The RegTech Pulse

From Child Slave to the United Nations

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July 30th is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. In this episode, Rani Hong, a survivor of child slavery, shares her harrowing journey from being stolen from her family and sold into slavery, to eventually escaping and using her experience to advocate for others. She highlights her efforts to bring global attention to the issue of child slavery and her advocacy at the United Nations, and her work in establishing Freedom Seal, the organization behind the first global mark of trust awarded to companies committed to the reduction of forced labor and associated financial crimes, as well as human rights abuse.

Learn more:
thefreedomseal.com
risk.lexisnexis.com/global/en/insights-resources/infographic/take-a-stand-against-human-trafficking
un.org/en/observances/end-human-trafficking-day
risk.lexisnexis.com/global/en/products/worldcompliance-data
risk.lexisnexis.com/global/en/products/bridger-insight-xg-global

DISCLAIMER: The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to and shall not be used as legal advice.  The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. LexisNexis Risk Solutions does not warrant that the information provided in this podcast is accurate or error-free.

Speaker 1:

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Red Tech Pulse. You're here with Julia and today we have a very special episode to mark July 30th, which is World Day Against the Trafficking in People. I am very honoured to be joined by Rani Hong, who is the CEO of Freedom Seal. This is the organisation behind the first global mark of trust which is awarded to companies who are committed to the reduction of forced labour and associated financial crimes, as well as human rights abuse. As a child, rani was kidnapped and sold into slavery. As a former UN Special Advisor on Human Trafficking in 2015, she participated in the UNGA to Aid in Development of the 2030 Sustainable Strategy and Policy. Rani was India's Woman of the Year in 2018, and she is a credible voice behind the issue of forced labour and related financial crimes. So, rani, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really really pleased to have you on this episode.

Speaker 2:

Great. Thank you, julia, and I look forward to our conversation and raising awareness on this issue.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. You spoke at a couple of our recent events and it's an incredible story. But I wondered if, before we get into that, maybe if you could just introduce yourself a little bit, and particularly some of the work that you do with Freedom Seal.

Speaker 2:

Yes, my name is Ronnie Ronnie Hong and I am the CEO of Freedom Seal Global. I am based here in the Seattle Washington USA area, and Freedom Seal's goal is to be able to help companies be proactive when it comes to preventing forced labor within their supply chains.

Speaker 1:

And a little bit about the nature of the problem, because I think sometimes people you know forced labor, human trafficking, modern slavery it's terms which people sometimes use interchangeably. A little bit about, maybe, what some of the definitions are and also some of the numbers of the problem and the scale of the problem, because I think that it's a lot more prevalent than a lot of people would know or would like to think it is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're right, julia, there are a lot of different terms that are being used and could be a little confusing, and so, to clarify for your users, we use the term human trafficking, and that's exactly selling, buying or selling people for a profit. That's exactly, you know, selling, buying or selling people for a profit. And in those in the slavery we call it modern day slavery is another term we use, and that's, you know, today's world, or what people understand. But what we know is that this issue is more than just a number, right, it's a real human face, and so I have partnered with many around the world, and, according to the International Labor Organization, they estimate 20.9 million people are victims of forced labor at any point, and this represents about three in every 1,000 of today's world population. And then, of these, 90% are exploited by private individuals and enterprises. We also know other figures, as 50 million slaves in the world overall, right, so we have different people, different trafficking within different sectors, and so sometimes their numbers and stats are slightly different, but that gives you the global scope of the problem.

Speaker 2:

But you might ask, well, who are these victims, right, and what makes them vulnerable to forced labor? And well, what he said, the other term is forced labor. Forced labor affects all populations, it's groups, it's young people, it's old, male, female, but some of these groups are more vulnerable than the others. So and then we talk about, you know, we talk about the migrant workers who are brought in to countries to do certain types of jobs, but they're forced to work against their will and a lot of times, without no pay. Often we'll see these migrant workers working for 12 hours a day and with very little breaks, and the conditions they're living in is like slave-like conditions. So that's why they call it modern-day slavery.

Speaker 1:

So I think a lot of you think slavery, and you sort of think, oh, you know, we're past that now and it's really, it's quite shocking and quite upsetting when you talk about numbers of that scale. But you obviously have firsthand experience of this, of this, and I hoped that you could share a little bit of your, of your personal testimony, um, and obviously how, how that sort of spurred you into into the career and the life that you have now yeah, you know.

Speaker 2:

Just let's go back a little bit now. You know, I tell my story, um, the story of a little girl stolen from a family, uh, at the age of seven. And we're not talking about the slavery of the history books, but the modern-day system of slavery that traffics human beings. So, again, my name is Rani and I am from a small village in southern part of India, in Kerala, and I was stolen from my family when I was again seven years old. Can we imagine a little girl that was so vulnerable, that didn't have any position and any strength of? Really, we're just talking about a little girl. And I remember when I was taken across the state border, because that's what trafficking is Traffickers take advantage of the vulnerability and then take, and in my case they took me across the state border. So after I was kidnapped from my mother, then sold, then taken, transported we call it transported to this other state right next door, you know, in India, another state, but enough that they take away my, they took away my ability to be able to speak because I didn't know the language. I was afraid and I was alone and I was very disoriented because I didn't know what was happening. But what I remember again as a seven-year-old girl crying for my mother and she didn't come and I couldn't understand why didn't my mother come to rescue me? And then later I found out I'm with this people who really didn't care who I was, because in human trafficking and we call child trafficking the traffickers really just see the numbers. They're looking for the profit. So in my case they just literally put children to work working in brick clans and then later they realized they could make more money in other industries. So they actually were using other children that I was with into other industries and they would recruit them from the rail stations to the bus stations, wherever they can find a child. That's where they would do the recruitment. And in my case they've got me from a supposedly you know from one orphanage and they traffic me for another orphanage into another orphanage. So of course there's a lot of abuse that happened and then my body just deteriorated. They said I wasn't functional, I couldn't do anything, I couldn't work anymore. Therefore they needed to find one more profit.

Speaker 2:

Remember we're talking about child trafficking in the illegal activity. It's a criminal activity. Later we'll go into more what that looks like. It's a criminal activity, and later we'll go into more kind of what that looks like, but in my own case it was part of a criminal network.

Speaker 2:

Underground right and orphanage trafficking is a terminology we use, and so in my case, you know, because I distorted everything, they then sold me for international adoption into the United States.

Speaker 2:

But the routes that we talk about is that I came from India and they put me in transit, which is called transit country, which was Canada, and then my Canada into the United States is the destination country.

Speaker 2:

But when we look at those routes of trafficking there are so many of them, right, but international trafficking is a very well-known crime and so in my case, that's what my traffickers used. They used the advantage of weak, sometimes border, you know borders or weak laws, and at the time Canada did not have laws against this crime, right, and even in fact, the United States didn't have a law and a state level was not illegal until a lot further we made it a crime. But in my own personal story I tell you all this because there are millions of other little girls like I was imprisoned, silenced and unable to speak, but today I have the opportunity to be able to raise awareness about this issue and to talk to you, julia, and to your audience about this activity, and our goal today is to be able to give the information to our audience and so we can all be educated and be able to take action.

Speaker 1:

And we so appreciate it. And I think that at our events recently, you know people listening in the audience, particularly people who have children. I think you sort of see their look of shock on their faces and just thinking, oh my God, you know if this was my kid on, you know if this was my kid, um, I think it really your, your testimony really brings it home. But I think as well when you say and I know that that things have moved on a little bit you're saying that you know things have been made a crime that previously weren't a crime.

Speaker 1:

But the transit routes and the, the cross-border payments that are made in this industry. This is a sophisticated industry like. This isn't some kind of gang just running around by themselves. These are coordinated, multiple locations, um, they have networks and it is a very organized crime, um, and it's quite, it's, it's quite, I guess, fascinating, shocking, just to learn the scale when you're talking about millions of people. This isn't, this isn't just happening in pockets of the world. This is happening everywhere and so it. So it's something that we want to help raise awareness of it as well. And I guess, a little bit about you know, you obviously were adopted in the United States and you reside in the United States today. Was there any resolution? If I can ask, in terms of your case, in terms of family, in terms of was there any kind of repercussion for the gangs who were involved in your case?

Speaker 2:

You know, in my own case, I believe, yes, one of the traffickers did get caught and actually jailed. So I was lucky, right, because not all cases are prosecution or the traffickers may not be caught, because, again, it's criminal activity and the criminals don't report, right, they don't report the numbers and that's why we have such a difficult time, you know, finding numbers. But criminal activity is is one of those things that when the traffickers get away with some of them, you know, a lot of times many countries have a hard time prosecuting the traffickers. But in my case, yes, they were put to jail. I'm not sure of the full details of that information, but I do know that.

Speaker 2:

But again, it's a criminal network, right, so it's more than one person involved. So often when we look at criminal networks, right, we talk about relationships and the connections, especially when we're looking at the data, we try to connect that. And so some of these traffickers are, they run it like a business, right? So that means they hire other people. So in the case of human trafficking, they hire transporters, right, that's a job, somebody's specific job, to transport these children around to the various locations, as I said. But then they give other jobs, so it's not a silo, one person. It is a network of people and working for a business that's illegal, and so in my own case I'm happy that it did get you know the issue came up but, again, not all cases have been prosecuted.

Speaker 1:

You got you and obviously your experience led you to founding Freedom Seal and obviously you gave testimony at the United Nations. I wondered if you could share a little bit about how Freedom Seal came about, your experience with working with the UN and the impact that that's having today.

Speaker 2:

You know in my case, I was able to like in 2010,. I went before the UN General Assembly right and to ask for help and to make this make it a crime all over the world if there wasn't and sometimes we'll see the being at a crime at a country level, at a national level, but not necessarily at a state level. So when I went before the UN, I had done many speeches and we'll talk about, you know, one of my speeches being with World Day that's coming up on July 30th. But, specifically, we know that there need to be solutions.

Speaker 2:

So, after working at the, collaborating with the UN for several years, I realized I needed to pivot and go and speak to the private industry, because I felt like the private industry was not always included in the conversations. However, we know the private sector can also be good right with using the power of of that sector to be able to raise awareness on this issue, but not only raise awareness, but to really look at supply chains. So Freedom Sale Global, what I do today is I partnered and I helped develop technology and software that aligns with, such as LexisNexis, to be able to identify the victims, but to identify and prevent this crime. So Freedom Cell Global's main mission is to be able to work with companies side by side, and we provide services, whether it's building compliance plans, whether it's consulting companies or individuals on the issue.

Speaker 1:

we feel that solutions need to be brought to the table, and that is specifically what I have taken on in most recent years with Freedom Cell Global no, it's great work and we're going to talk a little bit about some of the actions that obviously the private sector and some of our listeners can take. But I think first of all could we go into some of the. You know how I said it at the start of the podcast people don't necessarily think that this is happening in their backyard. They don't necessarily, they're not necessarily aware of the industries that this is touching. Could you give some examples of some of the real kind of modern day, whether it's hot spots, industries, examples of where this is happening, just so people are more aware of what may be happening in their communities or their countries?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, when we talk about the sectors, again, there is no one sector. I believe all sectors are affected by this crime, but it's often hidden and so it's hard to identify that. But what we do know today is that let's take an example construction sites. Absolutely, construction sites are being used. Some of them not all of them, I'm not saying, but some of them are being used as a front for human trafficking. So in our industry, you know, let's just take an example of maybe it's a bank, maybe it's a bank that's giving a loan to their customer, they might ask documentation from that particular customer, but they don't always ask further questions about what are they doing. And so, especially within the financial institutions, we, yes, we work with the customer, but we also need to ask questions on the customers, customers, because that's often where human trafficking can take place, and so, in the form of construction, it can be a front, and then underneath that, they're just using that money for illegal activity. So that's one, but let's talk about another sector that I've just more recently working with is the waste sector. Right, we talk about waste sector, you know, we talk about ESG and we talk about the social, the but the E for environmental but the waste site, waste workers in recycling, and so often we see children being used to be child waste pickers, and so that's a form, because in that industry and in that business, children are being used to pick up, whether it's your plastic, but underneath they're forced to work. They're working the 12, 13 hour days and they surely don't get paid because they're children, right, the traffickers obviously use them. So that's another sector that we don't think about. But in all of this there's data, right, there is data. We need to be able to collect that data, and so part of the challenge is how do we collect the data to be informed, right, we talk about know your customers, but, and so we talk about how do we, how do we data collection? Right, and so some of those things is what I'm working on and creating the software and tools that help that specific sector.

Speaker 2:

We talk about other sectors massage parlors, right, a lot of that service can also be used. We talk about orphanage trafficking and the other thing one of the other ones it's not as common today but as child soldiers. You know, my husband was recruited to be a child soldier, so that was a form of human trafficking. My husband was recruited to be a child soldier, so that was a form of human trafficking, but hopefully our countries have been working to eliminate that. But yeah, so many different industries, because this crime sees no barriers, right, they don't see any boundaries, it is whatever they can get profit from illegal activity. That's what human trafficking is and we'll go a little further later, down, you know, in the supply chains.

Speaker 1:

But again, many different industries yeah, so the people aren't people anymore, they're a commodity and it's a case of making the money and it's um.

Speaker 1:

No, I'm glad that you mentioned the data point and that's that's one thing that we, we can help. Um, whether there's financial institutions or corporates, you know we provide data which includes adverse media, and so if somebody has adverse media against them, if there has been, you know, a charge of of human trafficking upon slavery, if there's been a charge of human trafficking, of modern slavery, if there's been investigations, if there have been enforcements, that information, it is available and I think it's just a case of running some of those checks. So I guess, if there's enlistors here today who are, they are in financial institutions, they are looking after KYC programs, supply chain checks, anti-money laundering checks. Is there anything that you would suggest to them to look out for in terms of red flags, what would indicate, you know, potential human trafficking? Is there anything that they should be more vigilant on in terms of you mentioned a couple of sectors, I guess, just red flags, really, anything that they need to be aware of just to help improve the efficiency of some of those checks and some of those programs.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you know red flags is sometimes they stick out sometimes but we don't look at it close enough. But what we know today in you know the data I believe the data that Lexis has we'll be able to. We look at that data. But then that's to help the client right, solve, know your customer. But when you look about let's take an example again the financial industry, the banks, again, within the banks, they may just see money coming in, money coming out, they don't think much of it. But what we need to do is look closer. We talk, you know transaction monitoring. What we need to look at is for suspicious behavior within the transactions. So we might say you know money, someone may come up, open up an account and they may keep that account dormant. They may not use it for several months and then all of a sudden they're using it four times a day to transfer money in and out. So that's a red flag, right, because we don't think, okay, they're just doing their business, but that's unusual. So that's a red flag that when money is being moved many times and often, and then especially if a particular customer's in the business, let's just say, let's say in you know the specific industry, let's say, and then they putting the money to something else completely different, outside of their business? We would just question it. We just need to look at that a little closer.

Speaker 2:

So the compliance officers in banks and in in in manufacturing and such just need to look more detailed and we can see these red flags. And of course, I have been working on this for 25 years so I've been able to identify these red flags and human trafficking fairly quickly because I know them Right. But some of the other ones is you, you know, and then sometimes they open the account and then they just um, try to avoid detention. So they'll do other patterns, various patterns, so you can't figure it out. So we just as compliance officers, those who are looking at that, we need to look at those.

Speaker 2:

Our controls right, the controls within our banks do. Are we up to par? Do? Are we following the policy? Um, are we looking at the wire transfers right? The other one could be a wire transfer. Maybe this is a huge amount of chunk of money that is being transferred to a country they never the customer really doesn't do any business on. So again, that's a red flag. So several activities point to this, point to the red flags and we just need to be able to identify based on your industry. But within the financial industry specifically, I think the transactions give us a bigger picture yeah, it's, it's, we've.

Speaker 1:

We've got some interesting um information, which I'll include a link in the show notes. There's some really interesting stuff when you were talking about um accounts being opened and then sort of multiple transactions all happening at the same time. And we've got some interesting research on money mules, um, because that can obviously indicate that which, which is another element of human trafficking, modern slavery. Um, and I guess, final, final piece of advice, you know we've talked about what people can do in their professional roles, what can people do as individuals. So you know, listening to this podcast, and you sort of think, okay, well, I, I can't necessarily change my compliance program in a bank, um, what can I do as an individual to help fight this problem?

Speaker 2:

you know, as an individual, we can all be vigilant about the issue, we can all be aware of it. But once we're educated, we need to take action. And the specific actions that, if you're an individual working in the company, we want to raise this issue saying, hey, I see some things that are suspicious or some activity that I don't quite understand, get another colleague to look at it. Right, it doesn't hurt to have a second set of eyes to look for this. And then, as an individual, you raise it within your own. You know, at home, you know with your family, especially protecting children. Right, we want to educate the children as much as we can, age appropriately, but you know these are things that happen anywhere in the world and we just make sure the children know what to do. Protection. And then, thirdly, I think, as individuals, join, maybe it's a forum or a group or somebody that can also work on the issue to prevent, for prevent human trafficking. I think, then, as businesses, you know, as a business and individuals, there's also, let's say, you're working in a garment industry or a factory or something just be aware what the red flags could be within the garment industry. That's another industry, but, again, to be able to get data is helping us so much more than we ever had before. So getting the right data and from the right partner with the accurate and good quality data is very important, and so I think looking at those data points to paint the picture will definitely help us to look within the supply chains right.

Speaker 2:

I work a lot on working with companies and banks and financials looking at their own supply chain. So, as someone working in those industries, you want to be able to you know, get screening tools. It's so important. Today we say you know, know your customer or know your supplier we use a lot of different terms to be able to describe that but it is important to have the right screening, right Screening tool and then know how to use those tools with your vendors, your suppliers and anyone you're doing business with In reality. I mean just even to know the shareholder. If you're purchasing a business, know the shareholder, the history.

Speaker 2:

Right On surface, it may only certain information may show up, but once we use some of these screening tools, we're able to find out who are the peps, who are the ones who may be involved or have been involved in illegal activity and, of course, you want to protect yourself of that. So there's various ways that from companies and individuals can use, you know, the tools to detect this crime and the other thing is generate online evidence right about the crime. So when you're speaking, when you maybe have to report to the regulatory, have the right tools, have the right software, right technology to be able to aid you so you can do this reporting. And again, I know lexus can uh help with this and I have freedom, so global can also help um with some of the solutions, uh in partnerships, um. But yeah, those are things that we definitely can do and must do to really to help especially children around the world like myself, but also just for being a good human.

Speaker 1:

No, absolutely, and for anybody interested, we'll include links to some of the information around tools, data sets and also to freedomsealcom, which is the organization you can learn a little bit more about that. We'll include all of those notes in the show notes. Ronnie, thank you so much for joining. It's been such a privilege to hear your story and I'm sure that the listeners will have taken great value from this today. So thank you Great.

Speaker 2:

You're welcome, julia, and it was great to be able to do this podcast with you, and I hope your audience will enjoy this conversation and be educated, and that was a really good one.

Speaker 1:

So thank you again for this opportunity, and thank you to all of our listeners. We hope that you enjoyed this episode of the RegTech Pulse. We hope you found it interesting and we look forward to speaking to you again very soon.

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