Opening Remarks of Congressman Smith

   President Tsereteli, Secretary General Montella, and all my distinguished colleagues on this webinar, it is good to see you and I hope that everyone is staying healthy and safe.

   As lawmakers, all of us are focused almost exclusively on combating the coronavirus pandemic and seeking ways to mitigate its horrific impact.

   The United States has about a million confirmed cases of COVID-19 with over fifty-five thousand deaths.  My state of New Jersey alone has over one hundred thousand confirmed cases with over 6,000 dead.

   Your constituents like mine have suffered devastation and loss.

   As the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Special Representative on Human Trafficking Issues, and prime author of five U.S. laws to combat it including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, I strongly believe we need to be looking at the impact the pandemic is having on sex and labor trafficking on:

•  increased victim vulnerability, especially of women and children,

• the situation of both current victims and survivors of trafficking,

• the heightened insecurity of victims in 2020 and beyond as government and philanthropic resources are likely diminished,

• ensuring a sustained robust criminal justice response during and after the pandemic,

•  and more.

   First and foremost, we must prioritize the fight against human trafficking, even during this crisis.

   Traffickers are not shut down—they haven’t gone on a holiday.

   Victims still need to be rescued.

   Survivors still need assistance.

   Vulnerable people likely will be made even more vulnerable by both the virus and the economic impact of the response to it.

   And as a result, when things start to open back up, traffickers may have an easier time finding, deceiving, coercing and exploiting victims.

   New patterns of exploitation are emerging due to increased online activity, greater use of social media, and social distancing practices. This makes it even more clear that we need to take into account how new technologies affect our efforts to combat human trafficking.

   Teleworking and social distancing practices appear to be changing some of the dynamics of trafficking for sexual exploitation, shifting to and increasing various forms of trafficking online. For example, there appears to be evidence of an increase in demand for online pornography and therefore an increase in the potential for online sexual exploitation of trafficking victims.

   According to U.S.  Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons John Richmond, with whom I spoke at length on Friday, said the “vulnerable are now more vulnerable”.

    He said there are anecdotal reports from several countries within the OSCE, that online child sexual abuse and access to websites that host such exploitation have increased.

   He noted that traffickers appear to be shifting labor trafficking victims into work related to online commerce, and sex trafficking victims to online sexual exploitation.

   Sex buyers are quarantined like everyone else and may be turning to online venues. Sites are hosting videos of trafficking victims, sexual abuse of children, and rape. There are reports from anti-trafficking groups that webcam sex trafficking is increasing.

   All of us need to increase our concern for both victims and survivors of human trafficking.

   Because of the pandemic, victims are likely to be facing increased abuse and are less likely to be rescued. Victims may be quarantined with their traffickers, and, as a result of quarantine and social distancing practices, are now less likely to come into contact with people who might assist or rescue them.

   Law enforcement everywhere has shifted its attention to the immediate needs of the coronavirus response, including assisting medical responses and keeping public order.

   Survivors may find themselves out of work and with less support. The economic repercussions of the pandemic and resulting shutdowns and quarantines have resulted in job loss for many, including trafficking survivors.

   NGOs and shelters are being impacted by the pandemic, as shelters must decrease the number of people, they can house in accordance with government social distancing guidelines, and NGOs appear be facing a significant loss in funding and staff who themselves are quarantined or sick.

   This can leave trafficking survivors more vulnerable than ever to being re-trafficked.

   Prison releases are a concern. While it makes sense to reduce the prison population of some nonviolent inmates to slow the spread of the coronavirus, it also means that accused—even convicted—traffickers may be released. This is frightening news especially for survivors, as they may fear retribution from their trafficker.

   I am also concerned that with most people teleworking and with schools closed, children taking part in distance learning programs are spending more of their time online, where they are vulnerable to being groomed by sexual predators and lured into trafficking situations or into providing sexually explicit images of themselves.

   We must make it a top priority to educate children to keep them safe online, which as you know was the topic of the resolution I authored and was adopted at last year’s Annual Session in Luxembourg.

   The resolution focused specifically on educating teachers and students on how to identify and avoid human trafficking. 

   As you remember from the event I chaired in Luxembourg, NGOs, including the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, A21 Campaign, Just Ask, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and others already have developed age-appropriate school courses to educate students on how to avoid trafficking traps, and to educate teachers on how to identify and help students who may be trapped in labor or sex trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation. Now is the time to take advantage of such programs, many of which can be conducted online. 

   We, as lawmakers, need to be aware of how new technologies are being used also in financial transactions which seek to hide activities from the eyes of law enforcement.

   Online transactions likely are also increasing as online activities increase. And we have been witnessing more use of cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin being perhaps the most famous, but there are others—in an effort by traffickers and their patrons to avoid detection. I had planned to introduce a resolution on this issue in Vancouver, looking at measures we could take to address this and to enable our law enforcement to better investigate – and eventually prosecute – trafficking cases involving cryptocurrency use. I will continue to work on this issue and introduce it in the Parliamentary Assembly when possible.

   Finally, I want to let you know that as Special Representative on Human Trafficking Issues, I am participating in a project with the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and UN Women concerning the impact of the pandemic on the fight against human trafficking.

   The project is collecting empirical data through a survey of anti-trafficking groups and survivor networks, and, based on the data collected, will make recommendations for our governments to better address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on human trafficking, including the issues I have just discussed.

   Thank you.

(The speaker is a Republican congressman from New Jersey and the most senior member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.)