Confronting Child Trafficking and Failure to Protect America's Most Vulnerable

Well, let me welcome everyone to the hearing today. Lost and exploited, confronting child trafficking, and the failure to protect America's most vulnerable. This is the sixth hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on crime and counterterrorism which I'm delighted to work on with my colleague, Ranking Member Durbin. I wanna thank each of the witnesses for being here today. I look forward to hearing from each of you. I wanna thank the ranking member. The ranking member has been in the chair for the last, well, pretty much like what, four, five hours at a major oversight hearing that he's just come from. And uh he graciously uh worked with us to move the time so that we could have this hearing. Senators are being called to a briefing here in about an hour and a half, and I wanna thank the witnesses for being flexible. Thanks, Senator Durbin, for making this possible. Let me make a few remarks myself, then I'll turn it over to Senator Durbin to make some opening remarks. Then we'll swear in the witnesses and hear from each of you. And then we will have multiple rounds of punishing questions. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, we we we won't do that. We will have questions that will, uh, I hope, shed light on the incredibly powerful and important topic that we're here to talk about today. Today's hearing is really simple. It's about children. It's about children who are being exploited. It's about children who are being abused. It's about children whose abuse has been recorded. And the images of whose whose abuse is still available, still online, still circulating right now as we These are children whom our government could identify and rescue if we had the will and the resources to do it. And the hearing today is about identifying what resources we need in order to rescue these children who have been abused and whose abuse is in many cases, sadly, ongoing. You know, there's nothing new I'm sad to say about child abuse. But there is something new about the scale of its distribution. Today, hundreds of thousands of children remain unidentified in global law enforcement databases. These are databases filled with images of children who are bound, gagged, crying, exploited. And yet in thousands upon thousands of cases, we don't know who these children are. We don't know where they are. We don't know where their abusers are. These are active crime scenes. These images are in many cases. Their abusers are still at large. In some case, the abuse is still ongoing. What we lack is sufficient capacity to identify the victims and to get to them. Several years ago, Tim Thibault, who's perhaps better known for his efforts on the gridiron, took up a new challenge. He partnered with the Department of Homeland Security to launch a program called Operation Renewed Hope. Tim is here today to tell us more about Operation Renewed Hope What it did in summary is expand law enforcement's analytical ability by hiring forensic review experts and investigators dedicated to reviewing these digital images, identify victims, identify perpetrators, and then generate actionable leads for law enforcement. Operation Renewed Hope has shown something very simple. When we add analysts, when we surge forensic capacity, when we prioritize identification, we can find the kids. We can rescue the kids and we can stop abuse. I would think the lesson from that is pretty obvious. If temporary surges can identify victims, a permanent committin' uh commitment would save exponentially more. If we're serious about protecting children, none of this should be controversial. But victim identification is only one side of the crisis. We also face an explosion of online child sex abuse material. more than two hundred and twenty-six million reports have been made to the CyberTip line. Two hundred and twenty-six million. Perpetrators share this material across all of the digital platforms. You know them, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all of them. But the online platforms are not required to detect child abuse material. They are not required to remove that material. They are not required to provide complete information that would help law enforcement find missing children. exploited children. Instead, the platforms get to profit off of the clicks that child sex abuse generates. And survivors are forced to repeatedly beg the platforms to take down images, often their own images, of abuse. Kind of like a game of digital whack-a-mole that just goes on and on and on, and now artificial intelligence adds an entirely new dimension where older and existing images can be regenerated and repurposed, and the abuse starts all over again. We're gonna hear today from a mother whose daughter's abuse images are still circulating after twenty years. Twenty years later, they're still in mass circulation. We're gonna hear from those working to identify the hundreds of thousands of children who remain unnamed in global databases. We'll hear about how traffickers recruit vulnerable youth and how our systems too often fail to intervene. But I wanna emphasize this hearing is not about symbolism, it's about action, it's about accountability, and it's about whether the United States Congress and the United States government writ large will match the scale of the crisis with the scale of a response. What we cannot say is that we didn't know. What we cannot say is that the images don't exist. What we cannot say is that the victims don't exist. They do. The victims are there, the images are there, and we know that we're there, so the question before us is, will we act. I hope the answer to that after today's hearing will be yes. With that, let me recognize ranking member Durbin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's true that there is a great divide between us. There's a big river called Mississippi that divides our state. When it comes to politics, there's a divide on many issues, but not on this. There are areas where we come to agreement and surprisingly, the full judiciary committee, which I think represents political spectrum in the United States Senate voted unanimously, repeatedly, for legislation to protect children in these circumstances. So what we're doing today is further evidence of the need for this and the timeliness of it, but also an appeal to us personally and our colleagues to do something. Stop holding hearings, stop giving speeches, stop putting out press releases. Do something. For my case, this is my last year in the Senate, I wanna do it this year, before I leave. We can, and we should. Let me say something about today's hearing. It highlights a core truth. Children who are trafficked and exploited are often invisible until it's too late. In my twenty years serving on this committee, protecting children from trafficking and exploitation has been a bipartisan priority and a personal priority. When I chaired the subcommittee on human rights and the law, almost twenty years ago, I had multiple hearings on human and child trafficking, as well as a hearing on protecting child soldiers, a form of child trafficking. Under the leadership of both Chairman Grassley and you, Chairman Hawley, the Senate Judiciary Committee and this subcommittee have held hearings where we have heard from survivors and experts about how predators exploit legal loopholes and technological gaps. These hearings are important, but as I've long believed, we need legislation, not lamentation. That's why following my hearings, Congress passed the Human Trafficking Accountability Act and the Child Soldiers Accountability Act. Now in this age of on-line impunity, we need to enact new laws that protect child trafficking vi- victims and survivors and hold perpetrators, and the tech companies that are enablers, accountable. And we must stop the Trump administration's senseless diversion of government resources from investigating these crimes, and protecting victims. and prosecuting perpetrators to support the president's cruel mass deportation campaign. Instead of protecting trafficking victims, they are detaining and deporting them. It is unconscionable. There is hope that we can act on a bipartisan basis to do something. Just last week the committee advanced the bipartisan James Woods Act, which I led with Chairman Grassley, in honor of a seventeen year old young man, an athlete and star student, who in nineteen hours succumbed to the urgings of an internet presence that took his life and targeted him and many other predators on Instagram. This bill would revamp key sentencing laws, target violent criminal networks, prohibit sextortion, and direct the Sentencing Commission to update the CSAM's se- sentencing guidelines. Chairman Hawley and I have also introduced the bipartisan Stop CSAM Act, which this committee reported unanimously. Our bill would finally open the courthouse doors to survivors of child exploitation, allowing them to sue the companies that promoted or facilitated their exploitation, or or that host or store CSAM. Too many parents take a deep breath every time their child logs onto a phone, tablet, or video game console. They know the internet has become a hunting ground for predators. Congress should pass our bills in defense today. As we further consider how to address these threats, I wanna recognize a young man in the audience. His name is Jose. His story underscores why identifying and protecting victims of sex trafficking means so deeply. Like many child trafficking victims, Jose has been kicked out of his ho- uh, was kicked out of his home, and was left vulnerable to sex traffickers, who prey on vulnerable children. His, he was forced to perform sex His trafficker was ultimately caught with other and another child trafficking victim as well as C-Sam. That investigation led authorities to uncover other victims, including Jose, who bravely testified against his trafficker and grew into the survivor and advocate that he is today. Jose's story reminds us that we mu- must seek accountability from all those involved in sexual abuse and trafficking. I thank him for his courage and for being here today. And we would be remiss in this moment not to recognize the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators' horrible abuses. They also, those victims deserve justice, and all their abusers, all of them should be held accountable. Children who are trafficked and subject to horrific abuse do not have a political action committee or a big fundraiser. They do not have deep pockets, but they have us. And it's up to us to do everything in our power to protect protect them. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

Thank you. Uh, before I introduce the witnesses, I'm gonna introduce them and then um I will swear them in and give them a chance to make a few statements. But before we do that, I'd, let me just take a moment here, if you are here in the room and you are a survivor of trafficking or abuse, or maybe you work with someone who is a survivor, has been a survivor of trafficking and abuse. If you're willing, I don't want you to do it if you're not willing to, but if you are willing, would you stand so that we can recognize you and honor you for your courage and your bravery? Wow. Thank you. I just wanna say thank you from all of us from the bottom of our hearts, thank you, for your courage, your bravery, your witness, your boldness. It's because of you that change will come and that other survivors, other victims will be rescued. And uh, I hope perpetrators brought to justice. Thank you to each of you. Uh, let me do this. Let me ask now the witnesses to rise. It's our practice in this committee to administer an oath before testimony. So let me ask you to rise and we'll administer the oath and then I'll introduce you. Would you raise your right hands? Do you swear that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you God. Very good. Well, let me now introduce the witnesses and allow them to make each an opening statement. gonna go from uh down the dais, from uh my left down to right, and I'll start with our first witness, Miss Jane Doe. Miss Doe is the mother of a child trafficking survivor. We're so glad that you're here. Um please take uh five minutes and make any statement you'd like to, Miss Doe. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Um,

Thank you.

chair, ranking member, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the incredibly difficult but important opportunity to testify. For decades, I have been known not by my own name, but as a mother of a child sexual abuse material, CSAM victim. She is re-victimized every day. I am here on behalf of my daughter, her sibling, and the countless children whose suffering is often unseen but never ends. Shortly after my daughter was born, my ex-husband started sexually abusing her. He documented and memorialized this horrific abuse by taking photographs and sharing them online with other offenders. My daughter was an infant when the abuse began. She cannot speak, she cannot tell me what was happening to her. There were no visible injuries and no behaviors that raised a concern in a baby. The abuse continued for nearly four years before it was n- before it was finally uncovered not through a routine safeguard but by an undercover detective who encountered her father in an on-line chat room used by offenders. I have often been told, " She was a baby, she won't remember." That belief is wrong and dangerous. Abuse does not require hours, it takes seconds. And when those seconds are repeated, they accumulate into days, months, and years of harm that permanently alter a child's life. Like many parents, I trusted the person I lived with. Who would suspect that a father performing ordinary parental duties, changing a diaper or giving a bath, was using those moments to exploit his own child? I did not know. I only knew something that felt deeply wrong. The time he spent on the computer and his behavior did not sit right with me. I did what every parent is expected to do. I took my daughter to her pediatrician. There were no physical signs of abuse. Given the tension in our home over my fears and suspicions, I also sought out counseling. At the urging of my therapist, I contacted Child Protective Services. An investigation followed. The case was deemed unfounded. We were described as a picture-perfect family. The computer that prompted the report was never examined. Two and a half years later, I learned the truth. My husband had sexually abused our daughter and distributed the images of that abuse on the internet. Excuse me. I do not say this to blame anyone. We need every case worker, doctor, and therat- p therapist to spot, prevent, and stop abuse. I say it to highlight as a systematic failure. When concerns involve digital evidence, failing to examine devices can leave children unprotected. Better training, clearer protocols, and the authority to act decisively could have spared my daughter years of additional abuse. Today, more than twenty-five years later, the harm has not ended. I receive notifications from the Department of Justice now numbering in the tens of thousands informing me that yet another offender has been found in possession of images documenting my daughter's abuse. These notifications arrive because strangers across country and the world continue to trade, modify and redistribute those images. Sometimes the images are altered slightly to evade detection. Sometimes they are compiled into videos. These are only the cases that are discovered and prosecuted federally. We do not know how many more remain unseen. The man who abused my daughter served a sentence and has returned to society with limited restrictions. Pedophilia is a compulsion without a cure. Punishment alone does not guarantee prevention. Many of the offenders identified in the endless notifications I receive are repeat offenders. CSAM exists on every type of device and across every platform. It is not confined to one technology. and it will not be solved by half measures or regulatory tweaks. While every offended sentence has an end date, my family's does not. My daughter, her sibling and I live with the consequences every day. Retelling this story is painful, but remaining silent is not an option. If survivors and parents do not speak, the urgency fades and the children continue to be harmed. I am one person telling one family's story, but this is sadly not a rare tragedy. Given ever-expanding technology now driven by artificial intelligence, every child risks becoming a CSAM victim. These children are our future. What happens to them shapes who we become as a society. I urge Congress to act with as seriousness as crisis demands, invest in specialized training for law enforcement and child protection professionals ensure through uh through digital investigations expand access to trauma-informed therapy for the victims, Strength in monitoring, treatment, and restrictions for offenders, and move legislation to protect victims forward without delay. Every delay leaves more children unprotected. We may not be able to erase every image that exists, but we can stop the spread. We can interrupt the cycle. We can interfere with demand. We all have to start somewhere. On behalf of my daughter, her sibling, and myself, Thank you for listening and thank you for your commitment to protecting America's most vulnerable, the children. I hope the actions you take will spare others from enduring what we have lived with for more than twenty-five years. Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Stone. Next up is Mister Tim Thibault. Mister Thibault is the founder and chairman of the Tim Thibault Foundation. The foundation works to combat human trafficking and child sexual exploitation. It's great to have you with us. Tim, go ahead. The floor is yours.

Good morning, Chairman Hawley, Ranking Member Durbin, distinguished members of the committee. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor and really a privilege and humbling to be here with all of you, Miss Julie and Miss Dacia, Yasmin and Miss Jane. Um it really is humbling and feel unworthy to be sitting beside all of you, so thank you so much for your work. Um as you mentioned, I'm I'm so blessed to be a part of the Tim Teo Foundation and we exist to bring faith, hope and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need. But to really sum it up, it's to fight for people that can't fight for themselves. And I believe that's exactly why we're here today. Several years ago, we were finishing a leadership meeting and I looked at Camille, our VP of anti-human trafficking and child exploitation, and she had a very sober look on her face. And I said, " Camille, what is it? What's what's breaking your heart?" And she wrote down the number twenty thousand. And I said, "Camille, twenty thousand what?" And she said, " Twenty thousand boys and girls. That's the best guess of what law enforcement can see in rape and abuse images, but yet they're categorized as unknown, unidentified. So that led us to a meeting in Lyon, France with um HSI, FBI, Interpol, Europol, Nik Mik, uh Google, and eighteen other countries to find out, okay, what actually is the closest thing to the truth? And it wasn't twenty thousand. It was fifty seven thousand boys and girls in the ICSA database that have yet to be And that led us to renewed hope, one, two and three, which identified over eleven hundred boys and girls and over five hundred and fifty of them have been safeguarded so far. And right now, thirty minutes away at C three, the Cyber Crime Center, which is just so many of the best investigators and agents that America has to offer. They really are incredible. We just came from there and I just wanna thank them because they are the tip of the spear and the best of the best and right now the biggest operation ever in the fight against Shout exploitation is taking place with thirty countries, thirty-four agencies, ninety-four investigators and victim identification specialists, and hopefully it will be um one of the biggest operations ever in history. But the problem is that the number now is not fifty-seven thousand. With all of the work that all of these people and amazing law enforcement agents and non-profit NGOs are doing all around the world, The number's not fifty seven thousand like we said two years ago. It's over eighty nine thousand. We are losing the battle and we are losing the war, and boys and girls are suffering for it. And to give you an idea of the scope of what's happening in America, there's a red dot map right over there over my right shoulder, and that's just a six month screen shot of the US. And every red dot that is on there is someone that is downloading, sharing, or distributing child rape images almost all under the age of twelve. And there's over three hundred and thirty of them just in that six month screen shot. And we know that fifty-five to eighty-five percent of them are also hands-on offenders, and we know that your average offender has thirteen victims in their lifetime. The scale of harm right here in America is to a certain extent hard to comprehend. But that's why we're here. And when you down one of those doors, you also have no idea how many boys and girls you're gonna find. From operation renewed hope one, one of the doors that was knocked down, when they went in and seized his computer, they found that he also had raped thirty other boys and girls in that neighborhood. So there's a lot of work to do. And ranking member Durman, you're right, we have to be able to act. A little over a year ago, I was at one of our protection centers, and a protection center um has extra security because there's still a bounty in a on these girls' and young women's lives. And I was walking through the counseling rooms, and I walk up to one of the counseling rooms. And it's this beautiful couch, and it's got teddy bears and toys and children's books in it. And right behind the couch there's a window. And right behind the window is a wall, and it's the edge of the protection center. I look up to the top of the wall and it's the razor wire all the way around the top. And I'm just looking at this picture and it's a surreal picture because inside "Those girls are gonna be cherished and loved and protected and cared for, but on the outside they went through an earthly form of hell." And I'm standing there looking at this picture and one of our team members comes and and whispers in my ear as I'm looking at this picture and he said, " Man, isn't it such a thin line between tortured and treasured?" And he was right. It is a thin line between tortured and treasured. And you are that thin line. And all of you are that thin line. But we have to have more people on that line and we have to do a whole lot more, and we have to do it faster, because every day we wait, they're suffering, they're crying, and I believe right now many of them are praying that we would respond. But how are we really going to respond? Because I al- ultimately also believe that this is what we're called to do. And what it's calling me, and in my opinion the best definition, is an urgent and divine invitation to accept responsibility for a particular task. But the question is, will we actually accept the responsibility of of caring for these boys and girls and truly protecting them? Or are we just gonna continue to talk about it? Cuz there is so much we can do, but the question is, will we? Thank you for having me and thank you for letting me be a part.

Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Next we have Yasmin, uh, Miss Yasmin, um, Fafu. Okay, ha- ha- s- correct me.

Yasmin Vafa.

Okay, very good. I'll get, I'll get better. I'll get better. She's the Executive Director of Rights for Girls. Rights for Girls advocates for policies and legal reforms to end violence against world girls with a particular focus on child sex trafficking. Thank you so much for being here. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Chairman Hawley, Ranking Member Durbin, and members of the subcommittee for inviting me to speak today. My name is Yasmin Vafa and I'm the Executive Director of Rights for Girls, a national organization dedicated to ending violence against girls in the US. We work alongside survivors to strengthen laws, advance research, train judges, and the culture that enables exploitation. This hearing confronts an urgent crisis. As the nation reacts with shock at the horrors revealed in the Epstein case, those on the front lines know this reality well. The shock reflects not the rarity of these crimes, but how deeply we've insulated ourselves from the scale of sexual exploitation, hiding in plain sight. Among the most alarming forms of violence facing girls today is sex trafficking. Across urban, rural and tribal communities, children are being bought and sold. Many are runaways from homes marked by abuse or instability. Others are recruited directly out of foster care. Some are groomed online. All are targeted because of vulnerability. The majority of youth in the sex trade are girls of color. By stark contrast, those who purchase them are overwhelmingly adult men who operate with impunity. Yet our systems continue to direct enforcement towards those being sold rather than those creating the demand. There are girls like Dara. out of foster care at age eleven and sold throughout California until she was nineteen. For nearly a decade, child welfare, education, and law enforcement systems interacted with her, yet she was repeatedly treated as delinquent, rather than a child in need of protection. Robin was sold out of her own home by her mother in exchange for drugs. Men from her neighborhood came and went while adults looked away. Jason wasn't trafficked in the traditional sense. Instead, he was trafficked by the men who purchased him for sex in exchange for basic needs. He was a child navigating trauma and homelessness and predators capitalized on it. These are not isolated stories, they reflect systemic failure. Rather than being recognized as crime victims, many exploited children are criminalized. At Rights for Girls we call this the abuse to prison pipeline, a pathway in which survivors are denied recognition as crime victims and often their status as children and are instead pushed into the justice system, for their own exploitation. Each year, hundreds of children are arrested prostitution despite being legally incapable of consenting to sex. Others are charged with related offenses, loitering, drugs, even crimes traffickers force them to commit. Some are even prosecuted in adult court for acts of self-defense. The result is predictable, deeper trauma, criminal records, and diminished access to housing, education, and employment, fueling cycles of incarceration and harm. Meanwhile, the men who purchased them faced minimal consequence. Studies examining child sex buyer prosecutions show that significant percentages serve no time with many sentences suspended. In multiple states, legislative debates have centered on whether purchasing sex from sixteen year olds should be a felony or merely a misdemeanor. The debate itself shows just how far accountability has eroded. Our latest report, Buyers Unmasked, analyzed hundreds of posts from online hobby boards, essentially Yelp for prostitution, and revealed a culture of dehumanization and entitlement that traffickers rely on. One survivor told us she spent six months at age sixteen telling every buyer she was being trafficked against her will. Not one of them helped her. Every man prioritized his own protection or the money he'd paid. This is the norm, not the exception. One sex buyer in our report could barely contain his excitement at learning the young woman he'd purchased was not twenty-four as the ad stated but in fact, barely eighteen. After describing her braces, body, and their sex acts in appalling detail, he added quote, " I don't think she's been doing this long enough to know to check the room for cameras." This combination of indifference and entitlement is the engine that fuels sex trafficking. Congress has both the authority and the duty to act. To that end, we recommend one, targeting the demand. While laws criminalizing, patronizing exist at the federal level, enforcement is inconsistent and frequently deprioritized. We must remember that demand reduction is trafficking prevention. Two, incentivizing buyer accountability. Federal funding should encourage jurisdictions to adopt buyer accountability programs that finance services and prioritize prosecuting those who drive demand rather than survivors. Three, strengthening oversight of trafficking screening under JJDPA. Congress should require standardized data collection, reporting, and the dissemination of screening tools to ensure that trafficked youth are identified. We can't protect kids we don't see. And four, reauthorizing the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. We know that housing instability is a major predictor of trafficking vulnerability. Survivors have endured unimaginable harm, yet many have bravely rebuilt their lives. They deserve a federal response equal to their courage. It's what Dara, Robin, and Jason so desperately needed then and what so many children are counting on today. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next we have Nastasha Shien. She's the Vice President of the Analytical Services Division of the National Center for Missing

Good afternoon, Chairman Hawley, Ranking Member Durbin, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Stacia Sheehan and I'm the Vice President of the Analytical Services Division at the National Center for Missing, or Exploited Children, or NCHMECH. NCHMECH is a nonprofit

Mm.

organization created in nineteen eighty four by child advocates to help find missing children reduce child sexual exploitation and prevent child victimization. Congress has designated NCHMECH to support law enforcement in locating, identifying and recovering child victims of sex trafficking and children depicted in sexual abuse material or CSAM. We are on the front lines of combating these crimes and coordinate every day with law enforcement in the United States and around the world to better protect children. For almost thirty years, NCHMECH has operated the CyberTip line, the centralized mechanism for members of the public and online platforms to report suspected child sexual exploitation, including the distribution of CSAM and child sex trafficking. Since NCHMECH created the CyberTip line, we have responded to more than two hundred and twenty-six million reports related to child sexual exploitation including more than three hundred and five In twenty twenty five alone, we received more than twenty one million reports containing more than sixty one million images, videos and other content. Nekmek's CyberTipLine is the largest source of leads relating to child sexual exploitation for both US and international law enforcement communities. For every CyberTipLine report and missing child case we receive that indicates a child is being trafficked, There are hundreds of data points NECMEC can use to help locate the child, and support law enforcement recovery efforts. As a result of the Report Act requiring on-line platforms to report child sex trafficking to NECMEC, we have seen a dramatic increase in child sex trafficking reports. A three hundred and twenty-three percent increase in reports from twenty twenty-five compared to twenty-twenty-four. With this increased volume of reports, NECMEC is validating trends of how children are being exploited for sex. online, including the following. First, we're seeing a growing convergence between CSAM production and child sex trafficking. Adults are directly approaching a child online, offering to pay the child to produce and send CSAM as a preview, and then aggressively attempting to set up an in-person meeting to pay that child for sex. Second, we are seeing traffickers and buyers produce CSAM depicting victims of familial sex trafficking. For a trafficker, creating CSAM creates an additional revenue stream and increased control control over that victim. For a buyer, images produce a record of the sexual abuse of that child and for the survivor, images create additional fear and distress even years after the CSAM was produced. NECMEC has successfully supported victim identification and ongoing survivor support for decades. Congress has recognized our role by authorizing us to operate the only child Identification Program, or CVIP, with a global reach and extensive wrap-around services for law enforcement and child victims. CVIP's primary goals are to help identify and locate unidentified victims, help verify if CSAMs seized from offenders and submitted by law enforcement to NCHMECH depicts previously identified child victims, and provide recovery and restitution support for child victims and their families. As of today, NCHMECH has received and analyzed over four hundred and sixty five million images and videos submitted by law enforcement related to child sexual exploitation online. NCHMIC's support and coordination with law enforcement on victim identification has resulted in law enforcement successfully identifying more than thirty six thousand children depicted in sexually abusive images. Regardless of whether we're responding to a cyber chip line report relating to child sexual exploitation or a report of a missing child trafficked for sex, our focus is constant. identify the child, locate the child, and ensure law enforcement receives actionable information to recover the child as quickly as possible. We believe Congress can strengthen protections for children in three key ways. First, recommend as a best practice that all U. S. law enforcement agencies submit child sexual abuse material seized from offenders to NECMIC's CVET. Second, pass the Stop CSAM Act to require on-line platforms to improve the quality of com- and completeness of reports to the CyberTip line. Third, continue prioritizing resources for law enforcement, NECMEC, and service providers to facilitate child victim identification and support services for child victimized through these horrific crimes. We thank the subcommittee for this opportunity to speak with you today, and look forward to continuing to work together to protect children from exploitation online.

Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Finally, we have Miss Julia Einbond. Miss Einbond is the CEO of Covenant House New Jersey. Covenant House provides housing, crisis care, and supportive services to runaway homeless and trafficked youth across the United States. Miss Einbond, the floor is yours. You m- let's see if your microphone is on there. Perfect. Go ahead.

My name is Julia Einbond, and I am the CEO of Covenant House New Jersey. part of Covenant House International, the largest charitable organization in the Americas, serving youth overcoming homelessness and human trafficking. Covenant House International reaches more than sixty-three thousand young people annually across five countries, including more than two thousand last year at Covenant House, New Jersey. In New Jersey, we are designated by the Office of the Attorney General as the statewide coordinator of human trafficking victim services. In the last five years, we have identified and served over five hundred survivors. one in four experienced child trafficking. I am also a licensed attorney, a peer-reviewed author on human trafficking, and co-developer of the first scientifically validated screening tool for sex and labor trafficking. I see firsthand how we have failed to protect America's most vulnerable children. Consider Brandon. Brandon was just four years old when he fell through the cracks, and the systems that should have caught him never did. To protect his privacy, I have changed some details of his story. Four year old Brandon was sleeping on park benches with his mother and siblings before being removed from her care and placed in foster care for neglect. His first foster placement was marked by abuse. By age seven, he was selling drugs, believing it would give him some sense of control. As a teenager, Brandon stood on street corners with a box of candy in his hands, pretending to sell sweets. The candy was a cover. Inside his backpack was crack cocaine that a dealer had forced him to move. When he once miscounted the money he owed, the punishment left him hospitalized with metal pins in his shoulder. He was told he would die if he tried to quit. Brandon was arrested multiple times during these years. Brandon was seen as a young criminal, not a child, being controlled and threatened with his life. His trafficking was not identified until years later when he arrived at Covenant House New Jersey as a young adult experiencing homelessness. Brandon's story is not exceptional. In the last five years, we served nearly one hundred fifty survivors of child trafficking at Covenant House, New Jersey. More than one in three experienced labor trafficking. The most common form was forced criminality, exactly what Brandon endured. One in five were homeless the day we met them. Brandon's story is a blueprint for how children fall through every gap we have failed to close. To make progress against child trafficking, we must understand Vulnerability drives it, early identification combats it, and services are essential to stopping it. Vulnerability is the common thread. Brandon's path to trafficking was paved long before a dealer ever approached him, by homelessness, by abuse in the system meant to protect him, by the absence of any stable adult in his life. Traffickers find children, our systems have already failed and fill that void deliberately. We must treat vulnerability itself as the crisis. Identification is intervention. Brandon was arrested multiple times and trafficking was never identified, not once. We know that a youth facing homelessness who has ever been arrested is six times more likely to have experienced human trafficking than one who has not. Brandon was both. Screening tools, training, and clear protocols be standard in every system that touches vulnerable youth, juvenile justice, hospitals, child welfare, schools, and shelters. Services save lives. And the sooner they are provided, the greater their impact. When children first meet professionals, they are trying to figure out if they can trust them. Research shows that young people want to know, " What can you do for me?" Traffickers succeed precisely because they have a ready answer to that question. Service providers have a better answer. And the sooner we can give it, the better we can protect children. The last time I saw Brandon, he was working, had saved over four thousand dollars, and was about to sign a lease on an apartment. Law enforcement alone has not ended human trafficking. But we have the solution, scalable, well-funded services that reduce the vulnerabilities traffickers exploit. I urge this subcommittee to pass the Runaway and Homeless Youth Trafficking Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill that would reauthorize and modernize funding for shelter, street outreach, staff training, and prevention services. Every year we fail to invest in these services, but we pay for them anyway, in emergency rooms, courtrooms, and jail cells. Shelter, outreach, and prevention cost far less. Then the cycle, they break. The stakes could not be higher. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will now start some rounds of questions. I'll start off and I'll start with you, Mister Thibault, if I could. Could you just briefly describe for us the mission of the Tim Thibault Foundation?

Uh to sum it up would be to fight for people that can't fight for themselves in their darkest hour of need, and we wanna try to do that imperfectly. but in any and every way that we can. Um so if that's supporting law enforcement, if it's long-term restoration, we're fortunate to, with our partners, have fifty-two safe homes and uh nineteen more in progress. Um if it's um whatever it is, that's our calling, is to care for the MVP. I spent way too much of my life chasing a less important MVP of most valuable player, and I wanna spend the rest of my life chasing the most vulnerable people 'cause I know that one means a whole lot more to our God.

Uh, what uh, what inspired you to start the foundation?

I met a boy in the jungles of the Philippines when I was fifteen years old, who was born with his feet on backwards. And because of that, he was viewed as less than insignificant and cursed. And they treated him as a throwaway, but I knew he wasn't a throwaway, but I also knew that God was breaking my heart and saying, yeah, but what are you gonna do about it? How valuable is he gonna actually be to you? Because what do we do with things that we, we, you know, we say all life has value, but when we say something has value or valuable, what do we do with our valuables? We treasure them, we protect them, we care for them. How come so often we very r- rarely do that for life and life abundantly? And so that's what we are called to do, is to care for life so that life c- can be abundant, and so that we can truly try to bring faith, hope, and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need. And there's a lot of people in their darkest hour of need right now.

Let me ask you about some folks who are in a dark hour of need. I've got a chart that I think will come over my shoulder here. This is showing the increase in the production of child sex abuse material just in the United States. Online, you can see this dramatic increase from two thousand one to two thousand twenty three. Uh, this is numbers I think from NCMEC. In twenty twenty three alone, there was one hundred and four million, three hundred and seventy thousand, five hundred and seventy-two separate images and videos of reported in the United States of America. You mentioned in your opening statement a few minutes ago that when you first began working in the space of child trafficking, trying to rescue trafficked children, you were told that there were about twenty thousand children whose images had not been identified. Who we, we had the images of the kid, but we didn't know who they were. In fact, as you learned, given how many images of exploitation that are out there, it's a lot more kids than twenty thousand, isn't it? Like how, what what's the rough estimate?

Well, it's really hard to know. What I was going on was strictly just the ICSA database, and in that we know that there are eighty-nine thousand serieses right now, but that's just one database. And so one of the things that we would ask and plead this committee to work on is an international treaty of getting all of the different databases to work together to de-conflict so we actually get a ground truth on what the number is. Because HSI, FBI, CADE, Australia and Canada all have different databases as well as Interpol. Could we get those databases to work together? And I I know there's some sensitive, cuz it's a crime scene in every single one, so we gotta be sensitive with that. But at the same point, we could work together to truly understand the real number of how many boys and girls are waiting to be identified and how many boys and girls are suffering in the middle of that still right now.

Let's have a look here at what just the Interpol images show, what we're we're looking at in terms of content. of unidentified exploita- exploited children by the numbers. Eighty-four percent of the images were of actual sexual abuse, not simulated but actual. Forty-seven percent of the Nik Mik images contained extreme abuse, including actual rape. Sixty percent of unide- unidentified victims are under twelve. Sixty percent. Sixty-five percent of unidentified victims are girls. And almost five percent of the images were infants. Um, these are, these are just extraordinary, extraordinary numbers that, that give a sense of the scope of the epidemic that we're dealing with here. Let me put up another poster that you reference and, and ask you to explain what it is. It's a diagram of, of the United States, a map of the United States with these pinpoints all over it. Can you tell us what this image depicts?

Yeah, that's a DOJ database and every one of those read dot maps is a unique IP address that is downloaded shared or distributing child rape images, almost all under the age of twelve, and that's just a six month screen shot of it, and there are over three hundred and thirty eight thousand on there. And if you could also look, there's blue dots on there, you can't really see them, but the blue ones are the ones that are under investigation.

In a sea of red.

Isn't that a problem of what we're talking about?

It's unbelievable. It's overwhelming. So let me ask you, against all of this backdrop, tell us about Operation Renewed Hope, what it is, um how it works to help kids who are unidentified, who are trapped in abuse, what what what what does Operation Renewed Hope do?

Well, it's does a few things. It's bringing together law enforcement and victim identification specialists from all over the world to work together in the same room with the best technology and the best training and it's amazing what happens when you do that to be able to see the results Operation Renewed Hope one had three hundred sixteen identifications, the next one uh Renewed Hope two had four hundred seventeen identifications, Renewed Hope three three hundred and eighty-seven identifications. And with all of that, over five hundred and fifty of the boys and girls have been safeguarded. And we're praying that Operation Renewed Hope-four um blows the uh first three away.

So it's it's a surge of resources, forensic analysis, uh tools for victim identification. It's a surge of resources for a few weeks. Is that is that right?

Two week sprint, yes.

Two week sprint. So just imagine what might be possible if instead of a two week sprint, we made it permanent. If if Congress permanently surge resources toward victim identification.

Why I think to back up for just a second, a few things that are important to mention is at C three, the Cybercrime Center, who is the best of the best in this space, there are ten victim identification specialists. And one of the things that we are asking Congress is to authorize so that they can hire more. That's one of the things the renewed Hope Act does is it allows them to hire two hundred positions seventy of them will be at C three and a hundred and thirty of them will be in the field. So imagine our chance of fighting back against this evil if we go from ten to two hundred. We have much better odds. Could you imagine if any business or any area in life, and we would say, you got at least eighty nine thousand boys and girls that you have to identify, and hey, here's ten people that are amazing, and they're the best, and I love them very much. But it's ten people's job to do that. And what area do we think we would be successful with those odds and those numbers? And that's one of the things that uh that Renewed Hope Act changes. And then I would say another thing is, um, I would ask that we would fully fund the ICACs so that the ICACs could have all their funding cuz they do amazing um work in so many of the the states and localities and districts around America that do this work as well um and so I think both of those would be um two big asks that would make a radical difference.

There's two tremendous solutions right there. Senator Durbin.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Um, I believe Miss Einbahn raise the Runaway Homeless Youth Trafficking Prevention Act, which uh I reintroduced with Senator Collins last year, uh authorizing funding for essential programs and services for ru- runaways and homeless youth and many other important aspects of our conversation. Miss Einbahn, how do you come in contact with homeless youth? How do, what what is it, through the courts that you usually find these youth?

Thank you for the question, Senator. We find young people facing homelessness in all sorts of ways. Some come straight to our door, some do come to us through the courts, some come from referrals, from law enforcement before an arrest, from service providers locally, from all over the country sometimes when young people are looking for a path to safety.

So what percentage of those homeless youth do you think you serve? And what would be the universe we should be serving?

Last year at Covenant House New Jersey, we reached two thousand three hundred seventy-three young people. We served nearly one thousand of those individuals with direct services, and nearly five hundred with actual housing, nights of housing at one of the sites that we maintain. It is a drop in the bucket for just the state of New Jersey, where we have a low inventory and high housing cost state. The need for more housing is um absolutely essential in our state and across the country. The occurrence of homelessness is much more vast. We participate in an annual point in time count in the state of New Jersey in January. The numbers this year were higher than they've ever been, a double-digit increase over the years before. It is an absolute crisis and we need more services to

Could you give me the two or three largest categories of homeless youth?

Well, one category is survivors of human trafficking, actually. And so at Covenant House, New Jersey, we see ten to twelve percent of the young people we serve annually, who we've screened and then identified as having survived human trafficking at some point during their lifespan, before they've arised at our doorstep. We serve primarily eighteen to twelve.

What percentage do you think deal with sexual identity? when they're forced out of their homes?

We collect information regarding sexual orientation, a self-reported number at intake, and that number hovers around twenty percent in New Jersey.

Make sure I understand that twenty percent of the total? Is that what you're saying?

That's correct.

Ms. Vafa, I've heard maybe you before, or at least your message before that part of the problem is that law enforcement ends up pointing to the victim uh for their activity rather than the perpetrator. Explain that, why we can't get that across to them, that they're clearly pointing in the wrong direction.

So, i- the problem is multifaceted. Um, it's often due to the fact that, you know, the stigma associated with, you know, children and young people being involved in the sex trade. Um, oftentimes there's a lot of confusion on what constitutes sex trafficking. So one of the case scenarios that I shared about um the young man Jason, um we would typically describe that scenario as survival sex because there isn't a third party exploiter um oftentimes people don't recognize that law enforcement doesn't recognize that as a form of sex trafficking even though under the federal law um the adult men who purchase sex with that child in exchange for anything of value that would constitute child sex trafficking under the law and so you know, in those types of situations, that minor might be prosecuted or or, you know, charged with some type of crime. Um, we also have situations of what we call adultification bias, right? This is a form of intersectional bias that's often applied to girls of color, particularly black girls. Um, this has been a documented form of intersectional and implicit bias. Um, Georgetown Law Center on Gender Justice and Opportunity published a report back in twenty eighteen called " Girlhood Interrupted". that goes into detail about this phenomenon, but oftentimes uh what we see is that stereotypes that are attributed to black women are often projected onto black girls and other girls of color whereby they're not seen as child victims they're not seen as crime victims um and as a result you know there have been subsequent studies to show that when they experience not only sexual abuse but also sexual exploitation and sex trafficking, they are seen as willful agents in that um violence. And so they're not seen as as traumatized as their other peers. And unfortunately, this leads to much more negative outcomes in the justice system. Um in fact, uh the Washington State Appellate Courts have um talked about adultification bias and the impacts of it, so it's a well-documented phenomenon. that we do uh address in many of our trainings um and you know it's unfortunate and it's something that continues to be uh perpetuated across the country we've written about it in several of our reports most recently criminalized survivors today's abuse to prison pipeline uh but it continues to be a real problem and as the country is now talking about accountability and the importance of accountability for sex buyers in particular we are witnessing these legislative debates in several states where sex buying of minors is still a misdemeanor. So, you know, when you look at the imbalance,

Wait a minute.

it's quite stark.

How many states are

So California last year we had quite a uh tumultuous debate around this, and right now New York State, we are in the process of carrying a bill right now that would make it a felony to buy sex from fifteen to seventeen year old. It's currently a misdemeanor.

Almost afraid to ask about Illinois.

Illinois not, no, Illinois actually is pretty strong on its patronizing laws.

Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Klobuchar.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing, thank you to everyone, I guess I'll start with you, uh, Ms. Doe, thank you for your willingness to come forward and share um what you and your family went through no one should have to do that uh you'd have talked about in your written testimony given ever expanding technology now driven by artificial intelligence, every child risks becoming a C-span victim. Um, Senator Cruz and I actually passed a bill called the Take It Down Act that the president signed into law that requires that the platform takes this stuff down on notification from the victim in forty-eight hours we've had several suicides and just uh really horrendous situations around the country. How can a legal right to have these horrible images removed from on-line platforms uh help to move forward with your life. So, so they have something.

K. Oh. If they create something that can take down these images for all the victims, not just my family of course,

Mhm.

it would impact these children just knowing that someone is out there offering to help them. These images are all over, everywhere technology is, it's on a tablet, it's on a cell phone. Everywhere you look there's a way to find these images of their abuse and their terror that they've gone through. If there were laws that were passed in order to get rid of it, it would save the children mentally and physically harm and not just i- it's not gonna be immediate, it's gonna be a long-term situation, but somebody has to start somewhere to do something,

Thank you.

and little steps make the big change.

Thank you. There's obviously more to do. uh including uh the section two thirty situation um which I'm sure you know about.

Yes.

Okay, Ms. Shehan,

Thank you.

um N NICMAC in twenty f twenty four received more than eighty three thousand requests to remove non-consensual explicit images from on-line platforms could you talk about how the take it down bill now get to the next bill in front of us strengthen NICMAC's ability to help victims remove the images.

Absolutely. And um we appreciate your leadership on that issue. Uh specifically we operate a take it down program that allows for

Mm-hmm.

survivors or their designee to submit hashes related to nude partially nude or exploitative uh material so that we can utilize those hashes with companies that voluntarily agree to use them to remove the content from their services. We also have other um voluntary programs related to hash sharing initiatives, but again the difference that the Take It Down act made is adding a legal requirement to remove that content.

Thank you. Uh, Mister Thibault, I was remembering way back zone when you were the spea- one of the speakers at the National Prayer Breakfast and I was co-chairing it with Johnny Isaacson. Do you remember that?

Yes,

You were under oath.

yes, ma'am.

You did a nice job, thank you.

Than thank you.

Seems like a simpler time. Um, I believe uh that we need, like you do, to give law law enforcement resources to quickly uh identify victims of human trafficking because the faster a victim can be identified the faster, they can be helped. Uh the renewed a- hope act seeks to do that. Could you talk about why training is an important part of that act training of law enforcement?

Because it is very complicated and Unfortunately, those with the goal to do evil many times work better than those with the goal to do good. And they coach one another on how best to avoid detection. Uh, we could show you manuals. We could show you chats of them, going back and forth of how you can cover up blood, how you don't have to make blood, how your wife doesn't have to find out over and over and over, um, again of how they are working together many times better than the people that are striving for good. And I think training is so important because a lot of these cases are very I we could tell you so many different stories of, you know, one of the stories from an incredible investigator um over a uh a young girl crying, turned down the um the the metal volume from it to be able to hear a bird chirp in the background and then they went to Cornell labs to be able to get a specialist to be able to understand where would this type of bird have been at this spot and ultimately, long story made a lot shorter, they were able to safeguard that boy because these uni- they're so it's so specialized, and it's so hard. And that's why the training,

Mm-hmm.

especially for victim identification specialists, is so, so, so important.

Thank you. Uh, Ms. Vafa, um, Senator Blackburn arrived, so I would think I'll bring up our bill. Uh, we lead the National Human Trafficking Database Act to establish a national database at the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime incentivize state law enforcement to report trafficking data for the database uh the shared information is gonna help I think state and local. Can you talk about how information sharing among local, state, and federal entities empowers law enforcement to protect victims of human trafficking?

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, thank you for that question. It's it's critical. I mean, information sharing is critical when it comes to issues of human trafficking. Um, you know, cross-system collaboration, information sharing, it's one of the key components to making sure that not only victims are identified, um, but that we're, um, able to uh make sure that victims are reached. So one of the things that we know especially about survivors is that they're moved um from multiple different states. Uh one of the things that we know from NCMEC for example, uh when it comes for to survivors who are runaways, uh survivors who are potentially taken from one state uh in foster care systems, it's important to be able to report those children. That's one of the reasons why, for example, as part of the twenty fourteen preventing sex trafficking and strengthening families act. We required a child welfare systems to report those children. To not only nickmick but the fbi's ncic database so that they would

mmm

be

Mm-hmm.

So that they would be able to be tracked. And so it's very important, um, for that cross-system collaboration and collaboration

Mm-hmm.

among l- all aspects of law enforcement to make sure, uh, that we're tracking children, making sure that victims and survivors are being, um, identified, uh, as quickly as possible so that intervention can occur.

Yeah. I won't ask this question now, 'cause I'm out of way out of time, but the um I noticed you also testified about having offenders pay fines that would help for the education programs which part of the bill that Senator Cornyn and I are trying to get done so I'll I'll put that in uh in writing.

Yes. Yes. And

Okay.

sure.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

If you wanna say something about that go ahead, it's my pleasure.

Yeah, I and I have much more about that.

I'm sorry about that.

Okay well please go ahead, I just wasn't there trying to be

Thank you.

Trying to be polite, but pure. Okay. But please go ahead, yes.

No, and I, and I have much more about that in my written testimony, Mm-hmm. but one of the things that we're seeing as a very promising program and which we lift up in our Buyers Unmasked report are these um several week court mandated buyer accountability programs where sex buyers essentially have to engage in these group um programs and exercises that uh we have found um really change mindsets over time and we found them to be very promising we actually, we include several of the evaluations. before and after in our report um they've been incredibly successful not like your typical john schools um where you know they try to measure recidivism which really isn't effective with this population because as we know they're not really arrested to begin with but these have shown to really shift mindsets and um what they do is essentially fine the sex buyers and then what happens is the fines go in to pay for survivor services so it's not only a a deterrent but it's a form of restitution that helps finance uh victim services at a time where state budgets are really strained and you know federal uh grants have been uh uncertain so um it uh several states have introduced this type of legislation right now and we're finding them to be really promising.

Very good. Senator Blackburn.

Uh thank you, Mister Chairman, uh Ms. Shehan, wanna come to you first. Thank you for mentioning my report act. We were delighted to get that signed into law. And I think it's so significant that the Report Act in the first year since its passage that NCHMECH has seen a three hundred and twenty-five percent increase in the tips on the tip line. And now we are we have the Safe Cloud Storage Act, which will allow law enforcement and the court to hold all that information so we can have more people actually into court and convicted and jailed and off the streets. But talk a little bit about the impact that Report Act has had on opening that pathway for this increased reporting and why we need to expand this.

Yes. Thank you so much, Senator. We um Are so grateful for the work that you did with the Report Act. Uh, as you mentioned, we've seen a dramatic rise in reports prior to the passing of the Report Act. We got about fifty percent of our reports from online companies and about fifty percent from the public. And last year alone, that was over ninety percent from online companies. So we are seeing a shift in reporting. Um, and what we are still hoping to see in the future is an increase in detection and more robust reporting. So we're hoping for additional attention in that area. But based on what we're seeing alone, we can now better get our hands around the plight of child sex trafficking online. We had been calling attention to this for many years, but now in seeing the reports, we have a much better idea of how it's happening, who it's impacting, and who the perpetrators are.

Well, and that is the reason Senator Blumenthal and I have been joined by ninety-one of our Senate colleagues in passing the Kids on Line Safety Act. And working on that legislation for five years, it points to specifically why big tech has to be held accountable for safety by design and you know I find it so interesting that some people try to say it's a, free speech bill, it's not, it's product safety bill. And the only industrial sector that does not have safety standards is the virtual space. You go buy a car, a toaster, a coffee pot, a mattress, a hair dryer, everything has safety standards and warnings. The virtual space does not. And these platforms are killing our kids. just absolutely killing our kids. And it's astounding from the research, the number of kids that meet their traffickers in the virtual space. Mister Thibault, let me come to you. I was, having worked in this space for years. I was very pleased when I saw you turn your attention to this issue. In Tennessee and in Nashville where I live, we have some wonderful organizations, and I think They all um have great information and great successes to share. And my family's been very involved in all of that work for years. But you um talked a little bit and you used your map on the entrapment and the enticement angle that comes in on children and what is happening to them. I want you to talk for just a moment about how social media is actually facilitating the work of these predators and um these groomers that are going after our children.

Well I thin thank you, Senator Blackburn. I think, you know, if you just look at in twenty twenty four alone, the FBI received fifty five thousand sextortion reports, over forty suicides because of it. So much of this is being done on social media and Especially when it comes to sextortion, a lot of it is being done to young boys that are especially

Yeah, that is primarily those sites like Look Mac singing and aren't these kind of the gateways for a lot of these workers?

It it's happening on almost all social medias, yes ma'am.

On all of them?

Um but I think one of the things that is that has to be changed is there is a lot uh, you look at Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, and there I believe it was twenty twenty-four as well that Meta took down seventy thousand accounts in Nigeria alone um because they were trying to sextort boys and girls right here in America so this is a huge problem that is not being talked about enough and they are looking for the vulnerability to lure a boy or girl getting a photo from them and then holding them hostage to it and it especially for young boys that have a platform in high school that are maybe an athlete or something like that because they feel like they have more to lose although you know anybody suffering is is terrible, and so they're kind of isolating them out more so than the rest because they have a a platform, and and they don't wanna lose it, and it's leading to a lot of boys and girls that are suffering because of it.

Well, Senator Klobuchar mentioned some of the work we've done with trying to build a database. Uh, one of the things uh, we've had several pieces of legislation, the Save Girls Act, which is grants that go to local law and enforcement and Ms. Joffe, I think your organization, you all have worked with some of those. We have one that will put uh awareness signage in our interstate highway rest centers so that kids have a way to contact if they are being trafficked. But fighting this and um really helping arm up these kids so they know they can fight fight back they do not have to be a victim. And then holding these platforms, on-line platforms, whether it is some of the AI platforms or uh the social media platforms responsible for what they are doing to damage our children is going to be important. You are each doing wonderful work and we're very grateful for that. Thank you for being here today.

Thank you, Senator Blackburn. Miss Doe, can I just come back to you and ask just a a bit more about your story. When investigators first showed you the pictures of your daughter and the abuse that your ex-husband had perpetrated on your daughter, did you understand then that those pictures had been shared and were circulating wildly, you know, out uh wildly and widely out in the world? I mean, what what was that like?

Well, the whole thing I was taken by surprise when they first came to us and told me what was happening. I was confused. I didn't understand when, where, how. But in the end, after they explained to me, yes sadly, I understood that they were circulated in abuses worldwide.

Let me ask you this. Are images, that was twenty years ago, approximately?

Twenty five years ago.

Twenty five years ago, are images of your daughter still online?

They're still online. They've made movies from her. images, they've taken a culmination of the abusive images and created a montage, like you go to a wedding or another affair and that's how they're played now. Um they change hashtags, they'll change something in the color of the shirt, they'll add a flower, they add a bunny to the picture, so it makes it harder to identify the picture because you're changing the hashtag of the picture. So it's a different format that they have to look for. So

Have you had any experience with the social media platforms? where this material often circulates. And this is child sex abuse material. Have have you worked with them? Have you asked them to take down your daughter's pictures? What what's your experience with them been like?

I've been fighting since day one. That's all I do. I contact people, I hound people down. I said, if we were famous, if she was a celebrity, those pictures would be down. I said, she's not famous. She's famous to me, but evidently not famous enough to the world unless people here do something about it. Um. I've asked, I've repeatedly, I've hired lawyers. I've done it personally, asking, I have had a fight with Google about it, saying for the safety of my child, you have to get these images off. I said, her her pictures of her abuse are out there. People know. We have a neighbor at one point who was found with her im who was caught with her images online. We were notified by the Department of Justice, this pervert lived blocks away from us. We didn't know him until I got the notification that he had her abusive images. I said, it's imperative that you get these things off the computer. And what did they tell me? I have to contact the webmaster and speak to the webmaster and have them take it down. But in order for me to contact the webmaster, I have to give him my name, my phone number, my address. So why don't I just give him my child?

Why do you think the these social media companies aren't more proactive in in taking down this material?

Oh, because they're making money off of it. They're profiting.

Right.

That's what the bottom line is with everything, profit.

Yep. Yep, profit, profit. Here, twenty six years later, five, six years later, your daughter's material's still online and they're making money on it, the social media companies, and that's the bottom line.

Absolutely.

And we all know what it really is. You know, this is why I think it, it is so imperative that the full Senate take up and pass the legislation that this committee passed unanimously which would allow you and your daughter to get into court and to sue any company that knows or should know that your daughter's images are on their platform and they won't take it down. As you said, why should you have to chase anybody? Why should you be the one who has to police it? You shouldn't have to. They know they should do it. They're evading accountability cuz they make money on it. And I just wanna say again to the big tech companies, no amount of profit justifies destroying people's lives. And that's what they're doing, destroying your daughter's life, destroying other people's lives, cuz it makes them money. And it's time that the United States Senate showed a little independence from these tech companies and actually did something about it. So I just renew again my call to the Senate, to my colleagues, for heaven's sake, stop taking big tech's money, number one, and number two, pass this bill and give victims right to, rights to get into court and to protect themselves. Mister TVO, I just wanna put a bow on what we were talking about so that people understand clearly a hundred percent what needs to happen here, thinking about the, the tens of, probably hundreds of thousands of kids whose images are online, but who are unidentified. What Congress could do right now is we could pass legislation that would fully fund new victim identification specialists analysts on a permanent basis into the Department of Homeland Security and wherever else they might be helpful. We could do that on a permanent basis, and that would have a tremendous effect in identifying these kids, rescuing these kids, and bringing their perpetrators, their abusers to justice. Is, have I got that right?

Absolutely.

What else do we need to understand about what, what we need to do right now in order to help these kids?

I think to add on to what Miss Jane was saying, um, one of the things that we would love is for the Supreme Court to hear the Doe versus Twitter case. And we are submitting an amicus brief on behalf of the two boys who were extorted on Snapchat and then distributed on Twitter. That would be pretty helpful as well.

Well, that'd be fantastic. Um, that would be fantastic. And and since you opened that door, I'll just say that uh i- it's time for Congress to pass legislation that removes the section two thirty shield that prevents these companies from ever being held accountable. These companies are so outrageous. You know, they're just outrageous. On the one hand they claim, well, we're not publishers, therefore we can't be held accountable. And then they turn around and say, well, we're publishers and therefore we have First Amendment immunity. That's just absurd. There's no company or corporation in America other than the social media companies who are completely and totally shielded from any kind of liability no matter what they do. You know, if your car blows up, you can sue the carmaker. And guess what? When you do, the cars work a whole lot better. These social media companies, Miss Doe, none, no victim in here today, not a one of you can get into court against these social media companies. That is just wrong. And I'll tell you why it is. It's because the amount of money that flows to this body from those companies keeps the courtroom door shut for you. We need to open it up. And we need to say that you're more important than any amount of money. The Senate has the chance to do that. I wanna thank all of our witnesses for being here today. Thank you for your tremendous efforts. Thank you for your bravery and your courage, Miss Doe. Thanks to each of you for your efforts to help children, rescue children, protect the vulnerable and the exploited. You know, America is a great nation because America is a And we see the goodness of the nation, I think, in front of us today in your efforts to help the most vulnerable. And I hope that this body will recommit itself to that task. God bless each of you. The record will remain open for two weeks. And with that, this hearing is adjourned.