Dr. Kari Johnstone joins Dr. Sandie Morgan as they discuss how traffickers adapt fast, moving money, victims, and exploitation through digital systems most of us interact with every day, examining whether our institutions are adapting fast enough to protect victims without them risking everything to testify.

Dr. Kari Johnstone

Dr. Kari Johnstone is the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, representing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe at the political level on human trafficking issues and coordinating anti-trafficking efforts across the OSCE region. Before joining the OSCE, Dr. Johnstone spent nearly a decade (2014-2023) as Senior Official, Acting Director, and Principal Deputy Director of the U.S. Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP), where she advised senior leadership on global trafficking policy and programming and oversaw the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Her extensive U.S. government service also includes senior roles in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Dr. Johnstone holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Key Points

• The OSCE survey revealed a 17-fold increase in forced criminality cases over five years across the 57 member states, making it the fastest growing form of human trafficking globally.
• Forced scamming, which originated in Southeast Asia, is now being exported to other regions as criminals adopt this lucrative business model that exploits victims with brutal tactics to defraud others.
• Technology and artificial intelligence present both challenges and opportunities in combating trafficking, allowing law enforcement to process data more quickly to find victims and perpetrators while also being misused by traffickers for recruitment and exploitation.
• Financial intelligence and following the money can supplement or even replace victim testimony in prosecutions, reducing the burden on survivors and providing effective pathways to convict traffickers.
• The non-punishment principle remains woefully inadequate in practice worldwide, with victims often arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for crimes directly related to their trafficking experience, creating lifelong consequences that prevent access to housing, employment, and stability.
• The United States leads globally on criminal record relief for trafficking survivors, with 48-49 states having vacature or expungement laws and new federal legislation (Trafficking Survivor Relief Act) awaiting presidential signature, though much work remains worldwide.
• Victim assistance must be unlinked from the criminal justice process, allowing survivors to receive care and services first before deciding whether to cooperate with law enforcement, which actually increases the likelihood they will come forward and participate.
• The demographics of trafficking victims are shifting beyond stereotypes, with forced scamming targeting educated individuals with IT and language skills, while forced criminality increasingly exploits younger children, including those under age 10, for drug-related crimes and violence.

Resources

• Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
• OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings
• Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (UN Palermo Protocol)
• UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons
• U.S. State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
• Trafficking in Persons Report
• Trafficking Survivors Relief Act
• Ending Human Trafficking Podcast