Tremendous changes in the field. Almost onntirely women and girls in the sex sector, we now realize trafficking is a phenomenon that also includes men, women, and children in a wider range across every daily lives. On farms,ake place along the supply chain that involves the clothing we wear. It can take place in homes with elderly and disabled and in public homes with the treatment of teachers from abroad. Just as we understand the depth and breadth of the problem has evolved, so has the treatment. It is not eradicated solely through prosecutorial efforts but we also have to tend to the root cause of the problem. This includes the lack of economic and educational where individuals migrate under precarious conditions in the hopes of finding a means for basic economic survival. Or in the countries like united ortes, lack of retaliation cares and filters. This confluence of factors has contributed to the Current Situation where an estimated 20. 9 Million People around the world are trafficked or are in labor. This has inspired a deep and evergrowing commitment on the behalf of governments, ngos, organizations, philanthropies, and or organizations and people like yourselves. I had the great privilege of moderating a discussion with two of the leading voices. For today is i will briefly introduce our speakers and spend about 30 minutes prompted by a series of questions i have prepared and advance and cleared with our speakers and then we will open up to questions from the audience and concluding statements from the speakers. To introduce senator high camp. She is the first female senator elected. H dakota she has become a leader in the fight against Human Trafficking, bells inning the alarm the senate on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and 2013 and she now serves as ranking member. She cosponsored and helped pass an act which president obama signed into law that helps secure stricter punishments for traffickers. Stricterad bills for laws nationwide to make sure victims are treated as victims not criminal. To hold the owner of backpage. Com accountable for refusing to testify on his companys refusal to provide holduards, she voted to him in contempt of congress, the first on the senate has done so when 20 years. [applause] earlier this year, the senator challenged leadership of back page for its leadership in the role of Human Trafficking when the u. S. Senate committee on Homeland Security and Permanent Committee on investigations released a report finding the company knowingly facilitated online sex trafficking. Act to makeuced an sure Health Care Workers have the training they need to help identify and protect victims facing and will keep fighting to vulnerable domost not fall prey to these crimes. She is working to build a Strong Network of support and has and engaged Community Leaders and Law Enforcement into the fight against these crimes with training. To introduceased mrs. Cindy mccain. Mrs. Mccain has spent her life fighting on behalf of women and children and has been a strong leader in the fight against Human Trafficking. Privateworked across forpublic lines and both democratic and republican othertees and the organizations that work to eradicate Human Trafficking. She has worked in london, kenyon, congo, somebody a, and the ivory coast. She is the cochair on the trafficking advisory councils. She is trying to reduce trafficking in arizona, drug the United States, and throughout the world as well as looking to improve the lives of victims of Human Trafficking. Several partnerships have been formed with antitrafficking organization solving various aspects of the problem. She has worked to shed a light on the different facets of everyday life affected by Human Trafficking. She addresses Human Trafficking at the International Level by heading to the front lines with the most vulnerable populations subject to Human Trafficking. On the shorelines of turkey, she worked to educate refugees on the signs of Human Trafficking and how to avoid falling prey to human traffickers. She has traveled to learn more about the issues and ways to fight this heinous crime. And holds anoards undergraduate degree in education and masters in special education from usc and is a member of the school of Education Board of counselors. She passionately fights to stop Human Trafficking and helps people Work Together to stop this crime against humanity. [applause] i want going to lead off with a question to both of you. How did you first get involved in the trafficking field . Ms. Mccain the first time i ever saw Human Trafficking i did not know what it was. We have a daughter in bangladesh so i was out trying to find some material for her. Kolkatasy with that and is a very vibrant, exciting you know, all the noise. Everything going on designing and inside. As i went to go pay the gentleman that on the kiosk, i could kind of hear this floor. Ing from below the noise, things being moved around the end i asked him what it was and he said, it is just my family. Floorboards. Ow the very plausible and possible in a place like this but what i want to lay the money on the counter kind of down into good see a little bit between the floorboards and slats, but not enough. I know i looked at at least three sets of little eyes. All girls, not all his that is for sure. What i did was, i did not do anything. I did not know what i was looking at. What wasuld not fathom going on, so i walked out of that he asked. Nice airplane home. Went back to my lovely home with my lovely family and did not do anything but what it did do was barman to find out what it was. This has was spur me on to find out what it was. To find out a way we can stop this stuff. It is horrible. You can turn something bad into something good and i am just grateful that i have the experience and can actually be in a position to do something now. For me, imd former attorney general for north dakota and one of the reasons i ran in 1992 was at the time the domestic state androgram in my other places across the country was in the Public Health arena, it was not considered a terminal justice issue. In 1992, we were attacking this as a family problem. There was an ongoing tension between Law Enforcement and the advocates. If you ever want to see when people say you will never get people to get along that have that much animosity toward each other, you should look at the seamless work that Law Enforcement and many, many states and the mystic violence advocates are doing today to combat Domestic Violence. That was my frame of reference. When i ran for the United States andte in 2012, i went visited all my Law Enforcement friends and we started talking about because it was a time of tremendous growth. They said, heidi we have never seen this level of prostitution before. We dont have time to investigate it. We are investigating a salts in bars. Murders. Thefts. We dont have time to investigate prostitution but we see it everywhere. I got to picking about that and what it actually meant in north dakota and like cindy, rethinking what that meant and what that was in started learning about what that was and what goes on when people by other human beings so they can resell them to other human beings and when they capture and sellent them so they can re them to others. First the problem is miners. Is minors. Roblem what we do with people who purchase children. People who engage in the sex trade as johns as a poster child predators and pedophiles. We have a whole language around prostitution that does not with the heinous nature of this crime. To give you an idea to begin to of this discussion about how we as a society ought to look at commercial sex, we begin a discussion about what the laws say and how we should change the laws. My first interest came as a result of what i was seeing with indigenous women. Made of american women who escaped the life and warren recovery in places like indianapolis that has a Recovery Center that is incredible. The stories they would tell about being sold by their cousins, their families, for sex or money and literally thrown away. When you look at the dynamics of Domestic Violence and trafficking, the one thing that is a constant is the devaluing of that person. A you want to get someone in position where you can abuse them in a family relationship, you devalue them first. When you want to take a child who already is probably susceptible, you devalue that child. That is why what we need to talk about goes to the runway and program. Youth i think there are a lot of people involved to think this is like Laura Ingalls wilder bounding through the prairie and some dark force boosts her up and carries her way to this evil place. I am not saying that does not happen and there are a lot of victims that fit that profile. But a lot are kids are been thrown away. Kids who have run away. Its who are vulnerable on the street probably engaging in survival sex at some point which devalues them and then they take the next step. We have to begin looking at this issue differently. These same way we morphed from thinking this was a family problem and a problem of Public Health in Domestic Violence, we have to start being very serious as a society and directing the victimization that happens in commercial sex. And we took about underage minors because that seems to be the entry point. All of the women ive met in the life or who are in this life began as minors. Ando draw that harsh line say, because youre 18yearsold and no longer have that protection we want for girls, is not right. We have a lot to do in terms of cultural change but it has to begin by changing the dynamic like we did in the mystic violence and begin to be very audience and begin to be very honest about how complacent we are as a society and begin to turn away from this whole problem of human slavery, particularly human sex slavery. Picking up on this point about child victims, one of the most troubling i have come traffickinge human a couple yearsrt ago that found through enormous Research Across the country that in only 36 of trafficking prosecutions did prosecutors actually ask for restitution to victims. Now, that is a mandatory requirement. Prosecutors are supposed to ask for restitution and that is important to find aftercare and the trauma and needs of other victims after trafficking. 36 is the request only even made. I am wondering if you might speak to why that is and what you think we could do about that problem . I will add the least likely to receive restitution was found to be child victims of sex trafficking. Number one, getting a child first of all getting a child into court to testify against a trafficker is a monumental feat. Most of the time, they run. Once they get in, do they have to face them to testify against them or are they allowed to video testify . That is an issue right now in arizona. There are a number of factors so getting to the point of restitution is a long road. I completely agree with you but until we can actually educate prosecutors we are not going to get anywhere on this and we are going to continue to see low anders and less prosecutors prosecutions and kid sued disappear as a result of that. Cake when i was attorney general i started a special unit in my office. You can imagine. When i was attorney general i started a special unit in my office. Are prosecutors in fargo, in grand port, major cities wellequipped to handle that kind of prosecution. But if it happens in slope county or you know, these counties that are sparsely populated with a parttime prosecutor or states attorney it is difficult to develop the expertise to do these cases and on child Sexual Assault, cases where you say that is not trafficking, absolutely that is trafficking. Sexual worse trauma fan assault that is not involve repeated behaviors. If you look at it, we need to have a whole different look on how we address prosecution and address victimization in the courtroom. Require continued and ongoing training for prosecutors for stop for judges. Because frequently judges will of grant leniency and terms videotape. They will say, you have a right accuser. Nt your these are challenges and any kind of child Sexual Assault prosecution. People just do not want to live through this experience again and that is what it requires. We need highly trained prosecutors and specialized units in states like mine that are equipped and trained to handle these kinds of investigations and prosecutions. You could have the best prosecutor in the world but the investigation is going to be awfully hard to prove up as assault. , which where our bills require screening and hospitals, comes into focus. We recently on the back page hearing, we heard from a number of mothers whose children had been trafficked. The challenges that they had. I asked the simple question, i asked, what would you like to see done that would have changed outcomes for your child and both of them said, better training in emergency rooms. They felt their children had been that was a point of intervention. Then when they actually showed up for the investigative forensic exam, no one knew how to do a forensic exam that involved a trafficked victim. It was not what you would expect in a Sexual Assault case, it was much more complicated and so we need to do we need to get the resources to develop the best actresses like we did in Domestic Violence prosecutions where we went ahead and prosecution without victim testimony. Frequently in Domestic Violence, prosecution happens because frequently the victim will recant to because of the power relationship they are in. So, we have to have trained units. When we train those units, they are not going to question that formula that you ask for restitution. It would be interesting, i asked the professor about how much of that is actually paid. Of the restitution that is ordered. Having the judgment is one thing, the ability to be paid and execute on that judgment is another huge challenge. Like i said, this is going to take really specialized units and states, especially like mine but all across the country. The states that have been the most successful are states that have these units. Minneapolis is a great example. They have great investigators in great prosecutors. Its not like you have to reinvent the wheel. I think that we should be doing more to build that capacity within the prosecutorial world, it will go a long way. Thank you. I want to continue on the prosecution line and ask about the disparities in the number prosecutions pursued for sex trafficking versus labor trafficking. So just to throw out some statistics both globally and in the United States. In the United States in 2015, only nine out of 957 prosecutions initiated were of labor trafficking. Globally, out of 18930 prosecutions, only 857 prosecutions were of labor trafficking. I wonder if you might speak to how we might be able to promote proactive investigations of labor trafficking cases around the world and here in the United States . You ask a good question. This is a problem across the country. Labor trafficking is grossly underreported. For many reasons, primarily the most is that the companies are actually using traffic labor i know they are using traffic labor are not going to report anything. There are not going to report to the supplychain entities this is going on. Theres another portion of this, the Mccain Institute has a project that is beginning in texas on this issue. Working with prosecutors and educating prosecutors on the issue. It is convoluted many times, not all labor traffic victims are illegal. Many of them are legal within the United States. So making our prosecutors understand the depth of the issue, what it is, what to do, all of the things that you and i know sitting here, but many prosecutors particularly in Rural Counties do not know. Or they do not believe it is even going on. Also making sure that in the larger perspective of this, making sure companies who are sourcing the fruits and vegetables of the textiles, or whatever it may be, are doing Due Diligence on the supply chain. This is something i would like to see the United States to take on officially and make Companies Accountable for what is going on within their supply chains to the best of their ability. Understand that there are going to be some problems that they probably cannot find her wont find. Everyone has to play a part in this. I no longer, and i think heidi agrees with me, except the fact that a company just doesnt know. Theres too many resources out there. From that aspect i think its very important. Before hand it off to heidi, where we are working in texas, the prosecutors in that part of the state simply said to us, it doesnt exist, its not a problem here. Texas. So we are starting at ground zero in many places on this issue. I give credit to the dhs department of Homeland Security who began a blue campai