[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 97 (Friday, June 27, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       INTRODUCTION OF H.R. 2620 TRAFFICKING VICTIMS PROTECTION 
                      REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2003

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 26, 2003

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, today I proudly joined my good friend from 
New Jersey, the Chairman of the Veterans Committee and the Vice-
Chairman of the Committee on International Relations, in introducing 
H.R. 2620, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 
2003.
  Mr. Speaker, in the 106th Congress, Mr. Smith and our former 
colleague, Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut, spent enormous energy to pass 
the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. I was proud to be an 
original co-sponsor of that landmark legislation. It is wise to recall 
where we were just a few short years ago with respect to trafficking of 
persons. The CIA estimated that 50,000 people were being trafficked 
into the United States each year and being held in conditions that 
amounted to modern day slavery. They were being forced to labor in our 
fields, to work endless hours in sweatshops, and to serve in sexual 
slavery in cities across our land. U.S. prosecution of traffickers 
faltered because attorneys in our Department of Justice did not have 
the right tools to pursue the new forms of trafficking, which often 
relied on threats, not chains, and on document fraud, not bills of 
sale. Overseas, millions of people were being used as chattel, and the 
brothels of Bombay and Bangkok were overflowing with prostitutes, many 
young girls, who were forced to provide sex. Governments were barely 
aware of what was happening to their own people, and where they were, 
they usually blamed the victims and forgot about them. And the 
international community was just starting to fashion an international 
agreement to address the horrors of trafficking.
  Today the picture is visibly brighter. Because of the enactment of 
the Smith-Gejdenson Act, the Attorney General is prosecuting cases from 
American Samoa to New Jersey and has recently achieved the first 
conviction under the new tools provided by that Act right here in the 
DC metropolitan area. Victims are coming forward because of the federal 
benefits we are offering to them, treating them like the refugees that 
they are. The naming of countries that are not making significant 
efforts to combat trafficking and the threat of sanctions against them 
are forcing measurable changes in the way that governments around the 
world are facing this modern day form of slavery. A new international 
criminal protocol is gaining wide acceptance, and is being studied by 
the Administration. Modern day slavery is under assault from all 
directions.
  But Mr. Speaker, we need to do more. In the two-and-a-half years 
since the enactment of the Smith-Gejdenson Act, we have learned much 
more about the phenomena of trafficking and how to combat it. It is 
time to do a thorough review of our trafficking statutes and ensure 
that we are doing everything we can to prevent trafficking, protect 
victims and prosecute traffickers.
  And that is exactly what the Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Act 
of 2003 accomplishes. Drawing from the conference earlier this year 
held by the Department of State, this bill authorizes new strategies 
for prevention, including using trafficking victims to identify 
traffickers at the borders and deterring sex tourism, which is part of 
the fuel of sex slavery around the world. It increases protection by 
making measured expansions of the visa category for trafficking victims 
and related provisions to better enable cooperation, particularly with 
respect to state and local trafficking prosecutions, which are 
increasingly the front line of law enforcement in this area. And it 
enhances prosecution of traffickers by, for example, ensuring that 
trafficking is treated like the organized crime that it is. Perhaps 
most critically, it demonstrates Congressional commitment to fighting 
this scourge by authorizing additional funds for U.S. agencies to 
combat this human rights crisis around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I salute Congressman Smith, Congressman Pitts and 
Congresswoman Slaughter for the vision they are showing today by 
joining me in this fight against trafficking in human beings. Just as 
we made a real difference two-and-a-half years ago, we can accelerate 
our fight against modern-day slavery. I urge all my colleagues to join 
in this fight.

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