Ladies please give us a run of applause. [applause] live to an event in north dakota for a lowercase u. S. Efforts to address Human Trafficking held by York University washington d. C. Center. Live coverage began 15 minutes ago. You can see concerns or restitution. To put out a report delaware couple of years ago with enormous research with adopted across the country that only 36 percent did uh prosecutors ask for restitution. That it is a mandatory requirement. With the continuing care with the other needs but only 36 percent found that the request is even made. So if it speaks to why that is it what you can do with that problem. But the least likely bin is a child victim of sex trafficking. Number one getting a child into court to testify against a trafficker is a monumental feat. Once they get in to the have to testify or can they video . There is a number of factors so that is a long long road. So until we can actually have that difficulty with the last prosecution those that could disappear as a result. There is so neat 400 officers and all us sought to cut debt to give you an example the major cities are wellequipped to handle that prosecution as they are sparsely populated it is really difficult to develop the expertise. With child Sexual Assault cases absolutely that is trafficing it is the same trauma. Worse than Sexual Assault that doesnt involve repeated behavior but if you look at it we need to have a whole different world on how we address prosecutions and victimization. Is going to require ongoing training because they will not grant leniency and terms of videotapes with all challenges of any Sexual Assault. Even when people just dont want to live through this and that is what it requires. This is where our bills, which we require training in hospital come into focus. We recently, on the back page, we heard from a number of mothers whose children had been trafficked. The challenges they had. I asked a simple question, i said what would you like to see done that wouldve changed outcomes for your child. 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 involves a traffic victim. It wasnt what you would expect in a Sexual Assault case. It was much more complicated. So, we need to get the resources to develop the best practices like we did in Domestic Violence prosecutions. 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. 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 handed 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 campaign. Its in its early stages but when their trainers got to talk about local prosecutors they dont restrict it to sex trafficking. They talk about labor trafficking in domestic health. What to look for, how to spot it. Think the beginning stages to build an awareness that this actually happens. We have modernday slavery in our country. There are people who are enslaved to our marginalized, who go to work every day and earn not to a dime. So its like sex trafficking. When we began this discussion Western North dakota, i remember going to a meeting and cindy was there with me in a little town. We got around the table and we were talking about the problem and Community Leaders were there. You can kind of see them roll their eyes because they probably wouldve if i were there but they thought we were exaggerating this and it was just yakking until the chief of police said, today, back pages there are 20 advertisements for commercial sex in the city. It was like dead silence in that room. The reality of that had to be recognized. We have a massive labor shortage in my state. During the oil boom, if anyone of you who thinks there wasnt labor trafficking, there wasnt modernday slavery, i think wed be too naive. Not one report of it. So frequently it is done by the guy running the hotel desperately needs people to perform janitorial services. They cant find the workforce to hire directly, they contract, they dont look much beyond that contract. So what is really happening there. Are those people actually getting paid and getting paid fairly . Another time when you have a big explosion of work the investigators actually showing up the labor investigators, to find out whats going on. We need better training to identify this problem. We need better training for prosecutors to prosecute the problem. We think anywhere from 20 30000000 people in the world are currently enslaved. Anyone here who believes none of these people are in our country, you are wrong. Because we are a very vibrant economy. Just as people will look for a market first sex trafficking. People will look for market for labor trafficking. It is not on purpose. How many of you saw story about a note in a purse . A couple of you. This is happened i guess occasionally where someone buys a purse at a big box store, opens it up and theres a note, this note happen to be written in chinese. This woman took it to someone who is a translator who then translated it. The note said i am imprisoned, we dont know she was in prison or for his prison labor or she was imprisoned. But she was clearly crying out for help for anyone who bought that purse. So it should not take someone writing a note in a purse to ask people. I happen to have a meeting that week with the company, will not say who it was. They were very receptive. They would really like to know in the supplychain cousin mightve been three steps removed. When we are the largest economy of the world purchasing these goods and services i think we have a greater obligation to make sure that the people producing these are not slaves. We can leverage that economic strength that we have for a very good purpose which is ending slavery in our world. To take on the fact that trafficking occurs right here in our borders, i wanted to raise an issue that came up at a recent conference. It was a conference that brought together hundreds of advocates working, direct Service Providers who were with trafficked people. There is a theme that came across during the conference which was a very deep concern about the impact that heightened to Immigration Enforcement could have on trafficking victims coming forward to report abuse. As you said, and i am so glad you clarified for the audience that many trafficked persons are here in the United States, in documented status. We do have a lot of on document of people who are trafficked here in the United States. I am wondering what we might be able to do or what we ought to do about trafficked to persons who are undocumented who, now because of a heightened Immigration Enforcement may be all the more wary of interacting with Government Agencies to report the abuse they are suffering. I will take this one. This power relationship has created a real vulnerability in trafficking. It was bad before, i mean you have already the stories of things that have happened in the fields were somebody who is a supervisor feels like they can just take a moment out of the field, rape her and then center back to work in the same morning. So this was happening before we had this heightened awareness within the community that there will be additional Enforcement Actions taken. I believe personally it has, in fact, may people who were incredibly vulnerable, even more vulnerable. How we need to address that, i think is going to be with a lot of education and awareness about what happens with vulnerable people. It also requires that people who wear the label of citizens begin to speak out. I know we can get into a discussion about sensory cities, we can get into a discussion about zones of protection that would not result in deportation with reports. We need to figure that peace out. It is not an American Value to let that happen in our country. It is not an American Value. When people can act with impunity because i have no fear of retribution, no fear of prosecution, we only add to the vulnerability. So, i dont know if i have the answer but i am very concerned as the question would suggest, you are, that this has in fact created a greater opportunity for really bad people to do really bad things. I see two things in this. Number one, of the Litigious Society that we live in now has driven so many people to say, i dont want to get involved. I dont know what could happen so count me out. That has to change. This issue has to be one that you engage in. If we are ever going to stop it. Secondly, this is also a cry to be able to further educate, train, and make aware our local law enforcement, the guys were on the ground come across this. Trafficked victims are handled differently, but as your point, we are going to have to do something that will enable these people to number one, not be trafficked to and number two, if they are trafficked to come forward not so frightened. I dont know what that is. That is a job for my husband and heidi. It is. It is one thing that you, as i hope activists, humanitarians, lawyers, whatever your future lies ahead for you, this is up to. This is your time. We are in a perfect storm on this issue now. Isnt cabinet on all of us to get involved on a daily basis. Thank you. So we have reached the point in the program or we open up the form to questions from the audience. I believe there may be a microphone, or maybe we can have our questioners stand up and identify yourself please. We can also repeat the question. So anybody who is interested. Go ahead, right here in front. Hello. Im from Northern California and im very aware of what is going on in san francisco. Had made her First Priority and immigration issue. Of course she is former attorney general. So, i wanted to ask you, the lesson that you said, because of discrimination in you know the enforcement today, most victims were undocumented would never report of rapes that are going on. Is that, my question is does that reinforce issue you bring up . Because they go out and report the rape then they get deported. That is the situation the senator was saying as a former attorney general. I really respect the work that senator harris is doing. Shes a great addition issues on our committee, our Homeland Security committee and raising his these shoes every day. What i would tell you is that anytime you have people who are diminished empower, clearly someone who is working, picking tomatoes and then undocumented, someone who is marginalize. You are going to create a vulnerability. If you do not give them the power to step up without endangering their own self, you will create a very toxic environment for continuing the kind of abuse that we know happens every day in america. We need to figure this out. I cannot tell you what we need to do, but we need to make sure the department of Homeland Security is engaged in and understands the challenges of these families. A great example recently there is a discussion about whether women who presented at the border for Central America fleeing the murder capital of the world, right, the murder of the countries of the world, who would be or would have their baby taken away from them if they came to the border. As a deterrent, or a some way to prevent them from even coming. We received a lot of letters and we raise this issue with secretary kelly when he appear before committee and he committed to us that he wouldnt. This is again, another area that we should be raising with the leadership of the department of Homeland Security saying, how do you balance us . Just allowing this to continue and to give open season on people who are vulnerable to be victims of crime and then making them fearful for even reporting that. How do we solve that problem . I think we need to have that discussion with the department of Homeland Security as they are pursuing their policies. And the public needs to know this occurs and they need to weigh in. I do not think there is anyone i know north dakota for things that a woman, even if she is undocumented and raped, that she should not have access to justice. And that is really what were talking about. Deterrence can work up to a point, but if there is no deterrent, if theres no prosecution, if there is no opportunity for intervention by authority, then we have a condition that is greatly exacerbated going forward. My pledge to you is the next time i talk to your senator who i like a lot, and talk about this issue and whether we can reason with the department of Homeland Security. About to the right. The be great. Hello. I actually work in agriculture in minnesota. Both of you come from very heavy agricultural states. I do a lot of work on supplanted chains. Its probably not a surprise to that we dont really talk about Human Trafficking as we should. The question to both of you is what can private companies have a lot of Supplier Power do to create the right incentive to start addressing the problem, and with a caveat of not scaring people. Sometimes the pressure comes down and it creates the wrong behavior. But positive things that we can do to help with what youre addressing. As i said before, our senators and congressmen offering incentives for companies to do just that, do the right thing at the wrong thing. There are plenty of tools out there for companies to be able to Research Supply chains and be able to research what is going on. There is also ngos that will do it for them and report back to them. In my opinion, take a hard line on this. In my opinion, in this day and age, theres no reason for company to say i do not know how to do this, i cant do it. I dont buy that at all. In the case that heidi just raced about the chinese letter inside the purse, that happened in arizona. Unfortunately for the company involved, they hit blood state that is really hard on this issue. So i note our governors after them right now. This has opened up a lot of different issues. It is too bad we have to have an example, that somebody has made a mistake in others it example. There should be no example. As far as incentives, heidi can maybe answer that better than i can about what kind of incentives you would offer that is what you would do. I think, first off, cindy is so modest, she rea