Weekly Columns: Defeating Modern Day Slavery

Statement

While human trafficking is often viewed as an international problem, there is a sad yet growing presence of enslavement and exploitation crimes here in the United States. In order to bring criminals to justice and help victims heal, awareness of the problem is the first step. But of even greater importance is our response to the circumstances and resolve to prevent and ultimately defeat the problem. Through several pieces of legislation considered last week, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the U.S. House of Representatives showed commitment to defeating the problem of human trafficking.

Called "a modern-day form of slavery involving the illegal trade of people for exploitation and commercial gain" by the Department of Homeland Security, human trafficking often first victimizes children, both boys and girls, as young as 11 or 12 years old. A disgustingly-profitable business for enslavers, this secret business is thought to cause trafficking into the United States of about 17,500 victims while hundreds of thousands more in America already live at risk of being targeted for the same exploitation and abuse.

Most common around the world, trafficking victims are thrown into forced labor situations. In the United States, victims are primarily exploited and sold at a very high price by their captors for commercial sex acts. Both forms of slavery are terrible realities for millions of individuals, and something none of us want to believe could happen anywhere in the world, let alone in our own country.

In response to the problem, I am pleased that the House focused much of our legislative week by passing 12 truly bipartisan bills that address human trafficking. These measures recommended ways to improve enforcement of current law, ensure captors and those paying them are held accountable for their crimes, provide better recovery resources to victims and encourage awareness training in communities.

Sadly, even though child victims, especially those used for prostitution, have suffered unimaginable and unfair circumstances, they are sometimes not treated as victims upon discovery. But through one of the measures passed by the House, lawmakers addressed victim recovery approaches to keep the focus on the wrong done to the victims and help them move forward towards a positive path.

While I'm pleased that the House acted on this unfortunate but very real issue, legislation alone can't fully solve the problem of human trafficking. It also requires the help of loving communities, who remain engaged and aware of its existence.

Source