National Commission on Detainee Treatment Act of 2007

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Energy and Commerce and the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 7311) to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2008 through

2011 for the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, to enhance measures to combat trafficking in persons, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I, in concert with Mr. Conyers, the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, make the following explanatory statement regarding H.R. 7311, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Act of 2008.

H.R. 7311, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims

Reauthorization Act of 2008, reauthorizes existing U.S.

programs to combat human trafficking and establishes new

requirements and programs regarding trafficking into both

sexual exploitation and forced labor. Among a wide range of

initiatives, the bill establishes new programs to prevent

trafficking from occurring in foreign countries where

trafficking begins, widens U.S. assistance programs to U.S.

citizens, and provides additional protections for trafficking

survivors who are threatened by trafficking perpetrators, and

for children who are at risk of being repatriated into the

hands of traffickers or abusers.

The Wilberforce Act also improves upon existing criminal

prohibitions against human traffickers, including

streamlining in the Slavery/Trafficking chapter of the

federal criminal code, and creating new criminal tools to

reach unscrupulous labor recruiters. Unlike previous

reauthorizations, this reauthorization is for four years,

from fiscal years 2008 to 2011, recognizing that U.S. anti-

trafficking programs have become more established. The bill

reflects an effort to develop a consensus between H.R. 3887,

passed by the House on December 4, 2007, and S. 3061, ordered

reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 8,

2008. The legislation draws from the common approaches in

both bills and develops alternative proposals where the two

bills diverge. This explanatory statement draws attention to

changes in several provisions of the bill from the approach

in H.R. 3887. Many of the provisions of the bill and the

intent behind them that are closely aligned with the original

provisions of H.R. 3887 are described in the House Report

110-430, part I, the report accompanying H.R. 3887.

Title I

Title I of the bill draws from substantially similar

positions in both the House and the Senate bills.

Section 102. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking

Section 102 provides more targeted amendments to section

105 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 with

essentially the same objectives of requiring the

establishment of the Office, promoting public-private

partnerships to end trafficking and clarifying the role of

the Director of the Office with regard to funding programs.

Although the bill does not include several provisions from

H.R. 3887, this should not be seen as failing to recognize

the importance of the Office or the Director. The Office has

been very effective in raising the awareness of the

trafficking issue and should be considered for space in the

new consolidated plan for relocating offices of the

Department of State closer to the Harry S. Truman Building.

When the head of the Office was changed to an Ambassadorial

position, the pay rate for the position was actually reduced.

That decision should be reassessed.

Section 105. Increasing Effectiveness of Anti-Trafficking Programs

This section draws from similar versions of both H.R. 3887

and S. 3061. In the new section 107A of the Trafficking

Victims Protection Act of 2000, subsection (b) requires a

self-certification that persons or entities providing

services directly to trafficking victims have completed or

will complete training. This self-certification, which is not

expected to be monitored in every case by the U.S.

Government, is intended to apply primarily to persons

actually in direct contact with and providing services to the

trafficking victims, not interns, other volunteers or

administrative or supervisory staff of organizations involved

in the assistance.

Section 106. Minimum Standards for the Elimination of Trafficking

This section, similar in both bills, makes a number of

changes to section 108 of the Trafficking Victims Protection

Act of 2000. With respect to the deletion of ``a significant

number of'', the provision is intended to ensure that the

broadest range of countries is reviewed by the Department.

This section also separates out the provision regarding

reducing the demand for commercial sex acts and participation

in international sex tourism as a criteria for whether a

country is making serious and sustained efforts to combat

trafficking in persons, highlighting the importance of making

progress in this area as the Office to Monitor and Combat

Trafficking in Persons makes its decisions on tier ratings.

Title II

Title II reflects a number of changes to U.S. law,

including amendments to the Immigration & Nationality Act

(INA), and Title 18 of the United States Code (related to

federal crimes). Many of the provisions, particularly those

relating to amendments to the INA, were similar in H.R. 3887

and S. 3061.

Section 201. Protecting Trafficking Victims Against Retaliation

Section 201 provides a number of modifications to

provisions relating to the T and U visa category, drawing

from both H.R. 3887 and S. 3061. Among other matters, this

section provides that a holder of a non-immigrant visa under

Sections 101(A)(15)((T) or (U) of the Immigration and

Nationality Act can adjust to permanent residency even if

their T or U visas may have lapsed in the time period in

which the adjustment regulations had not been promulgated.

While adjustment regulations were released on December 8,

2008, and will control in the future, this provision is

included as a stop-gap measure for those petitioners whose

adjustment petitions were not processed because of the

government's failure to issue regulations until that time.

Section 203. Protections, Remedies and Limitations on Issuance for A-3

and G-5 Visas.

This section addresses the issues of employees of diplomats

and officers and employees of international organizations who

perform domestic services in the homes of such

individuals, drawing from provisions in section 110 of

H.R. 3887 as well as section 203 of S. 3061. This

provision is sensitive because of its effects on

reciprocity to U.S. diplomats abroad. However, the failure

of the Department of State to take seriously cases

involving abuse has been troubling, and this provision

establishes a new framework for dealing with these cases.

In particular, subsection (a)(2) provides that the

Secretary of State shall suspend the issuance of certain

visa classes to applicants seeking to work for officials

of diplomatic missions or international organization ``if

the Secretary determines that there is credible evidence

that 1 or more employees of such mission or international

organization have abused or exploited 1 or more A-3 or G-5

non-immigrants and that the diplomatic mission or

international organization tolerated such actions.'' It is

expected that if the Department of Justice or another part

of the U.S. Government provides information that such an

act has occurred, or a non-governmental organization

provides such information, and the information is

credible, the Department should take steps to make the

mission or organization aware of such information, and if

the mission or organization does not take

steps to rectify the situation, the denials of the visas

provided under this section should start.

Section 222. Crimes

This section contains a number of modifications to the

federal criminal code. Section 222 conforms the various

crimes set forth in Title 18, United States Code, Chapter 77

((Peonage, Slavery, and Trafficking in Persons) by extending

the obstruction provisions of the Peonage statute (Section

1581) to the other substantive servitude offenses, by

creating conspiracy liability within the Chapter, and by

improving the treatment of restitution and asset forfeiture.

None of those provisions are intended to foreclose the use of

corresponding sections of the criminal code, where

appropriate.

Section 222 also clarifies the definition of coercion in

the core offenses created by the Trafficking Victims

Protection Act, which responded to the Supreme Court's

narrowing of the federal Involuntary Servitude statutes in

United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931 (1988). Section 1589

covers offenses involving forms of forced labor, while

Section 1591 is in the context of commercial sexual activity

and can also be violated when a person uses a child for

prostitution, as children are unable to give consent to

commercial sexual activity. Those offenses returned the legal

standard for a servitude conviction to the modern approach

reflected in such cases as United States v. Mussry, 726 F.2d

1448 ( 9th Cir. 1984) and the lower court decisions in

Kozminski (allowing conviction in servitude cases involving

psychological coercion as well as overt violence).

Accordingly, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000

crafted Section 1589 and 1591 to only require a showing of a

threat of ``serious harm,'' or of a scheme, plan, or pattern

intended to cause a person to believe that such harm would

occur. The term ``serious harm'' refers to a broad array of

harms, including both physical and nonphysical, and is

intended to be subjectively construed in determining whether

a particular type or certain degree of harm or coercion is

sufficient to overcome a particular victim's will. Section

222 further clarifies these concepts to reflect the various

and subtle forms of coercion used by traffickers in light of

the experiences of prosecutors and non-governmental

organizations in combating trafficking and assisting victims.

Such modification was contemplated by the drafters of the

Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (Pub. Law 106-

386): ``[T]he conferees are aware that the Department of

Justice may seek additional statutory changes in future years

to further address the issues raised in Kozminski, as courts

and prosecutors develop experience with the new crimes

created by this Act.'' Conference Report Accompanying H.R.

3244, House Rep. 106-939, 106th Cong. 2nd Sess. 101 (printed

in 146 Cong. Record H8855, H8881).

Thus, Section 222 clarifies that ``[t]he term `abuse or

threatened abuse of law or legal process' means the use or

threatened use of a law or legal process, whether

administrative, civil or criminal, in any manner or for any

purpose for which the law was not designed, in order to exert

pressure on another person to cause that person to take some

action or refrain from taking some action,'' and that ``The

term `serious harm' means any harm, whether physical or

nonphysical, including psychological, financial, or

reputational harm, that is sufficiently serious, under all

the surrounding circumstances, to compel a reasonable person

of the same background and in the same circumstances to

perform or to continue performing [in the case of section

1589, labor or services, or, in the case of section 1591,

commercial sexual activity] in order to avoid incurring that

harm.'' It is contemplated that these refinements will

streamline the jury's consideration in cases involving

coercion and will more fully capture the imbalance of power

between trafficker and victim. A scheme, plan, or pattern

intended to inculcate a belief of serious harm may refer to

nonviolent and psychological coercion, including but not

limited to isolation, denial of sleep and punishments, or

preying on mental illness, infirmity, drug use or addictions

(whether pre-existing or developed by the trafficker).

``Commercial sexual activity'' in this context is not limited

to a particular sex act, but would include all aspects of

prostitution, including time under the defendant's control in

which the victim is not engaged with clients.

Another modification to Chapter 77 made by section 222

involves the level of scienter necessary for a violation of

Section 1591. The current standard is enhanced through the

addition of a ``reckless disregard'' option. Such an approach

is well-established in other federal criminal statutes, and

would have the advantage of reaching those who turn a

willfully blind eye toward a person in commercial sexual

activity who is being physically abused or is underage. Such

an approach puts the responsibility on participants in

commercial sex activity to not ignore indicia of abuse, such

as bruising or distress, or indicia of youth on the part of

those whom they recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide,

obtain, or maintain.

Additionally, a special evidentiary provision is added for

those cases under Section 1591(a)(1) in which criminal

liability attaches not because of the use of coercion but

because of the use of a minor for commercial sexual activity.

In such cases, the prosecution will be exempted from having

to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant who had a

reasonable opportunity to observe the person recruited,

enticed, harbored, transported, provided, obtained or

maintained knew that the person had not attained the age of

18 years. This special evidentiary provision reflects a

similar provision in the aggravated sexual abuse offense,

Title 18, United States Code, Section 2241(d), and is crafted

in light of United States v. X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. 64,

70, n.2 (1994) (exception from presumption of mens rea more

appropriate in statutes in which perpetrator necessarily

``confronts the underage victim personally and may reasonably

be required to ascertain that victim's age''). This approach

comports with numerous appellate decisions in related areas

of the law, such as the Mann Act. See, e.g., United States v.

Jones, 471 F.3d 535 (4th Cir. 2006).

Section 222 also creates a new fraud crime, Title 18,

United States Code, Section 1351, which prohibits the

recruiting, solicitation, or hiring, with intent to defraud,

foreign persons to be employed in the United States through

false pretenses, representations, or promises about their

employment. For the purposes of this provision,

``employment'' is presumed to include, but not be limited to,

such issues as terms and conditions of employment, housing,

labor broker fees, employer or broker-provided food and

transportation, ability to work outside of the offered place

of employment, and other material aspects of the recruited

person's work and life in America. This statute is intended

to capture situations in which exploitative employers and

recruiters have lured heavily-indebted workers to the United

States, but did not obtain their labor or services through

coercion sufficient to reach the level of the Chapter 77

Slavery/Trafficking offenses. Press accounts and

Congressional briefings have highlighted cases with facts as

egregious as situations in which defrauded workers were

stranded in fenced compounds, reduced to catching pigeons for

food and collecting rainwater to drink, all the while facing

bankruptcy because of brokerage charges and debt incurred in

their home country in reliance on the recruiters' false

promises. This section will be of particular application in

cases involving employment-based immigration

(``guestworker'') programs, but is not limited to employment

under such a provision. This Section a five year statutory

maximum in recognition that the victims of fraudulent labor

recruiting are at high risk of being held in servitude, and

that prosecutors should not have to wait for the abuse to

rise to the highest levels of criminality before dismantling

these criminal organizations.

H.R. 3887 updated Title 8, United States Code, Section

1328, a long-established statute that criminalizes the

importation of aliens for immoral purposes and the harboring

or employment of aliens so imported. The bill does not

include this update, but rather directs the U.S. Sentencing

Commission to assess the sentencing guideline pertaining to

alien harboring, 18 United States Code, Section

1324(a)(1)(A)(iii), to determine whether the guideline for

harboring should conform to the Mann Act guideline when the

harboring was committed in furtherance of prostitution and

the defendant is an organizer, leader, manager, or

supervisor. Section 1324 is a more modern statute, penalizing

harboring even without proof that it was done in furtherance

of illegal importation. The elements of a 1324 offense do not

vary based on the purpose for which the alien is being

harbored. For instance, there is no difference in the

knowledge required on the part of an employer, an alien

smuggler, or a trafficker that the alien had come to,

entered, or remained in the United States in violation of

law. Section 1328 remains an effective tool to reach those

who are kept in a brothel or other place in pursuance of

importation for an immoral purpose, but this review of the

sentencing structure is intended to guarantee that it will be

supplemented by the general harboring statute.

Section 225 Promoting Effective State Enforcement

This section, reflective of some of the goals of section

224 of the H.R. 3887, provides that nothing in previous acts

related to trafficking, this Act, and any model law related

to trafficking promulgated by the Department of Justice shall

be read to legitimize prostitution as a valid form of labor,

or to preempt, supplant or limit the effect of any State or

Federal criminal law. In particular, it should be noted that

financial transactions involving the proceeds of any

trafficking activities, or any failure to report income

obtained through any trafficking activities would remain

reachable by applicable federal statutes, irrespective of the

provision of section 225(a)(1).

Many states have modernized archaic slavery or forced

prostitution statutes in line with the TVPA or the model

state laws promulgated by the Department of Justice or non-

governmental organizations. In recognition that many state

statutes in the closely related area of prostitution

enforcement are also antiquated, the bill directs the

Department of Justice to supplement its current anti-

trafficking model law with modern anti-prostitution models,

so that a holistic update is available for policymakers' use.

Section 225 will also require that the new model law be

distributed to each Attorney General as a means of promoting

the new model law. The bill also will result in dissemination

of a chapter of the Criminal Code of the District of Columbia

as an example of a statute that reaches as felonies cases

involving coercion, pandering, and exploitation alike.

Section 238 Processing of Certain Visas

Section 238 mandates a report from the Department of

Homeland Security concerning the work of the Violence Against

Women Act (VAWA) Unit at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration

Services' Vermont Service Center. The VAWA Unit is a highly-

trained adjudication team that is responsible for a number of

victim-related immigration applications, including but not

limited to: the adjudications, adjustments, work

authorizations, parole, fax-back benefits and employment

verification, naturalization, and derivative beneficiaries

related to such programs as Violence Against Women Act self-

petitions (Section 101(a)(51) of the Immigration and

Nationality Act); T visas (Section 101(a)(15)(T) of the

Immigration and Nationality Act), U-visas (Section

101(a)(15)(U) of the Immigration and Nationality Act;

battered spouse waivers (Section 216(c)(4)); abused immigrant

work authorizations (Section 106 of the Immigration and

Nationality Act) and parole for children of Violence Against

Women Act cancellation recipients (Public Law 103-222, as

reauthorized by Public Laws 106-326, 108-193, 109-162, and

109-164) and any other matters that are protected by the

confidentiality provisions of the Violence Against Women Act.

The mandated report seeks information on funding, staffing,

and training. The Unit should continue to be the responsible

office for the processing of victim-related immigration

applications, and such processing should be conducted in a

manner consistent with applicable confidentiality

requirements. Off-site adjudication of such applications

should be considered an extraordinary circumstance, and if

cases must be adjudicated elsewhere, special care should be

taken to ensure compliance with confidentiality and

adjudication standards of the Unit.

Immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and

other violent crimes should not have to wait for up to a year

before they can support themselves and their families. The

Vermont Service Center should therefore strive to issue work

authorization and deferred action in most instances within 60

days of filing, consistent with the need for safe and

competent adjudication. The mandated report therefore seeks

information on the timing adjudications, and steps taken to

improve on this aspect of the Unit's mission.

The staff of the Unit are widely respected as experts in

the effect of trauma and victimization and the heightened

confidentiality mandated by the Violence Against Women Act,

and have historically been not only an adjudication team but

a policy resource. The mandated report thus includes a

description of measures taken to ensure that the policy

expertise of the Unit is fully incorporated into decision-

making by the Department of Homeland Security.

Provisions from H.R. 3887 Not Included in Bill

Several provisions from H.R. 3887 do not appear in this

version of the legislation. For example, the original House

bill attempted to streamline the investigation and

prosecution of certain sex trafficking and related offenses

by amending the Mann Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2421, et seq. The

Wilberforce Act reflects a different consensus, and achieves

these ends through modifications to the Slavery/Trafficking

Chapter of Title 18 discussed above.

Specific language regarding the surveys required by section

232 of H.R. 3887 is not included in the bill. However, the

provisions of paragraph (B)(i) and (ii) of section 201(a)(1)

of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of

2005 (42 U.S.C. 14044(a)) still require that the surveys

contained in that provision be completed, and section 237(d)

requires the Department of Justice to provide the relevant

committees a report on the status of those surveys, including

the projected date when such surveys will be completed. Also,

section 234 of H.R. 3887 proposed a reorganization of

functions within the Department of Justice. The Department of

Justice should review the relationship between the Criminal

Section of the Civil Rights Division and the Child

Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division

and promote a coordinated approach to the trafficking

prosecutions that these Sections carry out. More critically,

the Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation should

assess the division of labor within the Bureau as to

trafficking offenses, with particular emphasis on servitude

cases being considered a key civil rights enforcement

priority.

Because efforts in the closely-related area of prostitution

enforcement are important to prevent situations from ripening

into servitude, the reporting requirements of Section 237 are

intended to gain a better understanding of the Criminal

Division and United States Attorneys Offices' activities to

enforce the Mann Act or those local prostitution offenses

that United States Attorneys may have jurisdiction over

through operation of the District of Columbia Criminal Code

or the Travel Act 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1952 or other racketeering

tools.

Title III

Title III authorizes funds for programs, projects and

activities related to human trafficking. In order to promote

broad support for the bill, some of the authorization for

program funding was reduced to levels closer to previously

appropriated levels, and therefore represents a more

realistic target for future spending. Any reductions in

authorizations are not intended to indicate a decrease in the

importance of any programs, but indeed are intended to

encourage appropriations at those new levels. It should be

noted that Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and

Customs Enforcement is engaging in a number of important

investigatory activities abroad and should continue to be

fully supported.

Title IV

Title IV is drawn from title IV of both H.R. 3887 and S.

3061. The two versions were substantially similar, and the

intent of title IV is described in House Report 110-430. As

in both bills, section 404, revised from the text of both

H.R. 3887 and S. 3061, provides that no assistance under

section 516 of the Foreign Assistance Act (relating to

transfers of excess defense articles), section 541 of the

Foreign Assistance Act (relating to international military

education and training) and section 23 of the Arms Export

Control Act (relating to foreign military financing) shall be

provided, and no licenses for commercial arm sales may be

issued, to countries that are determined to be using or

permitting the use of child soldiers in governmental armed

forces or government-supported armed forces. While requiring

enhanced reporting on child soldiers in the annual country

reports on human rights, the actual list of countries that

are subject to this prohibition will be included in the

annual Report on Trafficking in Persons, as provided for in

H.R. 3887, instead of the annual country reports, as provided

in S. 3061. The country reports should continue to be an

objective assessment of human rights conditions around the

world, and should not be used as the specific mechanism for

imposing sanctions or other matters affecting U.S. relations

with other countries.

The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, was read the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

Mr. Speaker, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, Public Law 106-386, has made, I believe, an enormous positive difference in our efforts to end modern-day slavery, a nefarious enterprise that nets the exploiters billions of dollars each year.

The 7-year-old landmark law and its numerous reinforcing provisions to prevent trafficking, to protect victims and to prosecute to the max those who traffic, has been a model statute worldwide. Indeed, many of its provisions have been adopted into law in whole or in part by governments around the world.

Mr. Speaker, the TVPA of 2000 does not pull any punches. By naming the names of countries out of compliance with what we call minimum standards and by imposing smart sanctions that are prescribed in the act, the withholding of nonhumanitarian aid, for example, we have signaled to the world that ending this egregious practice is among the highest priorities of the United States.

By protecting the victims and not sending them back to their home country where they are often exploited in a vicious cycle of exploitation, we say to the victims we will make every effort to make you safe and secure. By prosecuting the traffickers and imposing serious jail time, we are telling these exploiters we are coming after you, we will hunt you down, and you are going to pay for your crimes.

Since the enactment of the TVPA, the traffickers here and abroad are increasingly likely to face prosecution and conviction. In the 7-year period before its enactment, DOJ prosecuted 91 suspected traffickers. In the last 7 years, the Justice Department has prosecuted 449, representing a 339 percent increase. The Department has secured 342 convictions and guilty pleas, compared with 74 in the same period prior to the act. And it has opened 822 new investigations, an almost five- fold increase over the 135 opened prior to implementation of the law. Worldwide, nearly 5,700 traffickers were prosecuted last year alone, and more than 3,400 were convicted.

Notwithstanding these successes, it is clear that more has to be done to destroy this mob-infested, criminal enterprise known as human trafficking. According to research sponsored by the U.S. Government and completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked internationally and millions more are trafficked within their country. According to the same research, the vast majority of transnational victims, almost 80 percent, are women and girls, and almost half of those 800,000 victims are minors. These figures are low compared to those posited by the International Labor Organization, which estimates 12.3 million people are subjected to forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, and sexual servitude.

The continued imperative to fight modern-day slavery was again brought home to me while I was in Russia last week. At the same time as I was participating in meetings with Russian officials about how to improve our respective countries' efforts to fight human trafficking, the news media was reporting that a man who was living in my home state of New Jersey--just outside my district--had been accused of engaging in sex trafficking. This individual with dual U.S-Russian citizenship allegedly was traveling to St. Petersburg and hiring out 13- and 14- year old girls from an orphanage as prostitutes after he himself had sexually abused them. This case highlights the fact that we all potentially have traffickers living in our neighborhoods, and we must do more to protect our children and children everywhere in the world.

The bill before us today, Mr. Speaker, is a very good piece of bipartisan legislation, and it aims to do just that by updating, expanding, and improving the TPVA.

There have been lessons learned since the first law was enacted 8 years ago and subsequently reauthorized in 2003 and 2005. They are incorporated into this legislation as we try to do an even better job in mitigating the suffering of the victims while simultaneously going after those who traffic and the countries that harbor traffickers who are also part of the problem themselves.

The bill is appropriately named after William Wilberforce, who was 21 years old when he was elected to the House of Commons in 1780. John Newton, the former slave captain turned convert to Christ, encouraged Wilberforce as well as others to fight the battle against slavery. Wilberforce agreed and then poured his heart into that battle.

Wilberforce once said: ``Never, never will we desist until we extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic to which our posterity, looking back to the history of those enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long to disgrace and dishonor this country.''

He also said: ``So enormous, so dreadful, so remediable did the trade's wickedness quickly appear that my own mind was completely made up for its abolition.'' We need to fight with Wilberforce-like tenacity against this modern-day slave trade.

One of the most prominent provisions of the original TVPA was the establishment of the tier-ranking system that indicates how well or poorly a country is conforming to the minimum standards. We found when we created the watch list that some of the countries began to realize they could be ``parked'' there with no serious consequence for their failure. Tier 2 watch list countries found there was no penalty even though they made no improvements. That has to change: Two years and then you are off the watch list, up or down. If significant improvements fail to materialize, or the country fails to come up with a written plan to eliminate trafficking and devote sufficient resources to implement that plan, the country is put on tier three, subject to penalties.

Mr. Speaker, the William Wilberforce Act would also clarify a provision in the original TVPA--that should never have required clarification--that the Secretary of Health and Human Services must make initial determinations of benefit eligibility for minors who are potential trafficking victims, without the involvement of either the Attorney General or Secretary of Homeland Security. This should rectify an erroneous interpretation and application of the law by these agencies, and facilitate the immediate assistance desperately needed by children rescued from exploitative and traumatic situations.

Among the many other important provisions of this bill, calls for investigations by the Inspector Generals of the Department of Defense, State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, respectively, into ascertain contracts awarded by those agencies. The IGs' attention would be directed to contracts that carry a risk of encouraging human trafficking, including instances where a contractor or subcontractor may be engaging in the procurement of a commercial sex act. The reports to be submitted to Congress subsequent to these investigations will be valuable in ascertaining the commitment of our own government in combating human trafficking, and provide an example to be emulated by other governments as well.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would emphasize that effective cooperation, and especially the bipartisan cooperation we see here today, and partnership with other countries, is essential if we are to win this winnable war. Without it, we are doomed to either meager results or outright failure. With so many lives hanging in the balance, failure simply is not an option. None of us alone can stop human trafficking. Too much evil is involved here, and the prospect of making billions has enticed some of the most unsavory and cruel individuals on Earth, including organized crime. Too much demand, enabled by crass indifference, unbridled hedonism and misogynistic attitudes has turned people, especially women, into objects, only valued for their utility in the brothel or in the sweatshop. And the relative lack of visibility

makes the task of combating trafficking all the more difficult.

Trafficking, like germs, infection and disease, thrives in shadowy and murky places. But the contagion slows and it even dies when exposed to the light. This legislation brings more light, bright light, to this problem; and it will act as a powerful disinfectant.

So the challenge to us today is to bring this new light, the bright light of sustained scrutiny and enacting good laws, like this one, and then implementing them aggressively. We need to employ best practices and well-honed strategies in order to win the freedom of the slaves and to spare others unspeakable agony.

Together, we can make the pimps and the exploiters pay by doing serious jail time as well as the forfeiture of their assets, their boats, their villas, and their fat bank accounts.

We can end this barbaric, cruel modern-day slavery. Make no mistake about it, this is a winnable war but we need to fight in a way so as to win. This legislation further propels us in that fight, and we will win this and the slaves will be free.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7311, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 and applaud its passage in the House.

This Act will allow for appropriations through 2011 to assist in combating human trafficking and to further provide protection for victims of human sex trafficking in the United States.

As the Chairwoman of the Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Counterterrorism, I held a series of hearings entitled ``Crossing the Border: Immigrants in Detention and Victims of Trafficking.'' These hearings identified and discussed many urgent issues related to the prevention of human trafficking and assistance for victims of human trafficking.

These issues impact countries around the world, whether they are a source of or destination for trafficked persons. Official estimates show that between 2 to 4 million persons are trafficked each year, including approximately 17,500 individuals who are trafficked into the United States.

The United States must also work to improve its efforts to combat trafficking within our own borders. This bill will assist with enhancing the rights of victims, who are trafficked into the United States, and will provide special protections to child victims.

At the same time, we must continue to work on this issue in our local communities. In my district, a number of agencies, including law enforcement, service providers, and community organizations have joined together to form the Orange County Human Trafficking, Task Force (OCHTTF). I am very proud of the Task Force's work to reduce human trafficking in southern California, and I urge my colleagues to support these types of task forces as communities around the country work to stop human trafficking

H.R. 7311 also provides critical assistance to victims seeking relief and access to special U.S. visas to protect them from their traffickers.

I am proud to support this legislation which is an important step in the worldwide fight against human trafficking.