Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are once again joined by Chad Salitan to discuss this year’s Trafficking in Persons Report. Chad is the Deputy Senior Coordinator at the Trafficking in Persons Office of the U.S. Department of State. Chad brings knowledge on not only what the TIP Report is, but key differences in the 2019’s edition.

Key Points

Resources

192 – What is the Trafficking in Persons Report

193 – Child Institutionalization and Human Trafficking

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 206, Leveraging the Data in the Trafficking in Persons Report.

Production Credits [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave [00:00:30] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:36] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:38] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, one of the resources that has been just tremendous to all of us who want to study the issues, so we can really make a difference on this issue is the Trafficking in Persons Report that’s released annually from the State Department. And we have talked about it a number of times on past episodes. And today we are pleased to welcome back to the show Chad, who’s going to really assist us in really diving in and in more detail on the most recent report.

Sandie [00:01:14] Yes and I’m, so excited to have Chad Salitan. He’s the Deputy Senior Coordinator, Trafficking in Persons office in Washington D.C. And when I started reading this year’s report, I knew we had to bring him back. He was on a podcast in March in podcast number 192, What is the Trafficking in Persons Report. And we immediately followed that with podcast 193, Child Institutionalization and Human Trafficking. So, Chad, welcome back.

Chad [00:01:47] Thank you for having me.

Sandie [00:01:49] So, let’s start off with what were your feelings about releasing this report? What was that one thing that you were the most excited about?

Chad [00:01:59] Oh, well this was report number nineteen for our office. So, we were very pleased to get this one out. Each year, it’s frankly a Herculean effort to produce this report over 500 pages. As you may have noticed your arms got heavy if you were carrying it. Well, we were producing a really comprehensive report this year and we’re really proud of our introduction, which covers the theme of encouraging governments to address all forms of human trafficking with a special emphasis on trafficking that takes place exclusively within the borders of the country. So, absent any transnational movement and it’s sometimes an overlooked part of the global human trafficking sites, that’s what we want to focus on this year.

Sandie [00:02:40] Well let’s talk about that because sometimes when I’m traveling internationally, I have this conversation and people feel that I’m not talking about human trafficking, that I’m talking about something else. And, so for me anybody that has been obtained or recruited through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for any purpose, sex or labor, that’s human trafficking. So, why would there be some confusion?

Chad [00:03:10] And I ever see the same confusion. I’ve been in countless meetings with foreign government officials where we initially have to start the conversation by really defining the type of vulnerable populations that we’re really looking to protect with our work. What we’re talking about is reinforced through international law though. The United Nations Palermo protocol is very clear that each state party of which there is over 170 countries that are part of it should establish a domestic law that explains the trafficking that occurs both within and between their borders. So, it’s already there in international law, and more importantly when you talk to practitioners, when you talk to the ILO, you look at global estimates it actually just suggests that traffickers exploit a majority of victims without moving them from one country to another. So, it’s a huge population of victims of vulnerable people that are not going across borders that we need to keep an eye on.

Sandie [00:04:08] So, can you give us a couple of examples?

Chad [00:04:11] Yes, of course. And I should add that we didn’t want to, of course, minimize the importance of transnational human trafficking, but we want to call attention to some of the phenomena that we are seeing that’s happening purely within borders. So, if you’re to say in Cambodia, for example, you know areas where there’s lack of jobs in rural areas you know try to find work in the tourist cities where there’s more foreign money coming in. Traffickers may exploit them in sex trafficking, underground massage parlors, karaoke bars, beer gardens, things like that. So, there was movement, but it wasn’t transnational, right? Another example, say in Ethiopia, where you see sadly traffickers deceiving parents of their children that live in areas where opportunities are scant and they’re sending their children with these traffickers unknowingly thinking that their children going to major cities to have a decent work, have living conditions, food security. The traffickers promise the families that the children will go to school receive wages for their work, but of course the reality is much different. We see even in places like the United Kingdom where gangs are forcing British children to carry drugs. And you know the UK National Crime Agency is reporting that the largest group of potential victims actually is U.K. nationals, that are being referred to the human trafficking network. So, cases like this where you see kind of things that are even more extant examples like in Yemen where you see the ongoing armed conflict and there’s of course a range of human rights violations. But of course, you have many parties that are using child soldiers, 842 verified cases in the last year of boys as young as 11 years old being forced to work in paramilitary groups. In the United States, not to leave us out, you know we have a huge problem with internal trafficking in traffickers preying on children, especially those coming fr...