Strengthening Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Strengthening Child Welfare
Response to Trafficking Act of 2015, sponsored by the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Bass).

This bill will support victims of child sex trafficking by helping
them find services they need, by training child protective services
workers to identify cases of child sex trafficking, and by improving
data collection on the number of child sex trafficking victims.

This legislation would also require the Department of Health and
Human Services to submit a report to Congress that describes the type
and prevalence of severe forms of trafficking to which identified
victims are subjected.

This bill also summarizes State practices to identify and serve
trafficking victims and those at risk of trafficking and describes
Federal statutory or regulatory barriers that may prevent child
trafficking victims from getting the services they need, including an
evaluation of the State's capacity to address such victim's needs.

The bill would also allow the State welfare agencies to include child
labor trafficking in their provisions of staff training. Under the
bill, if a State includes child labor trafficking in those
responsibilities, the States must also collect data on the number of
those victims.

The bill is a product of good bipartisan work and diligent
negotiations by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bass) and her
staff and Democratic and Republican staffs in the Education and the
Workforce Committee.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, which has
the backing of child welfare advocates and will improve services and
responses to child trafficking victims.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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