On September 9, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on the “Trafficking Awareness Training for Health Care Act” (H.R. 5411), sponsored by Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC).
The bill would authorize the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to award grants to medical and nursing schools that develop best practices to train health care professionals to recognize, and address the needs of, victims of severe forms of human trafficking. Speaking in support of the bill, Chair Joe Pitts (R-PA) said, “The bill would support the development of evidence-based best practices for health care providers to identify and assist victims of human trafficking. Health care providers are among the few professionals who have the opportunity to interact with trafficked women and girls. Placed in this unique and critical position, health care workers require heightened skills to help these women and girls.”
Citing a 2014 study that found “almost 88 percent of interviewed survivors of domestic sex trafficking had encountered one or more health care professionals sometime during the period in which they were being trafficked, yet none were identified as a victim during these encounters,” Katherine Chon, senior advisor on Trafficking in Persons, Administration for Children and Families, expressed the need for additional research into the needs of trafficking victims. Ms. Chon noted that the bill’s emphasis on developing “best practices” may be premature, saying, “Unfortunately, there is little evidence-based research on the intersection of the health care system and human trafficking, especially when it comes to the impact of training efforts. Therefore, it may be difficult to develop best practices according to the timeline noted in the bill. An alternate option is to identify and develop ‘promising practices.’”
“Clearly, health care providers are ‘first responders’ and have a unique opportunity to communicate with and intervene on behalf of victims,” said Laura J. Lederer, director, The Bastian Center for the Study of Human Trafficking, Indiana Wesleyan University. Ms. Lederer continued, “For this reason, health care providers must be aware of the signs of trafficking in order to identify victims. An important part of this training will be to help health care providers understand the coercive dynamic of trafficking, especially the extreme degree of control exercised by the trafficker, and the prevalence of criminal exploitation of women and children. Specialized trainings, tailored for the health care sector, are a critical part of the solution. Setting up internal protocols, procedures, and regulations may also further assist medical care providers in identifying, treating, responding to, and reporting (where necessary) trafficking victims.”
The following witnesses also testified:
