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Floor Speech

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Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, this morning I rise, along with the
women of the Senate, to speak about the issue of human trafficking.

We are 4 days from International Women's Day, and all of the women of
the Senate have taken up the issue of human trafficking. Many of us
wish to speak about it today. We are all working on it. Many have been
leaders on this issue. My colleagues will see Republican and Democratic
women coming to the floor.

As the senior woman and senior Democratic woman, I have convened over
the years a dinner among the women of the Senate. The purpose of the
dinner was to create a zone of civility, to create camaraderie, as well
as to see where we could work across the aisle to focus on a particular
issue.

The women of the Senate do not have a caucus. There is no lockstep.
We discuss our different views on budgets and bottom lines and other
issues. We discuss questions such as, What is the best way to approach
the deficit? What are all of the deficits in our country we are facing,
not only the fiscal deficit, but the deficit in research and
development, and other deficits?

At one of our dinners we said, What is it that we want to work on
together in this particular Congress? What is the issue that brings us
all together across party lines that would have an impact on what we do
at home, what would have an impact in our global community, and what
would have an impact particularly on women and children, girls and
boys, around the world? That is what we decided we wanted to work on--
the despicable, vile issue of human trafficking. Human trafficking.

That means a whole organized network and networks to buy and sell human
beings as if they are a commodity, to buy and sell girls and to buy and
sell little boys for the whole purpose of sexual exploitation.

This is an enormous issue. Many of our colleagues in the Senate have
been working on authorizing legislation, and a great deal of it is
pending in the Judiciary Committee. We have joined together and asked
the Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing on the major trafficking
bills, and we thank Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Leahy for
holding the hearing, as well as for joining with us in moving
legislation.

This is not just a woman's issue; this is a human rights issue. So we
have a Klobuchar-Cornyn bill. We have a Collins-Leahy effort. We are
all working on this together. But it is we, the women of the Senate,
who continue to be a force to make sure we will focus on it within our
own government and around the world. We will be looking at what are the
most significant efforts we can take.

The numbers are startling and discouraging. Twenty-one million people
are trafficked globally every year--21 million people. It is the third
largest global crime--right up there with the selling of weapons of
mass destruction, and right up there with selling drugs, and drug
cartels. In fact, in many instances, it is the same organized crime
network. If someone is willing to sell a person and treat them as a
commodity, they are willing to sell drugs, they are willing to sell
guns, they are willing to sell nuclear fissionable material. They are
willing to do anything.

This isn't just about recruiting girls in Asia or girls and women in
Central Europe; this is in our own country, where 800,000 people are
trafficked each year.

When I met with my FBI agents in Maryland and the U.S. Attorney's
Office to discuss this issue, they told me that the I-95 corridor is a
corridor for violence and trafficking and that we are a hotspot for
trafficking activities, because we have a seaport, we have a major
interstate highway, and we have big sporting events. Can my colleagues
imagine such activity at sporting events such as the big games? The
playoffs that we so enjoy in Baltimore are also part of trafficking.

But we know our local law enforcement and our FBI are on the job. We
have programs such as Operation Cross Country. Last year, the FBI
helped recover close to 170 children who had been forced into
prostitution, with simultaneous raids, and they put 281 pimps in jail.

We are going to take the first step. There are many bills pending
where the women of the Senate have really thought about this, worked on
this, taken leadership on this, and they will talk about their various
legislative initiatives.

As the chair of the Appropriations Committee, I wanted to look at not
only the great work my colleagues were doing in authorizing, but what
we could do now for the money. Last year, in the 2015 omnibus, with the
full concurrence of then-Vice Chairman Shelby--a really strong advocate
on this issue--and then across the aisle with Hal Rogers in the House,
we put $42 million in the Justice Department to make sure we were
fighting trafficking. We included a $28 million increase for programs
that provide grants that are lifesaving, as well as life-rescuing
services to victims. These funds were to ensure that law enforcement
could enforce the law and make sure victims had emergency shelters and
counseling, supporting a true rescue mission.

We also made sure the FBI had additional resources to find those
criminals and bring them to justice, and to focus on efforts such as a
program called ``Innocence Lost'' that focuses on the trafficking of
children. We funded human trafficking prosecution by adding more money
for civil rights attorneys to identify the large trafficking rings to
do it.

I don't want to sound like an accountant; I want to sound like one of
the women of the Senate who thinks about these women who have been
recruited around the world and the children who are being nabbed and
grabbed, and the exploitation of lost children, sometimes runaway
youths.

We want to say to them that our Federal dollars are working hard, and
we are going to look at how authorizers and appropriators really work
together. We want to pass some of this new, fresh thinking on how to
attack and deal with this problem. We are going to look at the
Appropriations Committee across all subcommittees to see what we can
do.

The women of the Senate are going to be a voice and a vote on this,
and we know we have good men of the Senate who also work with us and
support us. So working shoulder to shoulder, we can do something to
make it safer for our communities and have a big impact around the
world. We will do it because we took the time to listen to each other
and figure out ways we can work together. Let's get it done, and let's
get it done now.

I would now like to yield time for someone who has been a real leader
on this issue, and a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, who has
brought some new, fresh thinking and fresh approaches but also has been
wise and prudent for her taxpayers and, I might also add, a former
attorney general in the State of Minnesota. She is a great warrior, and
she has made sure that she has some new ideas. Senator Klobuchar.

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Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I want to say this is not a Democratic
women's issue. We are in this on a bipartisan basis. I want to note
that the Democratic women are here because the Republican women are
chairing committees and subcommittees. I know the Senator from New
Hampshire, Ms. Ayotte, will be on the floor shortly. The distinguished
Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, is at a very important Navy
appropriations committee hearing. So when my colleagues see us, don't
assume it is just Democratic women. It is all of us together. But their
responsibility has them at another duty station right this minute. I
wanted to explain where we are.

I yield the floor back to Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire.

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