Religion and Foreign Policy Webinar: Combating Human Trafficking

FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy Webinar Series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach here at CFR.

As a reminder, today’s webinar is on the record and CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

We’re delighted to have Diana Gerson, Shadi Kourosh, and Mary Leary here with us to discuss cross-sector efforts to combat human trafficking.

And Rachel Vogelstein will moderate today’s discussion with them. She is an associate professor of professional practice and director of the Institute of Global Politics’ Women’s Initiative at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Most recently she served in the Biden administration as special assistant to the president and deputy director of the White House Gender Policy Council, and as special advisor on gender at the White House National Security Council. And previously, Rachel Vogelstein was Douglas Dillon senior fellow and director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program here at CFR.

So with that, I’m going to turn it over you to you, Rachel, to introduce our distinguished panelists. You will have a conversation amongst them and then we will open up to all of you for your questions and comments at that time. So, Rachel, thank you, and over to you.

VOGELSTEIN: Irina, thank you so much for your kind introduction. It’s wonderful to be back at the Council.

Today we’re focused on human trafficking, a pervasive global human rights violation that affects an estimated forty million people worldwide, with disproportionate effects on women and girls. Since the adoption of the Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons in 2000, nearly every country in the world has ratified it. And yet still today this crime persists with impunity across borders, including here in the United States. So what strategies work best to address this abuse? How has technology affected this crime? And how have antitrafficking efforts fared in this moment of fiscal austerity? We have a terrific panel of experts here today to help answer these questions.

First, we are thrilled to be joined by Mary Graw Leary, a professor of law at Catholic University. Professor Leary focuses on the exploitation and abuse of women, children, and the marginalized. And she is a recognized expert in human trafficking.

We are also very pleased to welcome Shadi Kourosh, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Professor Kourosh is also the founder and director of The Radiance Clinic, a pro bono tattoo removal program to assist those escaping gangs and human trafficking, which has won national awards for its impact.

And we are honored to be joined by Rabbi Diana Gerson, the associate executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis. She is focused on advancing the board’s leadership role and confronting family violence, domestic violence, and sexual abuse, and the exploitation of children by reaching across faith communities.

Welcome to all of you.

I want to start with the Epstein files, which have put a spotlight on child sex trafficking as revelations from that case continue to unfold. Professor Leary, you’ve noted recently that public outrage over high-profile cases, like Jeffrey Epstein’s, can sometimes distract from deeper systemic failures in protecting children from sex trafficking. So can you help situate this moment in the broader context of domestic and global U.S. antitrafficking efforts? What’s the current state of play under this administration on this issue? And how have budget pressures affected U.S. antitrafficking efforts at home and abroad?

LEARY: Great. Thank you so much, Rachel, for that question. And it’s great to be with all of you.

I want to first say that of course the Epstein files, this Epstein case, is incredibly important for us to discuss. These survivors and the advocates who supported them for these years are really, as you said, highlighting a very common feature of trafficking in America and throughout the globe, which is the massive unequal power and really the institutional support, on some level. of various forms of exploitation of the vulnerable.

That being said, I think we have to be cautious to not think that a politician’s position on the Epstein files is sufficient to describe their position on the issue of sex trafficking. And in fact, I think that, as you said, it can really be a distraction. All the media attention paying attention to these files and what we’re learning about them, but at the same time, we are seeing really a retrenchment of what you described starting in the year 2000. The Palermo Protocol, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, what has occurred in the last twenty-five years has been in many ways a great step forward in combating trafficking.

But under this administration, what have we seen? Every department that touches this issue has seen a decline in funding. And if I could just quickly say, the beauty—one of the beauties of the Trafficking Protection Act is it is interdepartmental right? It wasn’t just a criminal justice approach. It wasn’t just a Department of State approach. But what have we seen? The Department of State has essentially obliterated the Trafficking in Person’s Office, decreasing its population by about 70 percent. We’ve seen no ambassador being named a year into this administration. We’ve seen an office that has historically awarded $80 million in grants, those grant funding seem stalled, if existing at all.

The Department of Justice has eliminated the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. And we’ve seen the Department of Civil Rights decrease its attorneys by about 70 percent as well. And we’ve seen, again, a failure to spend $90 million in appropriated services to help victim survivors of human trafficking. Department of Labor, we see the same thing happening as well. As well as even in the Department of Homeland Security, where on the first day of this administration the mission of the investigative unit for Homeland Security changed from transnational crimes, of which child exploitation would be one of them, to immigration.

And I think what this, unfortunately, reflects is an overall lack of understanding of the complexity of these issues, of the experts who are involved in these issues, and of how human trafficking works. And has been replaced by a simplification that if you are addressing immigration somehow you can say you’re addressing trafficking. And that is obviously not the case, as many people on this call know. So while I think it’s important we focus on the Epstein files, all of these other realities about our antitrafficking policy need to be acknowledged, and hopefully reversed.

VOGELSTEIN: Very helpful illustration of the challenges of elevating these policy issues in the popular debate over this issue. Professor Kourosh, you identified a major gap in the medical field with respect to knowledge, data collection, and clinical protocols for treating survivors of human trafficking. And the clinic you found is working to fill this void. Tell us, what are some of the most significant gaps that remain today? And what specific policy changes would you recommend at the institutional, the state level, or the federal level?

KOUROSH: Thank you so much, Rachel. And great to be with you all. I think that the gaps that we are working to fill are just one or a few of the many that are likely out there. And I came to understand them through my own journey as a physician, trying to advocate for my patients who were affected. So I’m a dermatologist by training. And I founded the network of clinics that serve the most underserved communities in the Harvard medical system. And so I was with my Harvard medical students, our resident physicians, young doctors in training when I founded this clinic, the free laser clinic, to help young people originally getting out of gangs, and help them to be safe by removing their gang tattoos so that they could, you know, be safe, not be targeted by opposing gangs, acquire jobs, and reintegrate into society.

And then in the process of this work, shortly after we began, the same community stakeholders—the nurse examiners from the District Attorney’s Office, local nonprofits in the region—started to refer this increasing number of young women who were forcibly branded with tattoos through their experience of trafficking and exploitation, to remove these brands that were placed on them either by force or by coercion. And then, in some cases, scars of abuse or self-harm as a result of their trauma. And, you know, this was before the news of these things had really come to my attention, in the public sphere. And what I realized is that I had a lot to learn, and that my colleagues had a lot to learn.

And so the first thing that I did is reach out to any experts that I could find. And the medical literature at that time, this was now ten years ago, was very sparse. And really—and that was an indicator that there really wasn’t organized knowledge in the medical community about our role and sort of protocols of care. And so I found the one person who had a really high-level paper on this issue, and it wasn’t a doctor. It was a lawyer and a law professor. And this was Professor Laura Lederer, who was involved in drafting some of the original legislation that we have here in the U.S., and had worked closely with our government agencies. And then eventually Ambassador Mark Lagon, who served as our U.S. ambassador-at-large to combat human trafficking, and founded Polaris, which was one of the first national NGOs to combat trafficking.

And so as a young doctor I learned from experts in the law and policy community, and they mentored me, and we ended up working together to identify these gaps. And I think that that story is really important, because I think that it is a microcosm of a larger mission of how the law and policy communities can work with the medical community to create protocols. And now I have been involved in chairing a national and international task force in the medical community on data gathering and development of educational resources to train health workers, which I believe is one of our first strategic goals in terms of mobilizing the medical community.

Because what I learned from my experts in the law and policy community that I learned from was that, you know, they have the expertise, but the medical encounter is a key point of contact—as I personally experienced with these patients, you know, coming to our clinic door. Yet the people that have this key point of access, the health workers, often receive no formal training about how to identify people who are trafficked or intervene for them in an effective way. So now we have created resources through our national medical organizations, online curriculums, a free app which I can—I can put in the chat, for not just health workers but any stakeholders to arm them with resources in their communities.

But I think that’s just the beginning. I think that, you know, there need to be protocols within each hospital system. And that’s what I’m personally devoted to right now, is working with different hospital systems around the country, meeting with them, to form protocols within their own system of how health workers can notify the right people—(audio break, technical difficulties)—interdisciplinary approach to helping each person that comes through.

VOGELSTEIN: It’s a great example of the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration in addressing a complex issue, like human trafficking. Rabbi Gerson, I want to turn to you. You’ve done extensive work with children and youth who’ve experienced trauma, and have talked about how exploitation and trafficking occur across all communities and all socioeconomic groups. So can you talk to us about the broader role of the community, and in particular the faith community, in protecting children? What are the practices that you would like to see to address this human rights abuse?

GERSON: Thank you so much for having me. And thank you so much for that incredibly, I think, thoughtful question, because oftentimes we often see families in communities feeling like we are on our own. We have to do everything, be everywhere, protect our children at every turn. And yet, we understand that we live in a much more complex world than even when I was a child. And globally, we’re talking about one in three trafficking victims today are identified as children, so under the age of eighteen. And parents continue to be crucial. I don’t diminish the role of parents at all. But the reality is that exploitation is happening more often outside the purview—the view of parents, especially when you start talking about online spaces, digital spaces. Therefore, protection efforts must extend beyond just the family setting.

So what works globally is what I consider to be a protective ecosystem. We need schools, youth organizations, faith communities, tech platforms, healthcare providers, and civil society to all understand what the risks are, and knowing how to respond. And I think we have to do that together. Oftentimes we train parents over here, and then we put together healthcare workers over there, and the lawyers are in another room, and law enforcement is learning someplace else. And we’re not learning the same language together. We’re not having the same terminology together. And we don’t build bridges in partnership together.

And I think that’s a really, really important part of this story because, most importantly, prevention is not centered on surveillance, and but it’s really providing informed care. So enhancing digital literacy. Understanding how our digital spaces function, well, our children understand them better than I do. And I certainly understand them better than my parents did. And the reality is that we have to have a common language that our children going online needs to be, first and foremost, with us, with them, teaching them how to navigate spaces so that they understand who to talk to online, who not to talk to online, what might be an unsafe situation, how to listen to that instinct, that uh-oh feeling that you might get, that you really do get in person but you don’t see it online.

So we want to make sure that we’re enhancing digital literacy for young people, establishing clear safeguarding policies. I don’t know about you, but have you checked your congregation, where you belong, or where you actually—the congregation where you serve? Have you checked to see your safeguarding policies? They should be right on your website. And ensuring coordination across sectors all help make a tangible impact. Trafficking, we know, tends to flourish in areas with fragmented oversight, and community awareness often serves as the first line of intervention. So I say the child protection isn’t just a family issue. It really requires a coordinated community ecosystem, especially in the digital age.

We need to be working across platforms and across sectors of society. When we work together we actually better protect our children and the most vulnerable members in our families. So that’s really what I see as the main thing we need to do. And at the end of the day, education, education, education, training, training, training. We need to have better information. And it’s not just once. I always remember when somebody’s like, oh, I gave a sermon about trafficking, or domestic violence, or pick a topic. And I said, really, how often do you talk about these things? And they said, oh, I gave a sermon on a—you know, on a Sunday in February in the middle of a snowstorm ten years ago. That’s not talking about it.

The institutional memory of a congregation is roughly three years. So if you haven’t spoken about it in three years, and you haven’t been speaking about it on the big days where you get lots of people, think about—imagine giving one of these kinds of sermons or teachings on one of our bigger holidays, where everybody’s there with our children listening? Then we have a greater opportunity to have an impact. Ben Franklin said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We have to make sure that we’re preventing wherever we can because the long-term impacts of trafficking on victims and survivors is an incredible burden, not just on them, but their families, and systems, and our communities—a burden that we all bear in their road to healing. And we’ll probably talk about that later.

VOGELSTEIN: Really helpful reminder of the critical role of community and faith-based groups in addressing this scourge.

Professor Leary, I want to turn back to you and ask about policy responses. Based on your extensive experience on this issue, what are the most effective policies to address human trafficking and child protection? Are there particular campaigns or initiatives that you would highlight as especially successful? And what do you think policymakers should prioritize. And not just policymakers, what’s the role of the private sector as well in addressing this harm?

LEARY: So, in answering that question I have to begin with a real recognition that I know we all know on this call. And that is what I call the paradox of human trafficking, right, that it is both local and global. And by that I mean, as everyone on this call knows, it doesn’t respect boundaries, right? It doesn’t respect national boundaries, state boundaries, et cetera. But what it looks like locally can be very different. You know, what’s happening on a fishing boat in a labor trafficking scenario in Thailand is going to look very different than a sex trafficking situation in rural America. So in answering your question, I think we have to look at, in broad brushes, what do we know works? And Dr. Kourosh and Rabbi Gerson have touched on a really important one: Partnerships. We know that partnerships work. We see that in the origination of the TVPA that partnerships, particularly with faith organizations, can be quite effective.

Why? Because if you think about the three Ps of the antitrafficking movement, who has the trust of the community in order to be involved in prevention? It’s often these groups that are working on grassroots, these faith groups who, even before the TVPA were the people ministering to these vulnerable groups, et cetera. Who can inform law enforcement about things that they’re seeing? Again, these groups who are either seeing markings, doctors to use Dr. Kourosh’s example, or faith-based groups that are already ministering, things that they’re hearing. Who can partner with law enforcement to keep victim survivors on board, to make sure that we are able to hold traffickers accountable? People who have a great relationship, and that’s often faith-based communities or grass organizations. Similarly, we know that some of these global organizations can provide assistance where the government cannot respond, because they’re not limited.

And I’ll give you one example. Ambassador Lu deBaca, former ambassador-at-large in trafficking, talked about the real value of working with the Embassy of the Holy See and other religious groups that were around the world, who could get them information in order to help with the Trafficking in Persons Report. Or could reach out in groups that we didn’t have an angle for. So we know that partnership is key.

Another broad-brush answer to your question, Dr. Vogelstein, is we know that survivor leadership is key. Some of the most successful programs have had survivor leadership there to guide folks into what is the most effective ways of responding on the ground. We also know, and to piggyback on what Rabbi Gerson said, training is important, and ongoing training. This is a nimble criminal enterprise, on one level. And so we have to be equally as nimble. So our training has to not only be once, as she said, but ongoing and current, because things change quite rapidly. The bottom line is that trafficking is growing in the world now, in part because it is low-risk, high-reward. And so our job is to have these programs that are global and local, that partner with the relevant stakeholders and experts, and then are continually updating to be responsive, to disrupt this criminal enterprise.

VOGELSTEIN: So, partnerships, survivor leadership, training, all really critical to the policy responses that are most effective. Professor Kourosh, I want to also talk about public health. Some survivors distrust institutions because of fear of criminalization, victim blaming, or prior harm. So, from a public health perspective, how can those who lead protection and accountability efforts reduce re-traumatization and promote survivor agency?

KOUROSH: That’s a great question, Rachel. And I think that it’s one that we’re asking ourselves, you know, to be effective in the public health response to this issue. Because, you know, through the lens of medicine, I see this not only as a crisis of human rights, but it’s also a crisis of public health. Our patients have experienced, you know, sexually transmitted infections as a result of their exploitation, forced abortions in many situations because of this. And so the impacts on every aspect of human health are really a part of this, and I think that one way in which the medical workforce is also important. So in my prior comment I mentioned the research that showed that the medical encounter is a key point of contact, right? So one of the landmark studies published by Professor Lederer showed that 88 percent of people that are trafficked in the U.S. actually pass through the healthcare system while they’re being actively trafficked. So the healthcare system has the access, we know this, to be able to intervene, if they were only trained.

So then now your question is, well, how do we train them to be effective? And I think that the concept of trauma-informed care has been extremely important in my own learning and my own efficacy as a physician caring for these patients, and then working that into the training programs. So for example, I had to listen and learn, just as Professor Leary said, from the survivor advocates, who have been some of my greatest teachers, the people that have survived through their own resilience and, you know, come through, and now they’re leading some of these organizations. From my colleagues in the mental health community. So in the Harvard health system I worked very closely, and still do, with a national expert in trauma-informed care. She led the clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital for human trafficking survivors. And she and I would refer patients to each other—so my colleagues in mental health, the nurse examiners from the district attorney’s office, you know—(audio break, technical difficulties).

And so we made sure, for example, in the curriculum that we developed for our national medical organization, in collaboration with the American Medical Association, that there are dedicated portions where these experts speak to trauma-informed care. And we have dedicated portions where the survivor advocates are actually speaking. So, just as Professor Leary said, I think having the survivor advocates central in the work that we do, helping to guide the work that we do, makes sure that those aspects are incorporated.

VOGELSTEIN: So some challenges in the public health system with respect to addressing this issue, but some important opportunities as well.

Rabbi Gerson, I want to turn back to you. Some faith institutions have grappled with significant breaches of trust in cases where sexual abuse occurred within religious settings. How can faith communities repair that trust and serve as credible, accountable partners in preventing violence and supporting survivors?

GERSON: Well, it’s actually a really interesting question. Thank you. On one hand, when somebody is being victimized, is looking for help, usually there are three people that they turn to. They turn to a trusted family member, a trusted friend, or a trusted clergy member. And yet, at the same time, we know that we have breached that trust institutionally, individually. And research consistently indicates that cover-ups of institutional abuse diminish trust in reporting for years. So it’s not just a moment in time, but there is long-term harm to the institution, to the community, and to survivors. People who need help are reluctant to come forward because they don’t know if they can trust you.

Rebuilding trust is a slow process. And honesty is crucial. Institutions must openly acknowledge the harm that we have caused. And survivors repeatedly emphasize that denial only worsens the trauma. The second element is accountability, which requires independent reporting systems, and robust safeguarding protocols, and cooperation with secular child protection services and agencies. We can’t do this internally. Anybody who thinks that they can fix themselves from within is not going to regain the trust of the community, nor will they actually serve their communities well.

Third, humility. Faith communities maintain strong relational ties, but now their credibility relies on partnerships and transparency rather than authority alone. We have to do better. We have to ask for help. We have to bring in experts. We’re not trained experts in this space. We are trained experts in spirituality, and faith, and communities, but we are not experts in human trafficking. And we have to recognize that. And when these conditions are fulfilled, faith organizations can serve as effective prevention partners. We aren’t going to lead. We need to partner with others.

And, as both of my colleagues here have said which is so important, the voice of the survivor, it has to be at the center of our work. It has to be at the center of policy making, policy building. And how do we make communities, our congregations, safe communities for all? If we allow them to lead the conversation, we will better serve our communities at large. Trust is rebuilt not by authority, but through transparency, accountability, and collaboration. And so I hope that when this call is over, we will seek to find more partners in our local communities. And if we can do that locally, we can actually make tremendous differences both on local scales and global.

VOGELSTEIN: An important roadmap that you’ve outlined for how to repair breaches of trust in instances of sexual abuse.

I want to open the discussion to our participants. But before I do, I’m going to ask all of you one last question about technology, and social media, and artificial intelligence. This is creating new challenges in the fight against human trafficking and exploitation, especially of children and teenagers. So, from your perspective, what are the key challenges posed by emerging technologies? And which approaches are most effective to address this issue? Professor Leary, why don’t we start with you?

LEARY: Thank you. So you’re so right, right? You know, the biggest thing people worry about with whatever issue is AI and technology, right? And this is no different. But I think that in this space we have a particular problem. It’s not just the rapidly changing technologies. It’s the ecosystem in which this is taking place. And that ecosystem is a complete and utter lack of any regulation on the technology companies. And that is really the problem.

Many of you are familiar with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. I won’t give you a law professor lecture on it. Short version is, unlike any other industry in America, that law has been distorted to provide no regulation—none whatsoever. No ability to litigate companies that create and facilitate, in this instance, sex trafficking of children. We’ve seen a lot of it in the news. So that, to me, it’s not only the rapidly changing technology, but it is the ecosystem in which it’s taking place. So I think the first step in addressing these challenges is legal reform. There absolutely has to be—and we’re seeing around the world countries are engaging in legal reform. Countries are seeing these threats, and they’re putting in regulations on youth access to social media, age verification, things of that nature.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what the underlying problem behind that is. And that is the unlimited finances of the tech industry. And we see that in their resistance to changing Section 230. Many of us saw it within the year in their constant efforts to have artificial intelligence not be regulated. And what we’ve seen across this country is Congress has failed to act, so states have acted. Almost forty states have laws addressing this. They’re trying to protect our children. And what happened next? These companies tried to get Congress to have a ban on state regulation on artificial intelligence. It failed when one woman advocated in Congress that that be an amendment, and, lo and behold, the majority of the Senate—almost unanimously, the senators, when forced to vote, said, oh yeah, I’m not going to do that moratorium. So now it’s in an executive order.

And that is all because of the massive amounts of money behind not wanting this regulation—this industry regulated. So I think when we talk about technology we have to take that on. And that’s where everyone on this call comes into play, to advocate for what a majority of Americans want, what we know parents want, what we know elected officials as individuals want. But I’ll just leave you with one number. There was a report from Issue One that calculated how much money in the last quarter was spent on lobbying by big tech. And the number was about 50 million (dollars). But it calculated to every day Congress was in session, $400,000—every day they were in session, if you broke it up that way. That’s the other side of this, and that we all have to rally against because that’s really the biggest obstacle.

VOGELSTEIN: Professor Leary, thank you for outlining the stakes on this critical issue.

Professor Kourosh, if you can talk about your view on the role of technology and fighting child and other forms of sex trafficking?

KOUROSH: Well, it’s interesting, because as a doctor and from the medical community we’ve been focused on using technological resources to educate people and give people access. So something—I put a link in the chat for the panelists, but maybe we could share it with our members, of a free app that we’ve developed called SSTEAR, S-S-T-E-A-R, which stands for Skin Signs of Trafficking, Education, Advocacy, and Resources. And so this is a free app that has similar resources to what my mentor, Ambassador Lagon, when he created the Trafficking Hotline. We’ve now developed many more resources since there. And we put it into this free app.

We’ve also created free online resources, a trafficking toolkit to recognize and understand, things like your mandatory reporting, resources, you know, things like that, for health workers. And we’ve put that on the American Academy of Dermatology website. And we will soon be releasing an official continuing medical education curriculum, a free curriculum. So, you know, as we know, doctors and health workers are required to do continuing medical education, but they often have to pay for it. So we’ve actually for free released this curriculum, that is soon to be on the American Medical Association website, that navigates through all kinds of things that a health worker might need to know to do this.

And so it’s interesting, because, you know, I think that the lesson here is that technology, you know, is a tool that can be, you know, directed in multiple ways. And I think that, you know, one way that we can utilize it is for resources to help educate and protect.

VOGELSTEIN: That is an important point and another way of looking at the role of technology in addressing this issue. So thank you for giving us the other side of the coin.

Rabbi Gerson, if you could come in on the role of technology in addressing this issue from your vantage point.

GERSON: Thank you. And I’ve been working around the issues of child dignity in the digital world now since Pope Francis, of blessed memory, brought this to the forefront in 2017. And it’s really rather extraordinary that today nearly all trafficking and exploitation involves a digital element. There’s a point of digital contact at some point during—from the beginning of grooming to the actual criminal activity. And technology has significantly increased both the risks and potential for exploitation. More than 60 percent of online grooming victims are adolescents. We know this. Exploiters can contact children more quickly and anonymously, especially adolescents looking for a connection or a sense of belonging. Remember, especially this all really took an uptick during COVID when children were home online, and largely unsupervised online.

However, technology also, to the other point, serves as a protection tool. Improvements are ongoing in AI detection, platform reporting systems, digital literacy initiatives, and cross-border coordination. So we know that as well. So we’re kind of in this strange balancing act. And layered protection is essential. Responsible technology governance, education for youth, survivor-informed platform design would be amazing, and robust policy frameworks. This isn’t just a tech issue. It’s a safeguarding systems issue. So create, design platforms that incorporate child safety from the start. We call it safety by design. It’s not a term I coined. I’ve heard it in Silicon Valley. So we should have safety by design rather than adding it afterwards. Technology amplifies risk, but it can also amplify protection when governance, and education, and design align.

We have so much opportunity here but, to quote a very dear friend of mine John Carr in the U.K., he always reminds me that when we give our children access to the internet, we give our children access to the world. But we also, in that same breath, give the world access to our children. So when it comes to technology we must be very mindful at its incredible opportunities and risks.

VOGELSTEIN: Thank you for outlining both the challenges and the opportunities with emerging technology.

I want to invite CFR members and our participants to ask questions and join the conversation.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

OPERATOR: Thank you. We will take the first question from Renee Callender. Please accept the unmute prompt. (Pause.) I’ll read the question aloud. Oh, Renee.

VOGELSTEIN: We your hand, Renee, if you can unmute.

Q: Yes, apologies about that. It took a while to come up.

I also have it there in the chat, in the Q&A box. But basically, I was curious—this is a question for you specifically, Diana, as you were talking about some of the different things that faith communities are doing in antitrafficking. I wanted to ask if you’ve seen any that have come together, helping each other in, like, antitrafficking work.

OPERATOR: I can read the question aloud again.

GERSON: That would be great.

OPERATOR: Have you seen any interfaith antitrafficking efforts, high level or at the community level, supporting each other when addressing this topic?

GERSON: So I can say, from a global scale, I’ve been seeing more and more organizations having these kinds of conversations. I can highlight, I know, Dr. Katherine Marshall is on today’s call as one of our participants, and she’s very involved with the G20 Interfaith Forum. Human trafficking has been a major focal point for the organization over the last several years, have had a host of wonderful webinars and engagements about trying to raise this, you know, awareness on a global scale, coming together across faith communities. And then I’ve seen interfaith, local—hyperlocal projects that are happening right here in New York City, as we try and really engage just even neighborhood by neighborhood. It’s a church and a synagogue, a mosque and a church, the Buddhist, you know, temple. People really coming together.

And I always go back to a book that I have, and I keep it on my desk. But it’s called Ending Human Trafficking: A Handbook of Strategies for the Church Today. And it was written by three professors, but one is a very dear friend, Dr. Sandy Morgan from Vanguard University. And what it does is it really spells out how to do this in your congregation. So it says, “strategies for the church today,” but it’s for any house of worship. How do you assess what your strengths are? What are the opportunities? And how can you work together by identifying the resources that you have in your congregation and in your local community? So there’s really so much rich work happening out there on a hyperlocal scale that we really—I hope we find ways to amplify it.

OPERATOR: We will take the next question from Azza Karam. Please accept the unmute prompt.

Q: Hello and thank you so very, very much. Professor Leary, and Dr. Kourosh, Rachel, and Diana, you guys have been amazing. Thank you very much for all of this.

I just want to say—and I’m sorry, again, to direct the question to the theme of the religious spaces given what has been highlighted so efficiently. But I think you’ve clearly mentioned the role of the technology in this space, how critical and crucial it is. And yet, we all know that the average religious leader may not be so technologically inclined, and the average religious community may not be that competent. And also we understand that, thanks to the many wars around the world, a number of those who are being trafficked are not Christian in any way, shape, or form, but actually come from different religious backgrounds.

And so therefore, it kind of underlines how do we—how do we support in this space? Beyond talking and having seminars, how is it that we can actually—and you—I believe, Rabbi Gerson, you’ve been involved with an Emirati-led initiative on interfaith work around this issue. Maybe you could just give us a little bit of a better idea what’s actually being done to upgrade the technological competence of religious—of different religious communities, so that they can actually be at the forefront, as perhaps you and Professor Leary have very clearly outlined needs to be the case? Thank you.

GERSON: Well, absolutely, there is a lot to be said about technology and faith communities, and some of us not being as technologically literate as we possibly should be. And I think that is an ongoing challenge. And I think it’s also generational. So when we’re talking about Dr. Karam mentioned the work that I do with the Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities, which is an organization, an NGO, in Geneva, with our Secretariat in Abu Dhabi. Yes, we have been working a lot in this space, child dignity in the digital world, and working now—growing into the AI space. We were with the Holy Father Pope Leo back in November talking about this issue. And we have to be doing more. And I think we also—there is—part of Dr. Karam’s question highlights the fact that we are working across faiths.

So somebody who is perhaps a survivor who is of one faith is seeking services that are faith-based of a different faith. And how do we do that with a faith literacy that safeguards and uplifts one’s faith so that we don’t see any kind of a challenge with one faith trying to overwhelm the other, that there is room for everybody’s faith? And it’s actually something I’ve written quite a bit about, in the sense that I think it’s really important that our faith language and the love that I think our faiths uphold, the dignity of the individual is what’s at the forefront. So literacy of the internet, yes. We need to do better. And we need to keep doing better. But that a learning curve. But there are more and more initiatives striving to teach faith communities how to do this.

There’s a wonderful example about that in the Ending Human Trafficking book about a congregation of aging, you know, folks in a church who decided they were going to be internet safety experts. And they all had flip phones. And they decided to educate themselves, and then to partner with law enforcement, and with a couple of different local organizations. And they started doing trainings for the whole community, for parents, grandparents, and partnering with the local middle school to make sure that there was training also for children, so that they were gaining the same information. And I think that’s really important. We want to make our kids hard targets, right? We want to teach them how to navigate difficult spaces. And the internet is probably the most difficult. And if we’re doing that together, I think that also sends the message to children, as well as to adults, that we are partners.

LEARY: If I could jump in real quickly, Rachel, to comment on this. I agree with everything that was said. But not to beat a dead horse, but I think it’s important to understand that’s where a lot of the USAID funding or the TIP office funding comes through. That funding goes to these local groups, many of which are faith-based. Whether it’s Talitha Koum, other religious orders in the Christian tradition, but many other groups are getting training on things like that, or are getting partnerships with organizations that have those capabilities, et cetera. And so when we cut funding by $900 million out of the Department of Justice, or $80 million out of the—out of the Department of State, it’s those very faith-based groups, as well as other NGOs, that lose access to those sorts of things that that funding made possible for them. And so I think that the question is a great one. And that’s really a gap that is going to be lost if those—if that funding doesn’t get returned.

VOGELSTEIN: It’s a helpful illustration of the importance of faith-based groups in this fight, and also the importance of resourcing to make sure that these groups have the support to do this important work. We’ll go to our next question.

OPERATOR: We will take the next question from Gillian Dare. Please accept the unmute prompt.

Q: Hello, can you hear me now?

VOGELSTEIN: We can hear you. Please go ahead.

Q: I couldn’t find the box originally. I’ve done—I used to be, until recently, first responder to cases of human trafficking and modern slavery in Britain, largely from people who’ve come here but not necessarily.

But one of the things that has always struck me most of all is how many of these people are on nobody’s radar at all. Nobody even knows they exist. And in many cases, if they are on anybody’s—they can’t speak to anybody, because they don’t speak the same language. Interviewed people who didn’t even know which country she’d been brought to. Much of it’s done through marriage, often parents not wanting—just wanting to get rid of children, daughters, and marrying them off. And then they get passed from person to person, country to country. And it’s very, very hard if you’ve got no community, no church, no health workers, or anybody. And these are the most vulnerable of all the people we come across. If you have any ideas about how we deal with that, it would be welcome.

VOGELSTEIN: It’s an incredibly important question, how do we reach the most marginalized? Perhaps, Rabbi Gerson, we can start with you, and then we’ll move to our other panelists.

GERSON: One of the things I think is really interesting about faith communities in particular is that we have a certain capacity to see those who are often invisible to others, the people who are the most vulnerable. Because people enter into houses of worship, into religious communities, through lots of different doorways. It’s not just that they walk in for worship. They may walk in for services of different kinds. They may come for food. They may come—there’s a shelter. They came because somebody brought them. And so you never know quite at what moment you might have an interaction, an impact.

One of the things I really stress is that when people come to talk to you, take the time to talk to them and to listen carefully to what’s unsaid. There was—a colleague once said to me, you know, God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. We should listen twice as much as we speak. And so I think it’s really important to not just say hello, hello, hello, and keep moving, but really to make sure that we are actively engaged in the ministry of presence.

VOGELSTEIN: Professor Kourosh, I wonder if I can turn to you, given the possibility that some of these victims will pass through the health system. Any thoughts on how to reach those who are most marginalized?

KOUROSH: Well, we know they do, because the statistics show that 88 percent of people who are trafficked pass through the healthcare system. And, you know, to Rabbi Gerson’s point, they may be coming through faith communities in the same way that they’re passing through, right? (Audio break, technical difficulties)—that I’m hearing, you know, if I’m understanding Rabbi Gerson’s comments that I—that I also really echo, is readiness. We have to be ready to meet these people when they come through. And that readiness includes the training to recognize things that might not be said. Part of my efforts to do that were with, you know, visible markings on the skin, but a lot of times there are not visible markings on the skin, right? You’re reading the other aspects of the encounter, right? So it’s a recognition.

And then the second part of readiness—so the first part of readiness is recognition. The second part of readiness is having a protocol in place, even if that protocol is not something that is rigid. But knowing your resources and being in touch with those resources so that you can provide them for people. One really important lesson that I learned along the way from our survivor advocates is that traffickers are good at providing for the basic needs of people that are trafficked, right? So I’ve taken care of patients who have been victims and survivors of trafficking from all walks of life, people that have come from other countries, but people that were born right here in America.

But, you know, due to their circumstances they may not have had food, shelter, things like this. You know, people in this country might have been runaways, or homeless, for example. So traffickers provided for things like food and shelter. So we as, you know, health care systems, faith-based systems, whatever institutions, are receiving these individuals and trying to help them. We need to be ready to provide for their acute needs, and then also for their safe passage into some sort of stable situation of life. And so those are really the two aspects of readiness, is being trained to recognize and then having a system or protocol in place to receive that person.

VOGELSTEIN: Professor Leary, anything to add on reaching those who are most marginalized and vulnerable?

LEARY: Absolutely. I just—I really want to echo what Dr. Kourosh said, and those two steps, because I think that’s important. And we’ve all been to airports in the United States, right, and we’ve seen the signs. And I think what’s really important is for all of us, whether a faith-based organization or not, to know what the signs are, because we will encounter them. So it’s not just faith-based organizations. But, of course, we see organizations like Truckers Against Trafficking, which I know sounds silly but they were a hero nationally here because they’ve done tremendous work. There’s a flight attendant organization. It’s now been enshrined into law. Almost every—hairdressers. Almost all of us will encounter victims of trafficking, because they do need services, et cetera. And many instances in labor trafficking, particularly domestic servitude, the one thing victim survivors are allowed to do is participate in a faith tradition. So being aware of what to look for, and that it is—and really understanding it is not necessarily what you see on television, right? It comes in all shapes and sizes, all different sorts of victim survivors.

But then the second point is relationships. Before a congregation encounters a survivor, already knowing who are my local law enforcement folks, who’s my local—how do I contact the state social work entity, safe house, what have you? Have those relationships in place so when the time comes you’re not then looking for an opportunity. I think that those are important, because we do know that survivors sometimes take a while to self-recognize themselves the situation that they are in. So if there’s an ongoing relationship then that can increase the opportunity for them to get out of a difficult situation safely.

VOGELSTEIN: Let me try to take one or two more questions before we close.

OPERATOR: We will take the next question from Galen Carey. Please accept the unmute prompt.

Q: I’m here with the National Association of Evangelicals.

I had a different question, but from what was just said I guess I would like to ask, how do people in helping professions and faith groups who recognize someone, how do they help in a way that doesn’t inadvertently impede access to others? Like, for example, you say that at least the traffickers let someone go to church. If it becomes known that church is a place where people get identified, wouldn’t that then—won’t they just stop letting people go to church? And how do you address that?

VOGELSTEIN: Professor Leary.

LEARY: Sure. So I would say each scenario is, what we lawyers like to say, is a fact-specific inquiry, right? So I don’t think there’s a blanket rule that says you should always do X or Y. It might really depend. But I do think one key thing to do is to create a connection, to the extent to which you can, and to get as much information as you can, given different scenarios, et cetera. You are quite right. You don’t know the safety. And I, again, will defer to Dr. Kourosh about in the hospital, sometimes a trafficker is nearby. And that’s going to be a very different situation than another situation where that’s not the case. So I do think that getting the training for different scenarios is going to be important. But also, if a situation comes up, relationship, access, and if you’ve already got the relationship with outside stakeholders who can help, then that’s an obvious opportunity. But there’s no one answer, I think, for any of these situations. And that’s why the two steps Dr. Kourosh said are really essential.

OPERATOR: We will take the final question from Richard Procida. Please accept the unmute prompt and state your name and affiliation.

VOGELSTEIN: Richard, please unmute.

OPERATOR: I’ll read the question aloud. How much of this problem is cultural? We live in a—

Q: Good afternoon. I’m sorry, I can’t talk. But go on to the next question. Well, I guess my question was is the culture a part of this problem? I mean, young women are encouraged and rewarded for monetizing their sexuality. Does this contribute to human trafficking?

VOGELSTEIN: Rabbi Gerson, on this question of culture, why don’t we start with you?

GERSON: Sure. I don’t think exploitation is a matter of culture. I think it is a matter of power, control, money. And traffickers are traditionally very, very good at figuring out what somebody is missing in their life. What is it that they desire? And that usually is a sense of belonging, of caring, of love. And it’s not necessarily what we would normally think of. Young people are trafficked for a host of reasons. And there’s no one identifier. You can’t say, oh, children who experience X, or Y, or Z, people who come from this kind of a household or this kind of a neighborhood—it’s an equal opportunity destroyer. And we have to treat it as such, that any child, any person, could be a victim.

VOGELSTEIN: Professor Kourosh, thoughts on culture?

KOUROSH: I think that Professor Leary has addressed this very well.

VOGELSTEIN: Professor Leary, over to you for our final word.

LEARY: That’s a lot of pressure, but I’ll take it. And I will say, I think I would qualify what Rabbi Gerson said to say, I think culture does play a role. But not with respect to the victim survivors. I think it’s with respect to the perpetrators. I think that when we normalize the sexual objectification in a sex trafficking context, or when we other people who are from different cultures perhaps, or not like us, or perhaps from another country as somehow less worthy of dignity, that’s the cultural space that can then get us to a situation where we began our conversation, a situation where Jeffrey Epstein exists. That’s on a massive scale. But on a smaller scale, where people accept the harm of some people, but not others, and accept the objectification, or accept the exploitation. On a small level, must be OK, right? And I think that that is something that we can all work to eliminate, whatever culture we’re in, whatever space that we’re in, because that does make the ground fruitful for offenders to do exactly what Rabbi Gerson said, take advantage of that situation to their own exploitative powers.

VOGELSTEIN: Well, it is clear there is a lot more work to be done to effectively address this issue, but our conversation today has helped illuminate the path forward. Thank you to all of our panelists. And I’ll turn it over to Irina to close us out.

FASKIANOS: Yes. Again, thank you all for this wonderful hour of discussion. It was very insightful. Thank you to you for your questions and comments. We encourage you to write us at [email protected] with suggestions or questions for future webinars. And we appreciate your participation and look forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you all.

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This is an uncorrected transcript.