Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by Ambassador John Cotton Richmond as the two discuss the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report.

John Cotton Richmond

Ambassador Richmond is an attorney and diplomat focused on ethical business, human rights, democracy, and rule of law. He served in the country’s highest position dedicated to combating human trafficking as a U.S. Ambassador where he led U.S. foreign policy in the global fight for freedom. As a Partner at Dentons, Ambassador Richmond helps companies keep their supply chains and workforces free of human trafficking. He was named one of the federal “Prosecutors of the Year,” after a decade successfully trying complex police misconduct, cross-burning, neo-Nazi hate crimes, forced labor, and sex trafficking cases across the country. Ambassador Richmond is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, frequent expert for the United Nations, and frequent speaker on justice, freedom, leadership, faith, and vocation.

Key Points

• The TIP Report evaluates 188 countries on their anti-trafficking efforts, including prosecution, protection, and prevention, and ranks them based on their progress compared to previous years.


• The rankings influence U.S. foreign policy, with tier three countries facing sanctions. Victim identification has improved with 133,943 victims identified this year, but this number represents less than 0.5% of estimated global victims.


• The TIP Report notes a rise in identified labor trafficking victims (31% of the total), highlighting a shift from primarily sex trafficking cases. The report does not specify industries, but labor trafficking occurs in various sectors, including domestic work and agriculture.


• Although prosecutions have slightly increased to 18,074, they are still below previous highs. Convictions remain significantly lower compared to past years, indicating insufficient accountability for traffickers.


• Despite regulations, victim identification remains low due to unfunded or underfunded mandates. Improved funding and strategic resource allocation are necessary to increase victim identification and support.


• The TIP Report emphasizes both the challenges and opportunities technology presents in combating trafficking. It also highlights the importance of including survivors in anti-trafficking efforts, recognizing their unique perspectives and contributions to the fight against trafficking.

Resources

• 267- The Intersection of Business and Human Rights, with John Cotton Richmond


• 241 – Ambassador-at-Large John Cotton Richmond: Looking Forward


• 137 – Interview with Prosecutors: John Cotton Richmond & Victor Boutros


• 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report


• Atlas Free


• Libertas Council


• Everfree Freedom Life Map


• U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking


• UNODC

Transcript

Sandra Morgan 0:14

You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. This is episode #326: Reading Between the Lines of the 2024 U.S. TIP Report, with Ambassador John Cotton Richmond. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. I am so glad to welcome back John Cotton Richmond. His career has taken him to the front lines in the global battle against human trafficking. He’s been on this podcast more than anybody else. His three previous podcasts will be in the show notes, in case you want to go back and listen. Welcome back, Ambassador Richmond. Let us know what you’ve been doing these days.

John Cotton Richmond 1:24

Sandie, it’s so good to be back with you, and I’m really excited to talk about this year’s Trafficking in Persons Report. I’m currently working with an organization called Atlas Free, and they gather anti-trafficking organizations together in a network centered around a strategic framework to improve everyone’s efforts in the battle against trafficking. It’s been a delight. I’m also working on a special project I started with some friends, called the Libertas Council, which is really trying to help leaders move from just agreeing that trafficking is wrong and become champions who take action to make sure that we can do something about this crime.

Sandra Morgan 2:02

Wow, I’m actually intrigued with this idea of how we become champions that bring about action, not just aspirational motivation. Go get them. So I’m looking forward to hear more about that, but right now I know our listening audience, our community, is really interested in your take on the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report. We’ll start with, can you give me an overall summary of your response to this year’s report? Something that you really identified.

John Cotton Richmond 2:44

I think it’s important for people to know that Trafficking in Persons Report is put out annually by the State Department, and it does many things. It includes a narrative report about 188 countries around the world and how they’re doing on combating trafficking, looking at both prosecution as well as protection and prevention, and then make some prioritized recommendations for each country. It also gives every country a ranking, tier one, tier two, tier two watch list, and tier three. Those rankings are how a country is doing compared to its own previous efforts the year before. It’s not comparing countries to each other, it’s actually just comparing a country to its own prior efforts. So if a country is improving, if they’re doing more, their ranking might go up, and if they’re doing less on this issue, it might go down. I think this year’s TIP Report captured a great deal of interesting information about how governments are doing on trafficking.

Sandra Morgan 3:43

I have a question. Those rankings, are they just for on paper, or do they have some sort of consequence, impact?

John Cotton Richmond 3:53

The rankings have a significant impact on how we carry out our foreign policy related to human trafficking around the world. Countries want to be ranked higher. That can create an incentive for them to take up the recommendations that we’ve given, but they can also act as a stick in a sense. The tier three rankings come along with sanctions. That is, a country who’s on tier three is not going to get any non humanitarian funding from the US government. Now the president, each year gets to give full or partial waivers to some countries that might be on tier three, but those waivers have not been decided yet, that will happen at the end of September. One of the encouraging things in this year’s TIP Report has to be around victim identification. We’ve been deeply concerned that victims are not getting identified, and if a victim goes unidentified, they’re not getting access to services, their traffickers can’t be held accountable. Really, we all start with can we identify the victims that are around us? The estimate from the United Nations is that there’s 27.6 million victims of sex trafficking and forced labor around the world. And this year, we got a new number from governments about their ability to identify victims, and it was 133,943 victims were identified during the reporting period. That’s the most it’s ever been. It’s up from 115,000 last year, which was our previous high. I think we can celebrate the good incremental progress that we are identifying more victims, but I think we have to do that in the context of realizing how many victims still go unidentified. Although 133,000 is an improvement from where we’ve been, that still means that we’re identifying less than half of 1% of all the victims that we estimate to exist. It’s actually .48% of the victims. So it’s incremental progress, but I think we have to look at that in light of there is so much more to do, and we need governments to do it, we need NGOs to do it, we need communities to come together and make sure that victim identification is prioritized. One thing that is also notable is that of the victims that were identified, 31% of them were labor trafficking victims. That’s much higher than we’ve normally seen. We spent a lot of time talking about the hidden crisis in labor trafficking, whereas sex trafficking victims, those cases get more attention from from prosecutors and governments, but labor trafficking victims often get left behind, and so we’re seeing an increase in the number of labor trafficking victims that are being ident