[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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