Trafficking Awareness Training for Health Care Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey and my colleague Congresswoman Ellmers from North Carolina and rise today in strong support of the Trafficking Awareness Training for Health Care Act of 2015, a bill on which I was honored to join as the Democratic lead with my colleague and good friend, the gentlewoman from North Carolina.
I thank Congresswoman Ellmers for her leadership on this bill and her willingness to shine a light on the scourge of human trafficking.
I was telling my staff the other day, Mr. Speaker, that it is a truly remarkable and sometimes too rare a thing in our Congress to find a Member who not only reaches across the aisle but who is also willing to work tirelessly to fight for what she believes in and has a staff willing to match that effort. It has been a pleasure working with you and your team on this legislation, as well as on my EARLY Act signed into law just a month ago, on which you served as the Republican lead on that legislation, and I look forward to what we may do together in the future.
Mr. Speaker, after passing legislation that made human and sex trafficking a State crime in my home State of Florida, I knew that, while that was an important tool to combat traffickers, we were just scratching the surface.
I joined Congresswoman Ellmers on this bill because, though there is still much that we need to learn about the way human trafficking works in the United States, we know enough to know that it is far too prevalent, it preys on the most vulnerable in our Nation, and addressing it requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses prevention, treatment, and going after criminals.
We know that best guesses estimate there are 100,000 to 300,000 American youth currently at risk of being trafficked in the United States. We know that those most likely to be targeted are low-income women, foster youth, younger girls, and girls and women with a history of abuse and estrangement from family. And we know that once a girl is sex-trafficked, she has a life expectancy of just 7 years, during which she will be raped on average by 6,000 different buyers.
If the horror of human trafficking is not a problem that deserves a comprehensive response from all legal, social service, and medical sectors, then I don't know what is. Health care providers are often the first line of defense in these situations, sometimes being the only interaction with an outsider that a victim's trafficker may allow.
The Trafficking Awareness Training for Health Care Act of 2015 develops evidence-based best practices for, and training of, health care providers to be able to identify and properly respond to victims of trafficking, training that means when a girl 12 to 14 years old, the age range that is most at risk of being trafficked, when she is brought into a health care provider for a routine checkup by an older man who is not related to her, that a red flag goes off in a nurse's head or a health care provider's head.
Best practices will mean when a woman comes into an ER for a broken arm but a doctor discovers bruises and scars indicating a pattern of abuse, that that doctor doesn't just simply treat her broken arm and send her home. And resource knowledge means doctors and nurses cannot only identify potential victims but can respond appropriately to ensure that victim will one day become a survivor.
This bill joins several other trafficking bills being heard today on the House floor, including Representative Bass' bill to support youth most at risk for trafficking and Representative Noem's bill to encourage intra-agency and effective human trafficking intervention and prevention strategies.
These two bills, as well as Representative Ellmers' and my bill, are all pieces of a larger puzzle, initiatives that, when put together, create a comprehensive and cross-sector response to human trafficking.
We all stand up together today, regardless of political party, to say we do not want to raise our children in a world or a nation where a person can be sold as if she is property to be used by anyone to whom the trafficker offers her.
I am proud to join my colleagues and Congresswoman Ellmers in the battle to eliminate human trafficking, for my daughters, who are 11 and 15, for my constituents in south Florida, and for the betterment of our world. I might add, as a member of the House Committee on Appropriations, I can assure the gentleman that while I share and understand his concerns on the process, as far as the appropriations, we are going to pursue unobligated funds so that we can make sure that there are the resources available to make sure that this program is funded.
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