The intense focus on President Trump's handling of the files from the Jeffrey Epstein criminal investigation

has renewed attention on the problem of sex trafficking in the United States and around the world.

25 years ago, Congress mandated that the State Department have an office tracking the scope of human trafficking and working to combat it.

According to that office, of the 25 million

plus victims globally, in 2023, just 134,000 victims were identified worldwide. That led to more

than 18,000 prosecutions. Last week, the Trump administration drastically cut that office's staff.

Here's how the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources explain the decision.

For too long, single-issue offices have mushroomed in number and influence,

often distorting our foreign policy objectives to serve their specific interests, slowing down the department's

ability to function.

For more on all of this, we turned to Cindy Dyer, who, during the Biden administration, was the

State Department's ambassador at large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons.

Madam Ambassador, your reach was global, but let's talk about the United States. How big a

problem? How widespread is this problem in the United States? Human trafficking is a huge problem

in the United States, both sex trafficking and labor trafficking. And it is a problem that we share

with other countries, too, which is why the work of the trafficking in person's office is so critical.

Talk about the problem globally as well.

Our records for the 2023 show that more than 10,000 victims, both domestic victims and foreign

national victims, received services from DOJ funded grants. And so that's more than 10,000 individual victims

receiving services. And we know that there are many more victims who never access services or

who never self-identify. And the term trafficking covers a broad range of activities. It's not just

what I think people imagine from from television shows and movies.

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