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▶ 0:17:23good morning the submit subcommittee will come to order without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time we welcome everyone to today's hearing on protecting victims of human trafficking and online exploitation I will recognize myself for an opening statement oh sorry we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance I'm sorry I'll ask this gentleman from Alabama Mr Mor to Le Us in the pledge Al to the flag of the United States of
▶ 0:17:53America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you I'll now recognize myself for an opening statement I appreciate everyone being here today we're here to continue an extremely important discussion on protecting the most vulnerable members of our population through the 118th Congress our subcommittee held two victims focused hearings we passed two pieces of legislation out of
▶ 0:18:23committee and one of them ended up being signed into law I look forward to continuing this work in the 119th Congress by spotlighting how to best protect victims of human trafficking and child exploitation and give a voice to these countless victims human trafficking specifically sex trafficking is a heinous crime that tragically continues to grow in America while International sex trafficking may be more widely known domestic sex trafficking also persists in the United States traffickers
▶ 0:18:53even use social media to lure innocent people including children to become victims in the United States an adult or child can be trafficked and exploited at hotels truck stops their own homes and online trafficking victims are exploited in cities suburban and rural areas it can happen anytime and anywhere traffickers use fraud force and coercion to induce their victims to commit crimes this can lead to the arrest conviction and
▶ 0:19:23incarceration of trafficked victims without consideration of their victim thankfully we as a country have and will continue to make significant progress to help victims and survivors move forward with their lives we're also committed to protecting children and combating the growing issue of child sexual abuse cesam identifying children depicted in cesam is crucial to stop their ongoing victimization and capture offenders of producing it more than 50,000 children
▶ 0:19:54excuse me in cesam videos and images in the possession of law enforcement remain unidentify ified it's tragic that so many children remain unknown unfound and last year the the committee worked with and former uh with former members of Homeland Security investigations the main investigative body within DHS and The prominent law enforcement agency combating human trafficking and child exploitation
▶ 0:20:24we also heard from current and former internet crimes against children iak Task Force officers coordinating thousands of federal state and local enforcement agencies across the country cesam we also had powerful testimony from Tim TBO sharing the mission of the Tim TBO foundation and more about operation renewed hope operation renewed hope is the first of its kind it's it's joining federal law enforcement agencies with non-government organizations to identify locate and rescue victims
▶ 0:20:55of exploitation thanks to these heroic e efforts over 300 victims were identified and at least 14 were res were rescued I understand operation renewed hope is ongoing and I hope more victims continue to be rescued and provided with the care they need and deserve there is no question these criminals must be prosecuted while there are many solutions to combat these issues we must assure prosecutors are doing their jobs to put these criminals bars I express
▶ 0:21:25my gratitude to the special agents of HSI and iak task for Force officers for their unwavering commitment to safeguarding children and Liber liberating victims from the atrocities of these crimes I also thank Nick Mech and the Timbo Foundation these groups are leading the charge to identify and rescue victims of human trafficking and seesam and for that we thank you it is Sunshine's the best and disinfectant it has been said it is the best way to rid the world of these Predators who
▶ 0:21:55abuse and exploit victims we will continue our work to deliver hope to those who need it most again I thank those Witnesses who are here and and the members of the committee who are here and will come and with that I yield back and now recognize the ranking member Ms mcbath for her opening statement well thank you Mr chairman and good morning to all of our Witnesses this morning uh thank you to each of you for joining us today for our first
▶ 0:22:25hearing of the subcommittee on crime and federal government government surveillance in the 119th Congress I welcome all of our subcommittee members as chairman said that will also be arriving and I truly hope that we can find common ground this Congress as we work to combat crime and make our safer most Americans probably think that we've never met a victim of human trafficking or online exploitation that these crimes
▶ 0:22:55happen everywhere else but the unfortunate reality is that more than 36 million reports of online child sexual exploitation were made in 2023 while reports of online enticement increased more than 300% in just two years and human trafficking a multi-billion doll industry that includes both sex trafficking and labor trafficking
▶ 0:23:26has been reported in all 50 states before I became a member of Congress believe it or not I was a flight attendant and I was trained to spot the signs of trafficking on board the airline uh the the the planes we were taught that if we saw someone in distress we would reach out and help that person find safety if we could this training continues
▶ 0:23:56today through the Department of Homeland Securities blue Campaign which educates people in key Industries and the public to help identify victims of trafficking but what happens after that victim is discovered whether by a flight attendant a doctor a hotel manager a friend or a member of the community what happens after that almost 25 years ago Congress recognized that to combat
▶ 0:24:27human trafficking effectively a system was needed that could help victims Escape get the support that they needed and if they were willing Aid law enforcement in Pro Prosecuting their trafficker with the help of trafficking Advocates congress's solution was the trafficking victims protection act a bipartisan bill that invested in prevention protection of victims and prosecutions but today
▶ 0:24:58the entire system is in Jeopardy the current administration's chaotic and Reckless approach to governing has put lives on the line by freezing funding and stopping the very critical work done by organizations that help victims and help survivors these disruptions have already forced nonprofits to lay off employees and while some organizations have had their funding restored
▶ 0:25:28they still worry about how this Administration might continue to undermine their work if the president continues down this path and funding is cut for good it will be trafficking victims and survivors who pay the price without shelters where will these victims and survivors go without lawyers or social workers who will ask advocate
▶ 0:25:58for them to make sure that they get the services that they need without assurances of safety how will victims work with law enforcement in pursuing charges charges that might prevent a trafficker from reaching new victims if this Administration lets the system fail victims will have nowhere to turn and that is exactly what traffickers want when
▶ 0:26:28victims feel like they have nowhere to go traffickers can promise them safety then turn on them to resume their exploitation now I'm sure that there may be some out there who still think that this issue doesn't affect them but the reality is is that human trafficking and online exploitation both in the United States and abroad it harms all Americans
▶ 0:26:59when the administration attempted to illegally dismantle USA usaid and froze State Department funding us anti-trafficking efforts were stopped around the world efforts that protect Americans and the United States interests for example usid has been working to combat online operations in South Asia known as scam Farms which use Force labor
▶ 0:27:29to scam Americans Democrats and Republicans have long been able to work together to combat human trafficking and online exploitation at this moment and I believe this is possible but at this moment we need our Republican colleagues to stand with us in calling on the administration to stop the chaos and stop the disruptions join us in protecting these very
▶ 0:27:59vital programs and organizations and their funding so that we can truly protect the victims and survivors of these crimes now is not the time for us to cut off funding for law enforcement and safety reforms and safety efforts funding is absolutely necessary to combat these egregious crimes and I y back
▶ 0:28:29that objection all other opening statements will be included in the record and I'm going to now introduce today's Witnesses and I appreciate you coming today uh starting with Miss Jean bugman Miss bugman is the executive director of Freedom Network USA a collection of Advocates and survivors that advocate for and provide services to trafficking survivors she previously served as a human trafficking fellow in the doj office for victims of crime also is Miss Basham Miss Anne Basham
▶ 0:29:00is the founder and chair of the interparliamentary task force on human trafficking the task force is a Consortium of members of parliament and Congress government leaders and survivors from more than 25 countries who work to stop human trafficking Miss Camille Cooper serves as vice president of anti-human trafficking and child exploitation at the Tim TBO Foundation she's worked for over 20 years on issues including Child Protection child exploitation and child trafficking she previously served for 13 years as the Director
▶ 0:29:30of government Affairs at the National Association to protect children a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children from abuse neglect and exploitation and Miss Sherry Lopez is a survivor of human trafficking and founder of Pearl at the mailbox a nonprofit organization that works to end child exploitation through prevention education and awareness her nonprofit is named for the women woman who noticed that she was being trafficked and helped Sher get free from her
▶ 0:30:00traffickers we welcome our Witnesses and thank them for appearing today we'll Begin by swearing you in would you each please rise and raise your right hand do you each swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge information and belief so help you guide the record will reflect that the witness Witnesses have answered in the affirmative thank you please be seated
▶ 0:30:30uh please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety accordingly we ask that you summarize your testimony uh in five minutes Miss BR uh Miss Miss Basham we'll go to you first thank you so much chairman bigs ranking member mcbath and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify today uh my name is Ann Basham as he mentioned and while there are many important relevant bills here in Congress right now I am going to be focusing primarily on two
▶ 0:31:01and that is the trafficking Survivor Relief act and the Gracie act human trafficking is perhaps the worst human rights violation in the world and yet instead of receiving protection and Justice many trafficking victims are arrested and convicted of crimes they were forced to commit survivors of human trafficking too often have their voices silenced by unjust felony convictions for crimes they didn't they committed as a direct result as a direct result I should restate of their trafficking offenses
▶ 0:31:32traffickers often force their victims to commit crimes and the resulting criminal records prevent survivors from obtaining housing employment and other Essential Elements for Life currently Most states have legal mechanisms that allow survivors of trafficking to seek vacor or expungement of their criminal records that are tied to their exploitation however there is no equivalent legal framework at the Federal level the trafficking Survivor Relief act or TS as I'm going to refer
▶ 0:32:02to it is sponsored by representative fry Lou and Wagner and it actually passed through the house Judiciary Committee last year it seeks to address this Gap by providing a pathway for survivors to vacate convictions and expunge arrest records for certain crimes that were a direct result of their trafficking additionally the bill allows for the office on violence against women to allocate funding for civil Legal Services and establishes and this is very important an affirmative defense for victims so that they can
▶ 0:32:32avoid unjust criminalization at the outset in an appendix to my written testimony which I would really encourage you to read I have included Survivor impact statements including the story of Holly nadell who built an incredible career and was acknowledged as a trafficking Survivor by the court but she recently lost everything due to a wrongful felony conviction what is most alarming is that for most of these adults who are convicted victed in their late teens or early 20s this this experience began actually
▶ 0:33:03when they were children research shows that the average age at which children are targeted for both sex and labor trafficking is just 11 to 14 years old and more than 60% of child trafficking victims are current or former Foster youth the Gracie act which is generate recordings of all CPS interviews everywhere was just introduced last week by Senator Blackburn and Senator ooff and incentivizes states to mandate audio or video recordings um for all Child
▶ 0:33:33Protective Services or CPS interviews it also provides necessary transparency and accountability to those who are on the front lines of protecting children so I'm actually going to share with you the story that inspired the Gracie act Abby as I'm going to refer to her was a young girl she was caught in a nightmare that too many children face her parents were divorced and during a visit to her father's house a quarrel escalated into physical violence and this was a young child in elementary school aby's father grabbed
▶ 0:34:03her neck the incident was reported to a counselor and the case was referred to CPS the case worker actually interviewed Abby at her mother's home because school happened to be closed that day for snow that's very typical the mother listened to the story from the from the next room and recorded the interview the mother told the investig or the Abby told the investigator the same story she had told counselor however the case was curiously dismissed missed months after the case closed it was discovered that the official report distorted aby's testimony downplaying
▶ 0:34:34the assault as a mere grab to the arm not the neck an act which could have qualified as a felony under state law aby's voice was silenced in the United States 37.4% of children that's more than onethird of all children will be interviewed by CPS by the time they're 18 and without recordings these children's testimonies can be easily misrepresented so I actually have here a copy of the Congressional Record it's I know that you all know what this looked like
▶ 0:35:04but for everyone else um this is just one day on the house floor this is everything that was spoken but what if you as members of Congress went to the house floor and you gave an important testimony and it was never recorded what if there was only one witness in the hearing room not a stenographer but just an observer who recorded a personal analysis of your testimony would you take this personal analysis as an accurate record of your testimony do you want the most important statements of your life to be at the mercy
▶ 0:35:34of a stranger with a pen so the lack of transparency and accountability within child welfare systems is appalling police are required to wear body cameras in Most states and the Department of Justice has mandated interrogation recordings since air colder but child victims are not afforded the same protections so thank you so much with that I urge each of you to co-sponsor both of these bills as well as the national human trafficking database act the Crime Victims fund stabilization act the shield
▶ 0:36:04act the renewed hope Act and the take it down act thank you so much and I look forward to your questions thank you Miss Basham chair now recognize Miss bugman for your five statement microphone please thank you chairman bigs ranking member mcbath members of the committee and staff and my fellow Witnesses thank you for the opportunity to discuss human trafficking in the United States I'm Jee bugman executive director of Freedom Network USA and
▶ 0:36:34an attorney with 25 years of experience addressing human trafficking Freedom Network USA is the nation's largest Coalition of anti-trafficking programs and a train training and technical assistance expert our 98 members are Nos and individuals they are survivors attorneys researchers teachers doctors and social service providers who work with o over 6,000 trafficking survivors here in the United States every year I've provided detailed recommendations in my written statement and
▶ 0:37:04will summarize those briefly now human trafficking is the result of policy choices Industries like Agriculture and domestic work once dependent on enslaved labor were left out of US Labor protections and are now Rife with labor trafficking our immigration laws were established to exclude Asians and Africans the criminalization of sex work was rooted in oppos position to mixed race couples enacting policies that protect all workers value immigrants and decriminalize
▶ 0:37:34sex work robs traffickers of their power young people are vulnerable to trafficking due to their developing brains and legal and phys and psych excuse me physical dependence if you add in poverty insecure immigration status sexual or physical abuse or rejection by family or Community traffickers will swoop in providing care and support to all young people including education on consent and healthy relationships protects them from a range of abuse and creates
▶ 0:38:05safe places to seek help the internet social media and cryptocurrencies are being used by traffickers but also by survivors and providers while we need safer online spaces restricting access to information and shutting down sites with adult content only drives traffickers into hidden spaces out of the reach of legal authorities age and identity restrictions collect data that hackers steal and far too many policies are used to block
▶ 0:38:35access to critical information and safety for queer communities we need to pursue policies that protect everyone not just a few both labor and sex trafficking survivors are left with criminal records as a result of their victimization our survivor reentry project is currently supporting 137 survivors who have a total of 1,7 116 criminal charges we're connecting them with pro bono attorneys in the 47 states that have criminal record relief
▶ 0:39:06but for those with federal charges there are no options enacting the trafficking survivors Relief act is critical but we must avoid the pitfalls we've seen in so many state statutes it must include a broad range of criminal charges reduced requirements and meet the needs of real survivors over 25 years the tvpa has remained impressively bipartisan funding for services has steadily grown but let's be honest still not that much fy2 24
▶ 0:39:36Appropriations for the doj and HHS programs combined were only about $120 million but they provide survivors with safe housing medical and Mental Health Care legal services and education these programs not only meet the very real needs of survivors but they also send a critical message we see you you did not deserve this abuse and we will protect you but last month's OMB memo threatened to end all funding in less than 48 hours
▶ 0:40:06the HHS grants were on hold for weeks programs funded by the state department and usaid both in the US and abroad have been cancelled some programs have already enacted furlows halted hiring or stopped accepting clients if funding is not reliable programs will close survivors will have to choose between staying with traffickers and homelessness between abuse and hunger funding Cuts enable traffickers to abuse and exploit US citizens and foreign Nationals
▶ 0:40:36alike traffickers Target the vulnerabilities of their victims to combat them we can't use a one-size fitall approach we must meet the specific needs of each person the executive orders on gender Dei and immigrants threaten this critical work guidance from the federal government to ignore gender identity and sexual orientation tells queer communities that they are not welcome in these programs eliminating services for undocumented immigrants leaves them dependent on the traffickers
▶ 0:41:07who control their visas and their debts back home these orders are a blank check to traffickers and will lead to increased violence and abuse most anti-trafficking programs are embedded in community-based organizations like Refugee resettlement agencies runaway and homeless youth shelters and queer community centers they are a part of the fact fabric of our social safety net and strengthening that that net holds the key to not only supporting survivors but preventing human trafficking in
▶ 0:41:38America thank you chair now recognizes Ms Lopez for five minutes good morning chairman bigs ranking member McBeth and members of the committee I am honored to testify before you today on protecting victims of human trafficking and online exploitation my name is Sher Lopez and I am a human trafficking Survivor and founder of the nonprofit Pearl at the mailbox named in honor of a brave woman who rescued me from Seven Years of trafficking at a
▶ 0:42:09mailbox um I share with you a today's survivors point of view I grew up in a stable two parent home I had just turned 15 I was trying to find my place in the world I was an insecure and shy teen which made me vulnerable to manipulation I share this to shatter the precon notion that most children trafficked come from broken homes are troubled or are runaways I was none of these the reality is that any child can be groomed and trafficked I met a boy in the drama
▶ 0:42:39club in high school and he quickly introduced me to his father throughout three months he groomed me and became my first trafficker this began my seven years of being sex trafficked from the age of 15 to 18 I lived at home and my parents had no idea what was happening to me and I could not find the words to tell them that I was repeatedly being raped this continued on the weekend and over the summer while I was in high school there are many times I tried to stop what was happening
▶ 0:43:09however every rape had been recorded and used as blackmail to forced me into submission along with other threatening actions that were messages to me to comply from the age of 18 until my rescue I was flown across the United States and forced to do things I didn't want to do but did because of fear of the consequences and traveling on airplanes nobody would have ever known I was a victim
▶ 0:43:40over time my body operated on autopilot while I emotionally checked out to cope with the trauma during my seven years of being trafficked I had four traffickers one was a woman see a trafficked person has a shelf life once they are no longer useful to the trafficker the trafficker is going to get rid of them which could include being sold to another trafficker such in my case kicked out resulting in many homeless teens they're going to be killed traffickers intentionally set out to destroy
▶ 0:44:10the will heart and soul of their victim and would not hesitate to take their life to if needed when a victim gives up on life and their will to live is destroyed the brain goes into self-preservation mode to keep the heart beating even if the victim would rather die to end the abuse survival is in our DNA traffickers know this and use fear to gain and maintain control of their victim beat down the will to live and use the victim however it best fits the agenda
▶ 0:44:40of the trafficker human traffickers survivers are often the pwns of Crimes masterminded by the traffickers and seen as throwaways who can take the blame many times human traffickers are labeled as domestic violence victims and inadequately represented legally and therefore easy to convict a box that can be checked and a person to put behind bars while the trafficker can afford better legal representation and receive a lesser charge or accountability for their role in
▶ 0:45:10forcing another person to participate in what they orchestrated and let me share with you that it took over 25 years for me to grasp even what happened to me to be able to put a name to it and then it was anger that another person had the right to abuse another person such fashion that I finally had to speak up and now you cannot keep me quiet um I found my place in legislation last year with the help of Representative Gress I was able to get the Arizona
▶ 0:45:40vacat law updated and signed by the governor which gives human trafficking survivors charged with prostitution or minor criminal offenses the ability to meet with the judge and potentially get those charges set aside also I participated in a group with the help of Representative Bliss Senator bulock and the guidance of Representative win which was prop 313 and it was created by the Arizona voters to uh on the ballot and it was passed unanimously in the state um and what this does
▶ 0:46:11is it allows any adult who traffics a child under 15 as in is convicted with um the charge will spend the rest of their natural life in prison without the possibility of parole why is this important because a traffic Survivor has a life life sentence themselves I will never get away from what happened to me the life I had before is now gone I respectfully ask that you support the trafficking survivors Relief act doing so will give survivors hope that they can go forward and
▶ 0:46:41have a new life thank you thank you chair recognizes now miss Cooper for your five minutes thank you Mr chairman chairman bigs ranking member mcbath and honorable members of the committee thank you for having me back to speak again my name is Camille and I'm vice president of anti-human trafficking and child exploitation at the Timbo Foundation the Timbo Foundation exists to bring faith hope and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need our anti-human trafficking efforts span 52
▶ 0:47:11countries around the globe you have a few great bills before you this Congress the strengthening child exploitation Enforcement Act the protect our children act reauthorization the shield act the trafficking survivors Relief act and representative Smith's reauthorization of tvpr for today I'm going to focus most of my attention on the renewed hope act which addresses the need to identify and Safeguard the 57,000 unknown children seen in crime- scen photos that depict their rape and tort torture chairman BS and representative
▶ 0:47:42Laura Lee thank you for your leadership and your assistance with that bill 10 years ago in a small town a man started raping his 2-year-old stepdaughter for our purposes I'm going to call her Jane do he filmed that abuse and shared it online with other pedophiles the girl repeatedly disclosed her abuse but she was not believed for this little girl the boogeyman was real and he lived down the hall for 10 years Jane Doe suffered in 2020 the number of children in the US like Jane Doe
▶ 0:48:12that had their abuse images in the possession of law enforcement but had yet to be identified and safeguarded was 11,000 in 20122 the anecdotal information put that number at 20,000 in just two years it had almost doubled when I got to ttf we put the protection of those children as our number one priority and we got to work with the help of Timmy John Rouse Jim Cole and the entire team at ttf we hatched a plan bring all the experts in the world
▶ 0:48:42together with the goal of determining how many unknown victims were in the global image database at interpole and operationalize a plan to find them the result of that meeting LED Homeland Security investigations to create the first ever VI victim identification task force in the United States and dubbed it operation renewed hope in the summer of 2023 and the winter of 2024 this task force tentatively identified over 730 children including Jane do to date 289
▶ 0:49:13of those children have been confirmed safeguarded almost half were American children operation renewed hope 3 is currently underway as we speak based on current data of actively traded series identified at the national Center for for missing and exploited children we know that family members are the largest category of offender in actively traded series and of those fathers produce more child sexual abuse images than any other type of offender category according to law enforcement children can be heard in these videos screaming for
▶ 0:49:43Daddy to stop in an unidentified in a study of unidentified victims of the interpole database they found that 84% of the images were of actual child sexual abuse 47% contained extreme abuse including rape bondage torture defecation and even bestiality 4.3% of the images were infants due to the nature of online distribution International collaboration with interpole is essential in identifying and safeguarding
▶ 0:50:13American children by way of example the offender in Arizona rapes his child films it shares it with offenders in Spain or Germany when those countries make an arrest and seize that offender's devices and analyze the images they will find new victims whose and those new victims images go to interpol's International child sexual exploitation database since its Inception 14,000 children are almost half of the identified images in the Ia database have been American
▶ 0:50:44children and this is why collaboration is so critical if half of the unidentified children in interpol's database are likely American victims that means that a team of seven at HSI cyber crime Center are tasked with finding tens of thousands of American victims and that's why the renewed hope Act is critical it will increase that full-time Workforce from 7 200 despite the success of operation renewed hope we cannot leave these remaining 56,000
▶ 0:51:14children to languish they need intervention and they need it quickly when Jane Doe was protected this is what she said when the police arrived at my house I felt happy I felt that something good will happen for me God I was thrilled I wanted to smile because I knew something good will happen it was magic today the fate of 56,000 children is in your hands thank you for allowing me to speak thank you thank you Miss Cooper and thank all of our witness for their opening
▶ 0:51:44statements um Mr Rasin do you you ready to go so Mr Rasin will recognize you for your opening statement thank you very kindly for your Indulgence Mr chairman and uh greetings to our Witnesses thank you you for your uh your testimony which I know is uh harrowing uh and difficult in some cases and I thank you for your public service trafficking uh is modern-day slavery and it reflects a time of
▶ 0:52:15Cruelty and barbarity when everything is for sale not just uh public office and government but human beings people women children laborers um and we know that labor trafficking sex trafficking um the child sex abuse material are all flourishing um alas
▶ 0:52:47um the social media companies have been pushed to remove all guard rails against objectionable content on their platforms uh which is called sensor ship uh the result has not been a free speech Utopia but a dystopian nightmare social media has become a cesspool of scams targeting the elderly cyber bullying aimed at children and linked to escalating suicide rates misinformation exploiting
▶ 0:53:17the victims of disasters natural and unnatural racist and anti-semitic hatred and vilification in foreign disinformation and propaganda undermining Democratic elections and social trusts and all of this has been a boon for the sex traffickers while reduced content moderation has also led to an explosion of child sex abuse material uh online so
▶ 0:53:48um we want to prevent the government uh a Barren hellscape like the the social media platforms have become we cannot allow them to dismantle the government programs and federal funding that actually protect children in teens and Aid the victims of human trafficking um so uh we rely on law enforcement and Personnel from Homeland Security
▶ 0:54:18the FBI the internet crimes against children Task Force program which is a national network of 61 different task forces uh to target the people that are uh praying on children and women um just last week we learned that the Department of Homeland Security has ordered its entire investigative division 6,000 agents to stop focusing on drug dealers terrorists and human traffickers and instead prioritize you guessed that immigration
▶ 0:54:48enforcement so the child pornographers the drug networks and uh the uh the human traffickers must be uncorking their champagne bottles about the diversion of all the other law enforcement resources to work on the mass uh Roundup and deportation of immigrants so we've got an entire ecosystem of groups working to help here the national Center for missing and exploited children which
▶ 0:55:19receives 81% of its funding from the federal government um it does an essential job without Federal funding and not for profits and there are people determined to dismantle the federal funding uh Nick Mech and those that support victims by providing housing emergency shelter food clothing and so on may have a much more difficult time uh being able to find the victims survivors um the people who are willing to
▶ 0:55:49cooperate with investigations and prosecutions um so uh my bottom line is I want to thank you for everything that you all are doing and I hope that we will invest carefully in the the public programs and the funded uh not for-profit programs that are actually working uh to confront this nightmare in our time I yield back to you Mr chairman gentleman yields back and now recognize myself uh for for my five minutes
▶ 0:56:19uh Miss bugman you're the executive director of Freedom Network and so I assume you're familiar with your organization's finances in budget that's correct and will you please share with the committee the dollar amount Freedom Network received and grants from the federal government in 2023 please um if you don't have an exact number I I don't have the exact number in front of me um I think that was in my disclosure form we do have currently three uh grants and one sub awward there are threeyear Awards
▶ 0:56:50so uh the funding is received but is uh to be used over the course of three years yeah and the 990 indicates that you received about $1.3 million and that was about 87.7% of your funding that's correct is that accurate that sounds accurate so um let's let's put those up so you're getting nearly 90% of what you do funded by American taxpayers and you advocate for uh legalization
▶ 0:57:21of prostitution is that fair uh we advocate for the decriminalization uh Mr B it is not the same as legalization and you also advocate for open borders right we advocate for a safe way to allow migrants to move uh to attain safety and support for themselves and their children yes and so I have here um a document from the national Center on sexual exploitation uh that protest your
▶ 0:57:51your today um because the the legalization full decriminalization of commercial sex does two things expands the trade thereby expanding the demand for more prostitution typically Satisfied manip by manipulating vulnerable people including Youth and those experiencing poverty homelessness addiction and undocumented status and two it prevents law enforcement from being able to identify sex trafficking victims including minors and so without objection I introduce this letter and the packet from the national
▶ 0:58:21Center on exploitation I would argue that that there's no question for you right now miss Brigman I'll go now to you misss Lopez um the vur statute in Arizona that you worked on with uh representative Gres in in Arizona that was to uh protect victims of of trafficking who sometimes get caught up with committing crimes themselves and so I wanted you to explain
▶ 0:58:51that and how you uh got that through thank you for the question chairman bigs yes I um like to find laws that are completely outdated and useless when it comes to protecting survivors and the vator law was one of those in Arizona it it had an effective date of crimes prior to like 1987 something so I um presented it to representative grass and I said we need to update this because the issue
▶ 0:59:22that we have currently are survivors that were charged with prostit stitution because somehow automatically at the age of 18 somehow you're consenting to what's happening to you when you're really being trafficked so you're charged with prostitution or some other petty crime which is not uncommon for those that are hungry um and they the trafficker controlling their aspects of eating or drinking so they steal food to eat and uh being able to update this law which was supported
▶ 0:59:52unanimously through the house and the Senate on both sides and um now it allows survivors who have these charges to be able to fill out a form and request to meet with the judge and hopefully get those set aside so that way they can um apply for background checks of course then they get a clear record and they can live a normal life after that to a certain extent yeah with the vator law it's not expungement so they still show up on a fingerprint clearance
▶ 1:00:22card right absolutely somehow c um yes but they can go on it gives them hope uh somebody who maybe wants to be a teacher can now apply to be a teacher somebody who wants to be a nurse such in my case I be I became a nurse and I was able to do that thank thank you for that and I know that there's additional work to be done on Arizona's law as well so we'll be talking about that uh I want to go to you Miss Basham for a moment
▶ 1:00:53so human trafficking child trafficking uh that happens uh ac across border as well correct so when you have misplaced 330,000 plus children which the previous administration did through its o programs um those those children some some being placed in in uh in sponsors who were running strip clubs uh dozens going to
▶ 1:01:23the same address same person without vetting that makes them more vulnerable to human and sex trafficking absolutely yes my time has expired and appreciate that I'm going to recognize now the ranking member Miss mcbath for five minutes thank you Mr chair uh in a memorandum dated January 27th 2025 the Office of Management and budgets acting director instructed the heads of all executive departments and agencies to effectuate
▶ 1:01:53a temporary pause on federal grants loans and other financial assistance that's the OM memo um memo slated to begin the next day January 28th 2025 at 5:00 p.m.
▶ 1:02:08the funding PA apply to one the issuance of new Awards to the dispersment dispersement of federal funds under all open Awards and three any other relevant agency actions that may be implicated by Trump's executive orders Miss bugman what did this mean for the organizations in the freedom Network and also what was the immediate response to this memo by members of your organization the response to the memo was
▶ 1:02:38um widespread fear um confusion frustration um organizations these the funding that is uh issued by the federal government is is um reimbursement funding so by cutting off the funding with uh such little notice not only were people not able to determine whether they'd be able to continue serving folks going forward but also weren't sure they were going to be paid the money that they were already due from the federal government so immediately
▶ 1:03:08people uh in within our Network had to lay off staff and stopped accepting new clients denying services and support to the very victims that we've been talking about this morning uh and that includes Legal Services housing case management assistance through the legal process to clear their criminal record s all of these Services were immediately in in uh in great Peril thank you how did your executive director of the freedom Network anticipate this memo would affect uh victims and survivors
▶ 1:03:39of human trafficking well what we know is that when when programs are not available um are stuck with nowhere to go they stay with their traffickers um they do not they're not able to access safe housing uh alternative uh jobs um food shelter um medical and Mental Health Services substance abuse uh Services all of the critical services that they need in order to leave the trafficking
▶ 1:04:09situation um heal and then uh if they're pursued Justice either through a civil case or in working with law enforcement um without those services and support uh they remain in the trafficker uh orbit uh and continue to abuse be abused and exploited let me ask does your organization encourage prostitution or open borders and please explain your position and why yeah thank you so much for that question um we
▶ 1:04:39do not promote uh any uh form of work what we promote are human rights all workers deserve human rights no one should be criminalized for the work that they do either because they have no other choice or because it's the work that they choose there is a full spectrum of reasons why people do any type of work um not everyone is as privileged as myself to choose to do legal work in a safe office for those who are left with choices that are less
▶ 1:05:09safe we have to improve their safety that is the approach we take to all other sectors of the workforce and we should take that same approach with sex work as well improve the safety the bipartisan trafficking victims protection act was first signed into law by President Clinton in 2000 and has since been reauthorized a number of times can you please explain how and why the trafficking victims protection act was first developed
▶ 1:05:40absolutely at the time in the 90s there were a host of cases uh of forced labor and sex trafficking that involved a lot of extreme psychological coercion the laws we had on the books at the time uh did not recognize the these types of force fraud and coercion at the same time there were no programs for the survivors and so they were trapped within the trafficking situation many trafficking victims are living with their traffickers um and so leaving uh
▶ 1:06:10the trafficker means needing a safe place to live um and so in recognizing both that survivors needed better services in order to rebuild their lives and to engage with the legal system uh the TV PA was created to accomplish both of those goals one more question for you where do any gaps in services to victims and providers exist if there are any and how could legislation effectively address those gaps there are many Gap ladies
▶ 1:06:40time has expired but you may answer the question thank you so much there are many gaps remaining we need more funding we need more support we need to be allowed to really identify communities most at risk and direct our programs uh specifically to to their needs to their experiences and to their situation we need more housing Medical Care Mental Health Care Case Management Services are always critical Mr chairman I have a unanimous consent request uh I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record of research
▶ 1:07:11brief from the ACLU titled is sex work decriminalization the answer what the research tells us a comprehensive review of more than 80 studies on the decriminalization and criminalization of sex work which revealed there is no clear so can can but if you want to read from it like I did you need next time you need to do it in your five minutes which is what I did so we're gonna go with Mr Tiffany for five thank you Mr chairman uh Miss Cooper how can social media companies
▶ 1:07:41help you know I think about have you especially with young males that Pro um pornography is kind of a gateway drug to stuff like this that happens how could the social media companies help um and have you identified ways that they could be um to stem the tide of this proliferation yeah absolutely thank you for that question it's a great question um under our current legal framework in the United States um social media companies have to report Cam
▶ 1:08:12that they find on their networks but only if they see it so they don't have to proactively look for it and I think that proactive detection is probably the most significant action that technology companies could take um in this country to uh look for the material and then remove it so that would be the first thing um the second thing is um a lot of the social media companies like meta provide encryption um on their services like WhatsApp and WhatsApp
▶ 1:08:42uh uh cesam is PR proliferating across that uh particular application because it's encrypted and it provid safe harbor for pedophiles all over the world have have any States taken action first of all I'm not sure the legality can they have any States taken action in this regard uh some of the states are looking at things like age assurance and age verification issues to be able to block content uh for minors um but then some states are looking at ways to be able to
▶ 1:09:12sort of uh block the efforts of the internet crimes against children task forces by preventing them from being able to collect what's called attribution data um in their investigation so you kind of have both things happening at the state level it's a bit of a patchwork so we have some laws that have been passed like in Utah that have problems um and we have some laws that are passed in other states that are working towards like a age verification thank you Miss Lopez is prostitution a component of human trafficking
▶ 1:09:43in your experience well it is a result of being trafficked it's not a choice by the but it's a component of human trafficking it it is absolutely is because somebody is paying for a service yeah is it helpful to your cause to encourage prostitution no it is not helpful to encourage prostitution yes
▶ 1:10:14that does not help to to limit human trafficking is that right well if you're saying that prostitution is okay it opens the door for anybody to say okay well I'm going to save this child who's 17 but looks like they're 21 let's go ahead and prostitute them and we're not going to be held liable so in other words legalizing prostitution is not going to be helpful to your cause no not all Miss Basham um are you familiar with uh something referred to is rape
▶ 1:10:47microphone no not extensively okay so when I was down to Arizona um on one of the trips with Mr Big um an Arizona Sheriff shared how um uh The Gangs if I recall this correctly they would hang a woman's underwear when they would bring her in from a foreign country and uh when they were trafficked into the United States those were rape trees um I'm sorry to have to share it in such explicit terms but is it help
▶ 1:11:18is it helpful to secure uh to secure the southern border to prevent some human trafficking in the United States America well let me give you this analogy if you take excellent care of your children in your house you are going to lock your door at night and I believe very firmly that um first of all a lot of these children we know this now we are not in the dark they are being raped along the journey here it's a horrific set of circumstances that they are facing here and by not
▶ 1:11:48by having poorest borders what it actually ends up doing is it becomes a push pull factor and it actually encourages this the biggest thing with human trafficking in general is it's a crime it's very different than every other human rights abuse because it's not just slavery it is slavery but human trafficking is actually at its core an ADV part of the advanced criminal networks and that's why it's such a big deal and it it is part of this committee explicitly so yes I absolutely believe that every country needs to have
▶ 1:12:18authority over their borders and I believe that there should be no no incentivization for someone to try to cross those borders um because otherwise what you get is you get children who are caught in the middle and they become the commodity so securing our borders will help prevent human traffic absolutely I yield back thank you uh we've been called to votes um I think there's just one vote I would urge us to go over vote quickly and come back
▶ 1:12:48I'm trying to try to pull see who who's available come back I think most everybody can uh so I'd ask the witness is to stay close I don't I don't uh we're going to go into recess until 10 minutes after the vote so probably 20 to 30 minutes somewhere in there so with that we're going to be in okay I've never had that before
▶ 1:13:19I never had that
▶ 1:33:22e e
▶ 1:34:23subcommittee is called back to order um others are on the way back from voting thank you for all all for being here and the chair recognizes the ranking member of the entire committee Mr Rasin for his five minutes Mr chairman thank you very much um the the most famous child sex trafficker of our time uh I Venture a guess is Jeffrey Epstein uh a man of extraordinary wealth power influence and connection a good friend of Donald Trump's
▶ 1:34:53actually um and other politicians um who used his resources in order to exploit girls um and uh I'm wondering if uh Miss bugman perhaps you could start if you would explain basically how sex traffickers work um and how they are able to get uh access to underage girls and to exploit
▶ 1:35:24them for their purposes thank you for the question um sex traffickers work in many different ways uh to Target vulnerabilities of uh the the individuals they're targeting to exploit um so for young people it's often through grooming through approaching them and offering things that the that they're not getting at home whether so in his case the he had a woman I think her her last name was Maxwell who worked with him and then she would Pro procure the
▶ 1:35:54girls by giving them Gifts of money or clothing or invitations to parties that kind of thing my understanding is yes that there were uh people were being approached and offered um uh Financial rewards and and benefits an opportunity to come to parties but we not told exactly what was being expected of them what would happen once they arrived um and then they had uh difficulty to um to not consent to what was happening and were tra entrapped in that situation yeah
▶ 1:36:24and so they they tended to be poor or vulnerable from a more like a broken home or dysfunctional family situation right yeah I think what we've heard from our Witnesses is that um people are targeted in different ways so it might be because they were low income it might be because they're uh have an insecure immigration status it might be because they're queer and not being respected by their communities it might be because they're seeking validation and love and uh attention so there are lots of ways to Target um um to target folks
▶ 1:36:55okay so um the there were you had an interesting colloquy about the law of prostitution I know that's not what this is about but I'm just wondering did the law criminalizing prostitution and putting women in jail for prostitution help any of the girls who were trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and his Network exactly uh no the the criminalization of people engaging in the selling of sex does not help anyone it makes them more vulnerable
▶ 1:37:25more at risk and unable to come forward for assistance if they do experience abuse and exploitation and the criminal records as we've heard follow them throughout their entire lives okay um I've got an article I'd like to submit for the record about uh Elon musk's business Empire is built on $38 billion in Government funding without objection if that could from Washington Post um that's a lot of money people are getting a lot of money from the US government for different purposes and I hope that our oversight committee will
▶ 1:37:55be able to farar out the waste Fraud and Abuse in a lot of these programs you know but how much money uh you were asked the question how much money do does your organization get and I know you're a Consortium of how many different organizations right so we do have um 89 different members uh we also have staff ourselves so we receive direct federal funds in order to run a program to help uh survivors clear their criminal records we provide training and technical assistance to housing
▶ 1:38:25providers um and we're we're also working on other training and technical assistance programs and then our members have different funding that they get directly so how much money did you get in government grants and funds so we get the the amount as Mr Bigs pointed out I think it was around two million in that one mill million two million okay CU I was talking about musk with 38 billion and you said 2 million for all of the the Consortium over a period of three years so uh perhaps I'd come to you Miss
▶ 1:38:55Lopez what would the effect be of actually demolishing government funds grants to uh all of these organizations there are some people who just want to shut it all down what would that mean I can't speak to other organizations but I can tell you Pearl at the mailbox will never accept government grants you and how come you don't accept government grants because we want to be able to continuously employ the people that we choose to employ and we don't want to be Holden to another agency that tells
▶ 1:39:26us what to do okay and Miss Cooper what do you think the effect would be of a shutdown in Government funding well I think um human anti-human trafficking and child exploitation efforts have been historically underfunded so really we need uh you know more funding for enforcement efforts for demand reduction um but I think that um it's really important to clarify that there's good funding and there's bad funding and good funding needs to go to support law enforcement it needs to go to support
▶ 1:39:56Survivor care it needs to go to support legal services but bad funding would be funding that supports the full decriminalization and that means funding that supports um decriminalizing brothel keeping pimping and sex buying what we need is an increase in efforts to uh enforce um those those thirdparty profiteers that profit from prostitution thank you very much gentleman's time has expired now recognize gentleman from Alabama
▶ 1:40:26Mr Moore thank you Mr chairman uh appreciate all the witnesses being here today you know I understand Pam Bondi said that they're going to release the flight logs of the Lolo Express Jeffrey Epstein's planes coming out today and we're asking for them to be unredacted we want to know who was on the flights I understand there were 200 victims in that process we will indeed get to the bottom of that I'm grateful president Trump has the courage and the willingness to put the names on a list and let everybody know what going on on this island at Epstein on but anyway
▶ 1:40:57Miss Basham can you can you maybe break down the funding that the trafficking funding that was put in by 45 president Trump as opposed to the Biden Administration what were the difference in the budgets we spent on anti-trafficking between those administrations do you know off the top of your head yeah I know some of that off the top of my head and so just as a background I did used to work at the Department of Justice was in senior leadership there actually at the office for victims of crime which is the um largest FAL funer of domestic anti-trafficking efforts in the nation
▶ 1:41:27um so I can tell you this that under the last year of the Pres of President Trump's Administration in 2020 um it was allocated that over $100 million in a single fiscal year just from the Department of Justice for domestic anti-trafficking efforts this is the largest ever given in any Administration and I do agree with representative mcbath when she said at the beginning that um anti-trafficking efforts need to be prioritized that's absolutely the case additionally 35 million was allocated for shelters shelters um as Miss bruan
▶ 1:41:57mentioned are one of the most essential parts to the recovery of survivors of trafficking they are the foundation we have got to have funding for shelters since that time the funding has dropped to um about half many years less than half of that 35 million and it has never come back up and that's with inflation that's the bid Administration even with inflation cut funding to less than half than what president Trump was spending so so explain to me the shelter now how is that such an intrical part I we won't you don't have to go in detail
▶ 1:42:27cuz I got some other questions I want to ask Miss Cooper and some of the others but how does that help the process do it get folks off the streets is that kind of what happens yeah you have to have safe shelter any Survivor of trafficking a lot of times when they leave they are in a very dangerous situation they need a place that's safe and they actually need a place with wraparound services so that they can fully recover and then move on with their lives and that usually takes at least a year sometimes two years for longterm um care Miss Cooper you mentioned the the unidentified
▶ 1:42:5856,000 children I believe was the number you told us where these kids we know they've been victimized by family members or whatever the case may be which is incredibly tragic do you think facial recognition will help is that something down the road that our law enforcement agents will be able to use to try to identify these children and get them out of those harmful situations yeah actually facial recognition is a GameChanger for that purpose because children's faces are in in the photographs and I and I think that it's led to quite a number of successful
▶ 1:43:29identifications and um rescues of children that have been seen in that database so um Homeland Security investigations the FBI all of our federal and state Partners need to be able to have permission to use that uh technology it's a game Cher good how much money do you get or your organization the TBO organization get from the federal government nothing not a dime but yall what 30 million a year I think is your budget is that right uh yeah our budget's significantly higher than that because we do have some organizations
▶ 1:43:59that are sort of subsidary subsidaries of us so I would I think that right now we're at about $50 million and tell Miss Tio we appreciate your efforts Miss Lopez Pearl at the mailbox wow what a name tell me how does that work how did I know you only got about a well 60 seconds or so but tell me a little bit about Pearl at the mailbox and what you do in your box we um work on prevention there's many organizations that work on the
▶ 1:44:29post rescue um but there's not a not a lot of people working on the prevention side if we can teach people to spot it and stop the grooming process we have a better chance of protecting children from going into traffic how do parents and grandparents what is one of the signs that you think like that we maybe as parents and grandp parents might miss what is something that I know I know you need to be involved in your children lives and we certainly are but tell me is there a certain thing that you recommend maybe a two three bullet points hey here's what parents and grandparents
▶ 1:44:59need to be looking for you know in my case I would always say and other survivors it's the behavior that changes before ever words are ever used to say what's going on if a child is behaving differently wanting to spend more time away from home um maybe have new friends uh just things to look at and we've lost our ability to listen to our intuition and we kind of forget that okay maybe we need to pay attention because something's not right in our home but I say that the schools is the missing link
▶ 1:45:30we don't have enough prevention education in our schools thank you and I'll yield back Mr chairman thank you thank you gentleman yields back and now I want to include into the record without uh objection an acknowledgement of the good work of Mr Goldman when he was Prosecuting uh and uh breaking up International sex trafficing conspiracy apparently so that was good work and I want to want to highlight that for you Mr bman with that yield
▶ 1:46:00five minutes to you I thank you very much for that Mr chairman actually I'm going to I'm going to resend that yielding because Mr Cohen got here just in the nick of time before you started and I had promised him he could go next you stand by the praise nonetheless yes I stand by the praise I I stand by the praise and and as long as you reiterate it again before I go I know I know you like that stuff so Mr Cohen yield to you for five minutes thank you Mr chair um I listen to your testimony and and appreciate your issue and
▶ 1:46:30I've got some a bill on the sore bill which you may know about Miss Basham didn't mention it and I think list of Bill she mentioned but I want to ask each of you have any of y'all heard of either Andrew or Tristan Tate Miss rugman what what do you know about Andrew and Tristan Tate uh I understand that they're accused of sex trafficking internationally um and there's questions about their jurisdiction and and their freedom of movement at this time thank you anybody else know about them Miss
▶ 1:47:00coper what do you know about them um I just am aware of what I read in the news that they there's several cases pending and they are social activists and whatever they call them influence influen influencers correct right and and they were um they're no longer having their travel restricted they were allowed given their US passports back acent today and they flew on a plane allegedly straight to Fort Lauderdale um there is allegations that they were
▶ 1:47:30there was involvement from our Administration the Trump Administration that got Romanian pressured Romania to release them um they've got some pretty serious charges against them for rape and sex trafficking in Romania and also I think in in England um what do you think the odds of them returning to Romania uh are after they've been released with their US passports miss bugman my assumption would be very low yeah
▶ 1:48:01thank you and anybody else have an opinion well that just happened today is pretty Starling what they've done they're dual us canadi UK citizens and um not good good folks um let let me ask you um are yall familiar with where's my here I I um are you familiar with any grants or
▶ 1:48:31that have been restricted by the Trump Administration here and the executive orders that affect your particular M bugman uh yes there were um grant funding from HHS for Direct Services for trafficking victims that were halted for about two weeks um leaving providers without access to funding and uncertain if they would be able to continue uh supporting those survivors with housing food Medical Care Legal Services um and also
▶ 1:49:02we've seen halting of funding uh internationally from usaid and the state department uh that have ended critical human trafficking work internationally but also um that that we're hiring survivors here in the United States as consultants and experts in developing those programs who have lost lost their livelihood when their contracts were canceled old and this would be damaging to arresting sex traffickers in the future would it not absolutely without building that capacity and that expertise based on the knowledge of
▶ 1:49:32survivors uh we unable to actually uh effectively stop trafficking labor and sex trafficking um any uh restriction any halting any stopping of that work of that critical work um is a gift to traffickers uh e either any of the other ladies familiar with any grants that might be held up no Miss bregman do you you've been an expert in this do you think you're being an expert in this area makes you more likely to be aware of these issues than if you were an expert in rocket propulsion or electric
▶ 1:50:02cars yes of course thank you um the doj office that administers the office of uh victims of crime and the office of violence against women the office of Juvenile Justice delinquency uh all of which fund important anti-trafficking exploitation programs uh they threatened to be sliced as well are you familiar with that yes sir we're very concerned about uh about the ideas that that those offices the staff would be slashed we need those staff to help
▶ 1:50:33administer these grants and make sure that the funding continues to move forward that everything is reviewed and uh programs are provided with the support they need and when we look at budgeting and we've been given by the Judiciary areas over $100 million to look at budgeting do you think these areas are more important to stop sex trafficking than building a border wall all I do I'd like thank you I'd like to mention my bill that I had introduced to reauthorize the sore act uh which was to give people training to identify
▶ 1:51:03people that have been sex trafficked it was law we got to pass through the house it stopped in the senate for funding problems but it's been reintroduced and I hope that y'all would encourage your Senators to support it they sort failed last time for whatever reason and uh the house have passed through pretty much unanimously it was successful between September 2017 and 201 23 they hosted more than 200 events and trained over 260,000 healthc Care Professionals across the country um so thank you very much and thank you for your testimony time's expired
▶ 1:51:33chair now recognize gent from California Mr Kylie uh thank you Mr chair thank you to the witnesses for your testimony uh as we've uh held hearings on this topic uh the last few years uh the the the numbers the scale of the problem continues to be absolutely horrifying and it's particularly alarming the prevalence of of uh of these here in the United States and and the number of victims uh I do think there is some cause for encouragement that we have an opportunity uh to start to turn a corner and to help
▶ 1:52:03uh prevent these crimes and to uh to help victims and to stop there from being uh even more victims going forward um one reason of course is that we have an entirely different situation at the border which was connected to uh this problem uh a second reason is that I think there is a growing realization that we need to use the full force of the criminal code to hold traffickers accountable uh I'll give you one quick uh example of that in my state of California there was a bill that said well I think we should classify
▶ 1:52:34trafficking of a minor as a serious as a violent offense as a serious felony incredibly the state's uh assembly's Public Safety Committee initially voted not to do that they said no this is not going to be considered a serious crime uh however the public uh backlash was so great that they eventually reconvened and held a revote and that bill made it all the way through and was signed into law by the governor so now it actually is considered a serious felony with real consequences uh in California and I think that we there's more we need to do under both
▶ 1:53:04you know state law in California as well uh as under under federal law um a third uh you know area that is very important and was mentioned by Miss Lopez is education and actually a good examp good law that we have in California is one that is designed to promote uh prevention education in in schools there's an organization based nearby District uh three strands Global uh that has pioneered a lot of very good education efforts uh in classrooms and then finally I've introduced the national human trafficking uh database act this is a piece of
▶ 1:53:35bipartison legislation uh Mr Johnson on this committee uh is a uh is a co-author what this would do is establish a national human trafficking database at doj uh as well as incentivize certain state law enforcement agencies to report uh to the database and so reported data would include data that includes indicates the presence and prevalence of human trafficking for every County and every state the names of all anti-trafficking organizations operating in each County uh the total number of state level human trafficking organizations collected in
▶ 1:54:05coordination with local Das and then as I mentioned there would also be it would also incentivize uh states to submit this data uh by directing GJ's office for victims of crime to award grants to states to collect and submit the data uh authorizing $50 million uh per fiscal year I also want to thank uh uh Miss hagaman uh also on this committee uh for for authoring this bill with me as well so um I Believe Miss Basham you mentioned uh this issue in your testimony so maybe if uh M Lopez if you wanted to just expound on the education the importance of the education uh piece
▶ 1:54:35of this and then M Basham as far as the the data collection goes education's key and that seems to be what's lacking and um if you spend resources to educate individuals about what human trafficking is and The Grooming process that leads to trafficking people
▶ 1:55:05have the ability to understand it we teach our children how to drive cars and it's a process before they get a license so why are we not teaching the children how to spot when somebody is trying to harm them such as a predator whether it be in person or that is lacking throughout all of our country and specifically in Arizona we can't get these these can't these programs in our schools so we need to focus on education for prevention purposes
▶ 1:55:36thank you so much um there are two key reasons why data is important and specifically this National human trafficking database act the first is it actually F funds um fed uh state law enforcement and as we all know law enforcement tends to be historically underfunded and especially when it comes to trafficking they just don't have enough resources so it actually brings the money directly where we need it most so that every state in the nation can have that money for their uh state law enforcement the second thing is is the word data unfortunately is not um an exciting
▶ 1:56:06word there isn't adrenaline with it but those numbers represent individuals data are people and so every single number is a person and the number one biggest Gap in my opinion in trafficking is that victim identification it sits at about 4% so 99 over 99% of victims are never identified and the national human trafficking database act helps us to see what we're not currently seeing thank you very much for your work and and your advocacy and I yield back gentleman
▶ 1:56:36yields uh Mr R you have some UCS thank you Mr chairman um two the girls were just so young the horrors of Jeffrey Epstein's Private Island that's Vanity Fair and listen to the Jeffrey Epstein tapes I was Donald Trump's closest friend in The Daily Beast objection and also without objection Mr Fry will be permitted to participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning the witnesses if a member yields time for that purpose and now now are you ready Mr
▶ 1:57:06Goldman ready okay yield time to you Mr thank you Mr chairman um you are right I uh supervised uh sex trafficking cases in the southern district of New York um and based on that experience as well as 10 years of experience uting other cases I I can say with great certainty that victims of sex trafficking in particular are uh the most traumatized and stigmatized and difficult
▶ 1:57:36um Witnesses and I don't mean difficult in presenting difficulties but that it is incredibly difficult to have victims feel comfortable coming forward um to testify which often is required in order to hold people accountable um I I just want to make sure that we are all in agreement here that Federal funding is essential to fighting online exploitation and sex trafficking
▶ 1:58:07Mr Lopez do you you agree that yes and no I think I know you don't you don't take it but I mean you don't accept it you said but you do support the human trafficking and exploitation prevention train training act do you not I do and I believe there's a place for federal funding all right I I just want to make sure miss Cooper the right kind of federal funding so funding that supports absolutely
▶ 1:58:38yeah and I assume Miss bramman as well yes of course now miss buerman tell me um a little bit about how uh exploitation of victims uh influences well occurs and also influences the willingness of other victims to come forward sure um online exploitation happens in a lot of different
▶ 1:59:08ways um as technology continues to evolve um and online services are used for both labor and sex trafficking uh so recruiters use online spaces in order to recruit workers with false promises of jobs and then uh bring them in and and traffic them uh throughout our country um sex traffickers also use online spaces to identify and groom people we're talking in uh games in apps in online chats um and then also
▶ 1:59:39use online spaces to um share advertise and sell um right it's a it's a very common method of uh for sex traffickers to uh pre on victims right absolutely as our society has moved online so have the criminals right and so if there were a media uh King for example who has expressed support for sex
▶ 2:00:09trafficking would would that um would that be a concern of sex trafficking victims in in your experience I would think absolutely yes well I I just want to put up a photo here this is Elon Musk in 2014 with gilain Maxwell Mr Rasin had mentioned gilain Maxwell was the right-hand person for Jeffrey Epstein's uh sex trafficking operation minors and we spoke uh Mr Cohen spoke earlier and I want to return
▶ 2:00:39to this about uh these individuals uh Andrew Tate and uh Tristan Tate they were charged in December of 2022 with human trafficking trafficking of minors rape including minors moneya laundering uh and organized crime charges in March of 2024 the British police obtained an arrest warrant for them based on an investigation into rape and human trafficking and if anyone wants to go online
▶ 2:01:09and get a sense of this Andrew Tate you should so I can't quote almost anything he says because it is so vile and misogynistic uh that it is not appropriate for a morning television show last week there was a article in the financial times about how the Trump Administration was pressuring Romania to lift restrictions on the Tate brothers and to allow them to leave Romania and lo and behold
▶ 2:01:39what do you know just today they were released from house arrest given their passports back and flew on a private plane to Florida and I can assure you they will never return to Britain or Romania to face these charges 5 years for five years Andrew Tate's account on Twitter was banned but when Elon Musk took it back over in November 22 he reinstated him
▶ 2:02:10and gave him a social platform to charge to uh continue their sex trafficking and their illegal conduct and Mr chairman gentlemen I think we ought to take a very close look at these social media companies and their role in the online exploitation of sex trafficking gentleman's time has expired chair now recognize the chairman of the whole committee Mr Jordan thank you Mr chairman appreciate you having this hearing today and I'm going to give my time to the gentleman from South Carolina
▶ 2:02:40thank you Mr chairman and thank you Mr Bigs for have having this hearing um I want to dive in Miss Basham you dedicated most of your career to combating human trafficking um and I think uh no one would question your expertise in this in this field how many human trafficking Cas cases are prosecuted at the federal level in this country yeah so in 2023 it was around a th000 and the year before that it was around 1,600 and and during these prosecutions in your review of them do you think that there are adequate protections for
▶ 2:03:10victims of human trafficking uh who may have been forced to commit nonviolent Crimes by their traffickers no there's a huge gap um do you think that that is a serious problem in our federal uh system of laws U that we don't have those protections absolutely and I think it it's covered um in several fold one through the vacature and expungement as I mentioned but also through providing civil Legal Services at the federal level and allocating funding um through the office on violence against women so that being said this this year
▶ 2:03:41um I reintroduced the trafficking survivors Relief act along with colleagues uh that really span the ideological Spectrum this is a truly uh nonpartisan uh piece of um is there uh with with that particular legislation would that close some of the loopholes in our legal system uh and and provide Pro adequate protections for victims absolutely and one of the other ones I want to mention is um the right for affirmative defense from the outset so that is one of the biggest reasons you know one of
▶ 2:04:11the biggest questions is why would someone you know be deemed both a victim of trafficking by the court and then at the same time want their um crimes vacated well the reason reason is is that often times they don't have the right to have that affirmative defense and that affirmative defense is what makes it crystal clear to the judge and to the court from the beginning it lets them really look at the case and say is this a victim of trafficking instead what happens is the crime is being prosecuted so doj or whoever puts prosecutors who are
▶ 2:04:41you know used to Prosecuting white collar crime like they're not used to Prosecuting necessarily trafficking cases so they're focused on the crime you know usually money laundering Bank fraud those sort of things and so when that the focus is on that then through the process you know the victim actually the Survivor bubbles up the real story bubbles up and at that point they're looking at two different things and so that's what's really a huge problem so the affirment of defense is so critical and that's what it really establishes
▶ 2:05:11from the outset that's part of it and and and to be clear there's I think most of our states close to 50 have this at the state level absolutely I think it was 40 it might be 49 now I think one state just um crossed that finish line and that is the biggest uh precedent that we have for this because there are more trafficking convictions that actually fall at the state level and we've seen that for over 10 years so um we've seen that actually states that implement this they are not overrun with cases and additional to that uh they've actually strengthened as Sher
▶ 2:05:42mentioned a lot of States like Arizona they have actually strengthened their laws over the years right and and and this is obviously so this legislation um nonpartisan obviously 49 states have it approaching 50 so when you look at uh obviously it's probe Victim Because it provides that affirmative defense but it's also Pro prosecution right this is why prosecutors and Sheriff associations and uh they love it too because and why is that why do you think that they would they they would want something uh of this magnitude it makes their job easier correct because they're able at that point
▶ 2:06:12to go after the real culprits right the real individuals who are behind uh behind the trafficking victim and go after these Rings absolutely thank you thank you so much for your time Mr chairman with that I yield back Mr chairman thank thank you I have I was just gonna say if Mr I'm only GNA probably take three minutes if you want two more of mine Mr Fry you sure okay yeah I just have a couple uc's real quick okay uh first of all um i' like to introduce into record
▶ 2:06:42this uh this image we'll get you the the hard copy the Mr Epstein Miss Maxwell and and President Clinton also I've got another article called Schumer got thousands in donations from Jeffrey Epstein um without objection those will be and and Mr Schell uh your five minutes now uh thank you Mr Bigs and look is as we have trafficking victims testifying to
▶ 2:07:12us about really important issues I think it's insulting to them to try and bring in politics right before I question them um look we'll see whatever is on the Epstein list if the full list is released but I'm here to get serious things done and so my line of questioning will not be absurd uh in the spirit of what was just said and
▶ 2:07:42Miss Lopez thank you for sharing your story as well I was a prosecutor I've had child sex trafficking victims testify it's one of the hardest things in the world to convince them to confront their attacker their as salent their trafficker in court and more cases plead out because you want them to avoid doing that and so these monsters typically don't get the full sentence they deserve because you're trying
▶ 2:08:12to protect the victim from having to go through cross-examination and seeing that individual in court so um thank you for sharing that uh could miss buerman could you share with us what would happen to organizations that help victims and provide support to victims and Sur survivors of trafficking and exploitation if the temporary restraining order holding back this administration's order is
▶ 2:08:44lifted um which uh the order on the halting of funds yes okay great um yes the service providers depend on a variety of different sources of funding and I think the witnesses have talked about the different sources that they're familiar with um it is a a web of protection that is woven with federal funds private dollars donations earned income um that nonprofits around
▶ 2:09:15this country are working every day to ensure that they are able to provide consistent reliable dedicated services and support when that is interrupted even for a week for a month the message to survivors is we cannot be relied upon the day that you are able to find the time the effort the strength the ability to escape your situation may be the day
▶ 2:09:45that our doors are closed and once you do that you may never be able to come out again so if we allow our providers to close their doors to go dark we are inviting traffickers to walk in the door to hold survivors captive and we are telling survivors that we no longer care about your safety we no longer care about your security and we do not care whether or not you're able to ever escape
▶ 2:10:15your abuse and exploitation we just can't let that happen thank you m buerman and I imagine all of you know this especially Miss Lopez but in my experience as a prosecutor you know I was trained in law school and through the training that the District Attorney's Office provided to prove cases Beyond A Reasonable Doubt of course you want to have compassionate people uh you know doing the job of prosecution but I could never have
▶ 2:10:45done my job unless I had outside organizations who were working with the victim in all of the life issues outside the legal issues that needed to be addressed you know when they are pulled away from the trafficker and they need to reestablish their lives get their confidence back get their health back you know receive the mental health services that they certainly need uh you know to get a career if they have children a prosecutor can't do that and the only way to hold
▶ 2:11:16these monsters accountable who are trafficking them is for a prosecutor to have a victim who wants to be at least somewhat a part of the process and and so your organizations help us bring accountability and accountability puts the worst people away and prevents the next victim from being trafficked but it also is a deterrent uh to someone who will see that you will pay uh if you do this uh to a victim so again to each of you thank you for what you do uh in this cause our victims are worthy of
▶ 2:11:46your support and I hope that you know we can see any funding that's been pulled to be restored immediately and I yield back okay thank you for the record uh Shared Hope International Congressman Linda Smith was the architect of tvpa um and I introduced that and she's here today thank you for being here and the fact sheet on combating demand and harmful impact of decriminalization of anti-trafficking also
▶ 2:12:16entered into the record without objection CH now recognizes the G lady from Florida Miss Lee for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman and thank you to our Witnesses for being here today I too am a former prosecutor and served as the lead prosecutor on the child exploitation task force while I was at the US attorney's office in Tampa so I have seen firsthand uh both the the horrible crimes that are perpetrated
▶ 2:12:47against our country's most vulnerable children and also how vital the work by federal agents and others uh in investigating and Prosecuting these cases truly is as a member of Congress I am committed to ensuring that we do everything that we can to stop the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children and to stop these Predators Miss Cooper it has indeed been a pleasure and an honor to work with
▶ 2:13:17you and the Timbo foundation on the renewed hope act you mentioned earlier in your testimony this bill is designed to provide resources and training and also requiring the child exploitation investigations unit and HSI field offices to hire an additional 200 computer forensic Specialists and criminal analysts because these units are a dedicated team of investigators who can play a crucial role in combating human trafficking
▶ 2:13:47I appreciate the bipartisan support of many members of this committee and the chairman leadership on this legislation you touched on something earlier though that we need to revisit and that is you said the words the right kind of federal funding so clearly uh the renewed hope act to find these Specialists and add to them to supplement the team doing this important work is indeed adding additional federal employees of a certain type and Specialty who can help rescue these children and stop these
▶ 2:14:17Predators but I'm interested Miss Cooper how much does the temp TBO Foundation receiveing Federal funding we do not receive any federal funding at all and how many victims has Operation HOPE identified uh um tentatively identified 730 and safeguarded and uh you know rescued uh I believe it's 289 so I think it is important for this Committee hearing to note uh that your foundation is doing that kind of extraordinary
▶ 2:14:48work in partnership with federal agents but not by surviving on federal funds in fact you have received no federal funds to do the important work that you were doing to stop child exploitation now would you tell us um if we had those additional 200 agents at HSI what you believe we could accomplish yeah absolutely um so over 25 days they've tentatively identified 730 of the 57,000
▶ 2:15:18children that are waiting and languishing um um in abusive situations and hoping that someone is going to you know knock on that door so imagine what we could do with 200 full-time investigators and victim identification Specialists because right now Homeland Security is a global leader in this issue they are the tip of the spear they are the most well-trained along with some of the analysts at Interpol and Euro um but we need to take that army of seven that's sitting over there at the cyber
▶ 2:15:48crime Center and we need to put it on blast in the words of Senator Corin and uh that's why we need uh 200 uh investigators and analysts uh to ramp up that effort and get to those 56,000 remaining children that are waiting and you also mentioned in your testimony the proliferation of cesam materials just how rapidly that material is increasing and growing and I'd like for you to touch on two things one is why why
▶ 2:16:18these Federal investigators why this is important that it sits at at HSI and also the urgency of us actually enacting this legislation getting this done and getting it signed into law yeah absolutely um the the reason why HSI plays uh sort of the most important role globally is because they have international jurisdiction and the nature of child sexual abuse material is that it crosses both state and uh Federal and international
▶ 2:16:48lines and so the offender who is raping their child in Ohio is going to share that image with someone overseas in a country and they may share it um with someone in a country that does not have good diplomatic relations with our country and that's why hsi's partnership with interpole and Euro is so important because not all countries want to share their data directly with United States and they need a neutral third party so that's why interpol's relationship in this ecosystem is absolutely
▶ 2:17:19vital in order to um find those American children that are waiting to be rescued um thank you and Mr chairman I you back thank you and I thank the gentle lady for her work on this bill and other uh bills and legislation in this area appreciate it very much appreciate all of our Witnesses being here today and um you know we we're not going to stop till we get this uh get this under control so thank you for being here and uh with that we are adjourned
▶ 2:17:50thank you for
▶ 2:18:20e