[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 172 (Tuesday, December 21, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H8917]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              PASSING THE DOMESTIC TRAFFICKING VICTIMS ACT

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, when a young girl is kidnapped in a 
foreign country and brought into the United States and used as a sex 
slave and law enforcement gets involved, she is treated as a victim of 
crime.
  If a young girl who is an American citizen is forced into sex slavery 
as an 11- or 12-year-old and she is trafficked across the United States 
and law enforcement gets involved, unfortunately that girl is not 
treated as a victim, but a criminal, and criminal charges are filed on 
her for prostitution and she goes through the system. Many times, law 
enforcement does that just to protect that young child.
  We need to change that, and today this House of Representatives 
passed legislation, the Domestic Trafficking Victims Act, which will 
treat those victims as victims and give resources to put them in places 
throughout the United States where we can protect them, rescue them, 
prosecute the trafficker, and prosecute the customer who buys that sex 
from that poor girl for money.
  We need to treat these victims with the dignity that they deserve. 
This legislation is important. I am glad it passed the House.
  And that's just the way it is.

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