Members of Congress came to Greensboro this week to hold a rare committee hearing outside the nation's capital.
North Carolina Congressman Mark Walker and New York Representative Max Rose conducted the meeting of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counter Terrorism. They heard from four experts on human trafficking.
State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Carl Wall II urged partnership and collaboration to investigate human trafficking crimes.
"It is like no other. We in law enforcement must work together and with the NGO’s [non-governmental organizations] to conduct a successful investigation," he said. "It is one of the only crimes that law enforcement needs and relies on others for a successful case."
Walker and Rose wanted more information on what the state is doing to address human trafficking. Wall said North Carolina still has a lot of work to do.
"We're a little behind," he said. "A lot of the other states that have established this and understood what human trafficking is and standing up task forces and really getting together and pushing forward. We're at the ground level."
Walker sponsored the Human Trafficking Detection Act in 2015. It was passed by the House and signed into law by then-President Barack Obama.
North Carolina ranks in the top 10 states for human trafficking cases reported.