Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2009

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his constructive work in helping to craft an agreement to pass S. 2925. As he notes, sex trafficking is modern day slavery. It is a morally reprehensible epidemic that ensnares far too many children, and there is far too little awareness of the scope of this criminal enterprise in the United States. I also agree that in combating this heinous crime, and providing law enforcement agencies and services providers with effective tools, Congress must take care to do so in a manner that is fiscally responsible and that avoids inefficiency and duplication.

Mr. COBURN. Although the Subcommittee on Human Rights held a hearing on child prostitution this year, it did not fully explore the effectiveness of existing law and grant programs, and whether there are loopholes or problems that need to be fixed in order to make the Federal Government's efforts more effective. There are multiple programs for trafficking victims under existing law, but some of them remain unclear and confusing. In fact, many of them have never received congressional funding. Thus, while I agree with the Senator from Oregon that there seems to be a disparity between the resources provided to domestic victims and those provided to international victims, I conveyed to him in our negotiations that I question whether we cannot already provide most of those resources under existing law. As a result, I am committed to vigorous oversight of these issues during the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, TVPRA, which expires next year.

Mr. WYDEN. I agree with the Senator from Oklahoma that an important role of Congress is to provide oversight to help make Federal programs more effective, to increase efficiency, and to reduce duplication, waste, and unnecessary expenditures. I have discussed with the Senator from Oklahoma his work on the deficit commission, and as he knows, I serve on the Senate Budget Committee and I am very concerned about controlling government spending and working to ensure the most efficient and effective use of government resources. The level of debt that our nation has accumulated is very concerning and is a threat to economic growth and sound fiscal policy. In accordance with these concerns, I agree with the Senator from Oklahoma that when the TVPRA reauthorization occurs, the Senate should carefully consider all programs to combat human trafficking, including S. 2925, to determine which programs provide the most effective impact, and whether there is duplication, inefficiency, or waste that can and should be reduced.

Mr. COBURN. I thank the Senator from Oregon for recognizing the dire state of our economy and his willingness to offset the cost of this legislation. The U.S. national debt is now over $13.8 trillion and growing. As a result, it is irresponsible for Congress to jeopardize the future standard of living of our children by borrowing from future generations. In the TVPRA reauthorization next year, it is imperative that we examine all trafficking victims grant programs, including this one, for waste, fraud and abuse, as well as their effect on the deficit. Our country is too fragile and these minor victims are too important for Congress to shirk its duty to perform oversight. I look forward to working with the Senator from Oregon to ensure this and other trafficking victims grant programs are performing effectively, efficiently and within the bounds of the Constitution.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee substitute amendment be considered; that the two Wyden amendments which are at the desk be agreed to en bloc; that the committee substitute, as amended, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time, and that a budgetary pay-go statement be read.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, with the passage of S. 2925, the Senate is sending to the House the first ever all-out battle plan to defeat one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises in our country; that is, trafficking children for sex.

Senator Cornyn and I have worked together on this issue for many months on a bipartisan basis with tremendous help from Chairman Leahy, from Senator Sessions, from Senator Durbin, and Senator Kyl, and before I begin my statement tonight, I wish to express my thanks to them. This is a textbook for how the Senate ought to work together on an important issue in a bipartisan way, and I am very grateful to my colleagues for their leadership.

When I first approached Senator Cornyn, he said in our very first conversation: This has nothing to do with Democrats and Republicans; this is about doing what is right for young people. So I am very grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for the support they have shown on this matter.

Each year, an estimated 100,000 children in America are trafficked for sex. They are recruited by violent criminals, and their average age is between 12 and 14. The fact is, sex trafficking in children is modern day slavery, pure and simple.

Tragically, my home State of Oregon has become a hub for those who would exploit women and young girls, and the tragedy is my State is not alone. What we have seen--and this was brought out in hearings--is that the reason this is such a fast-growing crime is it is so easy to perpetrate and there is such big money involved.

For example, experts in the field said for some time, you would see gangs zero in on drugs. The fact is, trafficking in children, according to many of the experts, is easier than trafficking in drugs, and today, with the Internet and the anonymity that the Internet provides these dangerous criminals who traffic in children, it is, as I say, one of the fastest growing crimes in American life.

I got a sense of what this was all about this summer when I had a chance to go out with Portland police officers in my hometown on 82nd Avenue. What I saw is something I will never forget: a heart-wrenching example of why this bipartisan legislation is so important. I saw a 15-year-old girl essentially out there with the tools of the trade. She had a cell phone so she could be in constant contact with her pimp, and all night long they were getting messages: Made $80, made $100 on a customer here or somewhere else. So she had her cell phone. She had a butcher knife because she knew she needed a butcher knife to protect herself, and she had a purse full of condoms, because she knew she was going to have a bunch more customers during the course of the evening. So what you have--and this is not primarily about statistics. If one young woman, whether it is in the State of West Virginia or Oregon or anywhere else, is prostituted this way, trafficked this way, that is one young woman too many.

What the Senate has done now with the passage of S. 2925 is draw a line in the sand and say, for the first time, that we are going to put in place a comprehensive strategy, bring together the law enforcement people and the human services people to deal with this in a way that is going to allow us to send a message on the streets of this country--and particularly the interstate highways which have become such a magnet for sex trafficking--that the odds are going to be different; that this time those who traffic in young women are going to face real prospects of a deterrent.

The reality is these young women don't end up working as prostitutes by accident. The growing army of pimps I mentioned--violent, ruthless criminals--see this group as an ideal group of young people to prey on. The fact is, a pimp can make $200,000 a year trafficking just one victim. Of course, many of those pimps traffic multiple victims on any particular occasion. Once a young girl is under the control of a pimp, it is very difficult for that youngster to escape. The pimps use violence to control girls, as well as traumatize them. They move the girls constantly from city to city, keeping them isolated from any source of support and preventing them from developing any kind of other more healthy relationships.

In talking to law enforcement officials, I learned that removing sex trafficking victims from the control of a pimp is very difficult. It is one that requires training, resources, and in effect a strategy, bringing together law enforcement people and social services people in order to break this degrading and often deadly spiral of sex trafficking in youngsters.

There are a variety of needs these young people have. One that Senator Cornyn and I learned about in the course of our work is the need for dedicated shelter for these youngsters who have been trafficked. Without shelter, for example, there is no place to keep trafficking victims safe from the pimps and to give them the counseling and services they need. If there is no safe place for the victims to stay, there is no way the law enforcement authorities can build a case against the pimp. So this is a perfect example of how the important work being done by our social service providers, in terms of the work in the shelters, is absolutely a prerequisite to tough, aggressive prosecution of the pimps because if you don't have a safe place for the young women, there is no place for them to get the health care and services and counseling they need.

In fact, the night when I was out in Portland and saw, in particular, that 15-year-old with what I call the tools of the trade, when the police picked her up--and Portland's professionals in the sex trafficking field are extraordinarily talented. I saw that firsthand, and officials from around the country tell me the same thing. One of the big questions they were faced with was, where would they send the young women they found that evening for the next couple of days in order to just work out a more permanent living arrangement? In Portland, we have been able to do it. But even in our city, which is now mobilizing all through the community, it has been very difficult.

At present, there are only about 70 shelter beds for sex trafficking victims in the whole country. So that is why I mentioned that pimps know their chances of getting prosecuted for forcing girls to engage in prostitution are very low. We have some laws on the books, but we also need a strategy bringing together shelters, training for law enforcement officials and other resources if we are going to have the strongest possible battle plan against sex trafficking.

Senator Cornyn and I got together to introduce this legislation. We would set up what amounts to model projects across the country to test out the best approaches for combating sex trafficking of children. We do make clear these approaches have to bring together law enforcement people and social services.

It makes me very proud. The Chair, having served as Governor of West Virginia, knows from time to time you see some debates between law enforcement people and social services folks. Law enforcement people believe prosecution is the way to go. The social services folks believe their model is more effective.

What Senator Cornyn and I found is that this is an area where the law enforcement people support the social services folks and vice versa because they know both elements--social services and law enforcement--are going to be necessary to fight this scourge.

I mentioned shelters. There would also be block grants available for mental and physical health care, treatment for substance abuse and sexual abuse, and also assistance with trauma care. There would be help for the victims with food, clothing, and other necessities; and together it means the youngsters--primarily young women--who are going to be in these shelters will know from the time they get to the shelter that caring individuals want them to have a different life.

That is what drew me to this legislation. When you are talking about preying on young people, every Member of the Senate is concerned. What I think galvanized my attention was that a lot of these young women don't think anybody cares about them except their pimp. They have gotten to the point in life where they believe there isn't anybody in their corner.

Their pimp says: You know, sweetheart, I care about you. You are what's really important to me. Let's just make some money, and eventually you will be out on your own.

What you have with these shelters, and also the law enforcement people I saw in Portland, is young women saying for the first time that there is an adult, a role model, who wants them to have a different life, who wants them to have the prospect of a different future, where they are not degrading themselves, where they are not victimized, where they have a different set of possibilities for their lives.

The human services aspects of this legislation are extremely important, and they complement the help that law enforcement would get as well. I was particularly struck, as we got into the law enforcement aspect of this fight against sex trafficking, that there, again, had been some model approaches. The law enforcement official I was particularly impressed with was the Dallas, TX, police sergeant Byron Fassett. He explained to me that without the right training, law enforcement officers would not know how to spot the signs of sex trafficking and would not know how to handle the victims.

So Senator Cornyn and I thought, with the counsel of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, it would be important to provide specialized training for police officers and prosecutors to help them understand how to handle sex trafficking cases. The fact is, Sergeant Fassett of Dallas, TX, can only be at one place at a time.

What this legislation is going to do is make it possible for other leaders in the law enforcement field to get the training out across the country, the state-of-the-art approaches about how to best fight the violent criminals who engaged in this activity, and I am very pleased that we were able to make possible part of the grant in this legislation assistance for the law enforcement community.

Finally, the bill would address another issue that is a major component of sex trafficking, and that is runaway children. One-third of runaway children are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving their home. The evidence also shows that the children who have run away multiple times are at the greatest risk of being drawn into sex trafficking.

So what we are doing in this legislation is making it possible for law enforcement officials to, in effect, make priority the children at greatest risk; that is, these runaways. I am very pleased we were able to work out a bipartisan agreement for our approach in this area.

It would be hard to give appropriate thanks to all who participated in this effort--certainly, to do it without keeping you here until breakfast time. Let me name just a small number of the many groups and individuals who provided extremely valuable insight: the Polaris Project, Shared Hope International, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the FBI's Innocence Lost Project, and ECPAT-USA. I could go on with the list of many groups.

Mr. President, I will tell you I am especially grateful to the faith community for all of their efforts. Throughout this debate, Senator Cornyn and I have been contacted by religious leaders from all over the country, from all particular denominations, talking about how important this legislation is to them; and what they conveyed to us is that this is what they see in their congregations. This is what parents go to bed at night worrying about--the prospect of seeing one of their youngsters caught up in this vicious cycle of degradation, crime, and lost hope for the future.

We could not be here tonight if it wasn't for the faith community that, all across the country, contacted their Senators, contacted various civic groups, and made common cause with rallies and marches and petitions. This is what has made this night possible.

So I have tried to make sure the Senate knows that a whole host of colleagues on both sides of the aisle have worked on this. I will say my older daughter said the other night: Dad, I have figured it out. You are in the only profession on Earth where somebody your age is considered one of the young guys. I thought about that, because I have had the honor of serving in the Senate for some time--recently was reelected--and I can't recall a time when I felt prouder of the Senate coming together to deal with something that would make a real difference.

This one piece of legislation is not going to wipe out this reprehensible, heinous crime, where youngsters who are 12 and 13 and 14 are trafficked for sex. But with this legislation, from Portland, OR, to Portland, ME--and, frankly, this will have benefits internationally because a lot of these youngsters are also trafficked for sex far from the shores of the United States--tonight the Senate is making a difference. Tonight, the Senate is giving hope to parents who are concerned about their kids' future. For young women who are literally going to be hiding tonight near some of these interstates--Interstate 5, which goes all through the West--with the passage of this legislation and, hopefully, quick action by the House, this is a chance to make a difference for these young people.

This is what public service is supposed to be all about--making a difference for young people and families and doing it not on the basis of Democrats and Republicans but on the basis of what is right, what is moral, what is just. There are a lot of people who deserve credit here tonight, especially my friend and colleague, Senator Cornyn, but I am very hopeful the House will act on this legislation. I am going to put additional remarks into the Record, but Joel Shapiro, of my office, did yeoman's work on this legislation and deserves considerable credit tonight. I will leave my additional remarks for the Congressional Record, but tonight, through the good-faith efforts of lots of community and faith leaders, there is an opportunity to help reduce one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises in our country--certainly one of the most immoral--the trafficking of young people for sex.

With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source