Simpson Joins Colleagues to Pass Legislation that Gets Tough on Human Trafficking
Press Release
Simpson Joins Colleagues to Pass Legislation that Gets Tough on Human Trafficking
Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson today voted to support legislation that helps the U.S. combat the scourge of human trafficking worldwide. H.R. 3887, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2007, passed the U.S. House of Representatives with a vote of 405-2. Simpson is also a cosponsor of the bill.
H.R. 3887 offers additional protections for victims within the United States, and takes steps to prevent the trafficking of children, while ensuring that foreign labor recruiters do not engage in modern-day slavery.
According to the International Labor Organization, traffickers move between 700,000 and 2 million women and children across international boundaries every year, mainly for the purpose of serving the sex trade. In addition, an almost equal number of men, women and children are trafficked each year for the purpose of forced labor in slave-like working conditions. In the United States, forced laborers have turned up most often in agriculture, domestic service, sweatshops and in restaurants and hotels.
"Human Trafficking is one of the most heinous crimes we face as a society," said Simpson. "People who engage in these sick and disgusting acts should be punished by all means available within our legal system. Many of these victims are children, young children, and any act of harm against them is unacceptable."
The legislation requires a comprehensive analysis of trafficking data to yield new information about where victims are going and how to free them. It also provides help for countries to inspect locations where forced labor occurs, to register vulnerable populations and to provide more protection to foreign workers. It ensures that U.S. assistance programs are both transparent and effective, and it urges the Administration to work with other countries to reach agreements between labor exporters and labor importers so that vulnerable workers have more, rather than less protection.
"We are Americans. All men, women and children have the right to be free, millions have died to give us this right and no one should be able to take that right away from anyone," said Simpson.
H.R. 3887 will now be considered by the U.S. Senate.
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