Representative Bass, so currently we have an Ambassador-at-Large for Trafficking Persons, 

Ambassador Luis CdeBaca. 

Ms. BASS. Yes. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. I think generally he is considered to be very 

effective at what he does, very knowledgeable former prosecutor. 

The position that is vacant currently is the Under Secretary for 

Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights. Maria Otero, 

who I am sure you remember, had that position. She did resign 

earlier this year, and that position is currently vacant. 

When the discussion is about certain countries where there is a 

disagreement regarding where they should be placed or what the 

facts are, it goes up to the Under Secretary level, where the Under 

Secretary for Political Affairs will have conversations with have the 

Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human 

Rights that Ambassador CdeBaca formally reports to, and right 

127

now it is, you know, one person talking and there is no one else 

there. 

So I think that Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman has an interest in this issue, but she has a lot of things to 

do. So I think that when those conversations happen it is a challenge and it makes it more difficult for the TIP Office to raise that 

issue. 

I don’t know what the President’s plan is. I think Secretary 

Kerry testified yesterday that they do have a number of people who 

they have slated, but that there is continuing to be some vetting 

issues that has left that position vacant. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Can I say just something about sex tourism before—I was just taking the mike back for a second. 

Ms. BASS. Sure. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Ever since ECPAT was born, we have been asking for the U.S. Government to put some attention to messaging 

and education that it is against the law to have sex with children 

in every country, to combat the belief that so many Americans have 

that it is okay culturally to do it in another country or it is okay 

because you are helping the kids because they are so poor. And this 

is very prevalent. I have had people say to me this argument that 

that is why I should understand why it is okay. 

And so I really think that we need, especially when we are measuring how other countries are doing in their fight against sex tourism, I think that we have to do that publicly and overtly and do 

something all around the country. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. And, Carol, you can take the mike away from 

me anytime. 

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

Mr. SMITH. Will the gentlelady yield just for one final one point? 

One thing that we are very concerned about, because we do want 

to invite the assistant secretaries to testify before the decisions are 

made as to what the tiers will be for the different countries, the 

problem is a lot of those positions are vacant. And, you know, when 

you don’t have somebody at the helm who really is knowledgeable 

and focused, it often leads to a poor conclusion. So that is what we 

are so worried about because we are in a timeframe where we are 

talking about June. 

I yield to Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank each of you 

for your testimony. And I have a few questions for a few of you. 

And, Dr. Thang, it is good to see you again. We have had you 

here within the last few days testifying and that testimony is 

heartfelt, I can tell, on your behalf, and it touched my heart as you 

shared these unbelievable stories of lives that are devastated primarily with regards to some of the human trafficking in Russia. 

And let me go first to Ms. Choe and say, one, thank you for sharing your story today with us, and we are proud to have you as a 

fellow American. But since you have this history, would you say 

that your story is an isolated story or one that is being multiplied 

over and over with other North Korean women in China. 

Ms. CHOE. What I experienced is just one part of many experiences that many North Korean refugee women, defected women experience in China, and it is a true fact that so many North Korean 

128

defectors, North Korean defected women are being sold and traded 

in the human trafficking ring in China. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you. 

Ms. Scholte, let me go to you. Would you be able to estimate or 

give any kind of approximation to the number of North Korean refugees that are subject to trafficking each year in China. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. 90 percent. 

Mr. MEADOWS. 90 percent. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. And that is a figure that NGOs agree upon and 

the Government of South Korea as well, that it is at least 90 percent of North Korean women end up being victims of trafficking. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So 90 percent of the refugees are subject to this. 

So would the Chinese police or government officials, do they have 

a quota, do they get paid for doing this? How are they involved in 

this, or do you know? 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Well, the situation at the border has been pretty 

awful for decades, but when Kim Jong Un took power, when his 

father died in December 2011, the North Korean regime was very 

concerned about people fleeing, and they actually had to issue an 

order that anyone who was caught, that had fled during the 100-

day mourning period of Kim Jong Il’s death, that their family and 

they would be executed. 

Now, at the beginning of last year, fortunately a lot of people 

started to pay attention to this issue because there was a group 

that was in fact arrested in China, and in this group were the 

daughter of a South Korean couple who had made it to South 

Korea, that they were trying to get their daughter to come join 

them, the brother of another man who had made it to South Korea, 

a 70-year-old woman, a mother and her infant. And there was this 

huge outcry in South Korea about this. Even President Lee, the 

South Korean President at the time, appealed to Hu Jintao not to 

send them back. All of them got sent back. 

And the situation now, they have, on the Chinese side, they have 

increased surveillance, electronic surveillance, they have increased 

fencing to try to close off the border. On the North Korean side, 

what they have done is they have expanded the units. So basically 

in the past you would be able to bribe a guard but now you have 

minders that are watching you. And they are really trying to seal 

that border and prevent people from crossing, and I think it is 

worse today than ever before. And as a result, we have seen a 42 

percent drop in the number of people escaping over the past year. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Abramowitz, in your testimony you place a strong emphasis, 

I think, on the funding of a country as we start to look at this particular issue of addressing the fight against human trafficking, and 

while I agree grants from the State Department are critical and 

are necessary, they are extremely limited, and as we also know, 

that many times they are given to NGOs or the like and not specifically to the country. 

You know, if they are linked to this tier ranking, is there not a 

scenario where the country could say, well, gosh, you gave money 

to this country and not to our country, so that is why we are doing 

so poorly on human trafficking. Do you not see it as being more 

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critical that we put the emphasis back on that particular government to address it and not be so dependent on U.S. funding? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Thank you very much for the question, Mr. 

Meadows. It is very, very important. I think that clearly there is 

never going to be enough money in the U.S. Government’s foreign 

assistance budget to try to solve all the problems of trafficking 

around the world, nor should we. We should be trying to activate 

governments to try to make things happen. 

I think that with respect to your first point regarding the interest by governments to come to the U.S. and say, hey, listen we 

have a problem, too, can’t you just help fund to solve this problem, 

that is not purpose of these grants. The grants are generally looking at key interventions to demonstrate to the government how 

they can make this happen. At the end of the day, we need to put 

the emphasis on saying, look, you know, it is not that hard to fund 

a shelter. There are civil society organizations to do it. It is not 

that expensive. You know, in some cases there is already a child 

welfare system there in that country and you need to try to normalize how you deal with victims in that country just as Ms. Bass 

has been doing here in the U.S. Then you say, okay, now you know 

how to do it, we are moving on to another country, you need to 

build up your own capacity, and so on. 

I think that part of the reason that these grants are very effective is that you talk to the country about the problems that they 

have and they start to say, well, listen, we can’t, you know, deal 

with that. Look, let’s have a conversation about this. Let’s have a 

dialogue. We can help you start some programs that you otherwise 

might not be able to do. We have trafficking experts who can come 

in and help you devise the best laws. We can train some of your 

prosecutors so that they can really know how to make these cases, 

which are often very complicated cases. 

You know, some of our own U.S. attorneys——

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ [continuing]. Have not been able to make some 

of these cases. 

So, it is the activation part of these things, of these programs 

that are really important and can make a difference. But otherwise 

I agree, you need to put the onus on them to be a real partner and 

make the political commitment and then put up resources in order 

to actually make it happen. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. And I believe you also shared a statistic 

that said some 70,000 sex trafficking victims in Moscow, 80 percent 

of whom are under age. That would be 56,000 underage girls that 

are subject to human trafficking. You know, as we look at that, 

Russia has pulled out of a collaborative agreement with the United 

States to fight human trafficking. Is there any possible justification 

for moving Russia up to a Tier II? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Mr. Chairman, it is very difficult for me to see 

how they can make that judgment. As I said, you know, they did 

work with the International Organization of Migration to open up 

a shelter in St. Petersburg. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. I am sure that those who arguing that it was 

enough is going to point to that, that they are doing something. 

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But if you look at the wide range of different recommendations that 

we are making, that we were just talking a second ago, for example, about U.S. Government procurement, they are building buildings right now for the Sochi Olympics, and I am sure that if they 

are not doing something right now, you know, U.S. athletes could 

well be housed in buildings that are going to be constructed by 

slaves. And I just don’t see any actions they are taken to address 

these very significant problems, and it is very hard for me to understand how they could make that justification. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, and you mentioned about that space there 

in St. Petersburg. Is that not correct, that that space could house 

only 8 of the 70,000 trafficking victims? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. I think that it is a small shelter, Mr. Meadows. 

I would have to get back to exactly the scale. I don’t know if Ms. 

Smolenski. So I will try to get back to you with some information 

on that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But I guess my point is, it is a drop in the bucket 

compared to the problem. Is that not correct? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Absolutely. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. 

Mr. Campbell, let me move on to you because you have mentioned the oversight in terms of forced labor and what is happening 

not only just with regards to the State Department. You said, you 

know, we need to look at other areas, I guess, as well. I believe 

that was your answer to the question. 

How do we best identify that when we have oversight in these 

areas, whether it be this committee or other committees with that 

jurisdiction, how do we best identify that? To put it mildly, it is 

very hard to make the assumption from human trafficking, whether it be on the labor side and as it comes through in a shirt from 

some other country. What is the best vehicle to do that? Because 

I am all for it, but I want to see how we can implement that. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Sure. In terms of importation of goods, which is 

under the Department of Homeland Security——

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. CAMPBELL [continuing]. There is a good law on the books 

that needs a little bit of change, and that law is the Tariff Act of 

1930 that prohibits the importation of goods made with forced and 

forced child labor. And the current way that that is implemented 

is, if there is a reasonable basis to believe that your product contains in whole or in part something made with forced labor, then 

customs should detain it at the border and request the company to 

demonstrate, as provided in the regulations, to demonstrate that it 

does not. 

Now, the reasonable basis is a lower standard than probable 

cause. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. So what they are looking at is whether there is 

enough information that raises alarm bells with a red flag, and 

then it starts a process where companies then need to go back and 

verify whether or not what they are doing is buying goods that are 

made in part by forced labor. 

In terms of Uzbekistan, I highlight that because it is really simple. 

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Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Everything from Uzbekistan with cotton comes 

from the forced labor system. When it comes to identifying the 

Uzbek cotton, say, from Bangladesh, I think it is important that 

brands and that the government require its contractors and their 

own subcontractors to identify whether there is Uzbek cotton in the 

Bangladesh factories that they are ordering from and to require 

that. 

So I think there is action that both the government and private 

sector need to take in terms of their own supply chains in order 

to address this problem. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And if you would, if you would submit to the committee in writing some of those recommendations, if you would, 

whether they be for legislation or in terms of areas of concerns or 

ways that we can more properly identify those. 

Last question, Mr. Chairman. As we look at Russia and 

Uzbekistan, the demographics would suggest that a labor market 

is shrinking and will continue to shrink if you just look at the overall demographics. Do you believe that that will exacerbate this 

problem of trafficking for labor purposes going forward? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. In terms of Uzbekistan, the labor market has 

been decimated because of the forced labor problem. People are voting with their feet. They go to neighboring Kazakhstan and 

other——

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. [continuing]. To try to get away. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Sure. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. So, yes, absolutely, I think that fixing this problem will fix a labor market problem in that country so that they 

can develop sustainably in the long run. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Would you agree with that, David? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Yes. Mr. Meadows, I think that this is a really 

severe—this is a significant problem. I think, you know, one of the 

reasons that trafficking came to the fore in the 1990s was there 

was this increased amount of labor migration and there were unscrupulous people who were taking advantage of people who didn’t 

know the language, who could easily be put into situations where 

there is bonded labor, et cetera. 

So I think that in a number of these countries where you are seeing the labor market shrink, you are going to see significant problems increasing, which is why one of our emphasis has been on trying to regulate foreign labor recruiters. Because companies in these 

different countries that are trying to bring in people to perform 

these labor contracts, often they don’t know who is bringing in 

these laborers. They have an intermediary who brings in the foreign laborers, and they could say, oh, we didn’t know anything 

about it, we didn’t realize that their passports were being taken, 

we didn’t realize they were paying all these fees. So we are really 

trying to emphasize the responsibility of countries to make sure 

that those foreign labor recruiters are acting in a virtuous way. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Can I ask one more yes-or-no question to each 

one of the panelists? And as it get to this, when we look at the tier 

ranking and if we are to be committed to this particular process 

and truly to making sure that it has weight and is part of not only 

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our diplomatic negotiations going forward with individual countries, but where we actually put teeth to it, do you see that having 

a significant impact on reducing human trafficking, whether it be 

for sexual purposes or for labor? And a simple yes or no, starting 

with you, Dr. Thang, do you see that as being a useful tool? 

Mr. THANG. Yes, it has been proven in many countries that governments do care about the ranking. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, sir. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Yes. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Absolutely. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Ditto. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Well, thank you all. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

And I am going to be leaving. I have got another appointment. 

It is not out of a desire or an interest in this particular subject. But 

I want to thank each one of you for your testimony. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. I do want to add one really quick point about what 

we were talking about. There is something else here that I think 

just about how important this is. I can tell you from my own experience, I know North Korean women that were at the point of committing suicide and the only thing that prevented them from doing 

that was when they heard about protests that we were having in 

front the Chinese Embassy to save the North Korean refugees. It 

made them realize that somebody cared about them. 

So bringing up these kind of issues and doing the kind of action 

in addressing these, whether it is people, Vietnamese, in Russia, or 

where it is people in Uzbekistan, when they hear that people like 

yourselves are speaking out and taking action, it really saves people’s lives literally and gives them hope. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, if you will take this message, that not only 

do we care but that we are going to do something about that. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so much, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. Weber. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, Ms. Scholte, I am going to use what you just 

said to my colleague Mark Meadows here as my first question, and 

I am not quite sure how to phrase it. Without using a name, is 

there an underground movement to harbor these women? 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Yes. 

Mr. WEBER. To get the word out? 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Well, there is an underground railroad. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. As I like to point out, we have plenty of Harriet 

Tubmans. The problem is there are no Raoul Wallenbergs. There 

are no State Department people that are willing to stick their 

necks out to help these people. We are totally reactive when it 

comes to North Korean refugees. We are not proactive at all. And 

I can cite case after case after case. And again, there are lots of 

Harriet Tubmans, there are no Raoul Wallenbergs. 

Mr. WEBER. Is there a funding mechanism, or is that a railroad, 

is that a group that is able to receive support? 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Yes, but it is through private donations and private support. 

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Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. But I can tell you it is really hard right now. We 

just rescued three orphans. It took us over a year, and the person 

that helped us had five Chinese security people following him 

around, and he had to—I mean, if you can imagine, the Chinese 

are going after these people that are trying to save children, save 

women that are being trafficked, and the Chinese are hunting 

these people down. It is terrible. 

Mr. WEBER. So the Chinese just don’t want them coming across 

their border because they come across as refugees. Is that——

Ms. SCHOLTE. Right. And they have a relationship with Kim 

Jong Un. I think that they fear that if they showed some compassion to these refugees and allowed them safe passage to South 

Korea, that they would be flooded with refugees, and that is what 

they are afraid of. If that happens it may destabilize the regime, 

and they would rather have Kim Jong Un on their border rather 

than a unified South Korea. 

But that attitude is changing in China, I really believe. I think 

the Chinese are at the point where they are really getting fed up 

with the regime in North Korea, particularly over the latest provocations. 

And I also want to say, the argument that we are trying to make 

with Chinese that will listen is that they are causing the problem, 

they are exacerbating the problem because they are absolving, taking pressure off the regime. 

Mr. WEBER. They are aiding and abetting. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Yeah. And if they were to stop this, then it would 

force North Korea to start to take some reforms so that people 

didn’t want to leave in the first place. 

Mr. WEBER. Right. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. So they are prolonging the crisis by taking that 

pressure away. 

And also talk to any North Korean. They didn’t want to leave 

their homeland. They didn’t want to risk their lives. They want to 

go back. They left because of the conditions in their country. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, and they are leaving, in some of the reading, 

I read that they are leaving in search of food and work where they 

are being told that there is work up there. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Exactly. 

Mr. WEBER. Are we able to get Mrs. Choe’s story out? 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Esther. You can call her Esther. 

Mr. WEBER. Call her Esther Choe. Okay. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. She is speaking out for her people, so Esther will 

be fine. 

Mr. WEBER. Are we able to get her story out? 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Into China? 

Mr. WEBER. Into North Korea? 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Into North Korea. Yeah. As a matter of fact, the 

ability for people in North Korea to know what is going on has increased dramatically. They think at least 60 to 80 percent of the 

population has access to outside information. The information revolution has finally hit North Korea, and a lot of people know the 

truth about what is going on. 

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Mr. WEBER. Are we able to beam radio into there telling those 

kinds of stories, perhaps without names? 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Yes. In fact, I know there were some reporters 

here from both Radio Free Asia and Voice of America that will be 

telling her story and broadcasting that in. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

And, Ms. Smolenski, you say in your writings that workers in the 

child welfare system are not able to identify commercially or sexually exploited or trafficked children. And now you say that about 

the child welfare system. What about the law enforcement? 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. I would say similarly it has been difficult for 

them to identify this child before them as a victim of sexual exploitation rather than just a kid who has some bizarre story or a criminal. 

Mr. WEBER. Who is prostituting themselves? 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Because she is a prostitute, yes. 

Mr. WEBER. You know, coming from the Texas legislature, we 

were able to pass landmark legislation in the 81st session, House 

Bill 4009, where we actually gave HHSC the task of building a coalition, via their Web site, where we brought together district attorneys, where we brought together county sheriffs, DPS, and all the 

other actors to where we were able to start training law enforcement officials to look beyond the obvious. To your knowledge, is 

there a national movement to do that? 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. There are points of light around the country, 

and Texas is one of them. Over the years that I have been doing 

this work I do see momentum taking place. And so there is, in fact, 

I believe, a paradigm shift going on before our very eyes with law 

enforcement and child welfare workers saying, oh, now I understand what is going on with that kid, now I realize this child is 

somebody entitled to protection, not, you know, not prosecution. 

Mr. WEBER. Look a little deeper. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. And Texas has been a great model. There is no 

question about that. 

Mr. WEBER. In many ways. 

Mr. SMITH. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. WEBER. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. The gentleman is too modest. Mr. Weber is the prime 

author of the Texas act on——

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Oh. Congratulations. Thank you. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. 

In you all’s estimation, if you were king for a day, could we take 

and produce a Web site like that at the national level where we 

enlisted the help of NGOs, where we had—and I forget, I think it 

was Mr. Abramowitz’s exchange with Mark Meadows, that in 

spending the money to try to get enough of this done, funding and 

grants, if we didn’t have a lot of money, and obviously we don’t 

have a lot of money, if we were going to build a Web site and build 

a cohesive organization across the country that was able to train 

and do this, what agency would you give that to? And I will ask 

that of each of you. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Well, I am actually very much looking forward 

to this national strategy document that has been proposed and it 

is now in the comment period. 

135

For children, I would think it would be under HHS, but there is 

no agency that doesn’t have a role to play. 

I would also like to comment that I don’t think that it needs a 

huge appropriations for us to shift the systems that we currently 

have in place for the protection and identification and prevention 

of child sexual exploitation. It really is mostly a matter of training 

and shifting some resources around in some ways. I mean, not that 

I don’t want, of course, a robust program of protection for every 

child. 

But we have to have every school in the United States have their 

teachers knowledgeable, and every law enforcement officer and 

every child welfare worker. And it really doesn’t take that much. 

You know, one training and people’s eyes are open and they say, 

oh, my God, that is right, now I understand what was going on 

with that child I saw last week or last year, now I understand that 

there is a trafficking problem in our country and those children are 

entitled to protection. I don’t think it is all about the money. It is 

about awareness. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Mr. Abramowitz? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. You can play a really critical role. The National Strategic Action Plan on Victim Services does try to address 

this issue to some degree. I think that the notion of trying to do 

more training across our law enforcement, the spectrum of law enforcement agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and the 

Department of Justice with the FBI are both really critical in this 

area. 

And there is some good work being done in the States, including 

in Texas. I know my colleague Nick Sensley has been working with 

the Federal task force down there on some of these issues, but I 

think that you can really make a difference in inputting this plan. 

And just to underline something that Ms. Smolenski said, the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking had a conference call, the 

first ever, among child welfare agencies around the country with 

other advocates to talk about how, you know, these kids are in the 

system. They are already receiving services. 

Mr. WEBER. They have already been identified. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Well, they have been exploited in some way, 

but they are not really seen as trafficking victims, that the severe 

exploitation that they have had is not necessarily being identified, 

and they do need some special services, but they are not that different from the services that kids in a good system are already receiving. And if you can just try to identify them through the training that Ms. Smolenski was saying and then provide them some 

services that are not necessarily unequivalent, that are parallel to 

services they already get, you can really make a difference and 

make sure that they don’t give up on the system and leave and so 

on. 

Mr. WEBER. Right. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. So, I really would commend 

the action plan and think about how you could help get it right. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And then, I am sorry, I don’t remember, it 

might have been you, Ms. Smolenski, talked about combining the 

data where we had nationwide data earlier. And my question was, 

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who would head that up? Would it be HHSC, would it be the FBI, 

would it be——

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Actually, I think David said something, as we 

fight over the microphone here. I wanted to say that what we need 

is the kind of data that when somebody asks me, is the problem 

getting worse or better, that there is some basis for answering that, 

because right now I don’t have that. We do have some generally 

agreed upon numbers, you know, 200,000 to 300,000 children at 

risk, 100,000 sexually exploited probably. Statisticians are always 

stepping up to attack those numbers because of the methodology 

behind them. But really what we need is a regular surveillance 

about what is going on with our kids and some ability to measure 

that this thing we did actually helped stop it, helped prevent it, 

you know, that it had an impact and that we should be able to 

measure those things in our policies. And those are the kinds of 

statistics, I think, that we need. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. There is the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center. The Department of Homeland Security has theoretically been tasked by the President with trying to do some analysis 

on overall trends. I am not sure they are trying to get to a specific 

number, but really on trends, where the flow is going, where can 

we intervene. And I think this is for both domestic and foreign victims. But I am not quite certain about how far they have progressed on that. There have been efforts to work with them in the 

past, but I am not sure. 

I was mentioning, I am not sure you were in the room, Mr. 

Weber, there is this idea of having the National Academy of 

Sciences try to do a very comprehensive approach, which they do 

do some work like this, and they apparently are interested. And we 

are waiting for a proposal from them that we could then bring to 

champions to see if they would be interested in supporting this. 

Mr. WEBER. Oh, okay. And then, finally, I think you, Mr. 

Abramowitz, or somebody said something about the Olympics. They 

are building buildings. And was it China? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. In Sochi, Mr. Weber, in the Russian Federation who are hosting the Winter Olympics. 

Mr. WEBER. You can tell how much I keep up with the Olympics. 

Is there pressure being put on the Olympics not to participate in 

a country that does that? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Yeah. I don’t know what the Olympics are 

doing, you know. They have had some of these problems. This is 

becoming an increasing issue where various sporting associations, 

whether it is the International Olympic Committee, whether it is 

FIFA with soccer where there is a lot of construction that takes 

place and then, you know, labor has to be imported because they 

don’t necessarily have all the labor there to do these large construction projects. 

I don’t know what the IOC is doing on this. Certainly the State 

Department has been pushing the Russian Federation to try to put 

in preventative measures. We are looking at the World Cup in 

Qatar, which is quite a ways away, but they are starting construction planning right now, and there almost every laborer will have 

137

to come from outside the country because there is no workforce in 

the Gulf indigenously, so——

Mr. WEBER. But the good news is they can afford that. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Yeah. And hopefully they can afford to do it 

right. 

Mr. WEBER. Yeah. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. So we actually are wanting to talk to FIFA 

about making sure that they are putting pressure on Qatar to 

make sure that those games are slave free. 

Mr. WEBER. And then finally, last question. Is there a database 

of companies that have agreed or signed onto the idea that they 

will not contract to buy materials from another country that uses 

forced or child labor, Mr. Campbell? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. We have been working with many companies who 

have pledged to stop purchasing cotton from Uzbekistan. And what 

I can tell you is, hopefully on behalf of those companies we work 

with, they desperately need the help of the U.S. Government as 

well because the resources of the U.S. Government through enforcing things like the Tariff Act and procurement will build upon the 

private sector resources to identify where these products are and 

to clean their supply chains. 

Mr. WEBER. And if you had your druthers, if you could put sanctions on those Tier III countries, for sure, Tier II also perhaps, 

what would that do to the U.S. economy? Is there any kind of 

guesstimate out there? In other words, you are going to say we 

can’t trade with those countries. What does that do in the way of 

our trade imbalance? Anybody know? How much does it affect? 

How much is at stake? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. In terms of Uzbekistan, it will have minimal, if 

any impact at all. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, I am talking about all the countries that we 

have talked about, China, North Korea, Russia, and right down the 

line, it has got to be huge. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. I think, you know, Mr. Weber, I am not sure 

that is the right way to think about it. The companies need to be 

responsible in terms of trying to figure out what is in their supply 

chain and who they are working with. They already have various 

kinds of auditing requirements that they do to make sure that 

product quality is right, et cetera, and they can try to do more to 

make sure that those companies that they are working with and 

particular products that they are buying are ones that—slave free 

is very difficult, you know, it is very difficult to trace all the way 

down, but you can really tolerate no slavery in your supply chain 

and you can work over time to try to change the practices throughout these various supply chains, including to all these countries. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Yes? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Just to add one point to that. The sanctions in 

terms of the Tariff Act are good sanctions because they are targeted. They are not on entire country. So it is when you have information that a product is being manufactured with forced labor. 

Mr. WEBER. Who follows up to track what he is trying to track 

back down to slavery, back down the chain to see. Who follows that 

up? Who researches that? 

138

Mr. CAMPBELL. In terms of imports, it is supposed to be DHS. 

Often they rely on outside groups like myself to supply them the 

information as we do our own research with researchers on the 

ground. It is intensive research, it is dangerous research, and so 

the more that the U.S. Government can help us do that type of research is vital. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. At the end of the day, Mr. Weber, the companies have to do this themselves and they have to accept to accept 

this responsibility. 

Mr. WEBER. Kind of what I am figuring, too. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Yeah. It is not possible for the U.S. Government to be looking, you know, under every factory, you know, warehouse or in every factory warehouse. They have to be really responsible. And they are starting to be responsible. Recently California 

passed a law, the California Supply Chain Transparency Act that 

Chairman Smith is very aware of, which just said that companies 

had to declare what they were doing, companies that had over $100 

million of sales in California, what they were doing to try to make 

sure that slavery was not happening in their supply chains. And 

we have been doing some research, and a number of companies 

haven’t even declared what they are doing because it is perhaps a 

little challenging for them to figure out how they are actually monitoring this in their supply chains. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, my guess is that that brings, it brings attention to the matter and brings hope to the women, I think you said, 

Ms. Scholte, just by saying that we were going to put pressure on 

governments and that those victims actually sat up and said, hey, 

somebody is noticing. 

So, all right, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. I was going to add one thing, too, just regarding 

China. I mean, Harry Wu has done a tremendous amount of work 

with the Laogai Foundation about the Chinese slave labor camps 

and the products and trying to identify products that are coming 

in from those camps, and a very critical resource on that issue. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Weber. 

Before we conclude, just a couple of final questions. You have 

been very, very generous with your time. And believe me, we will 

act based on the information you have given, so thank you so 

much. 

Now, you mentioned, Ms. Scholte, Harry Wu. We had a hearing—I had it—in 1990s, mid-1990s, and he had six survivors of the 

laogai, including Palden Gyatso, who is a Buddhist monk who had 

been tortured horribly, as were the others. We have tried for years 

to get the U.S. Government to do just what, Mr. Campbell, you 

talked about, how the Ambassador from Uzbekistan will go and 

testify, and apparently the Office of the Federal Trade Representative swallows hook, line, and sinker false information that is given 

to them or conveyed to them, even though the State Department 

tends to get it right in their human rights report. 

But that said, perhaps you might want to speak to this. It seems 

as if the Smoot-Hawley Act, which is the tariff act that precludes 

the importation of slave-made goods, is never enforced or almost 

139

never. And I will give you one example, and if it takes this, it 

shows how unenforceable or how customs is not doing its job. 

When Frank Wolf and I went to Beijing Prison No. 2, which had 

40 Tiananmen Square activists, we literally got some jelly shoes 

and some socks that were being made by the convicts and brought 

it here, they were being sold in U.S. department stores. We went 

to the customs people and said, you have got to put an import ban 

on these, and they did. 

But I have met with our trade representatives or our customs 

people in our Beijing Embassy in the past and they are like the 

Maytag repairman. They have no job to do vis-a`-vis this kind of importation. 

You might want to take this back or give maybe an answer now. 

It would seem as if we have to update our efforts to combat this 

importation capability that goes unused. 

I would point out that Mark Lagon pointed out in his testimony 

that the ILO’s 20.9 million people in the world who are either 

human trafficking or forced labor victims, of that ILO study he 

says 2.2 million or over 10 percent are from forced labor, and an 

overwhelming majority of that number comes right out of China in 

their laogai system. And yet how many import bans have there 

been? I don’t know of any other than the one we are talking about 

that Wolf and I were able to get the Customs Department to do. 

So it is a very serious problem, not just in Uzbekistan but again 

in China, so maybe we need to look at Smoot-Hawley and upgrade 

that legislation. 

I would ask, Ms. Smolenski, you might want to speak to this, on 

Monday I will be at the Ukrainian Embassy for a rollout of an effort. They are the Chair in Office of the OSCE this year. We have 

been talking to them for some time about the importance of the 

Airline Ambassadors initiative and the Blue Lightning effort to 

train flight crews and other transport, but especially flight crews, 

on how to spot a trafficker. And it has worked. Delta and American 

are, you know, are well along in their efforts to spot people who 

are trafficking while it is in progress. You might want to speak to 

the importance of rolling that out worldwide so that these victims 

can be protected. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Thank you for the opening to talk about the code 

of conduct that has developed for the travel industry. We call it the 

Child-Protection Travel and Tourism Code of Conduct, where we 

ask companies to voluntarily take six steps to ensure that no child 

sex trafficking is taking place on their airline, in their hotel, or on 

their tour. Internationally, about 1,000 companies have signed, and 

we finally have some momentum in the United States as well with 

Delta Airlines that has signed the code of conduct, Hilton, 

Wyndham, Carlson companies, and a number of other companies. 

Besides the companies that have, as we call it, gone all the way 

by actually signing the full six-step code of conduct, other companies are doing training as well, such as American Airlines, I understand. 

So we really think that it is a great model for companies to take 

steps because, while they haven’t been dying to talk to us about a 

child trafficking issue that they have in their supply chain. When 

we get in the door with them, they really see it is in their best inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:05 Sep 25, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00143 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041813\80464 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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terest to do something like this. So it has been quite gratifying in 

the last couple of years. 

Mr. SMITH. Can I just ask you, Mr. Abramowitz, whether or not 

the NGO community fully appreciates and works against the onechild per couple policy in China? In and of itself it has caused irreparable damage, loss of so many of the girl children through sex 

selection abortion, but the impact that it is having on trafficking, 

which will not abate for decades because the missing daughters is 

a horrific phenomenon that is not going to turn around anytime 

soon, even if they got rid of the policy tomorrow. 

I have raised it for years. It took years admonishing the TIP Office to look at that, and it wasn’t until Ambassador Lagon looked 

at it that we finally got some reporting on just how that is a primary cause, not the, but a primary cause of why China is becoming 

the magnet for trafficking, to quote Ambassador Lagon. Is it understood? 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. You know, obviously 

you have had several very compelling witnesses who have testified 

while I have been, you know, here and also when I was on the committee on this issue. There are obviously a number of groups who 

do focus on this issue. 

I would say in the trafficking community the issue around China 

and Chinese policies has been one that I haven’t seen very well developed among the trafficking groups. The work I have been primarily doing with civil society has been on affecting U.S. Government policy as opposed to working with the U.N. and others who 

could, you know, make a difference. But I will certainly take this 

back and we will talk about it. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that so much. 

Let me ask you a question in terms of the new legislation, which 

included as a minimum standard the participation and inclusion of 

NGOs in the work. While I do believe that has tremendous surface 

appeal, I am concerned and I think we have to be very careful that 

the State Department doesn’t default and say, oh, they are working 

with so-and-so NGO, whether it be indigenous or foreign, therefore 

they get a bit of grade inflation in terms of not being dropped to 

Tier III, for example, or into the Watch List if they are currently 

Tier II. 

You will recall, David, we worked very hard on those minimum 

standards to say how many people are being prosecuted, how many 

people are being convicted, how many actually go to jail and for 

how long. And then, of course, on the protection side, what actions 

are being taken. And I am very worried, frankly, that with the best 

of intentions, that new language might have the impact for people 

within State, maybe not in the TIP Office, but others who will say, 

oh, but they are working with so and so. They had an NGO forum, 

isn’t that grand. No, we need hard evidence and empirical data 

that they are serious, because the last thing we want is something 

that is something less than faithfully and seriously combatting 

trafficking. 

Mr. Campbell and then Mr. Abramowitz. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. On that point I think, as applied to Uzbekistan, 

it is vital that they understand when applying this what is an 

NGO, that Uzbekistan is full of government-controlled NGOs. And 

141

so if they are looking at whether participation of NGOs, I would 

like to know from them how can you tell if it is a government-controlled NGO in Uzbekistan and be very careful. 

Mr. ABRAMOWITZ. You know, I think that Mr. Campbell makes 

a great point. You know, in the world I have been working in, recently they have a new term for that, GONGOs, government NGOs, 

GONGOs. And clearly this is a significant problem if it is applied 

that way. The minimum standards that were added by the act—

and, I think, Mr. Chairman, you are right, that if there had been 

a way to get into conference on this, this is an area where you 

could have made a big difference and made the bill better, at least 

ensured that it was tightened up. 

There were some changes, as you know, that were made before 

it got added that did improve somewhat, and they did have this 

provision that was added in about appropriately addressing allegations against public officials who are involved in trafficking, which 

is something that we have worked on together for a number of 

years. 

You know, I think that we do need to make sure that the partnerships that are used as part of this criteria are effective and that 

they have real outcome-based types of objectives within any agreements either with the United States or with NGOs so that you can 

say this is not just cosmetic, that there are real tangible outcomes 

that are supposed to come out of these agreements. And if, in fact, 

the State Department is pointing to those kinds of arrangements 

that don’t have those kinds of criteria in it, it is very, very worrisome and we will have to keep a look at it. 

I am hoping that, you know, Mr. Royce’s statement that goes to 

some of those issues will help spur the Department to make sure 

they are applying this in the right way, because obviously if there 

are effective partnerships with NGOs in these countries, it can help 

move things along, but there is definitely——

Mr. SMITH. I would be all for that. It was including NGOs as a 

minimum standard. And again the temptation for some who do not 

live with this day in and day out to say, oh, but they are working 

with a very good group called—and just fill in the blank. And again 

delay is denial for a trafficking victim and for people who will at 

some point in the future be trafficked if there is not really a determination on the part of that country. 

And as you know as well as I, all of us know, you know, the Department has abused, in my opinion, and I say this respectfully, 

but it has abused the Watch List. It was never intended to be used 

as it has been used. 

Yes? 

Mr. THANG. Yes. In the context of pressure, I would like to suggest that we could use the TIP Reports to give out benchmarks 

that are country specific to those governments placed on the Tier 

II Watch List. These reports contain a lot of valuable information 

that could be used. For instance, J/TIP could have gone back for 

3 years and extract information from the cases that have been featured in their past TIP Reports, and there are many cases featured 

in there. And then just go back to that government that is placed 

on the Tier II Watch List and ask them how many among those 

traffickers are there in those cases featured in the TIP Report over 

142

the past 3 years? How many of them have been investigated or 

prosecuted? How many of the victims in those featured cases have 

received protection, assistance, reintegration, and have had access 

to justice? How many of those NGOs that have exposed those cases 

have been consulted and involved and engaged? 

So instead of just asking those countries to engage their civil society and leave it up to them to pick and choose which NGOs, and 

they might take the GONGOs instead of real NGOs that have proven the value and proven the good work through those cases. There 

is a lot of information already embedded in the TIP Reports. So 

that suggests that we maybe suggest to the J/TIP Office to just go 

back through their past TIP Report and their own information. 

They have the background information to support those cases. 

And also, Mr. Chairman, I would like to request your approval 

to include a report that we have prepared for submission to the 

U.N. Human Rights Council in advance of the UPR, Universal 

Periodic Review, of Vietnam relating to human trafficking situation 

in Vietnam as part of this hearing’s record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

When is the Universal Periodic Review? 

Mr. THANG. It will be January or February of next year. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you. 

Anybody else like to add anything before we conclude. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. I just want to ask, there is a document that we 

would like to submit that is a listing of the people that the Chinese 

have arrested. We hold them accountable for North Korean refugees, humanitarian workers, people who have been jailed. We are 

in the process of updating that and we would like to submit it as 

part of our testimony today. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, it will be a part, thank you. 

Thank you so much for your testimony, for taking the time to 

prepare very extensive testimonies that are filled with very important and actionable information. And this will be the first this Congress of a series of hearings on trafficking. You got us off to a great 

start. And I do hope that the State Department will be listening. 

I have a great deal of hope and expectation that Secretary Kerry 

will be very diligent, but I hope that what he is fed, the information that gets to his desk will be the right information, and that 

is, I think, the challenge that we face. 

[Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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