The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“HUMAN TRAFFICKING” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S1430-S1432 on March 11, 2015.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we live in a country of unparalleled opportunity. The blessings of liberty are the birthright of every American, and the Framers ordained our Constitution to protect these rights. To deny any person these basic freedoms would seem almost unthinkable today. So the fact that even as I speak there are thousands of individuals living as slaves in our very own country is even more unthinkable. But it is undeniably true.
In this country, right now, there are thousands of human beings living as slaves, men, women, and children, stolen from their homes, stripped of their God-given rights, and robbed of their human dignity. These individuals live among us. They live in our neighborhoods and our suburbs, our biggest cities and our smallest towns. They live in a world of silence, fear, hopelessness, and unspeakable suffering.
These individuals of whom I speak are the victims of human trafficking, a heinous and abominable crime that we should call by its real name: modern-day slavery. The State Department estimates that up to 17,500 individuals are trafficked to the United States every year. The majority of these are women and children. Some of them are forced into a life of unpaid servitude, many others into sex work. Worldwide, the International Labor Organization estimates that 4.5 million people are currently enslaved through sex trafficking. These numbers are staggering, but they illustrate the scope of the problem. The suffering of each individual victim should not be lost in a sea of statistics.
For victims of human trafficking, the surreal horror of their lives bears testimony to the gravity of the crime.
Consider the case of Holly Smith. When Holly was just 14 years old, she met a man at a local shopping mall in New Jersey. With all the innocence of youth, Holly confided in this man all the fears and anxieties of her adolescence, telling him how nervous she was to begin high school.
Holly could never have guessed that the man she had just met--the man she had just trusted with her deepest feelings--was a human trafficker trained to emotionally manipulate young girls to lure them into prostitution. This man promised Holly a life of glamor and excitement if she agreed to run away with him.
Holly took the bait. She ran away with the man who would later abuse her and intimidate her into prostitution. She was one of the many victims of child sex trafficking.
Holly eventually escaped this nightmare and even had the courage to tell her story at a Judiciary Committee hearing on human trafficking last month, but many are not so lucky. We must do more to help victims such as Holly. We must do more to combat the evils of human trafficking.
As a legislative body, we made significant progress in the year 2000 when we passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This legislation took critical steps in providing greater protection to victims and levying heavier penalties against traffickers. We have since reauthorized that legislation on four occasions.
In each instance, I have been passionately committed in the fight against human trafficking. My staff has also been equally devoted to this issue, and I was especially proud when President Bush asked my former Judiciary counsel, Grace Chung Becker, to head the very first human trafficking unit within the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. It is only fitting that the Justice Department established this unit as a subset of its Civil Rights Division and not its Criminal Division. Human trafficking is more than a mere crime; it is a fundamental violation of human rights.
It is not my intention to minimize the significance of the legislation we have passed thus far, but we still have so much work to do. We have recognized that human trafficking is a serious problem; now we need a serious solution.
I am grateful for Senator Klobuchar's initiative in addressing that problem. Her Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act properly identifies children lured into prostitution as victims, not criminals. By encouraging States to adopt safe harbor laws, we are better equipped to help victims receive the care and treatment they deserve.
Senator Cornyn's Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act also aids these victims by establishing a special fund that will provide them more of the resources they need to repair their shattered lives. Senator Cornyn's bill also imposes severe penalties on traffickers, including heavier fines that the Justice Department will direct toward victim compensation.
I strongly support both of these bills, and I am grateful for my colleagues' enormous efforts in building a coalition to combat this scourge.
Human trafficking is a complex problem, and solving it requires a multi-front approach. It is a problem of both supply and demand. In addition to passing this legislation to address the problem of supply, we must also address the problem of demand.
The prevalence of human trafficking is a moral stain on our country, and we can never eradicate this evil if we are only addressing part of the problem.
Through stricter enforcement of obscenity laws, we can decrease demand for sex trafficking. There is an undeniable link between illegal adult obscenity and sex trafficking, and I have long been an outspoken voice on this issue.
Laura Lederer, former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons at the State Department, observed that there are ``numerous links between sex trafficking and pornography'' and that pornography is even ``used in sex trafficking and the sex industry to train women and children what to do.''
In 2011, I led 41 other Senators in sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling for greater enforcement of Federal obscenity laws. In his response, even he agreed that hard-core pornography is associated with sex trafficking. This type of obscenity not only harms individuals, families, and entire communities, but also normalizes sexual harm to children.
How long will we let this culture of perversion persist? How long will we ignore the pressing problem of adult obscenity at the expense of the innocent women and children who are too often the victims of this vice?
Enough is enough. Ignoring the problem of adult obscenity is ignoring the problem of human trafficking, and ignorance will not free the innocent women and children trapped in the clutches of modern-day slavery. The First Amendment does not protect adult obscenity, so the Federal Government is acting well within its power to impose greater enforcement. I firmly believe a consistent commitment to enforcing these laws will have a significant impact in reducing the prevalence of sex trafficking.
I want to conclude by discussing this body's handling of this important bill. In my 39 years as a Member of this body, I have seen the Senate at some of its best moments and at some of its worst moments. Last year I came to the floor repeatedly to warn of how my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--who were then in the majority--had abused the legislative process for partisan political gain.
Since the beginning of the 114th Congress this January, we have made remarkable progress in restoring the Senate as an institution. By restoring this body's traditions of fulsome debate, an open amendment process, and regular order through the committee system, our new majority is putting the Senate back to work for the American people. While the sailing has not always been totally smooth--it rarely is in my experience--the progress we have seen in restoring this institution to its proper role as a productive legislative body is real and meaningful.
Given this headway, I have been extremely disappointed to see a logjam develop and impede our progress on this vital piece of bipartisan legislation, something that should pass this body 100 to 0. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have threatened a filibuster, claiming that we somehow ambushed them with a controversial abortion rider. That claim is absolutely ridiculous. The language they are suddenly so upset about has been in the bill the entire time, as those of us on the Judiciary Committee can attest. My colleagues had no complaints about this language when the bill passed out of the committee; in fact, it passed unanimously. Moreover, not only was this language in the bill from the beginning, but it has also been the law of the land for nearly four decades.
Democrats in this body have supported countless other bills--
including even ObamaCare--with similar language, knowing that such provisions are important to many people on both sides of the aisle.
This policy represents a sensible and appropriate compromise in an issue area characterized by conflicting and deeply held views. As such, the notion that this provision should provoke my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to grind the legislative process to a halt boggles the mind. It makes us wonder what in the world is going on here.
Even the most charitable interpretation of this move suggests that the minority is once again resorting to outrageous my-way-or-the-
highway tactics to impose an extreme pro-abortion policy.
More disturbingly, this ploy plainly demonstrates the minority leadership's desire to pick a political fight over abortion and to muck up the majority's efforts to exercise reliable leadership. By resorting to this sort of obstruction, they have demonstrated just how desperately they want to derail our efforts to legislate responsibly and instead resort to their tired and discredited war-on-women rhetoric to win cheap political points. I am unabashedly pro-life, and I have no qualms whatsoever about debating that issue.
If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so desperate to debate that issue and push an extreme plan to overturn the longstanding compromise--that is the law of the land--let us debate such a measure at an appropriate time, but not on this bill. To hold this important human trafficking bill hostage is a deplorable approach.
The minority leader earlier came to the floor and tried to manipulate my words to support his shameful gambit. For all of my colleagues who are tempted by this irresponsible strategy, let me repeat my previous point.
It would be pathetic to hold up this bill. This bill is absolutely critical to families and our children. I cannot believe the Senate has become so political that my colleagues would raise this issue--this tangential, long-settled issue--at this time--after the same transparently clear language passed unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee.
For my colleagues to hold up this bill in an effort to seek to impose their extreme policy, to overturn the law of the land that has long enjoyed bipartisan support, to pick a false fight over abortion, or to try to embarrass the majority is itself embarrassing. They ought to be ashamed.
I urge my colleagues in the minority, in the strongest possible terms, to reconsider their position and allow the Senate once again to do the people's business.
Look, all of us are fed up with the delays and the problems of not legislating the way we should in the Senate. All of us are fed up with some of the tactics that have been used, but to use them on a bill such as this? Come on. This is a bill that will make a real difference, and there should not be one Senator in this body voting against it, and they certainly shouldn't vote against it because there is language in there that is the law of the land today.
Yes, many Democrats don't like it. But I don't like them holding up one of the most important bills for children and families and women just so they can make a cheap political point on abortion.
I care a great deal for my colleagues on the other side. They have special concerns just as we have special concerns. They have special challenges just as we have special challenges. But this is one we ought all to agree on. Get it out of the Senate, get it going, and start doing more to stop human trafficking in our society today.
This is something we ought to all quit playing games with. Just pass it, and get it through the Senate and the House.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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