(Open Society Foundation) – In October, the White House organized a cabinet-level meeting to report on steps each agency has taken in the past year to monitor and combat human trafficking. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the effort to end human trafficking was not just a question of morality, but “in our strategic interest, as well.” Weeks earlier, however, President Obama waived penalties on countries that recruit and use child soldiers, saying that it is in the “national interest” to allow those armed forces to receive more than $270 million in U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance. Pressing children into combat—some as young as 10 years old—is an unambiguous form of human trafficking.
