Sex Trafficking

Floor Speech

Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, for years we have heard of the horrors of international sex trafficking of children. It is an abomination that young children around the world are forced into this degrading, humiliating life. No child should have their innocence stolen in this manner.

We're only just beginning to hear about the traffickers that prey on our own children, right here in America. The FBI's Innocence Lost Task Force calls domestic minor sex trafficking the ``most overlooked and under-investigated form of child sexual abuse.''

Why aren't we paying closer attention to this in America? According to the FBI, it's because too many people believe that child prostitution is a victimless crime. How could a young boy or girl being forced into this lifestyle be victimless?

These children are abused and exploited. The horror of what they've been through in their young lives is almost too much to bear. Children are not willing participants in this trauma. This kind of thinking is wrong. These children are victims. The men that buy young boys and girls for sex are guilty of exploitation and abuse.

These sex traffickers and their customers are the filth of humanity. As one Texas Ranger told me, ``Judge, when you see one, get a rope.''

Houston, Texas, is one of the main hubs for human trafficking in the United States. We have been dealing with this problem for a long time. However, in recent years the city has made tremendous strides towards addressing it.

In Houston, we have one of the 42 Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance groups in the country. Together with the FBI's Innocence Lost initiative, they have rescued over 140 domestic victims. Numerous traffickers have been prosecuted, several receiving life sentences.

Earlier this month, I met with the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance. Included in this group is Houston Constable Ron Hickman--a law enforcement leader in confronting the epidemic of trafficking in Texas. He and his officers told me that one of the biggest issues they face in combating trafficking is how to care for the victims.

More specifically, they told me that there is better care available to the international victims they rescue than there is for our own citizens. International victims are eligible to apply for a U-visa or a T-visa, which allows them to remain lawfully in the United States.

Immigrant service groups help them apply for free legal, medical, mental, housing and educational services. Internationally trafficked children can receive care in a residential facility, or in a long-term foster home. Basically, we provide a wealth of care to internationally trafficked victims, as we should.

It is a great thing to have these services. We should be doing all we can to rescue all children from this scourge.

But consider the resources that are available to a victim of domestic trafficking in Houston. At the moment law enforcement agents come across victims of domestic trafficking, they are required to take them into custody. Once in custody, domestic minor victims can only gain access to services by being labeled as delinquents and charged with a class B misdemeanor of prostitution, obtaining a permanent criminal record.

That's right--to gain access to short term services, they have to be arrested first. And these short term services do not even begin to address the severe physical and psychological trauma that these girls have survived.

Without access to this specialized care, it has been shown that trafficking victims simply return to their traffickers and continue the cycle of abuse. They have nowhere else to go, so they go back to the only life they know.

What we need in Houston and throughout the nation is specialized, long term, residential treatment facilities to care for victims of domestic minor sex trafficking. Any legislation that addresses this issue must include this victim-centered component.

I am proud to be an original cosponsor of H.R. 5575, introduced by my friends Congresswoman Caroline Maloney and Congressman Chris Smith, which pays close attention to the care and support of victims.

We have done a marvelous job caring for the victims that are trafficked across our border. We need to ensure that we are doing the same for our own children.

And that's just the way it is.

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