Enhancing Services for Runaway and Homeless Victims of Youth Trafficking Act of 2014

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5076) to amend the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act to increase knowledge concerning, and improve services for, runaway and homeless youth who are victims of trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5076.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of H.R. 5076, the Enhancing Services for Runaway And Homeless Victims of Youth Trafficking Act, legislation I introduced to help better serve our most vulnerable youth who are the victims of extreme trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, trafficking is an issue that hits close to home for me. I represent parts of the city of Las Vegas and the surrounding suburbs. When people think of Las Vegas, they think of the lights, the magnificent hotels, shopping, fine dining, and nightlife. But the city's reputation as a national and international tourist destination, combined with the transient nature of the population, has made Las Vegas a prime target for human traffickers.

In fact, between 1994 and 2014, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department recovered 2,229 victims of sex trafficking. Just last year, Metro recovered 107 children victims of human trafficking.

All of us, Federal and State officials, law enforcement, the courts, all of us have a moral obligation to eradicate trafficking and support its victims. And it will take close coordination between all stakeholders to achieve the dual goals of ending the human trafficking epidemic and assisting the victims.

To help facilitate that coordination, I hosted representatives from Nevada's State government, law enforcement, the judiciary, and victims' rights groups for a roundtable discussion on ways to combat trafficking, and also offer more support to victims or potential victims.

At that roundtable I met Annie. She came to Las Vegas to make a better life for herself, and was, instead, ensnared in the sex industry. Thankfully, Annie got out.

This is how she described her life as a victim of human trafficking: ``I felt like a dirty, cheated, disrespected, violated, and worthless individual to society. I didn't know who Annie was anymore. I often wanted to end my own life.''

Now she is an advocate devoted to helping other victims of trafficking. One of the things that she and others at the roundtable talked about was the need for improved resources for victims' advocacy and support, especially for youth victims and at-risk youth.

To that end, I introduced H.R. 5076, the Enhancing Services for Runaway and Homeless Victims of Youth Trafficking Act. My bill amends the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act to enable the Secretary of Health and Human Services to apply existing grant resources to train staff on the effects of human trafficking on runaway and homeless youth victims, and for developing statewide strategies to reach such youth.

It also allows the Secretary to utilize the Street Outreach Program to provide street-based services for runaway and homeless youth who are victims of trafficking.

Our Nation's runaway and homeless youth deserve access to services that will help them escape a life of crime, abuse, and neglect. By passing this simple fix to the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, we can help ensure that those suffering from the trauma of these deplorable acts will have access to the care and support they need.

I would like to thank Chairman Kline of the Education and the Workforce Committee, as well as my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Scott) for working with me on this important piece of legislation.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Enhancing Services for Runaway and Homeless Victims of Youth Trafficking Act, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline), the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and for his dedicated and hard work in combating sex trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, each year an estimated 300,000 innocent children fall victim to sex trafficking right here in the United States. The victims can be homeless or runaway youth. Others are simply taken from their parents in the blink of an eye. The victims' families are our neighbors, our friends, and our loved ones.

As a father of two and a grandfather of four, for me it is impossible to fathom the pain and suffering they must feel knowing their son or daughter is trapped in a modern-day slave trade filled with darkness and hopelessness. While we will never fully comprehend the grief these families are forced to bear, we can, as a Nation, fight this heinous crime with every tool available.

There are heroic efforts underway right now to locate victims of youth sex trafficking and return them to their families. Last week, the Education and Workforce Committee had an opportunity to hear from John Ryan, who is the head of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The center plays a vital role in a national effort to protect vulnerable youth, leading a partnership among law enforcement, government agencies, and private ventures like Honeywell, Google, and Lifetouch.

In my home State of Minnesota, the center has helped resolve cases involving 1,699 endangered runaways and 373 family abductions. The center's 24-hour CyberTipline has provided law enforcement more than 2 million leads of child sexual exploitation.

The center and its staff provide an invaluable service to families. They stand on the front lines of this critical battle each and every day. Despite these and other achievements, we know more can be done to protect our most vulnerable youth.

Right now, many kids are falling through the cracks of child welfare systems. Often, they are not properly identified as sex trafficking victims when they enter the system and are then lost in the shuffle once they are in State custody, and too often, runaway and homeless youth who are victims of sex trafficking do not receive the special help they need.

That is why I strongly support this legislation, which will enhance existing services for runaway and homeless youth. I am also proud to support legislation we will consider in just a few moments that will improve how State child welfare systems identify and respond to victims of youth sex trafficking.

Finally, we will also consider legislation that ensures victims are properly identified when reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children CyberTipline.

Mr. Speaker, we have to do more to address this national crisis. The bills the House is considering today move our country in the right direction. I am humbled to help lead this bipartisan effort and urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5076, the Enhancing Services for Runaway and Homeless Victims of Youth Trafficking Act of 2014. I am honored to have joined my colleagues, Mr. Heck and Mr. Kline, and appreciate their leadership on this important issue.

Our bill makes an important change in the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act so that victims of trafficking can be better served. We know that trafficking and youth homelessness often affect similar populations. Young people that have run away or are homeless are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and trafficking, and programs targeted towards runaway and homeless youth should be simultaneously equipped to support victims of trafficking when there is such an overlap.

Research consistently confirms the correlation between running away and becoming exploited through prostitution. For example, according to a 2006 FBI Uniform Crime Report, girls who run away from their homes, group homes, foster homes, or treatment centers are at high risk of being targeted by a trafficker and becoming exploited.

Street Outreach Programs were created to provide services to ``runaway, homeless, and street youth who have been subjected to or are at risk of being subjected to sexual abuse.'' Every year, 25,000 of these young people find shelter as a result of these programs.

The legislation being considered today ensures that Street Outreach Programs can rely on funding already available through the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act.

This allows the Department of Health and Human Services to provide street-based services such as individual assessments, treatment, counseling, or access to emergency shelter for runaway and homeless youth who are also victims of trafficking. Because of the overlap that often occurs with homelessness and trafficking, this just makes good sense.

Additionally, it is important that we provide the necessary resources to States, organizations, and other entities to train staff working with these victims. This additional training, authorized by this bill under the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act research grants, will allow service providers to successfully address and respond to the behavioral and emotional effects of abuse and assault.

Our bill ensures that staff training will also include ways to recognize and respond to the unique needs and circumstances of trafficking victims. This is a simple change but an important one necessary to improve services available.

It is my hope that we can continue to work in this spirit of bipartisanship and work together to improve and strengthen programs that support our Nation's children, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.