When it comes to President Donald Trump, there will rarely be anything good you will see or hear on the media. His demeanor in certain situations and impudent tone often leads to many misunderstandings which make headlines within seconds. It’s sad to see how negativity is broadcasted, highlighted, and anticipated by it’s readers or viewers way more than a positive headline. It’s disturbing how certain forms of news and media have ruined the reputation of news overall. The whole point is provide facts without being bias, that’s what makes a good reporter, journalist or the creator of any sort of information or content. Your job isn’t to convince your audience to believe what you believe but to present information so the people are able to make their own decision based off of facts and actions. Now a days it is the complete opposite of what news should be, the truth is always twisted and the solutions are never presented. Everything is about choosing a side to see who wins, regardless of what or who is right. Granted there isn’t a whole lot to applaud Trump for but his efforts in certain areas go highly unnoticed. It’s ok for everyone to have their own opinions but acknowledging the right doesn’t mean you have to love the person overall, you are just commending the action they took.

There are certain actions that the Trump Administration took during his presidency that have not been taken in the history of America, such as his 9 pieces of bipartisan legislation to battle human trafficking domestically and internationally. Back in January, Trump signed an executive order on combating human trafficking and online child exploitation in the United States. This order was the first White House position focused solely on human trafficking.

On October 21, 2022 President Trump issued “The National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking” by approving the largest Department of Justice grant package to attack human trafficking. This package includes 4 pillars as follows.

1. Prevention: Enhance outreach and education efforts. Creating a training for children in United States Department of Defense Education Activity to raise awareness by learning about human trafficking in school. Intervention programs developed for governments to allow proper support to communities to reduce their vulnerability through identified risk factors such as lack of personal safety, homelessness, emotional distress, family dysfunction, substance abuse, isolation, and poverty. Prohibiting goods made with forced labor from entering the United States. Keeping close ties with private sectors and civil society to expand awareness and create solutions. Improved border and security to reduce the number of people at risk due to undocumented people entering the country.
2. Protection: Develop, validate and implement screening forms and protocols. This will help with knowing exactly where to lead the victim for help whether it be social services or determining eligibility for benefits and services. These professionals with extensive training of every aspect of human trafficking are provided to screen, interview, assess, provide whatever is needed and also provide appropriate awareness materials in priority locations. Safeguard victims of human trafficking from being inappropriately imprisoned, fined, or penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. Federal law enforcement companies will provide necessary information to states going as deep to territorial and local areas to protect victims and prosecute accordingly.
3. Prosecution: Dismantle human trafficking networks and increase criminal enforcement. There are many people, networks, and companies affiliated with human trafficking therefore multiple investigative agencies are and will be deployed to dismantle large criminal enterprises and expose the nature of the crime whether its related to narcotics, immigration, racketeering, money laundering, fraud, extortion, and sexual exploitation. Enhance resources to locate children who are missing, including those who have run away from foster care, and are vulnerable to human trafficking. Department of Justice, Department of Health Services, and Department of Health and Human Services will increase the number of social media companies and internet service providers to identify and locate potential victims of child trafficking, due to a large amount of human and child trafficking being online.
4. Crosscutting approaches and institutional effectiveness: strengthen understanding of human trafficking impacting the U.S., conduct intelligence assessment which will outline the difference of human smuggling and human trafficking, identify data, study existing mechanisms and identify needs. Incorporating survivor input which is a vital part of dismantling this issue. Each FBI and HSI field office will provide periodic briefings to senior state government officials and select the proper government officials within their area of responsibility. Department of Transportation will review and assess transportation-related anti-trafficking efforts within Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation countries to develop a set of training and awareness and educational resources provided through webinars and workshops.

Trump while working closely with his daughter Ivanka has given over $35 million in DOJ grants to organizations that provide safe housing to the victims of human trafficking, also launched a new center for countering human trafficking, that is quite a commendable act. The comprehensive, enumerated, in-depth, and detailed National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking is available for you to read on the Whitehouse.gov website. This targeted proposal is very reassuring to read and is one of the few plans of Trump’s that are never publicized by today’s media. Accepted there are many wrongs but the rights are pretty historic and should not go unnoticed.

By: Aisha Zaidi Bhatia

Aisha Zaidi Bhatia is a Journalism and Mass Communications student. Passionate about global issues and human rights. Aspires to raise awareness and make a change in the world through her writing.