Rep. Jackie Speier brought the issue of human trafficking to the floor of the House of Representatives on International Women’s Day.
She advocated for an end to human trafficking in 2010, calling it modern-day slavery with an estimated 30 million people worldwide in bondage for sex and labor. Up to 300,000 minors are sold annually, according to a news release from her office.
“Women and girls who are single and arriving at the border face an increased risk of exploitation and abuse, including sexual violence, gender-based violence and trafficking,” Speier said, according to the Congressional Record.
In 2012, Speier launched the San Mateo County Zero Tolerance initiative with local businesses, nonprofits, law enforcement, the district attorney, the U.S Attorney and the FBI, a press release from her office said.
"The sexual exploitation of young Americans needs to stop now, not tomorrow or next year when another 100,000 adolescents are forced by pimps to sell their bodies multiple times each night," Speier said in a statement during Human Trafficking Awareness Month in 2012.
Arrests for human trafficking in the U.S., including involuntary servitude, more than doubled to 146 in 2019 from 201 before a decline to 92 in 2020, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Arrests involving commercial sex acts had similar increases.
"Migrants and refugees are preyed upon by criminal organizations, sometimes with the tacit approval or complicity of national authorities, and subjected to violence and other abuses—abduction, theft, extortion, torture and rape—that can leave them injured and traumatized," a 2017 report from Doctors without Borders said.
From 2011 to 2019, the number of defendants charged with human trafficking in cases terminated in U.S. district courts increased by 79 percent, with convictions up by 80 percent and prison sentences increasing by 82 percent.
