FROM: U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Official Reports Progress in Awareness of Human Trafficking
By Terri Moon Cronk
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2015 – Defense Department awareness of slavery and human trafficking issues is paying off significantly because of mandatory employee training, the program manager for DoD’s Combating Trafficking in Persons program has reported.
As DoD observes National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month in January, Sam Yousef noted how annual training for DoD’s military, civilian, and contractor workforce is driving home the department’s “zero tolerance” for slavery and human trafficking.
DoD defines human trafficking as using fraud, force or coercion to recruit, harbor, transport or obtain a person for commercial sex, or labor services.
Increase in Workforce Awareness
Surveys indicate a jump in DoD workforce awareness of slavery and human trafficking issues, from 72 percent in 2008 to nearly 90 percent today, he said.
Yousef said when people hear the term human trafficking, they often relate it to sex trafficking, but he noted that DoD’s training emphasizes that people also can be susceptible to labor trafficking.
Occurring particularly overseas rather than stateside, labor trafficking has led DoD’s Combating Trafficking in Persons program to develop new specialized training for acquisition professionals.
“The training is primarily for contractor officers and contracting officer representatives” on foreign soil, Yousef said. “It gives them highlighted awareness of their responsibilities in managing contracts as they relate to human trafficking.”
Using the phrase, “If you see something, say something,” he said awareness training helps all DoD employees identify potential victims of the crime.
Common practices in labor trafficking, for example, include confiscating workers’ passports, withholding wages and creating “inhumane” living conditions.
Training Helps to Alert Employees
While such indicators might not be obvious to some, DoD’s training helps to alert employees to the potential of such scenarios, Yousef said. “You might not think much of it before you take our training,” he added. “But through increased awareness, you’re able to connect the dots a little more.”
Leadership Plays a Role
In addition to DoD’s mandatory annual training, the military’s leadership also plays a critical awareness role in preventing such crimes, Yousef said.
The 7th Air Force in South Korea, for example, issued a policy earlier this year restricting service members from buying drinks for “juicy bar” workers and patronizing establishments that have been connected to prostitution and human trafficking, he said, adding that the policy now covers all of U.S. Forces Korea.
“It’s a very significant accomplishment,” Yousef said of the policy. “In a 2003 DoD-wide survey, we reported that 52 percent of our service members were aware of bars placed off-limits by their leadership, but in 2013 we reported it at 92 percent.”
In addition, programs with nongovernmental organizations also are increasing awareness, he noted.
One such effort will partner the Defense Health Agency with the nonprofit Polaris Project, which combats human trafficking around the world. During January in the national capital area, DHA and the Polaris Project will conduct a drive to benefit international victims of slavery and human trafficking, Yousef said.
Showing posts with label SLAVERY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SLAVERY. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS ON ISIL'S TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
ISIL's Dehumanization of Women and Girls
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
October 14, 2014
ISIL now proudly takes credit for the abduction, enslavement, rape, forced marriage, and sale of several thousand Yezidi and other minority women and girls—some as young as 12 years old. Just as despicably, ISIL rationalizes its abhorrent treatment of these women and girls by claiming it is somehow sanctioned by religion. Wrong. Dead wrong.
ISIL does not represent Islam and Islam does not condone or honor such depravity. In fact, these actions are a reminder that ISIL is an enemy of Islam. The international community and religious leaders of all faiths have strongly and repeatedly condemned ISIL’s horrific acts; we urge them to reiterate their commitment by condemning in the strongest possible terms the commodification of women and children as spoils of war, including through their subjection to horrific physical and sexual violence, intimidation, and deprivation of liberty.
These acts transgress all definitions of human dignity and those individuals responsible must be identified and held fully accountable. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Cathy Russell said it best: “Such viciousness against innocents exposes ISIL's blatant rejection of the most basic progress we have made as a community of nations and the universal values that bind civilization.” The United States will not stand by as ISIL uses fear, violence and oppression to achieve its goals.
To stop ISIL’s campaign of terror and horror against the Syrian and Iraqi people, we remain steadfast in our efforts to lead the international coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL. The United States will keep tracking ISIL’s abduction, enslavement, sale, rape, forced marriage, and abuse of women and girls. We will keep working with the new Government of Iraq to respond to ISIL’s brutality against women and girls from all communities in Iraq, including vulnerable minority populations.
Friday, February 28, 2014
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS ON ANNUAL COUNTRY REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks on the Release of the Annual Country Report on Human Rights
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Press Briefing Room
Washington, DC
February 27, 2014
Well, good morning, everybody. Excuse me. I’ve got a little allergies this morning, I think.
I’m delighted to be here this morning for the second Human Rights report that I have issued as Secretary, and I’m particularly pleased to be here with our Acting Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Uzra Zeya, who as I think all of you know, is performing these responsibilities in the capacity as an interim assistant secretary but who has done just a spectacular job and has led the Department in a year-long process to track and make the assessments that are reflected here. So I thank her for a job particularly well done on this year’s Human Rights Report.
The fundamental struggle for dignity, for decency in the treatment of human beings between each other and between states and citizens, is a driving force in all of human history. And from our own nation’s journey, we know that this is a work in progress. Slavery was written into our Constitution before it was written out. And we know that the struggle for equal rights, for women, for others – for LGBT community and others – is an ongoing struggle. And it’s because of the courage and commitment of citizens in each generation that the United States has come closer to living up to our own ideals.
Even as we come together today to issue a report on other nations, we hold ourselves to a high standard, and we expect accountability here at home too. And we know that we’re not perfect. We don’t speak with any arrogance whatsoever, but with a concern for the human condition.
Our own journey has not been without great difficulty, and at times, contradiction. But even as we remain humble about the challenges of our own history, we are proud that no country has more opportunity to advance the cause of democracy and no country is as committed to the cause of human rights as we are.
This year’s report, we think, is especially timely. It comes on the heels of one of the most momentous years in the struggle for greater rights and freedoms in modern history.
In Syria, hundreds were murdered in the dead of night when a disaster occurred at the hands of a dictator who decided to infect the air of Damascus with poisonous gas, and many more have been, unfortunately, confined to die under a barrage of barrel bombs, Scud missiles, artillery, and other conventional weapons.
In Bangladesh, thousands of workers perished in the greatest workplace safety disaster in history.
And from Nigeria to Russia to Iran, indeed in some 80 countries the world over, LGBT communities face discriminatory laws and practices that attack their basic human dignity and undermine their safety. We are seeing new laws like the Anti-Homosexuality Bill enacted by Uganda and signed into law by President Museveni earlier this week, which not only makes criminals of people for who they are, but punishes those who defend the human rights that are our universal birthright.
These laws contribute to a global trend of rising violence and discrimination against LGBT persons and their supporters, and they are an affront to every reasonable conscience, and the United States will continue to stand with our LGBT brothers and sisters as we stand up for freedom, for justice, for equal rights for all people around the world.
And so with this year’s report, we join with many other nations in reaffirming our commitment to a world where speaking one’s mind does not lead to persecution, a world where practicing or changing one’s faith does not lead to imprisonment, and where marching peacefully in the street does not get you beaten up in a blind alley or even killed in plain sight.
So let me be clear. This is not just some high-minded exercise. This is the most comprehensive, authoritative, dispassionate, and factual review of the state of human rights globally, and every American should be proud of it. That’s why Acting Assistant Secretary Zeya of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and our embassies and consulates around the world have spent countless hours researching and writing these reports, engaging activists, talking to governments, and analyzing NGO and media reports. And that’s why they capture the attention of dictatorships and democracies alike.
This is about accountability. It’s about ending impunity. And it’s about a fight that has gone on for centuries, as long as human beings have been able to think and write and speak and act on their own. The struggle for rights and dignity couldn’t be more relevant to what we are seeing transpire across the globe. The places where we face some of the greatest national security challenges today are also places where governments deny basic human rights to their nations’ people, and that is no coincidence. And it is particularly no coincidence in an age where people have access and want access to more information and the freedom to be able to act – to access information and to be able to act on the basis of that information. That is what has always characterized democracies and free people.
It’s no coincidence that in North Korea, a UN commission of inquiry recently found clear and compelling evidence of wholesale torture and crimes against humanity, reports of people who have been executed summarily and fired at by artillery, fired at by anti-aircraft weapons, 122 millimeter aircraft weapons that literally obliterate human beings, and this has occurred with people in the masses being forced to watch, a form of gross and utter intimidation and oppression.
It’s no coincidence that the first use of a weapon of mass destruction anywhere in the last quarter century came from a dictatorship in Syria in trying to suppress a popular uprising, in trying to suppress the aspirations of young people who simply wanted jobs and education and opportunity.
It’s no coincidence that the brutal violence that we’ve seen recently in South Sudan and the Central African Republic is rooted in cycles of violence stemming from past abuses, marginalization, discrimination, and unwillingness to listen.
And so the United States of America will continue to speak out, without a hint of arrogance or apology, on behalf of people who stand up for their universal rights. And we will stand up in many cases for those who are deprived of the opportunity to be able to stand up for themselves.
We will do so in Venezuela, where the government has confronted peaceful protestors by deploying armed vigilantes, by imprisoning students, and by severely limiting freedoms of expression and assembly. The solution to Venezuela’s problems are not found through violence, and they will not be found through violence, but only through dialogue with all Venezuelans in a climate of mutual respect.
We will do it in Sri Lanka, where the government still has not answered basic demands for accountability and reconciliation, where attacks on civil society activists, journalists, and religious minorities, sadly, still continue. Our concern about this ongoing situation has led the United States to support another UN Human Rights Council resolution at the March session. We will do so because we know countries that deny human rights and human dignity challenge our interests as well as human interests. But we also know countries that advance those values, those countries that embrace these rights are countries that actually create opportunities.
From Yemen to Tunisia, which I just visited last month, we have seen how national dialogue and democratic progress can make countries more stable and make them stronger partners for peace and prosperity. In Ukraine, as we all just saw in real time in the last days, tens of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against the power – to demonstrate again the power of people to be able to demand a more democratic and accountable governance, and to stand up even against those who would sniper from roofs and take their lives in the effort to have their voices heard.
In Burma, we continue to see a country that was isolated for so many years slowly moving away not just from dictatorship, but toward a more productive partnering with the United States and the international community.
So there are plenty of examples, folks, of places that choose a different road, and that strive to make it work. As today’s report makes clear, Burma still faces the normal challenges, from reforming an undemocratic constitution to ending discrimination and violence against religious and ethnic minorities, but we must continue to encourage progress even as we speak honestly about the problems that persist.
In my first year as Secretary of State, I have been very fortunate to see with my own eyes what we can accomplish when we see our power and use our power and influence to empower others to be able to change things for the better. I’m truly inspired by the civil society activists that I’ve met with in many of the countries I’ve been to – in Hanoi, for instance – people who are standing up for their fundamental rights to speak out and to associate freely. I’m inspired by the 86-year-old human rights pioneer I met in Moscow who has spent a lifetime fighting for the basic rights that we take for granted here in the United States. I’m inspired by a group of young southeast-Asian land rights advocates that I met at the ASEAN regional forum last year who understand that societal problems are best solved when the government works with civil society, not against it.
The truth is that some of the greatest accomplishments in expanding the cause of human rights have come not because of legislative decree or judicial fiat, but they came through the awesomely courageous acts of individuals, whether it is Xu Zhiyong fighting the government transparency that he desires to see in China, or Ales Byalyatski, who is demanding justice and transparency and accountability in Belarus, whether it is Angel Yunier Remon Arzuaga, who is rapping for greater political freedom in Cuba, or Eskinder Nega, who is writing for freedom of expression in Ethiopia. Every single one of these people are demonstrating a brand of moral courage that we need now more than ever.
This year there is actually another name on all of our minds, and that is, of course, the first Human Rights Report since the passing of one of the most courageous individuals of all time, Nelson Mandela. Mandela was more than an inspiration; he was a model. All over the world, I have been in homes and offices where his unmistakable face was on posters and prints. I’ve met so many young kids named Nelson in Africa, but in so many other places where people are aspiring for real change. His influence was just that powerful. Even in his absence, the example that he set will long endure. We carry on his work for those who are walking picket lines, who are sitting in prison cells sometimes unknown to anybody except their family, who are protesting from Cairo to Caracas to Kyiv.
And we have to ask ourselves, as we do this: If we don’t stand with these brave men and women, then what do we stand for and who will stand with them? And if we don’t give voice to those who are voiceless, then who do we speak for and who will give voice to them? The demand for human dignity I believe, President Obama believes – I think all of us believe in this country – is unstoppable. And today we reaffirm our commitment to stand with the many who seek dignity and against the few who deny it.
That’s how we live up to our ideals. That’s how we will meet the demands of this moment. That’s how we will build a more stable and peaceful world.
And before I turn things over to Uzra, let me leave you with one final thought. We obviously have a big agenda. You can see that. And that means we need our full team on the field so that we can get to work. Frankly, it’s unacceptable that so many of our nominees – countless numbers of ambassadors to very important countries are awaiting confirmation. Our national security is not served by keeping many professionals, people who have waited patiently, in a perpetual limbo. Neither is our ability to support democratic rights and aspirations of people all over the world enhanced by what is happening.
Let me give you an example, for instance, of what is happening to Tom Malinowski. Tom is a human rights champion whom the President has picked as his nominee to be the next Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Tom has strong bipartisan support. We know of no objection to his nomination – none – and yet, he has been waiting more than 220 days to be confirmed.
So now is the time to send a strong signal that we are not content to sit on the sidelines. I ask and I hope that our colleagues in the Senate will help Tom Malinowski get on the job so that we can continue to lead in these very kinds of issues that I have just laid out here today. We are ready to lead, and that’s when America is at its best, and that’s the vision that has always inspired people. And it always will. And it’s with that understanding that we are committed to continue this important work to defend the rights of people all around the world. That’s how we became a nation, and that’s how we will stay the nation that we want to be.
With that I thank you very much, and I will leave it in the good hands of Uzra. Thank you.
Remarks on the Release of the Annual Country Report on Human Rights
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Press Briefing Room
Washington, DC
February 27, 2014
Well, good morning, everybody. Excuse me. I’ve got a little allergies this morning, I think.
I’m delighted to be here this morning for the second Human Rights report that I have issued as Secretary, and I’m particularly pleased to be here with our Acting Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Uzra Zeya, who as I think all of you know, is performing these responsibilities in the capacity as an interim assistant secretary but who has done just a spectacular job and has led the Department in a year-long process to track and make the assessments that are reflected here. So I thank her for a job particularly well done on this year’s Human Rights Report.
The fundamental struggle for dignity, for decency in the treatment of human beings between each other and between states and citizens, is a driving force in all of human history. And from our own nation’s journey, we know that this is a work in progress. Slavery was written into our Constitution before it was written out. And we know that the struggle for equal rights, for women, for others – for LGBT community and others – is an ongoing struggle. And it’s because of the courage and commitment of citizens in each generation that the United States has come closer to living up to our own ideals.
Even as we come together today to issue a report on other nations, we hold ourselves to a high standard, and we expect accountability here at home too. And we know that we’re not perfect. We don’t speak with any arrogance whatsoever, but with a concern for the human condition.
Our own journey has not been without great difficulty, and at times, contradiction. But even as we remain humble about the challenges of our own history, we are proud that no country has more opportunity to advance the cause of democracy and no country is as committed to the cause of human rights as we are.
This year’s report, we think, is especially timely. It comes on the heels of one of the most momentous years in the struggle for greater rights and freedoms in modern history.
In Syria, hundreds were murdered in the dead of night when a disaster occurred at the hands of a dictator who decided to infect the air of Damascus with poisonous gas, and many more have been, unfortunately, confined to die under a barrage of barrel bombs, Scud missiles, artillery, and other conventional weapons.
In Bangladesh, thousands of workers perished in the greatest workplace safety disaster in history.
And from Nigeria to Russia to Iran, indeed in some 80 countries the world over, LGBT communities face discriminatory laws and practices that attack their basic human dignity and undermine their safety. We are seeing new laws like the Anti-Homosexuality Bill enacted by Uganda and signed into law by President Museveni earlier this week, which not only makes criminals of people for who they are, but punishes those who defend the human rights that are our universal birthright.
These laws contribute to a global trend of rising violence and discrimination against LGBT persons and their supporters, and they are an affront to every reasonable conscience, and the United States will continue to stand with our LGBT brothers and sisters as we stand up for freedom, for justice, for equal rights for all people around the world.
And so with this year’s report, we join with many other nations in reaffirming our commitment to a world where speaking one’s mind does not lead to persecution, a world where practicing or changing one’s faith does not lead to imprisonment, and where marching peacefully in the street does not get you beaten up in a blind alley or even killed in plain sight.
So let me be clear. This is not just some high-minded exercise. This is the most comprehensive, authoritative, dispassionate, and factual review of the state of human rights globally, and every American should be proud of it. That’s why Acting Assistant Secretary Zeya of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and our embassies and consulates around the world have spent countless hours researching and writing these reports, engaging activists, talking to governments, and analyzing NGO and media reports. And that’s why they capture the attention of dictatorships and democracies alike.
This is about accountability. It’s about ending impunity. And it’s about a fight that has gone on for centuries, as long as human beings have been able to think and write and speak and act on their own. The struggle for rights and dignity couldn’t be more relevant to what we are seeing transpire across the globe. The places where we face some of the greatest national security challenges today are also places where governments deny basic human rights to their nations’ people, and that is no coincidence. And it is particularly no coincidence in an age where people have access and want access to more information and the freedom to be able to act – to access information and to be able to act on the basis of that information. That is what has always characterized democracies and free people.
It’s no coincidence that in North Korea, a UN commission of inquiry recently found clear and compelling evidence of wholesale torture and crimes against humanity, reports of people who have been executed summarily and fired at by artillery, fired at by anti-aircraft weapons, 122 millimeter aircraft weapons that literally obliterate human beings, and this has occurred with people in the masses being forced to watch, a form of gross and utter intimidation and oppression.
It’s no coincidence that the first use of a weapon of mass destruction anywhere in the last quarter century came from a dictatorship in Syria in trying to suppress a popular uprising, in trying to suppress the aspirations of young people who simply wanted jobs and education and opportunity.
It’s no coincidence that the brutal violence that we’ve seen recently in South Sudan and the Central African Republic is rooted in cycles of violence stemming from past abuses, marginalization, discrimination, and unwillingness to listen.
And so the United States of America will continue to speak out, without a hint of arrogance or apology, on behalf of people who stand up for their universal rights. And we will stand up in many cases for those who are deprived of the opportunity to be able to stand up for themselves.
We will do so in Venezuela, where the government has confronted peaceful protestors by deploying armed vigilantes, by imprisoning students, and by severely limiting freedoms of expression and assembly. The solution to Venezuela’s problems are not found through violence, and they will not be found through violence, but only through dialogue with all Venezuelans in a climate of mutual respect.
We will do it in Sri Lanka, where the government still has not answered basic demands for accountability and reconciliation, where attacks on civil society activists, journalists, and religious minorities, sadly, still continue. Our concern about this ongoing situation has led the United States to support another UN Human Rights Council resolution at the March session. We will do so because we know countries that deny human rights and human dignity challenge our interests as well as human interests. But we also know countries that advance those values, those countries that embrace these rights are countries that actually create opportunities.
From Yemen to Tunisia, which I just visited last month, we have seen how national dialogue and democratic progress can make countries more stable and make them stronger partners for peace and prosperity. In Ukraine, as we all just saw in real time in the last days, tens of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against the power – to demonstrate again the power of people to be able to demand a more democratic and accountable governance, and to stand up even against those who would sniper from roofs and take their lives in the effort to have their voices heard.
In Burma, we continue to see a country that was isolated for so many years slowly moving away not just from dictatorship, but toward a more productive partnering with the United States and the international community.
So there are plenty of examples, folks, of places that choose a different road, and that strive to make it work. As today’s report makes clear, Burma still faces the normal challenges, from reforming an undemocratic constitution to ending discrimination and violence against religious and ethnic minorities, but we must continue to encourage progress even as we speak honestly about the problems that persist.
In my first year as Secretary of State, I have been very fortunate to see with my own eyes what we can accomplish when we see our power and use our power and influence to empower others to be able to change things for the better. I’m truly inspired by the civil society activists that I’ve met with in many of the countries I’ve been to – in Hanoi, for instance – people who are standing up for their fundamental rights to speak out and to associate freely. I’m inspired by the 86-year-old human rights pioneer I met in Moscow who has spent a lifetime fighting for the basic rights that we take for granted here in the United States. I’m inspired by a group of young southeast-Asian land rights advocates that I met at the ASEAN regional forum last year who understand that societal problems are best solved when the government works with civil society, not against it.
The truth is that some of the greatest accomplishments in expanding the cause of human rights have come not because of legislative decree or judicial fiat, but they came through the awesomely courageous acts of individuals, whether it is Xu Zhiyong fighting the government transparency that he desires to see in China, or Ales Byalyatski, who is demanding justice and transparency and accountability in Belarus, whether it is Angel Yunier Remon Arzuaga, who is rapping for greater political freedom in Cuba, or Eskinder Nega, who is writing for freedom of expression in Ethiopia. Every single one of these people are demonstrating a brand of moral courage that we need now more than ever.
This year there is actually another name on all of our minds, and that is, of course, the first Human Rights Report since the passing of one of the most courageous individuals of all time, Nelson Mandela. Mandela was more than an inspiration; he was a model. All over the world, I have been in homes and offices where his unmistakable face was on posters and prints. I’ve met so many young kids named Nelson in Africa, but in so many other places where people are aspiring for real change. His influence was just that powerful. Even in his absence, the example that he set will long endure. We carry on his work for those who are walking picket lines, who are sitting in prison cells sometimes unknown to anybody except their family, who are protesting from Cairo to Caracas to Kyiv.
And we have to ask ourselves, as we do this: If we don’t stand with these brave men and women, then what do we stand for and who will stand with them? And if we don’t give voice to those who are voiceless, then who do we speak for and who will give voice to them? The demand for human dignity I believe, President Obama believes – I think all of us believe in this country – is unstoppable. And today we reaffirm our commitment to stand with the many who seek dignity and against the few who deny it.
That’s how we live up to our ideals. That’s how we will meet the demands of this moment. That’s how we will build a more stable and peaceful world.
And before I turn things over to Uzra, let me leave you with one final thought. We obviously have a big agenda. You can see that. And that means we need our full team on the field so that we can get to work. Frankly, it’s unacceptable that so many of our nominees – countless numbers of ambassadors to very important countries are awaiting confirmation. Our national security is not served by keeping many professionals, people who have waited patiently, in a perpetual limbo. Neither is our ability to support democratic rights and aspirations of people all over the world enhanced by what is happening.
Let me give you an example, for instance, of what is happening to Tom Malinowski. Tom is a human rights champion whom the President has picked as his nominee to be the next Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Tom has strong bipartisan support. We know of no objection to his nomination – none – and yet, he has been waiting more than 220 days to be confirmed.
So now is the time to send a strong signal that we are not content to sit on the sidelines. I ask and I hope that our colleagues in the Senate will help Tom Malinowski get on the job so that we can continue to lead in these very kinds of issues that I have just laid out here today. We are ready to lead, and that’s when America is at its best, and that’s the vision that has always inspired people. And it always will. And it’s with that understanding that we are committed to continue this important work to defend the rights of people all around the world. That’s how we became a nation, and that’s how we will stay the nation that we want to be.
With that I thank you very much, and I will leave it in the good hands of Uzra. Thank you.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
MODERN HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Press Statement Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State New Haven, Connecticut
April 13, 2012
Later this year, we will mark the 150th anniversary of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and as we remember the sad history of slavery in the United States and honor those who fought to end it, we must also recommit ourselves to delivering on the promise of freedom. Because around the world today, 27 million people are living in modern slavery, or what we call trafficking in persons.
That’s why this Administration has made the effort to combat modern slavery a top priority. Here at home, agencies across government are working together to prosecute traffickers, and to bring needed assistance to survivors. Around the world, we are working with governments to improve their response to this crime, and we are supporting anti-trafficking programs in 37 countries with foreign assistance. Our annualTrafficking in Persons Report is the most comprehensive assessment of what governments are doing to stop this crime, and I’m glad you’ve had the chance to hear from Lou de Baca about everything the State Department is doing to move this struggle forward.
Now, when I was a law student in these same classrooms and hallways, I had the opportunity to learn from brilliant scholars and legal minds, and to study cutting-edge ideas about civil rights and children’s issues. So it doesn’t surprise me that that Yale Law School is again leading the way as we develop new innovations and practices to help us fight this horrible crime.
I hope this conference has been an opportunity for all of you to share ideas and build partnerships that will strengthen our efforts to combat modern slavery. Thank you all for your tireless work to stop this crime.
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