228 – Human Trafficking Institute Analyzes Federal Human Trafficking Criminal and Civil Prosecutions

This episode is brought to you by Vanguard University and the Global Center for Women and Justice, who offer an incredible anti-human trafficking certificate. Whether you're a frontline responder, a social worker, in the ministry, a healthcare provider, or simply a community member who wants to help, this program is built for you. Head over to gcwj.org/ahtc to take the next step and apply today. ---Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak interview Victor Boutros to examine the recent developments of this issue. Victor serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Human Trafficking Institute, which he helped to co-found in 2015. They review the trends found in the Institute’s 2019 Federal Human Trafficking Report. Victor Boutros Chief Executive Officer Victor serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Human Trafficking Institute, which he helped to co-found in 2015. Prior to his role at the Institute, he served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit and trained law enforcement from different parts of the world on how to investigate and prosecute human trafficking. He is co-author with Gary Haugen of The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence (Oxford Press). In 2016, Victor and Gary received the Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Impacting World Order, awarded annually to the authors of one world-changing book based on originality, feasibility, and potential impact. Victor is a graduate of Baylor University, Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago. Key Points The Human Trafficking Institute creates an annual report to provide policymakers, government leaders, and practitioners a common set of data on what human trafficking looks like at the federal level to better identify trends, make arguments, and inform policies. In the 2019 report, there is an emphasis on the trend of a decrease in criminal prosecution and a significant increase in civil cases. In order to solve the problem at its source, we need to consider ways to increase the risk and the cost for traffickers engaging in the crime. As the anti-trafficking movement matures, it becomes increasingly important to have rigorous, clear data, which becomes the knowledge base to make wise policy and legal decisions. Resources The Human Trafficking Institute The Institute’s 2019 Federal Human Trafficking Report 137 – Interview With Prosecutors: John Cotton Richmond & Victor Boutros 187 – Why Is Labor Trafficking So Hard To Find Are you enjoying the show? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe. Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today. Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions at [email protected]. Transcript Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 228 -Human Trafficking Institute Analyzes Federal Human Trafficking Criminal and Civil Prosecutions. Production Credits [00:00:13] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential. Dave [00:00:33] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak. Sandie [00:00:39] My name is Sandie Morgan. Dave [00:00:41] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Today, we have a return guest with someone who’s just has a tremendous amount of experience, is going to help us to really look at some of the recent developments, also to help us to really consider and look at the perspective from federal human trafficking prosecutions. I’m so glad to welcome back to the show, Victor Boutros. Victor serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Human Trafficking Institute, which he helped co-found in 2015. Prior to the role at the Institute, he served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s human trafficking prosecution unit and trained law enforcement from different parts of the world on how to investigate and prosecute human trafficking. He is co-author with Gary Haugen of The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence from Oxford Press. In 2016, Victor and Gary received the Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Impacting World Order, awarded annually to the authors of one world-changing book based on originality, feasibility, and potential impact. Victor is a graduate of Baylor, Harvard University, Oxford, and the University of Chicago. Victor, we’re so glad to have you back. Victor [00:01:59] Thank you. It’s a privilege to be with you all again. Sandie [00:02:02] So, we’re going to dive right in because the latest version of the Human Trafficking Institute report came out not too long ago. And first of all, I love how you guys use graphics because you take concepts that are difficult for the non-legal person to understand and to see the changes in just a glimpse. So, thank you for using so many infographics. And if anybody wants to see this report, we’ll have a link in the show notes as well. So, let’s talk about the goal of the report and what makes it so unique this year. Victor [00:02:42] Yeah. Thank you for saying that. We do spend a fair bit of time trying to think about how to visually present the information. We have an incredible graphic artist who has been just a huge help over the years in helping us to refine the visuals and make sure that they’re easy to consume for folks. So, I appreciate you saying that. In fact, one of the focuses of this year’s report was to do a little bit of a redesign structurally to make it more readable and digestible for the average reader to consume and understand the data really easily and simply. And so, in terms of the goal of the report, the report really came out of what we perceived as a gap in the trafficking space. We felt like there was a real need to have very clear data on what human trafficking looks like at the federal level here in the U.S. So, we wanted to be able to put out that data in order for policymakers, for government leaders, and for practitioners, one, to be able to see trend lines that are happening and identify those trends as they’re happening, but also to be able to make arguments based on data so that their policy arguments are now sort of grounded in a common set of data and that we’re kind of all reading from the same sheet of music. So, that was a big part of it to kind of fill that gap for reliable data. We want to be able to answer some key questions about what the federal government was doing to hold traffickers accountable, like how many cases were filed each year, what types of cases, what are the dominant business models that are being used, how long does it take for these cases to resolve, ...