[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 92 (Wednesday, June 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5626]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SEX TRAFFICKING IN THAILAND

  (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge all my colleagues to 
support my resolution to demand that our Government work to stop the 
sex trafficking and forced prostitution of women and girls from Burma 
into Thailand. I am pleased that my colleague from Washington, Senator 
Murray, has introduced this same bill in the Senate.
  I was appalled and disgusted to discover that the Government of 
Thailand has permitted the trafficking of women of brothels. Credible 
reports have indicated that thousands of Burmese women and girls, as 
young as 14, are being led into Thailand with false promises of 
employment, only to be forced to work in brothels under conditions 
which include sexual and physical violence, debt bondage, exposure to 
HIV, passport deprivation, and illegal confinement. In addition, 
members of the Thai police are often actively involved.
  And now we read in our own New York Times, that Thai women are being 
brought to the United States for the same purpose. This is a practice 
the U.S. Government must not support and we must work to stop it, 
before it becomes a practice quietly condoned and supported worldwide.
  As we debate the foreign aid budget, we must remember the gross human 
rights violations which occur against women, and we must remember we 
have a moral duty to pay attention. We have ignored it for too long. 
This is an issue of fundamental human rights.


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