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

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


Jonathan Shrier

Acting Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council

New York, New York

June 30, 2025

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.