Month: January 2023

Source: United States Department of Justice News

The Justice Department filed a complaint today against the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs (WDMA) alleging that the WDMA discriminated on the basis of sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when it offered a woman a lower salary than similarly or less qualified men for the same job. Title VII is a federal statute that prohibits compensation discrimination and other forms of employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion.

“It is a violation of federal law for employers to offer a qualified woman less pay simply because of her sex,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to confronting the gender pay gap and holding state and local government employers accountable when they discriminate on the basis of sex in setting compensation. Title VII is a critical tool in bringing an end to unlawful actions that perpetuate gender pay disparities in the workplace.”

The lawsuit, filed by the United States in the Western District of Wisconsin, alleges that the WDMA engaged in compensation discrimination based on sex by offering Michelle Hartness a lower salary than it offered or paid similarly or less qualified men for a director position in the WDMA. According to the complaint, Ms. Hartness was selected for a director position, but the WDMA offered her a salary below the salary range stated in the job announcement. When Ms. Hartness pointed this out and asked for a salary commensurate with the range from the posting and her skills and experience, the WDMA offered her the lowest salary in the range. Ms. Hartness asked for a salary consistent with her qualifications and on par with the man holding the other director position in the division. The WDMA rejected her request. Instead, the WDMA conducted another selection process and offered the Director position to only men, at salaries significantly higher than the salary it offered Ms. Hartness, even though she was as or more qualified than these men. The WDMA ultimately hired a less qualified man at a higher salary than it offered Ms. Hartness.

Ms. Hartness filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC’s Milwaukee Area Office investigated the charge and found reasonable cause to believe that Ms. Hartness was discriminated against because of her sex. After unsuccessful conciliation efforts, the EEOC referred the charge to the Justice Department.

Ensuring that local, county and state governments comply with Title VII is a top priority of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Additional information about the Civil Rights Division and the jurisdiction of the Employment Litigation Section is available on its websites at www.justice.gov/crt/ and https://www.justice.gov/crt/employment-litigation-section.

Senior Trial Attorneys Patricia Stasco and Hector Ruiz of the Civil Rights Division’s Employment Litigation Section are prosecuting the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Amy Solomon, the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs. I am so pleased to be part of this commemoration and to have the privilege of bringing today’s inspiring event to a close.

I want to thank Kris Rose and our amazing team in the Office for Victims of Crime for making this day possible. And I’m grateful for the words of support and encouragement from our Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General Clarke. You can see that our commitment to human trafficking victims is truly embraced at the highest levels of the Department of Justice.

We are, of course, very thankful to our speakers for giving us so much to think about and for motivating us to action. And we are grateful to everyone in this room for your leadership in your communities and for the work you do every day on behalf of human trafficking survivors.

As our speakers have made clear, this work has never been more important. The more we learn about human trafficking, the more we appreciate the toll it takes on families, on communities and, especially, on individuals.

But as we have heard today, these challenges can be eased through the support of compassionate providers, well-trained professionals and intentional action at all levels of government – and just as important, by amplifying the voices of survivors themselves.

OVC is working hard, every day and in partnership with so many of you, to lift up the voices of human trafficking victims. OVC has grounded their programs and activities in what survivors tell us, improving and supporting responses that are trauma-informed, victim-centered, culturally relevant and tailored to the unique needs of every victim from every community.

For example, the voices of survivors serve as the foundation for the National Standards of Care for Anti-Trafficking Service Providers, which ensures greater coordination and continuity of care and assistance. These standards are being developed in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Trafficking in Persons and will be informed by people with lived experience. They will articulate our expectation that federally-funded services should always be victim-centered and developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate.

OVC’s contributions and leadership, and the contributions of everyone in this room, continue to move the field forward. Today, we are responding to human trafficking victims with deeper understanding of their needs, obstacles and interests. We’re providing more effective services and wider access to resources. And we’re helping to deliver a greater measure of justice to human trafficking survivors and a very real hope for a safer and brighter future.

We have done this together, and I believe that the next 20 years will continue to advance the tremendous progress we have made over the last 20. I could not be more proud of what we have accomplished together, and I look forward to what we will achieve in the years ahead.

I thank you all for being part of today’s commemoration, and on behalf of all of us at the Department of Justice, thank you for everything you do to support and assist survivors of human trafficking every day.

This concludes our ceremony.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Thank you, Kris, for that introduction and for your leadership, which is so powerful, always. I want to say good afternoon to all of you, to Members of Congress, including Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, and to my DOJ colleagues here and to other esteemed guests.

As you all know, human trafficking, be it labor or sex trafficking, feeds on exploitation and often upon members of our communities who are already vulnerable, like unhoused youth, persons without lawful immigration status or those experiencing poverty. Data also suggest that while human trafficking impacts every racial and ethnic group in America, it disproportionately impacts Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color. 

Victims of human trafficking often face challenges in accessing trauma-informed and culturally responsive assistance and support and may encounter numerous obstacles when accessing justice or services. Human trafficking, with its complex and interlocking issues, demands the best of us and the best from us.

It is imperative that we employ victim-centered, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive approaches to this work. Over the years we’ve learned not just the value of this approach, but frankly, the consequence of its failure. Earning the trust of survivors is an important step in detecting trafficking in the first place. Building rapport and engaging with survivors is instrumental to removing barriers that can otherwise prevent survivors from coming forward, accessing services and from potentially participating as witnesses in successful investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking cases. And finally, continued and collaborative engagement with this process and people with lived experiences is fundamental to a holistic and enduring effort to build capacity to respond to human trafficking. 

Progress is not guaranteed. It is hard-fought, and it is earned by the hard work we — and especially all of you — put in day after day. You all move us towards progress.

The Justice Department’s National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking reflects the department’s whole-of-agency approach to ensuring that victims of human trafficking are properly identified and receive the necessary support and services to heal and ultimately, to thrive.

Our FBI Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Unit partners with a range of federal, state, local and Tribal authorities to identify and investigate these crimes.

Our FBI Victim Services Division makes certain that identified victims understand their rights under the Victims Rights and Restitution Act and Crime Victims’ Rights Act and are provided critical services immediately following identification.

Our specialized prosecutors in the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section work with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices nationwide to strategically and compassionately prosecute these cases.

Our Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section helps recover traffickers’ ill-gotten gains and ensure that survivors receive the mandatory restitution they’re entitled to. They also build affirmative cases against traffickers by identifying money flows and related financial investigative steps to identify the traffickers’ financial networks with a particular focus on money laundering charges.

Our Office of Justice Programs provide grants, training, technical assistance, research, statistics, and other resources to improve our capacity to respond to human trafficking.

And as you just heard from Kris in her welcome remarks, OVC in particular is spearheading our grant making efforts, making it possible for communities to better serve trafficking survivors.

Our Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) funds community-based efforts to address the needs of children and youth victims of sex trafficking. OVW also provides funding to support prevention, intervention, and response activities, including culturally specific supportive services for American Indian and Alaska Native victims of sex trafficking. 

I am so proud of the work and the progress this department has made and of the transformations in the anti-trafficking field, including many spearheaded by the Office for Victims of Crime.

Over the past two decades, the funding and resources provided by OVC to grantees and partners throughout the nation has grown exponentially, as Congress has recognized the vital importance of expanding access to comprehensive victim services. Currently, OVC manages an unprecedented number of anti-trafficking projects and grants, working with an exceptional range of organizations — many of whom are represented actually in this room today — who are providing services to a record number of victims and survivors of human trafficking. The performance data OVC grantees report tells the story of the incredible volume of case management, housing, legal, employment, supportive and mental health services that they have provided. In the most recent reporting period, between July 2021 and June 2022, grantees reported assisting well over 16,000 individuals across the country. That’s a record-high number that reflects both the enormous impact of this funding but really illustrates a mere fraction of the harm that trafficking causes.  

So, as everyone has said before me, while we have much to celebrate, we remember and use today to remember that still so much more must be done for the most vulnerable among us. Knowing that you all are committed to doing this work with us a great hope because you are the best of us, and you will move us from progress to promise.  

I now have the pleasure of introducing my colleague Kristen Clarke, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, whose lawyers and prosecutor and staff have bene hard at work tacking human trafficking. So, please join me in welcoming AAG Clarke to the podium. 

Thank you.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Good afternoon.  Thank you, Kris, for that very kind introduction. 

Today we recognize National Human Trafficking Prevention Month. And we recognize 20 years of anti-trafficking programs by the Department’s Office for Victims of Crime.

Human trafficking is a heinous crime with devastating consequences.

Traffickers prey upon the most vulnerable members of our society.

They exploit and control their victims, often through force, violence, or abuse.

And victims experience unimaginable harm, trauma, and stigma – all of which can prevent them from receiving the support they need and deserve.

The Department of Justice is committed to combatting human trafficking from every angle, and to vindicating the rights of victims and survivors.

We are committed to expanding our capacity to prevent human trafficking, including by working with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial law enforcement partners.

We are committed to expanding our capacity to prosecute perpetrators of human trafficking crimes across all 94 of our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices.

Prosecutors in our Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit work closely with AUSAs and law enforcement agencies to streamline investigations, ensure consistent application of trafficking statutes, and identify multijurisdictional trafficking networks. 

In addition, in June 2021, I established Joint Task Force Alpha in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security. 

The Task Force’s mission is to work within the United States and with our foreign partners in the Northern Triangle and Mexico to dismantle the most dangerous human smuggling and human trafficking networks. 

The Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section helps lead and has numerous federal prosecutors assigned to the  Task Force. 

We also are committed to providing protection and trauma-informed assistance to victims and survivors of human trafficking.

For two decades, the Department’s Office for Victims of Crime has led our efforts to protect and support survivors.

In that time, this work has greatly expanded. In 2003, we issued almost $10 million in grants to combat human trafficking. 

By 2022, we issued more than $90 million. 

And that figure will grow even more in the year ahead, with up to $95 million in awards available. 

I am proud that the funding OVC manages is the largest amount of federal funding dedicated to supporting survivors of human trafficking.

This funding is used to support direct services for survivors, including housing, employment, and legal assistance. 

It also supports multidisciplinary task forces, state-level capacity building, and a range of training and technical assistance – all aimed at combatting human trafficking.

Together, these resources help ensure the safety and wellbeing of survivors. 

These resources empower survivors to help bring their traffickers to justice, including through testimony and victim-impact statements.   

And these resources help prevent future crimes. 

I am grateful to OVC – and to everyone involved in this work – for how much you have done to advance our anti-trafficking efforts thus far. But I am grateful more for how much you will continue to do in the years ahead. 

Your work has made a real difference in the lives of survivors across the country, and it will continue to do so year in and year out. 

Building an effective response to human trafficking takes commitment and collaboration at every level of government and beyond. 

It demands a multi-disciplinary approach, and partnerships between subject-matter experts, law enforcement, and stakeholders. 

And most important, it requires listening to victims and survivors and incorporating their perspectives into everything that we do. 

Nearly one year ago, I announced the Department’s National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking.

This multi-year framework harnesses our law enforcement, prosecution, and grant-making capabilities to more effectively dismantling trafficking threats. 

The result is an approach to combating trafficking that puts victims first.

And in the last year, we have put these policies into place.

In support of the Strategy, we have released an updated version of the Attorney General Guidelines for Victim and Witness Assistance. 

This version incorporates enhanced protections and addresses specific considerations for vulnerable victims and members of marginalized communities. 

We have developed and disseminated expanded training resources for federal prosecutors, to offer strategies for enforcing restitution and forfeiture provisions for human trafficking victims.

We have expanded the scope of our Housing Assistance Grants for Victims of Human Trafficking, so that this program now covers both emergency and transitional housing.

And we have launched an interagency Forced Labor Initiative to enhance the detection, investigation, and prosecution of federal criminal forced labor crimes. 

This initiative is led by a committee of experts from the FBI, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, and the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security.

As I said, these are great strides forward. But there is much more to do. So, as we celebrate our accomplishments over the last 20 years, we will also recommit ourselves to doing this important work.

We will continue to bring the full force of the Department to the fight against human trafficking. 

We will continue to bring traffickers to justice. 

We will continue to disrupt and dismantle the networks that enable these crimes. 

And we will continue to show victims, by word and by deed, that we are worthy of their trust.

I’m now pleased to turn the podium back over to Kris.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Good afternoon.

It is an honor to be here among you all today. Welcome to this anniversary commemoration to reflect on the department’s efforts to advance the nation’s response to human trafficking and for joining us in our enduring cause to help crime survivors find their justice.

Thank you, Attorney General Garland, Associate Attorney General Gupta, Assistant Attorney General Clarke, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Solomon, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, colleagues, friends and fellow champions in our cause for joining us today.

We observed Dr. King’s birthday earlier this month and it reminded me of his words.

“We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always right to do right.”

The Department of Justice, through its components, has built a multi-layered and robust response to the crime of human trafficking. Over the course of today’s program, you will hear about how DOJ, along with our federal partners, Congressional champions, stakeholders in the field, grantees and survivors of human trafficking have worked together over the past 20 years to ensure that survivors find healing and justice.

OVC first started in the anti-trafficking field in 1998 when we awarded our very first grant with funding from the Victims of Crime Act, or VOCA. It wasn’t a lot of money, and you could say what we knew about trafficking at that time wasn’t much more. But we knew there were survivors in need, and that grant provided a path to assist them and a path for OVC to learn.

Two years later, with the passage of the landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act, we were able to develop, expand, and strengthen services to reach more survivors. And before we knew it, Congress appropriated $10 million dollars to OVC in 2002, and we dug in. The following year, in 2003, we funded the first 12 programs under the Services for Trafficking Victims Discretionary grant program.

These programs were comprehensive, inclusive of all victims and all forms of human trafficking, and flexible so that service providers could be responsive to a wide array of needs.

This marked the beginning of a new chapter in OVC’s history and an enhanced focus within our organization. Our aim was to raise awareness, identify survivors and connect them to much-needed services. In 2010, OVC partnered with the Bureau of Justice Assistance to begin co-funding what’s known as the Enhanced Collaborative Model to Combat Human Trafficking. These multi-disciplinary task forces use a holistic approach to identify victims of trafficking, address their unique needs, and prosecute cases at the federal, Tribal, state, and local levels.

Working with all our partners across the country, we were able to identify strong or promising practices which share in resources such as the Development and Operations Roadmap for Multidisciplinary Anti-Human Trafficking Task Forces;  the Faces of Human Trafficking online video series and most recently our anti-trafficking graphic novels written for young survivors of trafficking to help them navigate the judicial system.

Today, all of the Office of Justice Programs’ law enforcement, juvenile justice and victim services human trafficking initiatives are housed within OVC; collaborating and modeling the multi-disciplinary approach we promote in our programs. And we’ve gone from $10 million in 2003 to this year awarding over $90 million in grant funding. Our grantees have gone from serving just over 5,000 clients in 2016 to today serving an unprecedented 16,000 clients based on our most recent reporting period. Our Human Trafficking Division, lead by Brecht Donoghue, and made up of nine dedicated professionals manages approximately 500 grant awards worth $360 million. I know I may be a bit biased, but I believe our Human Trafficking Division is one of the hardest working teams in OJP. I’d like to ask the Human Trafficking Division staff who are here with us today, to stand and be acknowledged.  Now, that is truly something to celebrate.

Getting to where we are in our country’s efforts to end human trafficking took all of us. It took the loud voices, the quiet voices, the sometimes shaking but still strong voices. It took the brave voices of those who survived, and those who spoke for the ones who could no longer. Your voices have been lifted up and have shaped what we know today and will form what we learn tomorrow.

It took the work of victim service providers and advocates who walked side-by-side with survivors and created programs to meet their needs, wherever they were. Adapting, collaborating, expanding and innovating to make sure no one was left behind but, more importantly, to make certain that everybody was included.

It took the work of health care providers who understood the unique physical and mental health care needs these patients often required. Recognizing that providing culturally responsive, patient-centered care is a critical component to meeting survivors where they are.

It took the work of dedicated law enforcement officers and prosecutors who were trained in trauma-informed techniques. Knowing that justice may look different for each survivor but that everyone deserves the same access to that justice.

It took law makers and appropriators who were open to the idea that combatting and responding to human trafficking is not just a whole of government concept but a whole of society imperative. Appreciating that funding is the lifeblood of these efforts and getting it in the hands of the people doing the work is not only a matter of how, but how fast.

As far as we’ve come, and as much as we are here to celebrate the good work that has been done; it’s clear, we have miles to go and work yet to do to end trafficking and provide pathways towards healing. It will take all of us, and it will take all we’ve got.

That’s why today we have arranged for you to hear – quoting Dr. King again, the “passionate concern of dedicated individuals” from Department of Justice leadership to pioneers and innovators in the field, to individuals who’ve survived. They’re going to talk about our theme today: Collaboration, Transformation, and Impact, and they are going to talk about how the funding made possible by Congress for services, training and technical assistance, is critical to moving the needle for survivors of human trafficking across the country.

With that, it is my distinct honor to introduce our first speaker today. Now, as Attorney General you can imagine there are a few issues that require your time and attention. When it comes to matters that impact people, when it comes to survivors of crime, this Attorney General understands the importance of his presence. This, no doubt, comes from his firsthand experience working with victims of crime as both an AUSA and as the lead prosecutor on the Oklahoma City bombing cases. When you hear him talk about our duty to serve crime victims, you know you are listening to a true champion for justice. We thank you for speaking with us today on this important topic on this important occasion.

Distinguished guests, it’s my pleasure to introduce the 86th Attorney General of the United States Merrick Garland.