[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 413 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
113th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 413
To amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to
include human trafficking as a part 1 violent crime for purposes of the
Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
February 28, 2013
Mr. Cornyn (for himself, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Portman, and Ms.
Klobuchar) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to
include human trafficking as a part 1 violent crime for purposes of the
Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Human Trafficking Reporting Act of
2013''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery.
(2) According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of
2000 ``severe forms of trafficking in persons'' means--
(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act
is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which
the person induced to perform such act has not attained
18 years of age; or
(B) the recruitment, harboring, transportation,
provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or
services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion
for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude,
peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
(3) There is an acute need for better data collection of
incidents of human trafficking across the United States in
order to effectively combat severe forms of trafficking in
persons.
(4) The State Department's 2012 Trafficking in Persons
report found that--
(A) the United States is a ``source, transit and
destination country for men, women, and children,
subjected to forced labor, debt bondage, domestic
servitude and sex trafficking,''; and
(B) the United States needs to ``improve data
collection on human trafficking cases at the federal,
state and local levels''.
(5) The International Organization for Migration has
reported that in order to effectively combat human trafficking
there must be reliable and standardized data, however, the
following barriers for data collection exist:
(A) The illicit and underground nature of human
trafficking.
(B) The reluctance of victims to share information
with authorities.
(C) Insufficient human trafficking data collection
and research efforts by governments worldwide.
(6) A 2009 report to the Department of Health and Human
Services entitled Human Trafficking Into and Within the United
States: A Review of the Literature found that ``the data and
methodologies for estimating the prevalence of human
trafficking globally and nationally are not well developed, and
therefore estimates have varied widely and changed
significantly over time''.
(7) The Federal Bureau of Investigation compiles national
crime statistics through the Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
(8) Under current law, State and local governments
receiving Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance grants are
required to share data on part 1 violent crimes with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation for inclusion in the Uniform
Crime Reporting Program.
(9) The addition of severe forms of trafficking in persons
to the definition of part 1 violent crimes will ensure that
statistics on this heinous crime will be compiled and available
through the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime
Report.
SEC. 3. HUMAN TRAFFICKING TO BE INCLUDED IN PART 1 VIOLENT CRIMES FOR
PURPOSES OF BYRNE GRANTS.
Section 505 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of
1968 (42 U.S.C. 3755) is amended by adding at the end the following new
subsection:
``(i) Part 1 Violent Crimes To Include Human Trafficking.--For
purposes of this section, the term `part 1 violent crimes' shall
include severe forms of trafficking in persons, as defined in section
103(8) of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C.
7102(8)).''.
<all>