[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 148 (Monday, December 8, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6371-S6373]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STOP EXPLOITATION THROUGH TRAFFICKING ACT
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I am also here today to address something entirely
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different; that is, a bill we would like to get done before the end of
the year in the Senate. It is a bill I have with Senator Cornyn, and it
is called the Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act of 2013. It has
19 bipartisan cosponsors. I note the year is 2013. We have been waiting
nearly 2 years to get this done. A version of the bill which is very
similar to ours passed the House this summer.
Senator Cornyn and I initially wrote the bill. We worked with all the
sex trafficking groups. It is a very important bill, and their No. 1
priority this year is to get it done. I thank Majority Leader Reid for
his work on this, as well as Senator Leahy for helping to get the bill
to the floor. We have also been working with Senators Heitkamp and
Kirk, and Senator Wyden has been an incredible partner on these issues.
Senator Portman has been supportive. In the House, Congressman Paulsen
called me to sponsor this bill. He took it on and, with the help of
Representative Cantor and Representative McCarthy and the Speaker, was
able to get that bill passed through the House. So this is one of those
instances where people have come together and have been moving a very
important bill.
We have support from the National Conference of State Legislatures,
and Cindy McCain--the wife of Senator McCain--and I and have done a lot
of work on this issue. We spoke to their national conference this year.
They have endorsed this bill. This bill is supported by the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Fraternal Order of
Police, Shared Hope International, National Alliance to End Sexual
Violence, United Methodist Women, and the list goes on.
It is time to get this done. There is a minor error in the House bill
that we need to correct, and that is why we need to pass the Senate
bill. We basically made the changes that are in the House bill. We also
need to pass it in the Senate because this one includes the national
sex trafficking strategy.
We have Senator Cornyn working on his side of the aisle. There appear
to be no objections. I will explain in a bit the amendments that passed
out of Judiciary 18 to 0. That is his portion that is included in this
bill. I was actually having trouble getting the bill through on its
own, and so we have joined forces on this bill.
Now it appears we could have some objections on our side, which I
hope will get cleared up, because people are disappointed that they
cannot get other bills on. I can't help people get these other bills
through. I don't have that in my power right now. The 27 million people
around the world who are victims of sex trafficking cannot help get
that done, nor can all of the kids whom we see in Minnesota who get
taken into sex trafficking--13 years old is the average age. They
cannot do anything. They cannot be pawns in a game.
It is my hope that we will be able to work this out and get this bill
passed in the next day or two because then I have to get it over to the
House. So I am under a major time constraint.
This is an important bill which makes clear that girls and boys who
are victims of sex trafficking should not be treated as criminals. The
statistics, as I said, show that more than 27 million people around the
world, whether it is Boko Haram--taking those little girls from their
beds in the middle of the night in Nigeria, with their parents having
nothing but bicycles to try to track down the people who stole them in
the middle of the woods; whether it is a young girl on the oil patch in
North Dakota--a major case going on there from the U.S. attorney's
office; whether it is a young girl in Minnesota--this is happening in
our country today.
Over 80 percent of the victims we have in the United States are from
the United States. So while we see this all over the world, we know we
have our own problems in our own backyard. In terms of the increase,
some of it has come because of the Internet. We love the Internet, but
it has also provided ways for people to advertise for sex trafficking
in ways that make it more difficult to track down. As I said, the
average age of a child who is a victim of sex trafficking is 13 years
old--not old enough to get a driver's license, not even old enough to
go to a high school prom. We have seen problems in our own country.
Eighty-three percent of sex trafficking victims in America are U.S.
citizens.
Despite all those numbers, we are not here just to talk about this
bill. The reason I am going to make an enormous push for it this week,
to get this done, is because I don't believe young kids--mostly girls--
should be pawns in a political game. We are here because of Tamara
Vandermoon. She was only 12 years old--in Minnesota--when she was first
sold for sex. She wasn't a teenager. She was just mad at her mom and
ran away. A pimp found her and made all kinds of promises--promises
that sounded pretty good to a scared kid away from home. She was taken
advantage of when she was most vulnerable, before she had a chance to
grow up and become an adult. That is why we are doing this bill.
This bill is actually based on a model we have in about a dozen
States right now, including Minnesota, that basically says to the
States: We would like to incentivize you to use this model which is to
help the victims of these sex crimes, which is to help them with
services, and which is to not prosecute them as criminals because the
only way we are really going to be able to go after the johns, the way
we are going to be able to go after the people who lead these kinds of
rings is if we are willing to give these victims the help they need to
turn their lives around but also to get them to testify.
It has worked very well in our State. In Ramsey County alone, we have
had several prosecutions, including a 40-year sentence this last year
against a guy who was running a major sex trafficking ring. If you
don't think this is going on in towns such as St. Paul, MN, then you
need to look in your own communities because it is going on.
One of the main goals in the bill is to make sure kids sold for sex
are not treated as criminals. According to a report from Polaris, 15
States across the country already have these State safe harbor laws and
another 12 States are starting to make progress in the right direction.
So we are not starting from scratch. It is not some crazy idea that
someone tried in one State and it wasn't working. We know this works.
The Cornyn and Klobuchar bill will give incentives to States when they
apply for Federal grants, and they are going to be able to apply for
Federal grants after they have a safe harbor bill in place.
Our bill would also create a national strategy to combat human
trafficking. Our national strategy will encourage cooperation and
coordination among all the agencies that work on this problem--Federal,
State, tribal, and local. It is a nationwide problem. I can tell you
that these pimps and people running the rings do not care about local
boundaries or county boundaries or State boundaries, and we need to be
as sophisticated as they are when it comes to tackling this problem.
We also need to be giving sex trafficking victims the right support,
such as job training and skills building. The bill allows victims of
sex trafficking to participate in the Job Corps program to help them
get back on their feet.
I am also pleased to include a provision Senators Whitehouse and
Sessions have been working on to clarify the authority of the U.S.
Marshals Service to assist local law enforcement agencies in locating
missing children.
As I said, I have been working closely with Senator Cornyn on the
Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, and this is also a bill with
Senator Wyden which is included in this package.
When you look at this bill, you have to think of the safe harbor
provision, the provisions I just mentioned that make it easier for
people who are victims of sex trafficking, for kids to be able to
participate in job training; then you look at the provision from
Senators Whitehouse and Sessions regarding the U.S. Marshals; and the
last part is the work with Senator Cornyn and Senator Wyden on the
Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which is included in this bill.
It increases the fees and fines of perpetrators and should bring in
nearly $30 million each year to pay for victim services. We know we
have a lot of need in the States right now because this is a relatively
new problem in terms of being on the increase. So shelters could apply
for these grants from this fund. We think this is a very good
provision, and I thank Senator Wyden and Senator Cornyn for working on
it.
I would also add that this is a provision that went through on an 18-
to-0
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vote as an amendment, so we know there was support out of the Judiciary
Committee for this part of the bill.
As a former prosecutor, I know how important this victim-centered
approach can be. Sex trafficking victims are often afraid to talk to
law enforcement. It makes sense. They are not sure they are going to
help them. Are they going to give them shelter? Are they going to help
them turn their lives around and give them a place to sleep? If they
don't have this kind of trust, they go back to the pimp and go back to
the guy who was giving them money and giving them a place to sleep and
probably giving them drugs. If we focus on identifying those victims
even though they may not tell us they are being trafficked, then it
will help them to come forward, get help, and also to testify against
the trafficker, leading to more convictions.
We need to address the needs of the victim and make sure they have
the support they need--housing, education, legal issues--to help break
this cycle of violence and abuse. We have a great new shelter that
opened up in St. Paul this year, and I was proud to be there with Cindy
McCain and 180 Degrees--that is what it is called--at Brittany's Place
in St. Paul. It provides special services for victims of sex
trafficking to help them turn their lives around.
We also need to use the tools available to go after such traffickers.
If we cannot get them on the sex trafficking charges, we need to look
at money laundering charges or enterprise corruption charges or other
charges. While they are not directly related to trafficking, they
target traffickers nonetheless. That will be important for law
enforcement, and it is the reason State prosecutors are now partnering
more with Federal prosecutors.
We need to go after trafficking facilitators. These are people who
know what is going on, but they are closing their eyes to it or
actually letting it happen. There are some incredible businesses that
have gotten out front on this issue. For example, Marilyn Carlson
Nelson of Radisson Hotels in Minnesota has done training. There are a
number of other hotel chains across our country that are working on
this issue. Airlines--Delta, American Airlines, and others--have been
doing work in this area, and it is actually exciting because we have
businesses willing to say: We are on the frontline. We see when
something is going on in our hotel or on our plane, and we are willing
to train our employees so they know when to report an incident to law
enforcement and stop things from happening on the frontline. This is
happening right now in our country.
We passed a similar bill in the House, and we all know we have to
make some minor corrections on the Senate side. This is the bill that
Senator Cornyn and I originally introduced. We have added some good
provisions from Senators Whitehouse and Sessions, as well as Senator
Wyden and Senator Cornyn, and that is what this package is. It is the
kind of legislation we should pass.
Again, the victims of these sex trafficking crimes are not the ones
who can figure out how we negotiate in the Senate. There are States
that have not yet done anything. They may open their eyes if they know
they may get a grant if they change their laws a bit and find the best
practices and what is working across the country. We should be focused
on those victims and not what is going on here. I am supportive of a
lot of these bills that people on our side of the aisle want out of the
Judiciary Committee, but they are not in my control. What is in my
control is this bill.
I have garnered Republican support and passed a version of it in the
House, and all I am asking from my colleagues is to be able to go
forward with this bill. It would be sad indeed if we were not able to
get this bill through because of Democratic objection.
I plan to ask unanimous consent on this bill. If we are not able to
work something out, I will keep at it until this session closes. This
bill is named the Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act of 2013. I
think 2 years is enough time. Two years is enough. A young girl's life
was ruined at age 18. We can get this bill done.
I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
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