20th Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum – Human Trafficking/Illicit Finance

To kick off the third panel, Anne Basham, CEO at Anti-Trafficking International, introduces the crowd to the issues surrounding human trafficking and illicit finance. Ms. Basham first touches upon the crisis in Afghanistan. After the devastating decision to withdraw from the country, the US left millions of young girls and women to the tenacious and abhorrent Taliban. Since the exit, poor and destitute families either sell their young daughters, or the Taliban just takes them. Ms. Basham explains that some are

as young as 8 years old, and there will be an estimated 110 million child and forced marriages within the next decade globally. Though most often just see human trafficking as a humanitarian crisis, it also is a financial crisis for the US and its allies.

Ms. Basham goes on to say that if the USA and its allies stopped human trafficking today, more than $4 Trillion could be saved by 2030. The issue not only transcends a humanitarian crisis, but it transcends a financial crisis too. Human trafficking and the funds gained from it escalate into a security issue. The funds that thugs and terrorists gain from it help them fund their weapons, vehicles, gas, and other operations – putting the USA at serious risk.

Ms. Basham then finishes her portion of the forum on a better note, claiming that the 1st member of notorious ISIS has been charged with both genocide and human trafficking thanks to the Germans. On top of that, we here at the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum have drafted a letter to the UN to bring human trafficking as the central, priority issue at the next meeting in September in NYC. Ms. Basham concludes, “At the end of the day, there are changes that all parliamentarians can make in all countries to end modern slavery and human trafficking.