On December 14, the House approved, 426-0, a bill (H.R. 972) to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (P.L. 106-386) through FY2007. The House International Relations Committee approved the measure on October 7 (see The Source, 10/11/05), and the House Judiciary Committee approved the bill on December 8 (see The Source, 12/9/05). The Senate approved H.R. 972 by unanimous consent on December 22. It will now go to the White House for President Bush’s signature.
Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) stated, “When I first learned about trafficking in human beings, I could not believe that slavery or the slave trade still existed. I remember asking, what do you mean women and children and young boys are being bought and sold? This is the 21st century; how can this be happening? And the answers that I got were very grim. I found out from John Miller, the very esteemed Ambassador at the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Office, that as many as 800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders every year, including the borders of the United States of America. The trafficking of people is a $9 billion industry. It has recently tied illegal arms dealing as the second fastest growing criminal activity in the world. The legislation before us today will increase our Nation’s ability to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on countries who actively or tacitly engage in this heinous practice. More than that, however, this legislation reflects our Nation’s commitment to abolishing the unlawful sexual exploitation of women and children and boys occurring within our own borders. A Nation that stands for the freedom and dignity of every human being cannot tolerate the degradation and exploitation of the innocent occurring on its own soil.”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) praised the bill for including the End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act (H.R. 2012), which she cosponsored with Rep. Pryce: “This bill seeks to reduce demand for sex trafficking by providing critical funding to law enforcement to prosecute the demand side, the purchasers of commercial sex acts, sex traffickers and exploiters. Sex trafficking in people is modern-day slavery, and human trafficking is the slavery of the 21st century.” She added, “The State Department has been issuing this excellent report, Trafficking in Persons report, and it tracks what is happening internationally, and it rates what other countries are doing; but we cannot focus only on what other countries are doing without working with law enforcement to address the problems here in the United States, and that is what this bipartisan legislation will do. It will provide critical assistance to the victims of sex trafficking, and it will also go after the purchasers of commercial sex acts by providing law enforcement with grants and with improved tools to fight sex trafficking. It is important that we protect the victims of the sex trade industry and punish the predators and those who are doing this terrible thing.”
