IJM Vice President of Government Relations Holly Burkhalter presented testimony on behalf of the coalition Action Group to End Slavery at the Congressional Caucus on Human Trafficking’s recent Panel Discussion on Human Trafficking. Fellow panelists included U.S. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Ambassador-at-Large Mark Lagon, actress and U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Julia Ormond, Department of Justice Deputy Assistant Attorney General Grace Chung Becker and Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves, along with caucus founders Rep. Thelma Drake (R-VA), Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH). She presented the coalition’s recommendations to congressional staffers on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, slated for reauthorization this year.

Burkhalter emphasized to the packed crowd that trafficking of humans is a crime that can be stopped, using IJM’s successful child sex trafficking casework in Cambodia to illustrate her point. “It’s very hard to find a five-year-old in sexual slavery in Cambodia today, and that’s because 85 convictions [achieved through IJM’s collaboration with local governments] are starting to be noticed among those people who sell children for sex,” she testified. By demonstrating to would-be traffickers the steep consequences of the crime, “the calculation starts to change.” Through positive steps like these and the legislative tools the U.S. continues to develop, the coalition will work to mobilize the public to, in Burkhalter’s words, “end the scourge of slavery forever.”