[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 102 (Wednesday, July 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8569-S8572]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 COMBATING HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN SLAVERY

  Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of S. Res. 414, which was submitted earlier 
today by Senator Cornyn.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 414) encouraging States to consider 
     adopting comprehensive legislation to combat human 
     trafficking in slavery and recognizing the many efforts made 
     to combat human trafficking and slavery.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
resolution.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I want to speak on the resolution that I 
believe will be passed by unanimous consent of the Senate which 
pertains to something I thought we would never be talking about now in 
the year 2004, and that is human slavery and trafficking in human 
beings.
  The good work that has been done by the U.S. Congress, since, of 
course, the ratification of the 13th amendment in 1865 abolishing 
slavery and involuntary servitude, includes a remarkable tradition, and 
a bipartisan tradition, I might add, starting, after 1865, in 1909, 
when the United States Code criminalized slavery.
  In 2000, the late Senator Paul Wellstone and Senator Sam Brownback 
joined together as the lead sponsors, together with a number of other 
Senators and Representatives, to advance legislation to strengthen 
those laws, specifically the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 
2000, which was later signed into law by President Bill Clinton. That 
legislation was reauthorized in 2003 by a bipartisan effort and signed 
into law by President George W. Bush.
  I expressly recognize the contributions of Senator Schumer, Senator 
Graham of South Carolina, Senator Leahy of Vermont, and Senator 
Clinton, who joined in cosponsoring this resolution. Indeed, this 
resolution lays out the terrible tale of the fact that as many as 
800,000 human beings are literally bought and sold worldwide into

[[Page S8570]]

some form of slavery or involuntary servitude. Approximately 16,000 of 
those human beings are brought into the United States each year, 
coerced into lives of forced labor or sexual servitude which, of 
course, is another way of describing slavery.
  This has been a bipartisan effort. It is refreshing to know, 
particularly during an election year where there are differences that 
divide us, where we know sometimes the rhetoric gets a little 
overwrought, that we can come together on such an important issue.
  The fact is the current administration has responded to the call by 
dramatically increasing efforts into devoting substantially more 
resources toward combating human trafficking. This has been done 
principally under the auspices of the civil rights division at the 
Justice Department which has prosecuted and convicted three times the 
number of traffickers over the past 3 years as had been done in the 
preceding 3 years, three times more in this last 3 years than had been 
done in the preceding 3 years.
  The Department of Justice has created the Office of Special Counsel 
for Trafficking Issues to coordinate antitrafficking efforts. It has 
also published educational and awareness-raising materials and 
circulated them to officials across America and provided assistance to 
victims of this trafficking by installing among other things a toll-
free hotline. Last week the Department of Justice sponsored a historic 
national conference on human trafficking in Tampa, FL, bringing 
together Federal, State, and local officials, social service agencies, 
and nongovernmental organizations to provide training and coordination 
to antihuman trafficking efforts across the country as provided in the 
fiscal year 2004 appropriations bill.
  The problem we uncovered was brought home during a recent hearing I 
chaired for the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and 
Property Rights of the Judiciary Committee. We heard testimony about 
the men, women, and children who continue to be trafficked into the 
United States. Each of these stories is tragic, disturbing, and 
heartrending. It is hard to imagine that this sort of thing continues 
to happen today. Let me mention two of them.
  In January of 2004, several defendants were sentenced to prison terms 
ranging from 4 months to 14 years after a ringleader of a human 
trafficking ring admitted to running a human trafficking operation 
bringing women from Central America and then holding them in this 
country once they were smuggled into the country. They were held 
against their will. Many of them were sexually assaulted. All of them 
were forced to work against their will until their smuggling fees were 
paid by their families.
  Another instance involved a research assistant and his wife at a 
university located in my State of Texas who were prosecuted for leading 
a trafficking ring that victimized young women. These young women were 
brought from Uzbekistan. They were lured to the United States by 
promises of lucrative modeling jobs, extravagant lifestyles, and also 
based on the promise that they would be able to bring their families 
once they were established here in the United States.

  The defendants in this case used fraudulently obtained J-1 visas to 
bring women into the United States through El Paso, TX. The visas 
purported to show that the women were scientists traveling to the 
United States to do scientific research. But once here, their 
immigration documents were confiscated, and these women were forced to 
work at local strip clubs for the benefit of the defendants who 
ultimately collected more than $700,000 as a result of their criminal 
enterprise. These defendants were ultimately convicted and sentenced to 
5 years in prison and ordered to pay more than a half million dollars 
in restitution to their victims.
  One of the things that was brought home to me as a result of this 
hearing was that the same routes, the same criminal enterprises that 
engage in smuggling of human beings, who prey on their hopes or their 
desire for jobs and economic opportunity, it is the same people in many 
instances and the same routes and organizations that engage in illegal 
smuggling of human beings who want nothing more than to be able to come 
here and work and then send money home to their families. It is just 
that the ones who are the victims of this trafficking are not freed 
when they are brought into this country but literally kept in 
involuntary servitude and slavery, some approximately 16,000, we think, 
although the numbers have to be suspect. They have to be low because, 
indeed, we know the victims of this activity are reluctant to come 
forward because they may have come illegally into the country.
  This is a persistent problem, one that touches on a larger issue, and 
that is, as we go forward with border security measures, to try to make 
sure that we protect our sovereign borders and to make sure our 
immigration laws are brought into modern times and the realities of our 
demand and indeed our reliance on labor provided by immigrants in this 
country. I hope we will view this as one of the terrible symptoms of a 
larger problem, and that is the need for us, as we establish the 
security of our borders, consistent with the post 9/11 world, that we 
also address the need to bring our immigration laws into this century. 
The President's call for immigration reform is part of it.
  Particularly for those who are, once they are brought into this 
country based on promises of jobs and opportunity, but then enslaved, 
that we redouble our efforts to make sure we bring an end to this 
scourge.
  I appreciate the bipartisan effort we have seen, the expressions of 
support for the work that has been done across the years by this 
administration, by previous administrations in combating the scourge of 
human slavery. I commend the Justice Department in particular for 
tripling the number of prosecutions they have obtained in these last 3 
years over the preceding 3 years. This is a fight worth fighting. These 
are some of the most vulnerable victims we could possibly imagine. 
Their punishment is well deserved.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I come to the floor to speak about a 
bipartisan measure; that is, the resolution Senator Cornyn and I are 
submitting on human trafficking. I thank my friend from Texas for 
working with me to address this growing problem that devastates the 
lives of so many.
  Human trafficking is one of the most heinous crimes in our world 
today. Everyone knows it is a heinous crime to take a person, often a 
young woman, kidnap her, and put her into, basically, sexual servitude. 
It is an absolute abomination.
  What I think most people are not aware of is the large number of 
people who are so enslaved. Our State Department estimates 800,000 
people are trafficked across international borders each year. Some are 
for domestic slavery, some are for farm slavery, and many are for 
sexual servitude.
  According to these State Department estimates, approximately three-
quarters of those trafficked are female, and 70 percent of these women 
are trafficked for sexual exploitation. So a little quick math would 
indicate it is pretty close to 400,000 a year who are engaged in sexual 
exploitation, and you cannot be too relieved that the other half are in 
other kinds of slavery.
  The victims are kidnapped or lured with false promises of money, and 
then thrown into slavery. Their captors subject their victims to forced 
prostitution. They are sexually assaulted sometimes 20 times a day. The 
lack of protection against HIV and AIDS means an effective death 
sentence for many sexual trafficking victims.
  The victims of forced labor fare only slightly better.
  In the vast majority of cases, they are worked to near death. They 
are routinely assaulted, sometimes killed. The truly sad fact is that 
at least half of the human trafficking victims are children, sometimes 
as young as 9 or 10 years old. The traffickers abuse the children, keep 
them in line by threatening to kill their parents or other family 
members if they don't comply. Beatings and rape are part of their 
everyday experience. Their lives are more horrific than many of us 
could even imagine. To think I am the father of two daughters, just 
think of your young children being put in this situation, and you can 
see the gravity and the horror of the situation.
  Here is another thing I will bet most Americans are not aware of. We 
think maybe this is happening in Africa or Asia or Europe. No, it is 
also occurring

[[Page S8571]]

right here in the United States. Sixteen thousand people are trafficked 
into the United States every year. Most are forced into sexual slavery 
in our own country. I have read in newspapers in New York about how 
some of these rings have been exposed. It is often among immigrant 
groups, but we are not immune.
  We have taken some important strides against this evil. In the year 
2000, President Clinton signed into law the bipartisan Trafficking 
Victims Protection Act. This act gave law enforcement real tools to 
fight against sexual trafficking and the money to fund that fight. Last 
year I was proud to join Senator Brownback as the Democratic sponsor of 
the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003.
  Of course, with the death of Senator Wellstone, who had been such a 
leader on this issue, a void has been left. I am doing my best to at 
least fill a little bit of it. We added new tools to fight against 
these traffickers and refined the tools we already had created to 
better serve law enforcement. We have made some strides. The laws are 
working. But the bottom line is, there is still a whole lot more to be 
done.
  I am pleased to join Senator Cornyn today in sponsoring this 
resolution. I thank him for his important work on this issue. The 
resolution recognizes the fact we need more awareness of this horrible 
crime, particularly at the State and local level. State and local law 
enforcement officers are often the first point of contact with victims 
in trafficking in the course of their normal work. This resolution puts 
the Senate on record supporting efforts to educate and empower State 
and local law enforcement officers in identifying trafficking victims. 
By raising awareness at the State and local level, we can better make 
use of the many tools we have in this fight.
  T-visas are a vital part of the fight against sex trafficking. These 
visas enable victims of trafficking to testify against their 
traffickers and help put these criminals in jail. We have had the 
situation where we have the victims and they are sent home, and the 
people who did it go free. Currently, we issue less than 2 percent of 
the T-visas available, and yet we know that tens of thousands of 
victims go without T-visas every year, condemning them to lives of 
abuse and terror instead of the protection they deserve and that is 
available under the visa.
  By educating and empowering State and local law enforcement officers 
to recognize trafficking crimes and raising awareness of this issue, we 
can identify more victims and get them the help they need and, most 
importantly, take their traffickers off the streets. We are also 
calling on the States to do a close examination of their current laws 
to see if they are adequate in the face of the human trafficking 
threat.
  We must make sure we are prepared to deal with this crime at all 
levels. We must also make sure the victims of trafficking receive the 
same level of services regardless of what laws are used to prosecute 
their traffickers.
  Far too often we find ourselves at odds with one another in the 
Senate. Our efforts on this issue show we can work together in a 
bipartisan way to protect some of the most endangered children in our 
world and put some of the most awful criminals behind bars. This 
resolution is an important step in the battle to save the lives of 
hundreds of thousands of women and children who are trafficked each 
year.
  Along with Senator Cornyn, I urge my colleagues to support its 
immediate passage. Together, if we work hard, we can greatly and 
dramatically reduce this horrible crime.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from New York for 
submitting the resolution about which he has just spoken.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I am pleased to sponsor this anti-
trafficking resolution with Senators Cornyn, Schumer, Lindsey Graham, 
and Clinton, and to have worked with Senator Cornyn to emphasize the 
bipartisan commitment to eliminate trafficking. The resolution 
encourages States to join the 106th and 108th Congresses in passing 
legislation to combat human trafficking.
  We cannot know with any certainty how many people are trafficked, but 
some experts estimate that nearly a million people worldwide every year 
are bought, sold, or trafficked, with about 16,000 of those people 
trafficked to the United States. These people are forced into 
involuntary servitude or, often, prostitution. Until recently, this 
issue was not a priority for governments around the world, but we are 
seeing signs of change, some prompted by our passage in 2000 of the 
bipartisan Trafficking Victims Protection Act, (TVPA) and last year's 
reauthorization of that law.
  In 2000, I served on the conference committee for the TVPA, which 
passed in the House and Senate by overwhelming margins and was signed 
by President Clinton, whose Justice Department was intimately involved 
in the legislative process. This bill--on which our late colleague 
Senator Wellstone worked so tirelessly--signaled a bipartisan 
congressional commitment to the prosecution of traffickers and the 
protection of their victims. I am proud to have played a role in 
creating the law, and in reauthorizing it.
  In forging the TVPA, Senators Wellstone and Brownback, and 
Congressmen Christopher Smith and Gejdensen, sought both to eliminate 
trafficking at home and to make combating trafficking and slavery a 
foreign policy priority. We are seeing signs of progress in this area, 
and I believe we will see even more if States become more involved in 
this issue.
  Combating trafficking has been a bipartisan issue. Senators and 
Representatives who are otherwise ideological opposites have worked 
together closely on anti-trafficking legislation, and the Justice 
Departments under both President Clinton and Bush have made it a 
priority to prosecute those who would deprive others of their most 
basic liberties. This resolution, too, provides an example of Senators 
from both sides of the aisle working together to further the cause of 
eliminating trafficking by punishing its perpetrators. I urge the 
Senate to pass it today.
  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to 
reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements be printed in the 
appropriate place.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 414) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:

                              S. Res. 414

       Whereas it has been nearly 2 centuries since the abolition 
     of the transatlantic slave trade, and well over a century 
     since the ratification of the 13th amendment to the 
     Constitution of the United States;
       Whereas most Americans would be shocked to learn that the 
     institutions of slavery and involuntary servitude continue to 
     persist today--not just around the world, but hidden in 
     communities across the United States;
       Whereas according to Federal Government estimates, 
     approximately 800,000 human beings are bought, sold, or 
     forced across the world's borders each year--including 
     approximately 16,000 human beings into the United States each 
     year--and are coerced into lives of forced labor or sexual 
     servitude that amount to a modern-day form of slavery;
       Whereas the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the 
     United States, ratified in 1865, abolishes the institutions 
     of slavery and involuntary servitude;
       Whereas numerous provisions of chapter 77 of title 18 of 
     the United States Code have criminalized slavery since 1909;
       Whereas the late Senator Paul Wellstone joined in a 
     bipartisan manner with Senator Sam Brownback and many other 
     Senators and Representatives to advance legislation to 
     strengthen those laws, leading to the enactment of the 
     Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7101 et 
     seq.), which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton;
       Whereas Congress made further bipartisan improvements to 
     the law when it enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection 
     Reauthorization Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-193), which was 
     signed into law by President George W. Bush;
       Whereas the Department of Justice, under the leadership of 
     its Civil Rights Division, has worked during the Clinton and 
     Bush presidencies to strengthen anti-trafficking laws and to 
     increase its own efforts to combat human trafficking and 
     slavery in light of those recent bipartisan enactments;
       Whereas the Trafficking in Persons Office of the Department 
     of State continues to fight human trafficking around the 
     world;
       Whereas many nongovernmental organizations have made 
     exceptional contributions to the prevention of human 
     trafficking and

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     to the care and rehabilitation of victims of human 
     trafficking;
       Whereas survivors of human trafficking crimes risk their 
     lives and the lives of their families to assist in the 
     investigation and prosecution of their former captors;
       Whereas effective prosecution of human trafficking crimes 
     will not be possible unless adequate protections are offered 
     to the survivors;
       Whereas the fight to eliminate human trafficking and 
     slavery requires the involvement of State and local law 
     enforcement officials, as well as Federal law enforcement 
     efforts;
       Whereas the enactment of comprehensive State laws 
     criminalizing human trafficking and slavery may be necessary 
     to ensure that Federal efforts are accompanied by robust 
     efforts at the State and local levels;
       Whereas the States of Texas, Washington, Missouri, and 
     Florida have recently enacted comprehensive State criminal 
     laws against human trafficking and slavery;
       Whereas the Department of Justice recently announced a 
     comprehensive model State anti-trafficking criminal statute, 
     and encouraged States to adopt such laws, at its first 
     ``National Conference on Human Trafficking,'' held in Tampa, 
     Florida; and
       Whereas the Department of Justice's model State anti-
     trafficking criminal statute is available at the Department's 
     website, http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crim/model_state_law.pdf: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) supports the bipartisan efforts of Congress, the 
     Department of Justice, and State and local law enforcement 
     officers to combat human trafficking and slavery;
       (2) strongly encourages State legislatures to carefully 
     examine the Department of Justice's model State anti-
     trafficking criminal statute, and to seriously consider 
     adopting State laws combating human trafficking and slavery 
     wherever such laws do not currently exist;
       (3) strongly encourages State legislatures to carefully 
     examine the Federal benefits and protections for victims of 
     human trafficking and slavery contained in the Trafficking 
     Victims Protection Act of 2000 and the Trafficking Victims 
     Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, and to seriously 
     consider adopting State laws that, at a minimum, offer these 
     explicit protections to the victims; and
       (4) supports efforts to educate and empower State and local 
     law enforcement officers in the identification of victims of 
     human trafficking.

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