On February 23, the END IT Movement’s Shine a Light on Slavery Day, President Trump held a listening session on domestic and international human trafficking, along with other prominent leaders in the antislavery movement including International Justice Mission (IJM) Founder and CEO Gary Haugen and Michelle DeLaune of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Condemning this “absolutely horrific practice,” the president expressed his commitment “to bring the full force and weight of our government to the federal and at the federal level,” to do whatever we can to tackle the “human trafficking epidemic.”
In this meeting, he also voiced his plans to direct the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies to “take a hard look at the resources and personnel that they’re currently devoting to this fight." As in his words, “we’re going to be devoting more.”
These plans come 14 days after his executive order on Enforcing Federal Law with Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking, which identified human trafficking as a “threat to public safety and national security.” This executive order also called for a report with recommended changes to federal agencies’ practices to be delivered to the President within the next 120 days.
The work of law-enforcement in the recent California human trafficking stings, which led to 474 arrests and the rescue of 28 sexually exploited children and 27 adult sex trafficking victims, is a very sad testament to the vast criminal enterprise of domestic human trafficking and underscores the need for action.
The Obama Administration made several strides forward in the antislavery effort; federal law enforcement agencies under President Obama initiated over 6,000 human trafficking cases, made 4,000 convictions, and saved more than 2,000 victims. In 2012, President Obama signed an executive order on Strengthening Protections Against Trafficking In Persons In Federal Contracts, by prohibiting contractors from confiscating workers’ identification documents or charging recruitment fees. The Department of the Interior worked with tribal law enforcement to establish the first-ever Tribal Human Trafficking task force. In 2016, President Obama appointed 11 slavery survivors to the first-ever US Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.
President Trump’s expressed commitment this month to continuing the progress we have made in tackling this human rights violation is of dire importance to the countless number of modern-day slavery victims internationally and domestically. It is my hope that this Administration puts these promises into action – starting with fully funding the End Modern Slavery Initiative (EMSI) Act – demonstrating that politics will not prevent us from protecting human rights and ensuring freedom for all. IJM’s petition for the EMSI can be found here.
Current political tensions aside, this is one of several issues that all Americans can universally agree upon. Upholding human rights and human dignity is not a question of politics, but rather one of humanity.
