Human Trafficking Prevention, Intervention, and Recovery Act of 2014

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5135) to direct the Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking to identify strategies to prevent children from becoming victims of trafficking and review trafficking prevention efforts, to protect and assist in the recovery of victims of trafficking, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 5135, currently under consideration.

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

I rise today to speak in favor of H.R. 5135, the Human Trafficking Prevention, Intervention, and Recovery Act of 2014, introduced by Representative Kristi Noem.

The crisis of human trafficking is ruinous to the lives of its victims, many of whom are drawn from the ranks of the most vulnerable in our society. This crisis has touched nearly every corner of the globe, and even exists here in the United States.

The Justice Department, and its many State and local partners, have made great strides to rescue children and other victims from the terrible crime of sex trafficking. Last month, the FBI announced a successful nationwide sting that led to the rescue of 168 children and the arrest of 281 pimps in more than 100 cities.

Also last month, the Justice Department seized a major Web site known for promoting illegal sex trafficking and indicted its owner. Both of these cases, and the many other trafficking cases that have been brought in recent years, show that law enforcement is making progress in the fight against child exploitation. But sadly, there remains more work to be done.

Studies suggest that over 290,000 youth are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation in the United States. To effectively combat human trafficking, we must cut it off at its root by trying to prevent the trafficking before it can occur.

H.R. 5135 requires the existing Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking to survey and catalog the methods being employed by our Federal and State governments to deter individuals from committing trafficking offenses and children from being victimized.

The bill also directs the task force to identify best practices and what gaps might exist, if any, in research and data so that we can place new and valuable tools in the hands of law enforcement.

One challenge that victims of sex trafficking often face is a lack of financial independence that keeps them trapped in a life of prostitution. H.R. 5135 helps to address that by clarifying that existing Federal trafficking grants may be used for programs that provide housing for victims of sex trafficking.

As I have said before, sex traffickers, and the buyers who enable them to stay in business, dehumanize their victims, treating them as objects to be used for the profit and pleasure of others, instead of human beings creating in the image of God.

In May of this year, the House passed a number of antitrafficking bills that originated in the House Judiciary Committee, which are all awaiting consideration by the Senate. I encourage my colleagues on the other side of the Capitol Hill to move swiftly to pass those bills.

I am pleased that we can consider another set of bipartisan antitrafficking bills here today. It is important that we do everything that we can to bring an end to this illicit industry. H.R. 5135 will help us to do just that. I hope that this body will join with me and Congresswoman Noem in supporting this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from South Dakota (Mrs. Noem), the chief sponsor of the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black), who has also been a leader on this issue of combating sex trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. Speaker, having no further requests for time, I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to all that, as the chair of the Judiciary Committee, I appreciate the bipartisan work that has been done on many of these sex trafficking bills.

I appreciate especially the work of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.

Scott), who is the ranking member on the Crime Subcommittee, and the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Conyers, as well. I commend the chairman of that subcommittee, Mr. Sensenbrenner, as well as Congresswoman Noem for their leadership on this issue.

Sex trafficking is a serious problem, and while we see it around the world, we should not overlook the fact that it is a serious problem right here in the United States.

This bill joins several others that we have already passed through the House of Representatives to address this serious problem, and it deserves the same bipartisan support that the others received, and it also deserves the consideration of the other side of the Capitol, by the other body which needs to take these bills up and pass them as well, so they can go to the President's desk and be signed into law.

This is truly a bipartisan effort to address a serious national problem, and we all need to join into the solution.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, over the past several years, my eyes have really been opened to the disturbing type of slavery that we have seen across the world and here at home.

I have heard about human trafficking before and young children being sold for sex overseas, but I guess I didn't really realize how much it was happening here in the United States and even in my home State of South Dakota. The more I learned about human trafficking and the risk that it posed to our kids, the more I became convicted that I needed to do something about it.

The average age of a child that is trafficked is just 11 to 14 years old. Many times, the trafficker will lure these children in, pretending to be their friend or their boyfriend, control them through the use of drugs or alcohol, and give them the comfort and stability that they may be lacking at home. After they have them isolated and dependent, they sell them for sex.

It is heartbreaking for me as a mom, as an aunt of many nieces and nephews, as a 4-H leader, and as a person who works with our youth every single day to think about the innocent children that are being forced into this disgusting industry and becoming slaves to these predators.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of children are at risk to being trafficked here in the United States, so this isn't a problem that is far away. It is a problem that is right here in our backyards.

Back in South Dakota, I held a lot of roundtables and a Justice Against Slavery Summit. I heard from local shelters, from law enforcement officers, tribal leaders, from victims and advocate groups and learned from their expertise.

I learned a lot about what was being done to stop human trafficking and what additional tools they needed from Congress and what we should pursue. While we talked about the problem, I wanted them to focus on what they needed for solutions. With the insight of all these community leaders, we identified ways we could rout out the disgusting industry and help victims recover.

That is why I am so proud to be here today to introduce H.R. 5135, the Human Trafficking Prevention, Intervention, and Recovery Act. This bipartisan bill was based on those conversations that I had during those roundtables and the summit that I held in South Dakota on how best to prevent and combat human trafficking. The best way to stop human trafficking in its tracks is to prevent it.

My bill launches a task force review to look into Federal and State trafficking-prevention activities. The review will be in done in consultation with nongovernmental organizations, like those I heard from in South Dakota, and will work to identify and develop best practices to prevent trafficking.

Next, it requires an inventory to be done of existing antitrafficking efforts by the Federal Government. It is important to take a hard look at all of these programs across the Federal Government to ensure that Federal resources are targeted and that they are used where they are needed.

We can also identify any gaps in Federal programs that need to be filled, and finally, my bill improves existing Department of Justice grants and allows them to be used for shelters for survivors.

Did you know, nationwide, there is only about 200 beds available for underage victims of sex trafficking? Many of these kids, once they are rescued from their trafficker, have nowhere safe to go. They don't have any other option, and so often, what they are forced to do is to return to their trafficker.

Many who are in the foster care system don't have the family support that is necessary to be safe and to recover. Sadly, without a place to recover from the trauma that has happened in their lives, kids return back to those traffickers, and that is why it is important that we use Federal resources wisely to promote more facilities to help these recovering children.

I am proud to be standing here with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take action on this bill today and the other bills that were brought to deal with sex trafficking. It is an issue that we can and we should all stand together on. Together, these bills will do more to prevent trafficking, give law enforcement more tools to deal with it, and help our victims recover.

I am grateful for my colleagues and to the leadership for making this a priority in the House. I urge my colleagues to support this package and continue our fight to end human trafficking.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5135, the Human Trafficking Prevention, Intervention, and Recovery Act of 2014. This bill is vital to identifying best practices and effective strategies to deter individuals from committing trafficking offenses and to prevent children from becoming victims, and it, therefore, enjoys bipartisan support in the House.

This bill will encourage Federal, State, and local governments to work together as an Interagency Task Force to investigate and enforce the existing laws. This task force will emphasize prosecution of the purchasers of sex with children as child rapists. These purchasers are usually referred to as ``johns'' who pay for sex with children, but insofar as children cannot consent to sex, the johns are legally committing rape and should be prosecuted as rapists.

The bill encourages law enforcement coordination with intergovernment organizations and academics who will put into practice what research and data demonstrate will work to prevent these crimes.

The GAO will submit a report on how the Federal grant programs' funds have been used to combat human trafficking or to assist victims of trafficking. An Interagency Task Force will submit a report to Congress on its findings.

The bill will also provide housing to protect and assist children in recovering victims of trafficking. To date, the number of victims, especially child victims, greatly exceeds the number of available shelter beds.

Without a safe place to stay, many rescued victims will end up running away and returning to their abusers due to the unique trauma bond that occurs in these cases.

Along those lines, we must do more to rescue child victims and expand the services they need. Our country has a moral imperative to protect and help these children who are vulnerable, warrant special protection, and need these services, even in the best of circumstances.

This vulnerability is compounded amongst children who have been victims of sexual exploitation, physical violence, trauma, and extreme poverty. With our protection, support, and assistance, we can help them survive.

I commend my colleague from Virginia, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for working to bring the bill to the floor, and I commend our colleague from South Dakota (Mrs. Noem) for introducing the legislation.

I urge my colleagues to join me in prosecuting those who rape children, protecting and rescuing child victims, and providing the victims with the support that they need.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that my home State of North Dakota is enjoying the blessing of an energy boom, an economic boom, which is driven largely by an oil and gas renaissance that has us contributing now over 1 million barrels of oil per day toward America's energy security, but with the blessing of this energy boom comes some unwanted consequences, and chief among them is a growing demand for the product of human trafficking. It has caused the citizens of our clean and beautiful State to be somewhat alarmed and rightfully so.

Our local and State law enforcement agencies are stressed to the max. Our nonprofit and faith-based communities are doing all that they can to assist, and they are doing it with great effort, but they need some additional help and encouragement.

So this and the many other House bills that will be passed in the next couple of days dealing with this plague of human trafficking will provide the tools that, frankly, only the Federal Government can provide to assist--not replace, but assist local, State, and nonprofit agencies in this fight against the plague of human trafficking in our society.

I encourage all of my colleagues to support this and the other bills before us.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government reports that as many as 17,500 people are trafficked into our country annually. With the rise of the Internet, the number of sex trafficking incidents in particular has exploded. We must do what we can to combat this rising epidemic by identifying best practices in combating trafficking, so that others can duplicate these successful models.

I am proud that in my home State of Tennessee, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has developed a card that would identify an algorithm of how law enforcement would interview those who potentially have been sex-trafficked, as well as on the back of the card, those kinds of resources that can be used to help those who are in this situation.

Systems like this must be identified, studied, and duplicated to combat trafficking, and I am proud to support this bill from Congresswoman Noem, which would help to make this very important work successful.