Africa: Remarks At the Informal Multistakeholder Hearing On Trafficking in Persons

30 June 2025
United States Mission to the United Nations (New York)

Jonathan Shrier

Acting Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council

New York, New York

June 30, 2025

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AS DELIVERED

Thank you, Madam Moderator, and thank you to the briefers for your compelling presentations.

Human trafficking is a crime that affects over 27 million people worldwide, destroying communities and threatening national security. It is antithetical to human dignity and freedom.

President Trump has stated we need to degrade "the scourge of sex trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery that has battered multitudes of innocent lives and scarred untold numbers of our most vulnerable fellow citizens."

The first Trump Administration led multiple legislative efforts including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and the Abolish Human Trafficking Act of 2017 to promote new authorities against human trafficking.

The current Administration remains committed to using every tool available to disrupt human trafficking, a crime that weakens the rule of law, threatens global security, and undermines prosperity.

Among those tools is the U.S. Department of State's annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which assesses the efforts of 188 countries and territories, including the United States, in combating human trafficking.

Produced annually, the TIP Report is the world's most comprehensive resource on governmental anti-trafficking efforts, and outlines strategies for governments to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute traffickers. The Report also shines a light on transnational criminal organizations and unscrupulous countries involved in state-sponsored forced labor.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the United States' Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that, along with the Palermo Protocol, has bolstered U.S. and global efforts to combat human trafficking. The United States is proud to have helped inspire and shape anti-trafficking efforts worldwide.

Fighting human trafficking protects individuals and communities, as well as businesses and workers--at home and around the world. All countries, including the United States, must take aggressive action to combat sex trafficking and labor trafficking.

Every perpetrator we stop is a blow to traffickers and the criminal organizations and regimes that profit from human trafficking.

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