Donald Trump Calls For End To ‘Modern Slavery,’ Steps Up Efforts To Stop Human Trafficking
President Donald Trump has stated that the U.S. will be stepping up its efforts against human trafficking until the practice is stopped “once and for all.”
According to the AP, Trump was speaking at the White House at the annual meeting of the Inter-agency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons when he made the comment. The organization consists of “more than a dozen government entities responsible for combating human trafficking.”
Within the meeting, these different factions of government all discuss the programs they have put into place in order to both help victims and catch anyone engaging in illegal human trafficking. They also share their efforts to create awareness within the public sphere around the practice.
During the meeting, Trump said his administration has made “tremendous strides since taking office,” adding that the government “will not stop until we have stamped out the menace of human trafficking once and for all.” According to the president, the U.S. is pursuing criminal charges against anyone caught in the human trafficking industry.
Trump has previously hosted survivors of human trafficking schemes at the White House, and from them, learned the atrocities they had been through. During that encounter, he discussed with them what they thought would be the best ways to combat the criminal networks participating in the practice.
President Donald Trump says the U.S. is stepping up the fight against human trafficking until it's stamped out "once and for all." https://t.co/VcC1xTC6xt
— KRIS 6 News (@KRIS6News) October 11, 2018
The president claims to be “challenging foreign regimes that facilitate this horrible evil of sex-trafficking and forced labor,” and says the administration is also working to take down any organization that traffic “drugs and people across our border.”
According to an official press release by the White House, the president has taken a number of steps in his quest to end human trafficking practices. In April this year, Trump signed into law a bill that would hopefully help law enforcement organizations combat online sex trafficking, as well as make it easier to hold the perpetrators accountable for their crimes.
While the DOJ has secured almost 500 convictions in human trafficking cases and the FBI has “dismantled 42 criminal enterprises engaged in child sex trafficking,” the Department of Homeland Security has arrested more than 1,500 people believed to be linked to human trafficking and identified more than 500 victims.
Internationally, Trump has “limited the number of Tier 3 countries in the TIP Report that will receive national security waivers under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.” The administration recognizes that countries with poor human rights protections allow for a breeding ground for human trafficking networks.
