Trump Admin Awards Over $100 Million in Grants to Combat Human Trafficking

Janita Kan
By Janita Kan
September 21, 2020Trump Administration
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Trump Admin Awards Over $100 Million in Grants to Combat Human Trafficking
Ivanka Trump (C), daughter and adviser of President Donald Trump, speaks during a meeting on human trafficking alongside Attorney General William Barr (L) and Advisory Council on Human Trafficking member Tanya Gould at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, on Aug. 4, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

As part of its continued fight against human trafficking, the Trump administration on Monday announced that it has awarded over $100 million in grants to fund services and programs tackling what is described as modern-day slavery and provide assistance to trafficking victims across the United States.

The Justice Department (DOJ) grants were announced by Attorney General William Barr and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump during a roundtable discussion in Atlanta, Georgia. The funding has been granted to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions, victim service providers, and task forces across the country and will be used to support key research initiatives on human trafficking.

“I’m very proud that these resources are going to help law enforcement officers and victim services providers hold perpetrators accountable and give the victims of these crimes a place to turn for refuge and support,” Barr said during the roundtable.

The organizations and programs that are sharing the funding include ones that provide training and educational opportunities for victims, housing assistance, prevention and intervention services, and well as to law enforcement programs that identify victims and provide them with justice through the investigation and prosecution of their traffickers.

“It’s the administration’s largest-ever investment in Department of Justice grants to combat the scourge of human trafficking, arguably the greatest of human rights violations,” Ivanka Trump said.

Ivanka Trump and Barr
Advisor and daughter of the president Ivanka Trump (C) speaks during an event to highlight the Department of Justice grants to combat human trafficking, in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, on Aug. 4, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

This comes after an August event where the DOJ announced more than $35 million in housing grants to provide safe and stable housing to human trafficking survivors. The housing grants are part of the $100 million awarded by the administration.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has made fighting human trafficking a top priority of his administration. He signed an executive order in January aimed at eliminating human trafficking and online child exploitation in the United States. The order requires resources to be directed into areas that would result in the prosecution of offenders, assist victims, and expand prevention education programs about the issue.

The president also signed nine pieces of legislation into law to help target human trafficking during his tenure.

His administration has also taken multiple crucial steps to tackle the issue. In a proclamation issued by Trump in January, the president noted that the multi-agency Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team initiative had more than doubled its convictions of human traffickers in its targeted districts. Similarly, the Department of Homeland Security initiated more than 800 investigations related to human trafficking and the Department of State launched a Human Trafficking Expert Consultant Network, which is made up of subject matter experts, to inform its anti-trafficking policies and programs, he said.

About 24.9 million people around the world and in the United States, both adults and children, are trapped in some form of human trafficking, according to the White House. About 1 in 800 people in the United States are living in “modern slavery,” according to 2018 data by the Walk Free Foundation. The phrase is a broad term used to describe victims of forced labor, sexual exploitation or servitude, and forced marriages, among numerous other abuses.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline stated it had received 11,500 human trafficking reports in 2019, with sex trafficking being the most commonly reported type of trafficking. Between 2007 and 2019, the number of human trafficking situations identified through the hotline is 63,380.

“The scourge of human trafficking is the modern-day equivalent of slavery, brutally depriving victims of basic human rights and essential physical needs as it erodes their sense of dignity and self-worth,” Barr said in a statement.

Operation Not Forgotten
Photo shows a law enforcement officer from the U.S. Marshals who is involved in a missing child mission called “Operation Not Forgotten.”, Ga., in August 2020. (Shane T. McCoy/US Marshals/CC by 2.0)

The U.S. Marshals Service recently announced rescue efforts of missing children and arrests linked to human trafficking in Georgia and Ohio.

In late August, the agency said they had found 39 missing children in Georgia as part of an endangered and missing children mission called “Operation Not Forgotten.”

Law enforcement officials rescued 26 children, safely located 13 other missing children in person, and arrested nine people as part of a two-week operation in August in the cities of Atlanta and Macon in Georgia. The individuals were accused of offenses such as sex trafficking, parental kidnapping, registered sex offender violations, drugs and weapons possession.

More recently, the U.S. Marshals Service announced that 35 children had been rescued in northeastern Ohio as part of “Operation Safety Net.” Officials said on Monday that the recovered children were between the ages of 13 and 18, and were considered missing or endangered. About 20 percent of those cases were tied to human trafficking, and were referred to a separate task force.

Forced labor and human trafficking is estimated to be a $150 billion industry worldwide, according to the International Labor Organization.

Mimi Nguyen-Ly, Jack Phillips, and Bowen Xiao contributed to this report.

From The Epoch Times

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