This article is the second part of a two-part series. The first can be found here.
First, you change his stable.
Move the Trafficking in Persons office at State Department to where it belongs. U.S. officials advise every other country in the world to put human trafficking where it belongs: Department of Justice. Criminal behavior belongs where it can be investigated, prosecuted and adjudicated. President Trump should move the Trafficking in Persons office out of the State Department into the agency that has the stable of investigators and prosecutors to get the rapists, kidnappers, terrorists, and human traffickers off the streets, and out of the business of profiting from human misery. Once law enforcement looks at the RFP, the creation of a global fund, and a huge slush fund, they will no doubt see the project for what it is: a program that will become bloated and impossible to cut because of the great PR value.
Revamp the model. Replace it with one whose goal, to stop slavery and protect children, is stated clearly in measurable terms and deadlines, but first the problem of human trafficking must be clearly defined.
Third, establish a human trafficking conference in Washington with people who are actively engaged in programs that are succeeding in their objectives in various aspects of human trafficking: corporate policies and practices, law enforcement, legislation, intervention in migrant camps, foster care, and restoration and recovery, and preventive measures. The tentacles reach into every aspect of society and business. Which areas are the most productive to focus time, money and effort on to achieve the greatest impact? These are the important questions the administration needs to be getting answers to before any RFP is issued.
Then, the administration needs to appoint a person whose leadership, integrity and management expertise are beyond reproach and hold that person responsible for annual reports on the work that has been done and plans for remediation of programs that do not work.
For the last 17 years we in the arena have had to educate those ignorant that slavery exists in the 21st Century. Now, we need to stop the politics, take the moral high ground at whatever costs and get true moral and bold leadership that holds no prisoners when it comes to ending slavery in the 21st Century on the street and over the internet, and reduce the numbers.
Human trafficking cannot be eradicated or dramatically reduced unless this administration takes on Silicon Valley. This administration has an historical opportunity to lead on this issue and not bend to the swamp politics in which this issue has been embedded since Bill Clinton signed the federal law against human trafficking in October 2000. Foreign governments know the information used in the annual Trafficking Report at State Department has been wrong for years. Just ask the Ambassadors in every embassy in America. They know the history. Ask the Dutch and Dominican Republic Ambassadors for starters! The State Department Inspector Generals’ office even conducted investigations on the gathering of data. Senator Corker even referred to the data problem during a hearing in February 2017. It’s on the internet.
The NGOs won’t take on Silicon Valley because they financially benefit from them. That is how Silicon Valley corporations cover themselves. It is all part of the swamp – off the backs of children and the most vulnerable in society. To date – we have never even had a full throttle national inquiry on the institutional abuse of children as the UK and Australia do. We need a Grace Commission like the one on Government Waste in the late 1980s. Shame on America when they say they want to lead on this issue when the incongruences of what we say is not matched by bold action, as compared to our mates – the Brits and Aussies. Bravo to them. It is not a complete one-step correction, but it is more than we have internally done in America.
This administration must demand that Silicon Valley post the 911 icon REPORT ABUSE button at www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com. This international law enforcement task force was created in 2003 by ninja law enforcement – four men – a Brit named Jim Gamble, who was then CEO of UK’s Child Exploitation Online Protection agency, John Clark at U.S. ICE, Kevin Zuccato at Australian Federal Police and a man at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. WHY?
Because Silicon Valley lawyers refused to give foreign law enforcement the data they needed for evidence to take on the maggots raping, grooming, and trafficking children over the internet, and collecting and distributing internet pedo-criminality images worldwide. Silicon Valley lawyers’ stated excuses were – “you have no jurisdiction” to foreign law enforcement. We all know the game here with the lawyers – the client comes first! These law enforcement officials said – Not on our Watch, and they created VGT without an Act of Congress or an Act of Parliament. Jim Gamble was the powerful wind in the sail for VGT.
The VGT icon has never been marketed fully by any American administration to date; the current administration can be that catalyst. Currently, the Emirates lead as the head of VGT has expanded. White House staff needs to study it, and then President Trump needs to sign a Presidential Directive to put the VGT icon linking to their REPORT ABUSE button on every USG site to make it known to children and parents, and demand that the Silicon Valley put it all over their sites if they want to do business with families. This is a no brainer. And, it needs to be technologically redesigned to fit on an IPhone for starters.
Social media sites have access to children that establishes an ethical and, one can argue, a legal responsibility to ensure their safety. One way of accomplishing that is to post the 911 VGT icon and link it to the REPORT ABUSE button. Clearly, that is only one step; the obvious one is to monitor the material that is posted, which Silicon Valley does not do effectively. Recently, the BBC challenged Zuckerberg directly about internet pedo-criminality images. Facebook in turn reported BBC to VGT when Facebook demanded to see the images that BBC found on Facebook prior to interviewing Zuckerberg. How ironic that is. In 2010, Jim Gamble challenged Zuckerberg to post the VGT icon all over Facebook, and Facebook refused, citing that it was “expensive real estate.”
Silicon Valley has a huge corporate responsibility for the expansion of smut that this administration needs to address in a diligent way. In the 1990s, AOL knew internet child porn was a problem, and it is an even greater problem today. It is yet another reason human trafficking must be in the Department of Justice. If the crimes are illegal on the street, they are illegal over the internet. There is no line of demarcation here no matter what Zuckerberg says, or Eric Schmidt claims. Law enforcement must investigate diligently and determine how best to solve the problem of using the Internet and social media for expanding human trafficking. Every law enforcement official in the world knows that traffickers and pedophiles use porn to groom children.
People need to get serious about child rape and slavery in the 21st Century because peoples’ lives are shattered. Law enforcement cybercrime officials know the reality about the internet. Senator Grassley signed a letter in 2012 and cited congressional testimony that 83% of the victims in these horrific images were 6 – 12 years of age; 19% of them were of babies and infants three years of age or younger. As Queen Silvia of Sweden stated over 17 years ago, these are frightening ages. And, the volume has only increased since then. Today, both Verizon and Comcast offer incest-themed porn. And, when you cross-reference which politicians accept their political donations, it makes one wonder if there is a moral compass on Capitol Hill.
When infants and very young children are raped on live streams over the internet as these cybercrime law enforcement officials know, eyes should be popping with disgust and horror in halls of power. When law enforcement finds maggots trolling over the internet wanting to buy babies to boil, and cannibalize, as these law enforcement know, the public outcry should be at its height. The public needs to wake up, and grasp how serious human trafficking is, and what a sham this is when large NGOs claim they are fighting human trafficking without taking on Silicon Valley in the Digital Age of Slavery.
Conferences where NGOs slap each other on the back for passing more ineffective regulations, and pay lip service to this issue do not protect children or end human trafficking. What this endeavor needs is bold leadership akin to Ida Tarp going after Standard Oil, or Teddy Roosevelt going after the railroads. America will love a president who protects their children. The ultimate goal should be to prevent the increase in the population of human trafficked victims by protecting children worldwide, and shut down the operations that fuel this insidious commodification of human beings with vengeance and a Churchillian commitment the likes of which this arena has yet to witness.
Christine Dolan is an investigative journalist, and the former CNN Political Director. She is an authority on human trafficking globally having covered it for over 17 years. She is the author of Shattered Innocence – The Millennium Holocaust, and In the Name of God, two authoritative investigations on the global phenomenon of human trafficking, and the global Catholic abuse scandals.