- The latest findings

on human traffickingaround the world are out.

On Thursday, the StateDepartment released its annual

Trafficking in Persons, or TIP Report.

Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey,

who helped form some of thenation's human trafficking laws

some 20 years ago, says it'sa tough but fair report.

He's says, "China continues to own

"the worst human trafficking rating

"of major nations in theworld, scoring a tier 3.

"Hong Kong, increasingly under the thumb

"of the Chinese government,is almost as bad,

"landing on the tier 2 watchlist."

This year, of the first time,

the report identified some governments

as complicit in trafficking.

In addition to China,those government include

Cuba, North Korea,Russia, and Afghanistan.

Their poor status in the TIP Report

could trigger sanctions and aide cuts.

Joining us now with more is Linda Smith,

she's the founder and president

of Shared Hope International,

and a leader in the fightagainst human trafficking.

Linda, thanks for joining us.

- It's good to be with you.

- This year is the first yearthat the State Department

has named governments

that are complicit in human trafficking.

Will that make a differencein calling them out,

especially if the US puts sanctions

and aide cuts into effect?

- Well, in many of those countries,

there's already diplomaticissues beyond this issue,

but I do think that they donot want to be called out,

so I just think the reportitself does make a difference.

It also calls attention tothe human rights violations

all over the world that havetended to not be addressed.

You know, China has a mostfavored nation status.

There are some things that someof us just don't agree with

when they have these hugeviolations of human rights.

- This is the 20th yearthat the State Department

has issued this report.

What's your take onhow effective its been?

- It's been very effective.

I started with the very first one.

Shared Hope International didsome of the investigations

of countries by going in tosee what it really looked like

in another corporationcalled Trafficking Markets,

and we were able to see whatthe issues in trafficking.

Calling the differentcountries out on those

has been a long process.

I think the biggest issue right now

is that the world doeswant to accept the fact

that the demand for commercialsex is driving the market.

So you'll even see in this report

both Secretary Pompeoand Ambassador Richmond

are kind of light on their statements.

They talk about how thetraffickers are victimizers,

and to prosecute,

but then in their statementsthey do not mention buyers.

So from the beginningwe've had a hard time

with society consideringthat buyers demanding sex,

especially with vulnerablechildren in the United States,

are driving a market andif we do not focus on them

we will have expanded markets worldwide.

Some of the countries stillhave legalized prostitution

in their countries that legalizes it

to buy and sell individuals.

Now, America doesn't have that,

except in some isolated places,

but we believe at Shared Hope

that that is facilitating,encouraging trafficking,

so the government shouldbe downgraded for that.

But I see, again, in this report

that demand is under-emphasized

and unfortunately countriesthat legalize the sale

of vulnerable individualsare not downgraded.

Many of them are still a level 1.

- Linda, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,

you mentioned him,

noted that the pandemic mayactually be helping traffickers

because there's more peopleright now who are vulnerable

and so it's easier to exploit them.

What are you seeing?

- Yes, I'm gonna focus on America

on this particular question

because even though we havepeople around the world,

we mostly have them pretty isolated

in the villages that werun to keep them safe,

like in India.

But in America, what wefind is the online sales,

the activities, the stings,

there's even more, usually men,

than ever shopping for children.

So the children are online andthe traffickers are online,

so all of those apps thatkids play around with,

thinking they're safe,

are very, very dangerous.

And so we're seeing an increase

and I think most of our partners

and others that we're talkingto are seeing an increase.

Buyers don't seem to be afraid

of going and buying sex with someone,

and in our case we focuson children in America,

in this pandemic.

I guess if you don'tcare about a child enough

that you would go buy sex with them,

you probably don't careif you give them a disease

or maybe if you get one.

- All right, Linda Smith ofShared Hope International.

Thank you, Linda, foryour time and information.

- Thank you.