Washington, D.C.
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary. Thanks to all the colleagues we’ve heard from today. I think I date myself, but this may be my sixth Task Force meeting. And I can say it is a breath of fresh air just to hear about how much more is being achieved every year, how much more of a priority this is, how embedded this work is into the DNA of all of our agencies in a way it just wasn’t even a decade ago.
Ambassador, welcome aboard. We all look forward to working closely with you. And again, going around is very inspiring. USAID, over the last two decades, has demonstrated its commitment to combating trafficking through around $340 million dollars invested in more than 88 countries. And touching on, I think, all of the categories of work that have been described here, preventing trafficking, protecting victims and prosecuting perpetrators. This past year, we invested $36 million dollars to counter trafficking in 30 countries. And thus, illustratively, these resources go to strengthening labor organizations so that they can fight for fair labor in their countries, preventing forced labor in supply chains, including funding, for example, reports on forced labor in Xinjiang supply chains, particularly as it relates to cotton. And of course, very supportive of the work on solar. The DHS and DOL and others have been so active on protecting migrants who might be vulnerable, including sudden crisis situations like that in Ukraine, where we work so closely with the State Department to do that and promoting trauma infused counseling for survivors of trafficking.
When we gathered last year, I shared that USAID had just launched a new Countering Trafficking in Persons policy, and over the past year, we’ve implemented these policies in our bureaus and missions around the world. We are already seeing the strategy drive promising results on the ground. I don’t have time to get into much about that but I just want to highlight one new aspect of this strategy, which is a heightened emphasis on work with local organizations who lead the fight against trafficking in their own communities, but to whom resources have often not naturally flowed.
It takes significant investments to find that and build partnerships with these local organizations, these community-based organizations. But we are making it a priority because we know that local leaders have the firsthand experience to understand how trafficking is affecting their communities, and they have the relationships and the credibility to drive significant and lasting reforms.
In our push to go local to combat human trafficking, I just want to share one story, because perhaps no one embodies our relative impact here in pushing in this direction more than a man named Caleb Thole. So, Caleb is a community leader from Malawi who has given us permission to share his story here today. In 2010, Caleb’s family received a harrowing phone call from a man who told them that he had abducted their Aunt Eneless and would only release her if the family paid a ransom that they could not afford. Eneless’ captors took her far away from home, forced her to smuggle drugs and repeatedly assaulted her. Months later, law enforcement finally rescued Eneless over 1,200 miles away in Johannesburg. And Caleb learned that his aunt was not alone in her experience. Much like Secretary Mayorkas’ story a while ago, 15 other Malawian women had been taken alongside her.
Seeing how many people were forced to endure such horrific treatment, Caleb decided to take it upon himself to do something to prevent human trafficking in his community. He started an organization called Global Hope Mobilization, and with support from USAID, Global Hope is creating campaigns with local religious and community leaders to inform people of the dangers of human trafficking and ways to keep themselves and their communities safe. They’re also working with survivors to report offenders and with Malawian courts to prosecute cases and swiftly bring traffickers to justice. And in partnership with the Malawian Ministry of Gender, they are managing shelters for survivors and creating vocational training to help survivors reenter the workforce.
In USAID’s 22 years of anti-trafficking work across 88 countries, we’ve seen that while the burden of human trafficking is global, local leaders like Caleb, rising up to keep the people around them safe, often drive the most effective and certainly the most sustainable solutions. So we will continue to empower those leaders as we execute on our new strategy and work alongside all of you to support President Biden’s National Action Plan to counter trafficking in all its forms.
Thank you so much.