Strengthening Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. POE of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Nevada for yielding. I also want to thank my friend from California (Ms. Bass) for introducing this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, you are going to find tonight that there are eight bills dealing with sex trafficking in the United States. You will also find that these are bipartisan bills, and a lot of different Members are involved in this legislation, which goes to say that on this issue of modern-day slavery--the human sex trafficking that is taking place--Members of Congress are working together in many different ways to come to the same conclusion to present legislation to the House floor.

I would just encourage the Speaker in his role to get the Senate to bring up this legislation as soon as it all passes, either tonight or tomorrow.

We have already had some good pieces of legislation pass, a piece of legislation called the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, sponsored by Carolyn Maloney from New York, a Democrat, and myself, a Republican from Texas. That is about as bipartisan as you can get, Mr. Speaker. We don't even speak the same language, but it passed the House 2 weeks ago, 409-0.

The House of Representatives is moving as fast as we can and as carefully as we can to deal with this scourge of modern-day slavery. You don't get much talk about it in the national media. It is just not one of those controversial issues, but it is being done, and that is a good thing.

Mr. Speaker, there are two types of minor sex trafficking that are taking place. There are children from foreign countries that are being sold and delivered to the United States for sex trafficking, and then there are Americans, kids that live in the United States, that are being sold and delivered throughout the United States for domestic sex trafficking. It is increasing for a lot of reasons, but awareness is one of those reasons--or lack of awareness is a reason that we want to hopefully stop--and the awareness needs to go to parents and children about what can take place.

Also, when sex trafficking with minor children takes place, as my friend Ms. Bass from California has said, when that child is rescued by law enforcement, they don't have anyplace to take them. There is no housing for those individuals, so they put them in the juvenile justice system for their safety. But, yes, they are labeled. They are given that stigma of a criminal. Even though it is juvenile criminal, they are still a criminal.

They are not a criminal, Mr. Speaker. They are victims of crime, victims of slavery.

For example, in the United States, there are 5,000 animal shelters, and they are great. I have got three dalmatians--I call them the weapons of mass destruction--and two of them came from dalmatian rescue. But, Mr. Speaker, there are only 300 beds for minor sex-trafficked children in the United States. That is it. There aren't any more.

So we need to have the ability to take those children when rescued by law enforcement or by child protective services or whoever to a shelter where they have a place that they can stay other than the jailhouse. That is one of the most important things that we can do.

As the gentleman from Nevada has said, this scourge is a multimillion dollar business. It is second only to the illicit drug trade. The reason is because children can be sold more than once each day--some up to 20 times. Drugs are sold one time. Plus, the risk of apprehension and the consequences for drugs is a whole lot more than that of sex trafficking, and therefore that is why it is the second, will soon be the highest, income for illicit activity, criminal activity, because there is no risk involved.

So those are some things that are being addressed by these eight pieces of legislation tonight. They are all good, and they are all bipartisan. They are supported by most Members. There are a lot of cosponsors on all of that legislation. Hopefully, we can get all eight of those pieces of legislation passed and sent down the hallway to the Senate and get their attention and vote on these.

And that is just the way it is.

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