[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 46 (Wednesday, March 18, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1596-S1625]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING ACT OF 2015
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of S. 178, which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 178) to provide justice for the victims of
trafficking.
Pending:
Portman amendment No. 270, to amend the Child Abuse
Prevention and Treatment Act to enable State child protective
services systems to improve the identification and assessment
of child victims of sex trafficking.
Portman amendment No. 271, to amend the definition of
``homeless person'' under the McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act to include certain homeless children and
youth.
Vitter amendment No. 284 (to amendment No. 271), to amend
section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify
those classes of individuals born in the United States who
are nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Wasteful Spending
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I did not come down to speak on this
particular bill. I am back for week No. 4 of waste of the week.
In recent weeks, I have highlighted what I describe as excess
spending of taxpayer dollars. We have talked about double dipping in
unemployment insurance, where if we could close this loophole, we could
save the taxpayer $5.7 billion in savings.
We have also talked about duplication in Federal economic development
programs. There are 50-some programs that provide for workforce
training spread among a number of agencies. Surely we can reduce that
number significantly. And if we could do so, we could save the taxpayer
$200 million.
And last week--somewhat tongue in cheek, nevertheless not small
change--I talked about a $387,000 grant issued by the National
Institutes of Health in which 18 New Zealand white rabbits were given,
four times a day, 30-minute massages to determine whether they would be
relieved of some soreness after they were given some physical exercise.
Then four massages a day, 30 minutes apiece, costing $387,000, to prove
that a massage helped to make them feel better or removed some of those
aches and pains.
I think we could have asked any athlete from any college. As we are
moving into college basketball's March Madness and Final Four that we
all engage in at this time of year, we could ask any college athlete,
or any person for that matter who is doing work in the yard: Do you
think 4 30-minute massages a day would help you feel a little better
and help you with some of those aches and pains? Do we need to spend
$387,000 of taxpayer dollars in order to prove this and give rabbits
massages?
So up we go with the chart. Waste of the week. This is week No. 4,
and I would like to talk about a so-called bonus that has been given by
our Federal Government that is quite egregious.
I am sure many look forward to a potential bonus at the end of the
year--though it doesn't apply in our business here. A bonus sounds like
something that comes along with something that was earned, but what if
it was a bonus you didn't earn? Is it still a bonus or does it become
fraud?
Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen recently
confirmed to the Senate that unless action is taken, an amnesty bonus
would be available to millions who have broken our immigration laws.
All of this stems from the President's announcement in November of 2014
to grant 3 years of tentative legal status to as many as 4 million
individuals who crossed America's borders into this country illegally.
Fortunately, President Obama's Executive amnesty has been temporarily
blocked by a Federal court. Hopefully, that blockage will survive all
legal challenges to undo it. But if this amnesty plan moves forward, 4
million illegal individuals will be granted Social Security numbers.
Why does this matter? Well, when you are granted a Social Security
number, it triggers certain benefits, including eligibility for the
earned income tax credit for up to 3 prior years in future tax filing
years.
The earned income tax credit is a benefit for working people who have
low to moderate income. It is an incentive and a reward for those who
choose to work, and it does help to reduce the number of those who are
dependent on government welfare programs. It allows some individuals to
receive payments from the U.S. Treasury just by filing a tax return. It
reduces the amount of tax an individual owes and it may also provide a
tax refund.
Why is this issue qualified as waste of the week? Since the President
is trying to legalize an additional 4 million individuals, if his
action is upheld by the court, 4 million people will now have
retroactive access to this benefit and taxpayers foot the bill for
these 4 million illegal immigrants who will be in a position to earn
this tax credit.
The Joint Committee on Taxation says this so-called amnesty bonus for
those who have come into our country illegally will drain about $2.1
billion from the United States Treasury.
I am for legal immigration. The United States has a rich history as a
destination where people from all over the world can come to make a
better life for themselves. We are a nation of immigrants. As a matter
of fact, I am the son of an immigrant. My mother came here with her
family, and it has been the narrative of our family. Legal immigration
is what has made America the great prosperous country it is today. But
we also are a nation of laws, and Congress should help ensure that
legal immigrants to our country can benefit from the opportunities they
need to succeed, but that doesn't include rewarding those who are
gaming our immigration system to receive benefits they do not legally
qualify for.
To address this matter, I have joined with Senator Grassley and
several other of my colleagues to introduce legislation that would
correct this issue. If we can correct this issue, we will save the
taxpayers an estimated $2.1 billion in future spending.
So up we go with the thermometer here, and we will be adding another
$2.1 billion to the money that can be saved our taxpayers by
eliminating duplication, by pursuing awards that are not legally given,
by looking at the way the Federal Government wastes money by giving
rabbits back rubs, and we are going to continue to fill this up until
we hopefully reach the $100 billion goal. That is not small change.
I continue to hear from Hoosiers and others who write and say: Yes,
we haven't been able to address the big issues of debt and deficit, but
we can go after government waste. And those who say we can't afford to
cut spending a nickel because we have cut so much so far clearly have
not paid attention to the billions of dollars that can be saved the
taxpayers simply by addressing the waste and illegal use of the
taxpayer money.
I look forward to sharing some more of these in coming weeks, and I
thank the sponsor of the bill here for giving
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me the time to come down and add another waste of the week to the list
climbing toward our goal of $100 billion in savings for the taxpayer,
who is overtaxed already.
With that, I yield the floor.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I wish to speak on the pending business, the
Justice for Victims of Human Trafficking Bill.
The Senate is now on the second week of the trafficking bill and my
colleagues in the minority refuse to allow this body to amend or pass
this bipartisan bill. When this legislation was reported out of
committee, not a single Democrat on the committee raised any concern
with the inclusion of the protections offered by the Hyde amendment.
This was hardly surprising, after all, Democrats have previously voted
in favor of legislation that includes similar long standing statutory
protections--such as the Affordable Care Act. That is why it's so
shocking that Democrats--out of nowhere--have had a change of heart on
the Hyde amendment, and are now obstructing efforts to help victims of
human trafficking.
I urge my colleagues who are filibustering this legislation to
consider the gravity of their actions. While Democrats play politics as
usual, thousands of victims--many of whom are children--are assaulted
and abused every day, hoping someone will hear their cries for help. We
cannot and must not allow political gamesmanship to stand in the way of
helping thousands of victims of human trafficking. Now is the time we
must work together to protect our Nation's most vulnerable from a
horrific trade that robs our children of their childhood and rejects
the sanctity of life.
Let us honor our commitment to protect children from abuse, neglect
and rape. Let us put aside politics and do the right thing by moving
forward on this bill.
Mr. COATS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here today for two reasons. One is
to manage the bill at hand for the next few hours, and the other is to
talk a little bit about Loretta Lynch, and how I hope we can resolve
both these issues.
I believe when it comes to the human trafficking bill on the floor,
as well as my bill, the safe harbor bill--which is not the one on the
floor, but it is also a strong bipartisan bill that passed out of the
Judiciary Committee with every single person voting for it, 20 to 0. I
want to talk a little bit about the bill so people don't forget it. It
is expected to be an amendment to the bill on the floor when we get
these issues resolved.
I am hopeful that at some point here--and I hope it is today--we are
going to turn the corner on some of the language we have been hearing
on the floor. I think it is becoming a sad situation, especially sad
for the victims of trafficking, and I think we have a moment in time
today and tomorrow where we can actually work on this and try to
resolve it. I believe this great august body, which has dealt with many
large issues in the past--100 people who I think have come to this
place with good will--should be able to resolve it in some way, get
through this, and get this bill done.
As we continue to work on the issues with the bill at hand, Senator
Cornyn's bill, I also want to talk about the bill I have and why both
these bills are important and actually work together.
On trafficking. First, we know the numbers. More than 27 million
people around the world are victims of some kind of trafficking each
year. It is not always sex trafficking. Sometimes it is labor
trafficking and other things. When it comes to sex trafficking, the
average age of a victim when she is trafficked is 13 years old. She is
not even old enough to go to a high school prom, not even old enough to
get a driver's license.
When you look at the statistics around the world, it is the third
biggest international criminal enterprise in the world. The first is
the illegal trafficking of drugs. I don't think that is a surprise. The
second is the illegal trafficking of guns, and the third is the illegal
trafficking of children, mostly little girls. But what people don't
always realize when they think about trafficking--I think they often
think about kids who are found in the bottom of a boat. That does
happen, horrible stories like that. But when it comes to the United
States of America, 83 percent of the victims--83 percent of the
victims--are from our own country. They are from our own country. They
are girls such as Tamara Vandermoon of Minnesota. She was 12 when she
was first sold for sex. She was not even a teenager. She was just mad
at her mom, and she ran away. A pimp found her and made her all kinds
of promises--promises that sounded pretty good when you are a scared
kid away from home. It happened when she was the most vulnerable. He
took advantage of her before she even had a chance to grow up and be an
adult. She has worked to change her life around through services and
help in our State.
Our State has been the leader in this area. That is one of the things
why I introduced the safe harbor bill, which I hope will be the first
amendment to this bill after we resolve these issues. My bill also is
sponsored with Senator Cornyn. He and I have worked together on this
bill.
Another example--because people always use numbers. I used a bunch of
numbers at the beginning of this speech, but I think sometimes people
know behind those numbers, every single one of those numbers, is a
child.
Two weeks ago, out of the U.S. Attorney's office in Minnesota, our
case was charged, and it happened a few months ago. It was a 12-year-
old in Rochester, MN, which is an idyllic community, a beautiful place.
This little 12-year-old got a text. She was with a girl who was a
little older than herself. The text invited them to a party. She
thought that was pretty cool. She goes to the McDonald's parking lot.
She is at the McDonald's parking lot, and this pimp puts her in the
car. She thinks she is going to a party. She gets carted up to the Twin
Cities. She gets raped. He takes sexually explicit pictures of her. He
puts them on Craigslist. She gets sold the next day to two other guys,
raped by two other guys.
Finally they were able to track down this perpetrator. He has been
charged with a very serious crime by the U.S. Attorney's office. This
happened in Minnesota. We can ask Senator Heitkamp, who has been
involved in this issue. It happens in the oil patches in North Dakota.
It happens on the streets of Washington, DC. It happens all over this
country.
We may say, why is everyone talking about this now in this day and
age? I look at this, as a former prosecutor, as back when people viewed
domestic violence as a crime that was behind doors, that no one wanted
to talk about it, and no one realized it was a crime. They thought of
it as a family issue.
When we start seeing kids who are in situations of domestic violence
are multiple times more likely to commit crimes themselves because they
grow up seeing it, we realize it is not just an issue between two
people. As horrible as the injuries are to the immediate victim, it is
also an issue for their entire family and for the entire community. We
learned that about domestic violence. We learned that about child
abuse. Now we are starting to see this about trafficking.
We can't have a 12-year-old who is a criminal, right? The 12-year-old
is a victim of this. The 12-year-old doesn't know what they are doing.
They are only 12 years old, but they are a victim, they are not a
criminal. That is the focus of the Safe Harbor Act.
I want to thank my colleague, Republican Erik Paulsen in the House,
who has taken this bill on. We have worked together on it. A version of
it has passed the House. We like ours a little bit better because it
has the national sex trafficking strategy in it, and that is the bill
we are going to be putting on as an amendment. Erik has been a true
leader on this issue, and we just talked yesterday about it. This bill
actually now has--a version of it, my safe harbor bill--has passed the
House twice. It doesn't have the issues with the Hyde amendment.
Hopefully it will be the first bill, the first amendment, when we
resolve these other issues.
[[Page S1598]]
What does the bill do? What it does is looks at what has been working
in States across the country. According to a report by Polaris--a group
that is among many groups as a leader on sex trafficking--it shows that
15 States across the country have taken these safe harbor laws. The
laws basically say we are not going to treat these kids as criminals.
We are going to make sure they are treated as victims, that they get
the services they need. And mostly then from a law enforcement
perspective--from someone who was a prosecutor for 8 years, ran an
office of 400 people and saw these cases coming in and out of our doors
all the time--what it means is these victims will then better testify
against the people whom we want to get. Those are the perps. Those are
the people running the rings. Those are the johns who are buying the
sex. By having this approach, we have a much better chance of going
after the people who are doing this.
The Ramsey County attorney's office out of St. Paul, MN, with their
leader John Choi, was able to get a 40-year sentence last year of
someone who was running one of these rings. We have had numerous
prosecutions in Minnesota.
This idea of having a shelter, a place for the victims to go--because
otherwise what is going to happen if they don't think they are going to
get help or maybe get some job training, have a place to stay, they are
going to go right back to the pimp, and then they are not going to be
willing to testify and tell their story. That is what has happened
through history, and that has enabled the rings to get worse and worse.
The other thing we know that has enabled them to get worse is the
Internet. We love the Internet, but it has allowed people to market
things on all kinds of Web sites and in all kinds of devious ways. They
are able to sell young girls and young boys on these Web sites. They
get a text and they show up and think they are going to a party. That
is what is happening. It is behind closed doors and it is hidden. That
is one of the reasons we are seeing this increase and these problems
coming up, in addition to the realization we are not going to tolerate
this anymore.
We have 15 States across the country that already have the safe
harbor laws. Another 12 States are making good progress in this
direction. It is not starting from scratch. As I said, my home State is
one of the first ones, but we are seeing them. What our bill does is
create incentives for States to adopt these kinds of laws. It is not
involving a lot of money. It is taking existing programs and trying to
create incentives so that States will adopt these laws.
The other piece of the bill is that it allows victims of these crimes
to qualify for certain Federal job programs that they may not qualify
for now. It also creates a national strategy, as I mentioned, to combat
human trafficking.
I always found when I was a prosecutor that people didn't care who
took on the case, whether it was a local prosecutor or the State AG or
the U.S. Attorney's office. They just wanted people to get the job
done. They didn't actually understand the jurisdictional divisions. By
making this national sex trafficking strategy the idea--and I have seen
this with the Violence Against Women Act--it may not be that we are
mandating people do a certain thing, but we put out there some best
practices that local offices can cover. We look at what is working in
certain States. Then we put those out there because we have a national
sex trafficking strategy, and we give people ideas of what they can do
best.
Those are parts of the bill. It is pretty straightforward. Again, it
is not the bill on the floor right now which, of course, has an
important purpose, to help fund some of the shelters and pay for it by
an increase on the fees on perpetrators, but it is a part of the
solution.
Another part of the solution we haven't talked too much about over
the last few days, because there have been a lot of other things going
on, I think we have to also remember the role of the private sector. We
certainly have seen this in our State, where Marilyn Carlson Nelson,
who is a wonderful business leader, headed up Carlson Companies for
many years. Carlson Companies owns the Radisson Hotels. She has made
training of her workforce a major part of this because it is the people
on the frontline--and you can see Delta and all the others, American,
United, a lot of the airlines are making this a priority as well. They
are training their workers because they are on the frontline, and they
are going to see this happen. They are going to see the victims. They
are going to figure out something is going on that is wrong, so they
can at least report it to their hotel's security or whatever
authorities they think they need to; they can stop it right there on
the ground floor and report it to the authorities.
We shouldn't forget that. Because unless these private sector
entities who see it happening come forward--this isn't in any of our
bills. This is something they are doing on their own. Unless they do
that, we can have all the laws we want on the books, but it is really
hard to catch these things from happening. I am proud of the work they
have done.
My good friend Cindy McCain, Heidi Heitkamp, and I went to Mexico
last spring with the major focus on sex trafficking. We met with the
attorney general of Mexico and met with the head of their law
enforcement in Mexico City about this very topic. Because Mexico, along
with many other countries, has girls who do come in and are brought in
for purposes of sex trafficking. I do want to emphasize, however, this
is not just an international problem, but over 83 percent of the
victims are from our country. But they have been coordinating with us
on a number of successful prosecutions by giving us information so when
the cases come to the United States, we view this. They have their own
internal problems with this and other things as well, obviously, in
Mexico. We went there not to say you are doing something wrong. We went
there to say we have our own problems, and so do you. Let's figure out
how we can work together on this issue.
Again, Cindy McCain is an example of someone who on the private side
has been very involved with her foundation in working on this issue and
helping with shelters and other things. The private sector piece of
this, they can be called trafficking facilitators, unknowingly, because
they are allowing this to happen. But in a way, they are a major part
of the solution. I do not want us to forget that as we go forward and
as they work with us to address the needs of the victims, and mostly to
be able to catch these cases and bring them to law enforcement.
That is kind of a tour through what the safe harbor bill does. Again,
Senator Cornyn and I have talked about it being the first amendment to
the bill. I am very aware that we need to work out the issues on the
underlying bill, and I am hopeful after days of acrimony that at some
point we are going to be able to work together. I am hoping there will
be a different flavor to people's discussions about this issue today.
Lynch Nomination
The Loretta Lynch nomination now has been tied into this. I have a
little bit of a different approach because I do not think we should be
slowing it down anymore. I understand that we have to work out the
issues on the sex trafficking, and there is plenty of blame that can go
around. But I think the major focus should be on working it out instead
of playing this blame game.
Loretta Lynch, on the other hand--I do not understand why our friends
on the other side of the aisle have been delaying this for so long. I
understand this is a major job, but this is a woman who has had 900
written questions and an 8-hour job interview, to my mind, where
members of the Judiciary Committee could ask her whatever they wanted,
in several rounds of questions, if they wanted. She also met with
members of that committee. I am sure that anyone who wanted to met with
her--I know she has met with at least 59 Senators to date. That is a
pretty major job interview. Twenty-five U.S. Attorneys from Republican
and Democratic administrations have approved and suggested that she is
more than fit for this job.
How do I come down on this? I come down on this as a perspective of
knowing that Attorney General Holder wants to leave. I think he has
done some really good things. I know some
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of my colleagues have not been a big fan of his. This is an opportunity
for them to put someone new in. We will start with that.
The second thing is this is someone who is highly qualified. Coming
from a State where we have indicted 20 people for criminal activity
related to al-Shabaab with their terrorist activities in Somalia, we
have recently indicted a number of people who decided they were going
to go fight with ISIS, coming out of our State. And I am proud of our
communities, our Muslim and Somali communities, that have been working
with law enforcement on this. This has been an effort, because no kid
should be going over there and no parent wants their kid to go join a
terrorist organization.
That being said, to keep our communities safe, we have to be very
aggressive about these cases. So given that these cases are going on
right in my hometown, I would really like to have the support of an
Attorney General in place, and one who is nominated before this
body. And as the nominee, she is someone who is uniquely qualified to
handle these kinds of cases that the citizens in my State want to have
handled, these terrorism cases. In fact, her office is No. 1 in the
country when it comes to how many terrorism cases they have
successfully handled in New York. So she is a seasoned U.S. attorney.
She is not someone who comes from a political background; she is
someone who comes from a prosecutor background and is a former
prosecutor and someone who wants to see that kind of commonsense, no-
nonsense mentality in the Attorney General's office.
I highly recommend that my colleagues not only vote for her
confirmation but just let this come to the floor as soon as possible.
Some of the critiques I have heard against her from some of my
colleagues--some have said she has been lawless, and that doesn't quite
make sense to me, especially when we look at who has been backing her
from the law enforcement community, such as the 25 U.S. attorneys I
mentioned. The New York police commissioner has endorsed her, as has
the president of the Federal Law Enforcement Association and the
president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. These
people are not exactly known for supporting lawlessness.
The other thing that has been mentioned by many of my colleagues that
concerns me as to the reason they gave for blocking her nomination is
that she said when she was at a hearing that she would be supportive,
as the chief law enforcement person for our country, of the President's
policies when it comes to immigration.
Let's start with the law. We know this is now tied up in the courts,
and there are different court decisions. One court is upholding the
Executive order of the President, and another court has said it is not
legal. We have had disputes on it in the courts. All right. But when we
look through time, we realize every President since Dwight Eisenhower
has done some kind of Executive order of varying degrees. George H.W.
Bush did a major Executive order involving many immigrants. When we
look at those through history, we realize those Presidents to some
degree or other--I know the Liberian community in Minnesota. They have
been for decades on an emergency order, and that is why they are in our
State. Every year, they have to come back, and sometimes Congress does
something and sometimes the President does something. But year after
year, they need this Executive order because of the status under which
they came to this country. They are law-abiding citizens. They are
working throughout our State and have been here for 15 or 20 years. And
that is just one example.
These Executive orders on immigration have been going on since Dwight
Eisenhower. I don't really have the time to look back and see what
every Attorney General did at the time, but my guess is that the
Attorneys General under Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon and both
Bushes and Bill Clinton all said: OK, this is legal. You can go ahead
and do this Executive order.
I am not saying this one is not of more magnitude. It is. But there
was a major Executive order when George Bush was President. We know
that. So why we would then somehow take that history and extrapolate it
into, OK, well, Loretta Lynch is somehow lawless just because she said
the President could issue an Executive order--it just doesn't make any
sense to me at all.
We have a woman who has been prosecuting these cases of terrorism for
years. We have someone who has significant support from Democratic and
Republican U.S. attorneys from many administrations. We have someone
who really did pass her senatorial job review. I understand that my
colleagues feel strongly about immigration and that they didn't like
what the President did, and the President himself said he would like to
tear up that piece of paper that contained the Executive action if only
this body and the House would pass comprehensive immigration reform.
When I look back through this whole story, one of my proudest moments
was when the Senate came together on comprehensive immigration reform.
I am on the Judiciary Committee, and I believe that was the best moment
for the Judiciary Committee in the last few years. Under Chairman
Leahy's leadership, our committee was able to work together across
party lines, starting with the Gang of 8 who came up with the base
concept, which was half Democrats and half Republicans, including
Senator Durbin, Senator McCain, Senator Schumer, Senator Bennet,
Senator Menendez, Senator Flake, and the work of many other Members,
which made it possible to get that bill done.
So the Gang of 8 got that done, and from there we went to the
committee with a bill, and we spent days voting on amendments. We voted
on amendments that stretched over every part of the bill, whether it
was the fence at the border or what would happen with undocumented
workers or the work Senator Hatch and I did on making sure we had the
green card and visa system up to date. We have a situation in our
country right now where we have literally unlimited visas for wild
hockey players. We love our hockey team in Minnesota, and they are able
to recruit a bunch of Canadians. That is good for us, but doctors from
the Mayo Clinic are not able to bring in a spouse if they want to come
from another country.
We have to look at this as to the undocumented workers who are here,
we have the border issues, and we also have these issues related to
agriculture and the innovation economy that make this comprehensive
reform so important. Let's remember that when it comes to business
issues, we have a case where 200 of our Fortune 500 companies were
started by immigrants or kids of immigrants. Ninety of our Fortune 500
companies were started by immigrants. Thirty percent of our U.S. Nobel
laureates were born in other countries.
I neglected to add Marco Rubio to the Gang of 8 as I recall in my
mind everyone who was in it.
That is why I was such a fan of the comprehensive immigration
reform--because it was so important to look at all parts of the issue.
So now I get to Loretta Lynch. We passed a bill with pretty strong
support here--I think it was like 68 votes or something in that
neighborhood--and then it went over to the House and it sat there in a
deep freeze. That bill sat there for over a year somewhere between the
chocolate ice cream and the frozen peas. We were never able to get it
out of the House, and that is what led to the President's Executive
order, and now somehow--OK, that is fine, it was bad enough that that
all happened, and I am still hopeful we will be able to get this done,
but how that story leads to Loretta Lynch's confirmation being held up
is beyond belief to me. I think it is time to get her nomination voted
on. I don't think it should be related to the present difficulties we
are having with this bill that I care so much about and mostly also
with my safe harbor legislation, which has been slotted to be the first
amendment.
I am hopeful we will be able to work everything out with the bill
that is on the floor right now--I truly am--because I don't think it is
fitting of the Senate to keep up this fight when there are victims of
sex trafficking every single day, such as that 12-year-old girl out of
Rochester, MN. How are we going to explain this to that little girl,
that we are fighting it out every single day instead of trying to come
to a resolution?
I remember when we were down in Mexico--Heidi Heitkamp and Cindy
[[Page S1600]]
McCain and I--and visited one of the shelters there. We met all the
girls who were there. There was one girl there named Paloma. All the
other girls had an interpreter and they talked to us through the
interpreter, but she spoke a little English. She introduced herself,
and then she just started to cry and could not stop crying. As she
cried, you just knew that whatever happened to her was so bad, she
could not even talk about it.
It reminded me of when Senator Gillibrand, Senator Graham, Senator
Hoeven, and I were on a trip and went to a refugee camp in Jordan and
met with a group of refugees. One of the women there said that what she
had seen happen to her family in Syria was so sad that it would make
stones cry. That is what I thought of when I saw Paloma, that what had
happened to her--this little, young, beautiful, 12-, 13-year-old girl--
what had happened to her was so sad that it would make stones cry.
I hope my colleagues keep this in mind as we work on these two bills.
I am tired of talking about how this happened or how we got where we
are. There is a way to resolve this problem, and certainly the
nomination of the Attorney General of the United States should not be
held up because of it.
I yield the floor.
I see my good friend Senator Isakson from Georgia is here.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I encourage the Members of the Senate to
vote favorably on cloture so we can move forward on the important bill
on human trafficking.
Mr. President, I come to the floor to ask unanimous consent to
address the Senate as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Setting The Record Straight
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I don't normally come to the floor and
address a question that was asked rhetorically on the floor the night
before, but I am compelled to do so today.
There were two instances that happened in the last week where my name
and the Coca-Cola name came up, and I thought I should set the record
straight.
This weekend, in an op-ed published in USA TODAY, the Democratic
leader, Harry Reid, and Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senator from Rhode
Island, made the following statement:
Republicans in Congress who represent great corporations
headquartered in their states ignore those corporations--
Walmart in Arkansas, Coca-Cola in Georgia, VF Corporation in
North Carolina--when they explain the business case for
addressing climate change and are already reducing their own
pollution.
Republicans in Congress who root boisterously for their
state university sports teams ignore the warnings of
scientists and researchers at those very universities on
climate change.
Then last night on the floor of the Senate, in his 93rd speech on
global warming, Senator Whitehouse made the following statement and
asked this rhetorical question: ``I don't know whether Coca-Cola has
ever spoken about climate change to Senator Isakson . . . from Coca-
Cola's home State of Georgia.'' So I came to answer that rhetorical
question and to answer the reference that was made in the editorial by
Senator Reid and Senator Whitehouse.
This is a picture of me and Senator Coons in Ghana, Africa. It is 5
years old. At the request of the Coca-Cola Company, he and I traveled
the continent of Africa looking at clean water projects all over that
continent. African people who never had the opportunity to drink clean
water now have sustainable clean water plants thanks to the Coca-Cola
Company. These plants are environmentally safe, environmentally
friendly, noncarbon-emitting water purification systems.
During the course of the years I have been in the U.S. Senate, the
Coca-Cola Company has briefed me on the following things about their
business as it deals with climate change or carbon.
They have saved 7 billion gallons of water in the United States with
facility improvements in the United States. They have donated 70,000
ingredient drums for reuse as rain barrels, have supported over 100
watershed projects across North America, and have partnered with the
National Forest Service to provide water to 60 million Americans.
On energy and climate, they have improved cooling equipment
efficiency by 60 percent in their operation since the year 2000. They
own the largest heavy-duty hybrid electric truck fleet in North America
and have improved energy efficiency in manufacturing by 8 percent since
2008.
In packaging, over 96 percent of total waste is diverted away from
landfills.
Since 2007, they have distributed 240,000 public recycling bins. They
have achieved a 70 million-pound reduction in packaging material, and
innovative packaging avoids 150,000 metric tons of CO2
emissions--150,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions.
As far as agriculture, they have invested over $1 million to support
sustainable agriculture in Georgia and across the United States. They
have supported the planting of 25,000 acres of new orange groves in
Florida and 4,100 new jobs in energy efficiency.
That is what the Coca-Cola Company has advised me of since I have
been in the U.S. Senate in terms of their commitment to a clean
environment for our world and country.
I believe the climate does change, but I don't believe climate change
is a religion, I think it is science. I have done everything I can as a
Senator to educate myself on the carbon and climate change issue. Seven
years ago, I went with Senator Boxer from California to Disko Bay in
Greenland with Dr. Ally, the leading glaciologist in the world, to
study what he says about the possibility of carbon being the cause of
climate change. There are mixed reviews and mixed scientific evidence
on that.
I am the first person to say we should reduce our carbon footprint.
It is good for the atmosphere and our health. Eight years ago, when I
had just entered the U.S. Senate, I bought a hybrid vehicle. I still
drive that hybrid Ford Escape today. I did so because I thought it was
a good business and a good atmospheric decision. I didn't buy it
because someone made me; I bought it because I cared. My wife and I
recycle because we think it is a good idea.
There are lots of things we can do to reduce the footprint of carbon,
but to infer in USA TODAY or in a speech that we are not cognizant of
the things that are done by our corporations to reduce carbon emissions
and reduce the danger to the environment is just wrong and it is just
unfair.
Senator Whitehouse wrote a great book, which I read, called
``Virtues.'' It is about the great virtues of living a good and healthy
life, and one of those virtues is truth. The truth is that all of us
care about the environment; we just don't all subscribe to the same
theory about what happens.
We should all be praising the good things that corporations are doing
and recognize that it is not just Democrats and not just Republicans,
but it is American politicians who make the policies that determine
where we go in the future.
I think it is very important that we reduce carbon emissions, but I
think it is important to be practical in those reductions. We can pass
all the great regulations in the world that are good for the
environment, but if they shut down the American economy and American
business, they are probably not a very good idea.
The environment and business should work in harmony together rather
than be adversaries and enemies. Publications like what appeared in USA
TODAY over the weekend or speeches like the one that was made last
night don't do anything to foster harmony or a good commitment;
instead, they raise controversy.
I love Sheldon Whitehouse. He is a great U.S. Senator. I appreciate
Leader Reid and what he does. But I don't appreciate the references
that were made about Coca-Cola or about me in the article they wrote
over the weekend or the speech that was made last night.
In fact, as I thought about what I would do in terms of responding to
what was said, I sat down last night and made an interesting
observation. Monday of this week before I left Georgia to come up here,
I met with the Southern Company, and one of the discussions that came
up were the solar panels they put out in the Southwest to amend the
grid out there with solar energy--something that is environmentally
sound and doesn't emit carbon. They talked about Plant Vogtle, where
they are adding three or four reactors, which is renewable energy and
[[Page S1601]]
recyclable, and it emits no carbon and is now being generated in
Georgia--reliable electricity with carbon-free generation through
nuclear power.
Yesterday, I had a meeting with the UPS corporation, which just
happens to be one of the leaders in the world using nonfossil fuel-
burning waste to deliver their packages.
You can go down the list of corporate America and the things they are
doing to reduce carbon emissions every single day, and they deserve the
credit. But they don't need to be criticized or lectured by Members of
the Senate for not lobbying me because they do lobby me. They believe,
as I believe, that reducing carbon is good, but it shouldn't be a
religion; it should be dealt with scientifically. It is important that
we understand that every contribution we can make to a carbonless
environment is a good contribution, but we can't abolish it absolutely.
Every regulation we pass to improve our environment is important, but
if it shuts down American business, it probably is not the right
decision to make.
So since the question was asked rhetorically last night on the floor
of the Senate, I thought I would come to the floor and answer it in
person. I believe truth is a virtue. The truth is the Coca-Cola Company
has informed me continuously about the efforts they have made to reduce
carbon emissions and to improve their environmental contribution. There
is no greater evidence of that than me drinking water that just came
out of a purification plant in Ghana, Africa, out of a Coca-Cola cup. I
think that is about the best evidence we can possibly find that they
have delivered their message. They are doing their job. I am proud of
the Coca Cola Company.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I wanted to clarify something I said
when I spoke about the work the Senate did on comprehensive immigration
reform in relation to the Loretta Lynch nomination. I mentioned the
Gang of 8, and I think I got seven of them right. I wish to clarify
exactly who was a Member of the Gang of 8: Senator Schumer, Senator
Durbin, Senator Menendez, Senator Bennet, Senator McCain, Senator
Flake, Senator Graham, and Senator Rubio. That was the starting-off
point for the comprehensive immigration reform that passed through the
Senate.
I wish to get back to the matter at hand. As I stand in the Chamber
today, I am going to keep reminding people of why we are really here,
why the bill is on the floor--which is about sex trafficking--and the
reason we want to try to resolve these issues and actually focus on the
matter at hand and not on extraneous issues and other issues and other
fights. My own Republican Congressman who carries my bill, the safe
harbor bill--which of course is not the bill at issue but we hope will
be the first amendment--has noted that we just need to move on and get
these bills done and not play politics as usual. That is going to be my
focus today as I manage this bill.
So I thought I would read on the floor a book that has been a
national bestseller by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times and his
wife Sheryl WuDunn. It is a book about sex trafficking. It is an
incredible book. It focuses more on international sex trafficking. As
we know, our bills here--the one that is on the floor and the one I
have authored--are about how our own country gets a handle on this, by
getting better laws in place and creating incentives and working with
the private sector and doings things so our country, I think from my
perspective, internationally can be a true leader. We can't be a true
leader and tell these states and democracies and countries that aren't
even democracies across the world that they need to do a better job if
we don't do a better job.
To me, this should be a major tenet of our foreign policy. Once we
get women so that they are not treated as slaves and they are not
treated as chattel--once we get them to that circumstance--countries
always do better. When we have women who can work and own businesses,
women who can serve in government, it changes a whole society.
So that is why the sex trafficking bill is on the floor and the one
that I have that will be considered as an amendment. The reason we need
to get through where we are right now and focus on the real issue at
hand is that our country can not only help the victims in our own
country, but by shining a light on this, by being a leader on this
internationally, it will help us internationally. We want to be able to
work with other countries--not saying they are doing something bad when
we have our own problem, but saying, Here is what we did and here is
how we are handling this and we want to work with you as partners and
we want to have women be treated with respect throughout the world.
So this book, as I said, focuses on international sex trafficking. It
is called ``Half the Sky.'' I love this name. It is a Chinese proverb.
It talks about how women basically are holding up half the sky. That is
what it is about. Women are holding up half the sky. We can't forget
about half the sky and just let half the sky go and let them be sold
into slavery and not be treated equally and expect a society to
function.
So this is how the book starts out. It has a great quote from Mark
Twain. I like jokes. Listen to this one: ``What would men be without
women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.''
It is making the point again that women hold up half the sky.
So this is the book and how it starts:
Srey Rath is a self-confident Cambodian teenager whose
black hair tumbles over a round, light brown face. She is in
a crowded street market, standing beside a pushcart and
telling her story calmly, with detachment. The only hint of
anxiety or trauma is the way she often pushes her hair in
front of her black eyes, perhaps a nervous tic. Then she
lowers her hand and her long fingers gesticulate and flutter
in the air with incongruous grace as she recounts her
odyssey.
Rath is short and small-boned, pretty, vibrant, and bubbly,
a wisp of a girl whose negligible stature contrasts with an
outsized and outgoing personality. When the skies abruptly
release a tropical rain shower that drenches us, she simply
laughs and rushes us to cover under a tin roof, and then
cheerfully continues her story as the rain drums overhead.
But Rath's attractiveness and winning personality are
perilous bounties for a rural Cambodian girl, and her
trusting nature and optimistic self-assuredness compound the
hazard.
When Rath was fifteen, her family ran out of money, so she
decided to go work as a dishwasher in Thailand for two months
to help pay the bills. Her parents fretted about her safety,
but they were reassured when Rath arranged to travel with
four friends who had been promised jobs in the same Thai
restaurant. The job agent took the girls deep into Thailand
and then handed them to gangsters who took them to Kuala
Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. Rath was dazzled by her
first glimpses of the city's clean avenues and gleaming high-
rises, including at the time the world's tallest twin
buildings; it seemed safe and welcoming. But then thugs
sequestered Rath and two other girls inside a karaoke lounge
that operated as a brothel. One gangster in his late
thirties, a man known as ``the boss,'' took charge of the
girls and explained that he had paid money for them and that
they would now be obliged to repay him. ``You must find money
to pay off the debt, and then I will send you back home,'' he
said, repeatedly reassuring them that if they cooperated they
would eventually be released.
Rath was shattered when what was happening dawned on her.
The boss locked her up with a customer, who tried to force
her to have sex with him. She fought back, enraging the
customer. ``So the boss got angry and hit me in the face,
first with one hand and then with the other,'' she remembers,
telling her story with simple resignation. ``The mark stayed
on my face for two weeks.'' Then the boss and the other
gangsters raped her and beat her with their fists.
``You have to serve the customers,'' the boss told her as
he punched her. ``If not, we will beat you to death. Do you
want that?'' Rath stopped protesting, but she sobbed and
refused to cooperate actively. The boss forced her to take a
pill; the gangsters called it ``the happy drug'' or ``the
shake drug.'' She doesn't know exactly what it has, but it
made her head shake and induced lethargy, happiness, and
compliance for about an hour. When she wasn't drugged, Rath
was teary and insufficiently compliant--she was required to
beam happily at all customers--so the boss said he would
waste no more time on her: She would agree to do as he
ordered or he would kill her. Rath then gave in. The girls
were forced to work in the brothel seven days a week, fifteen
hours a day. They were kept naked to make it more difficult
for them to run away or to keep tips or other money, and they
were forbidden to ask customers to use condoms. They were
battered until they smiled constantly and simulated joy at
the sight of customers, because men would not pay as much for
sex with girls with reddened eyes and haggard faces. The
girls were never allowed out on the street or paid a penny
for their work.
``They just gave us food to eat, but they didn't give us
much because the customers
[[Page S1602]]
didn't like fat girls,'' Rath says. The girls were bused,
under guard, back and forth between the brothel and a tenth-
floor apartment where a dozen of them were housed. The door
of the apartment was locked from the outside. However, one
night, some of the girls went out onto their balcony and
pried loose a long, five-inch-wide board from a rack used for
drying clothes. They balanced it precariously between their
balcony and one on the next building, twelve feet away. The
board wobbled badly, but Rath was desperate, so she sat
astride the board and gradually inched across.
``There were four of us who did that,'' she says. ``The
others were too scared, because it was very rickety. I was
scared, too, and I couldn't look down, but I was even more
scared to stay. We thought that even if we died it would be
better than staying behind. If we stayed we would die as
well.''
Once on the far balcony, the girls pounded on the window
and woke the surprised tenant. They could hardly communicate
with him because none of them spoke the language, but the
tenant let them into his apartment and then out the front
door. The girls took the elevator down and wandered the
silent streets until they found a police station and walked
inside. The police first tried to shoo them away, then
arrested the girls for illegal immigration. Rath served a
year in prison under Malaysia's tough anti-immigrant laws,
and then she was supposed to be repatriated. She thought a
Malaysian policeman was escorting her home when he drove her
to the Thai border--but then he sold her to a trafficker, who
peddled her to a Thai brothel.
So I say to my colleagues, this is what we are talking about. This
story is in another country, but this same story is repeated in our
country day in and day out. If we are going to try to lead in Cambodia
and try to change the world for these girls, we have to lead in our own
country. Certainly we have to lead by focusing on the issue at hand,
which is sex trafficking, and what we can do in our country. What can
we do? Well, we can have better services for the victims. We can set up
our law enforcement system in a way that works by not treating--for so
long, these young 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds were thought of as
criminals when, in fact, they are victims. How can we say someone is
not raped, how can we say the story of this girl, who thought she was
going to work to have a better life for herself as a dishwasher, then
gets raped--how can we say that is not rape, that it is prostitution or
a crime? No. She is a victim.
That is what the safe harbor bill--which I have introduced and which
I am hopeful will be the first amendment once we work out these other
issues--would do. It would treat these girls and boys as victims.
So I wish to remind my colleagues what we are truly dealing with.
This is not supposed to be a fight over abortion. This is a fight about
how to help these young girls throughout our country and by virtue of
us being a leader throughout the world.
So I am going to continue reading from the book, just so we are all
reminded what we are talking about.
Rath's saga offers a glimpse of the brutality inflicted
routinely on women and girls in much of the world, a
malignancy that is slowly gaining recognition as one of the
paramount human rights problems of this century.
The issues involved, however, have barely registered on the
global agenda. Indeed, when we began reporting about
international affairs in the 1980s--
This is a book by Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl, whose book,
``Half the Sky,'' is a national best seller. The subhead is ``Turning
Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.''
Again, why am I reading this? Because this is what we are supposed to
be talking about here. This is a bill we are supposed to be getting
done and not talking about extraneous issues that I think we should be
able to resolve because they have been resolved in the past. To do
that, we have to decide that these girls are important enough to do
that.
Continuing on, they talked about how these issues have barely
registered on the global agenda:
Indeed, when we began reporting about international affairs
in the 1980s, we couldn't have imagined writing this book. We
assumed that the foreign policy issues that properly furrowed
the brow were lofty and complex, like nuclear
nonproliferation. It was difficult back then to envision the
Council on Foreign Relations fretting about maternal
mortality or genital mutilation. Back then the oppression of
women was a fringe issue, the kind of worthy cause the
girl scouts might raise money for--
And I hope that is not how we are treating this in the Senate. I hope
that is not how we are treating it, and I hope we are not treating it
as a political football.
We preferred to probe the recondite ``serious issues.''
So this book is the outgrowth--
The writers write--
of our own journey of awakening as we worked together as
journalists for The New York Times. The first milestone in
that journey came in China. Sheryl is a Chinese-American who
grew up in New York City, and Nicholas is an Oregonian who
grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon.
After we married, we moved to China, where seven months later
we found ourselves standing on the edge of Tiananmen Square
watching troops fire their automatic weapons at prodemocracy
protestors. The massacre claimed between four hundred and
eight hundred lives and transfixed the world. It was the
human rights story of the world. It was the human rights
story of the year, and it seemed just about the most shocking
violation imaginable.
Then the following year, we came across an obscure but
meticulous demographic study that outlined a human rights
violation that had claimed tens of thousands more lives. This
study found that thirty-nine thousand baby girls die annually
in China because parents don't give them the same medical
care and attention that boys receive--and that is just in
their first year of life. One Chinese family-planning
official, Li Honggui, explained it this way: ``If a boy gets
sick, the parents may send him to the hospital at once. But
if a girl gets sick, the parents may say to themselves,
``Well, let's see how she is tomorrow.''
. . . A similar pattern emerged in other countries,
particularly in South Asia and the Muslim world. In India, a
``bride burning''--to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry
or to eliminate her so a man can remarry--takes place
approximately once every two hours, but these rarely
constitute news.
In . . . Pakistan, five thousand women and girls have been
doused in kerosene and set alight by family members or in-
laws--or, perhaps worse, been seared with acid--for perceived
disobedience in the last nine years. Imagine the outcry if
the Pakistani or Indian governments were burning women alive
at those rates. Yet when the government is not directly
involved, people shrug.
Again, how does this apply to the matter at hand? We know there are
girls who are victims of trafficking who are put into slavery--sex
slavery--every single day in this country. So if we think we can be a
leader when it comes to what is going on around the world and we want
to hold our Nation up, then we have to be a leader in this Chamber this
week and get this bill done and get these extraneous issues behind us
that people feel strongly about. But, as I said, somehow we have been
able to handle these issues in the past on other bills, and I hope the
girls we are talking about here are just as important as those other
issues.
When a prominent dissident was arrested in China--
I go back to the book--
we would write a front-page article; when 100,000 girls were
routinely kidnapped and trafficked into brothels, we didn't
even consider it news. Partly that is because we journalists
tend to be good at covering events that happen on a
particular day, but we slip at covering events that happen
every day--such as the . . . cruelties inflicted on women and
girls. We journalists weren't the only ones who dropped the
ball on this subject. [A tiny portion] of U.S. foreign aid is
specifically targeted to women and girls.
They then go on to quote a Nobel Prize-winning economist who has
developed a way to look at gender inequality that is a striking
reminder of the stakes involved.
``More than 100 million are missing,'' Sen wrote in a
classic essay in 1990 in ``The New York Review of Books,''
spurring a new field of research. Sen noted that in normal
circumstances women live longer than men, and so there are
more females than males in much of the world. Even poor
regions like most of Latin America and much of Africa have
more females than males. Yet in places where girls have a
deeply unequal status, they vanish. China has 107 males for
every 100 females in its overall population . . . India has
108, and Pakistan has 111.
I remember at the McCain Institute, where Cindy McCain and Heidi
Heitkamp and I spoke on a panel, that Senator McCain had just returned
from a trip abroad and had been in a country that was experiencing
enormous upheaval. He had asked: ``Where are the girls?'' And someone
said to him: ``Most of them have been sold.'' They had been sold. So
this is really happening, and the people in this Chamber know it is
happening. That is why, again, I get back to the fact that if we want
to do something about it here, we need to resolve these issues, we need
to do it without going into a blame game, and we need to get this done
so we can pass this bill--and not have a dispute
[[Page S1603]]
over abortion--that, in fact, helps the very girls we are supposed to
help. Only then can we be a leader in the world.
I will go back to the book:
The worst of these abuses tend to occur in poor nations,
but the United States and other western countries are not
immune. In America, millions of women and girls face beatings
or other violence from their husbands or boyfriends and more
than one in six undergo rape or attempted rape at some point
in her life, according to the National Violence Against Women
survey. Then there is forced prostitution. Teenage runaways
are beaten, threatened and branded (with tattoos) by pimps in
American cities, and thousands of foreign women are
trafficked into the United States as well. Still, in poor
countries gender discrimination is often lethal in a way that
is usually not in America. In India, for example, mothers are
less likely to take their daughters to be vaccinated than
their sons--that alone accounts for one fifth of India's
missing females--while studies have found that, on average,
girls are brought to the hospital only when they are sicker
than boys taken to the hospital. All told, girls in India
from 1 to 5 years of age are 50 percent more likely to die
than boys the same age. The best estimate is that a little
Indian girl dies from discrimination every four minutes.
A big, bearded Afghan . . . once told us that his wife and
son were sick. He wanted both to survive, he said, but his
priorities were clear: A son is an indispensable treasure,
while a wife is replaceable. He had purchased medication for
the boy alone. ``She is always sick,'' he gruffly said of his
wife, ``so it's not worth buying medicine for her.''
Again, why is this relevant to the matter at hand? I think these
young girls and women in our own country and across the world deserve
to be treated seriously. They deserve not to be treated as a political
football on extraneous issues this Chamber likes to debate.
This bill needs to be treated just as seriously--and my safe harbor
bill--as any other bill. Somehow, the people in charge of these
institutions have been able to work out the differences.
Modernization and technology can aggravate the
discrimination. Since the 1990s, the spread of ultrasound
machines has allowed pregnant women to find out the sex of
their fetuses--and then get abortions if they are female.
Again, we are talking about China.
``We don't have to have daughters anymore!'' someone said in China.
To prevent sex-selective abortion, China and India now bar
doctors and ultrasound technicians from telling a pregnant
woman the sex of her fetus. Yet that is a flawed solution.
According to the book:
Research shows that when parents are banned from
selectively aborting female fetuses, more of their daughters
die as infants. Mothers do not deliberately dispatch infant
girls they are obligated to give birth to, but they are
lackadaisical about caring for them. A development economist
at Brown University . . . quantified the wrenching trade-off:
On average, the deaths of fifteen infant girls can be avoided
by allowing 100 female fetuses to [die].
This is what is going on around the world right now.
The global statistics on the abuse of girls are numbing. It
appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty
years, precisely because they were girls, than men were
killed in all the battles of the twentieth century. More
girls are killed in this routine ``gendercide'' in any one
decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of
the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, the central
moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was
the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this
century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle
for gender equality around the world.
That will be the struggle to help these girls.
Maybe this is the battle we are having right now. Maybe this
institution has to come up to speed. We have 20 Senators who are women.
Twenty percent of the Senate are women. That is pretty good. It is the
best we have ever gotten. But when you look at the numbers, the numbers
aren't frequent when you look back through history. Maybe that is what
we are going to have to do to have people take these bills seriously
and not play king of the hill with a bill as serious as this one.
I will continue to read ``Half the Sky'' by Nicholas Kristof and
Sheryl WuDunn.
The owners of the Thai brothel to which Rath was sold did
not beat her and did not constantly guard her. So two months
later, she was able to escape and make her way back to
Cambodia.
Upon her return, Rath met a social worker who put her in
touch with an aid group that helps girls who have been
trafficked start new lives. The group, American Assistance
for Cambodia, used $400 in donated funds to buy a small cart
and a starter selection of goods so that Rath could become a
street peddler. She found a good spot in the open area
between the Thai and Cambodian customs offices. . . .
Travelers crossing between Thailand and Cambodia walk along
this strip, the size of a football field, and it is lined
with peddlers selling drinks, snacks and souvenirs.
Rath outfitted her cart with shirts and hats, costume
jewelry, notebooks, pens and small toys. Now her good looks
and outgoing personality began to work in her favor, turning
her into an effective saleswoman. She saved and invested in
new merchandise, her business thrived, and she was able to
support her parents and two younger sisters. She married and
had a son, and she began saving for his education.
In 2008, Rath turned her cart into a stall, and then also
acquired the stall next door. She also started a ``public
phone'' business by charging people to use her cell phone. So
if you ever cross from Thailand into Cambodia at Poipet, look
for a shop on your left, halfway down the strip, where a
teenage girl will call out to you, smile, and try to sell you
a souvenir cap. She'll laugh and claim she's giving you a
special price, and she's so bubbly and appealing she'll
probably make the sale.
Rath's eventual triumph--
If you remember from the first part of the book that I read, she was
sold into slavery when she simply thought she was going to work as a
dishwasher; she was sold into sex and repeatedly raped--
is a reminder that if girls get a chance, in the form of an
education or a microloan, they can be more than baubles or
slaves; many of them can run businesses. Talk to Rath today--
after you've purchased that cap--and you'll find that she
exudes confidence as she earns a solid income that will
provide a better future for her sisters and for her young
son.
Many of the stories in this book are wrenching, but keep in
mind this central truth: Women aren't the problem but the
solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an
opportunity.
I will repeat that:
Women aren't the problem but the solution. The plight of
girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity.
That was a lesson we absorbed in Sheryl's ancestral
village, at the end of a dirt road amid the rice paddies of
southern China. For many years we have regularly trod the mud
paths of the Taishan region to . . . the hamlet in which
Sheryl's paternal grandfather grew up. China traditionally
has been one of the most oppressive and smothering places for
girls, and we could see hints of this in Sheryl's own family
history. Indeed, on our first visit, we accidentally
uncovered a family secret: a long-lost stepgrandmother.
Sheryl's grandfather had traveled to America with his first
wife, but she had given birth only to daughters. So Sheryl's
grandfather gave up on her and returned her to Shunshui,
where he married a younger woman as a second wife and took
her to America. This was Sheryl's grandmother, who duly gave
birth to a son--Sheryl's dad. The previous wife and daughters
were then wiped out of the family memory.
Something bothered us each time we explored [the town] and
the surrounding villages: Where were the young women?
This is, by the way, what Senator McCain said when he returned from a
country that was repressed.
Young men were toiling industriously in the paddies or
fanning themselves in the shade, but young women and girls
were scarce. We finally discovered them and we stopped in the
factories that were then spreading throughout the [Guangdong]
Province, the epicenter of China's economic eruption. These
factories produced the shoes, toys, and shirts that filled
America's shopping malls, generating economic growth rates
almost unprecedented in the history of the world--and
creating the most effective antipoverty program ever
recorded. The factories turned out to be cacophonous hives of
distaff bees.
Eighty percent of the employees on the assembly lines in
coastal China are female, and the proportion across the
manufacturing belt of East Asia is at least 70 percent. The
economic explosion in Asia was, in large part, an outgrowth
of the economic empowerment of women. ``They have small
fingers, so they're better at stitching,'' the manager of a
purse factory explained to us. ``They're obedient and work
harder than men,'' said the head of a toy factory. ``And we
can pay them less.'' Women are indeed the linchpin of the
region's development strategy.
Economists who scrutinized East Asia's success noted a
common pattern. These countries took young women who
previously had contributed negligibly to the gross national
product and injected them into the formal economy, hugely
increasing the labor force. The basic formula was to ease
repression, educate girls as well as boys, give the girls the
freedom to move to the cities and take factory jobs, and then
benefit from a demographic dividend as they delayed marriage
and reduced childbearing. The women meanwhile financed the
education of younger relatives, and saved enough of their pay
to boost national savings rates. This pattern has been ``the
girl effect.'' In a nod to the female chromosomes, it could
also be called ``the double X solution.''
[[Page S1604]]
Evidence has mounted that helping women can be a successful
poverty-fighting strategy anywhere in the world, not just in
the booming economies of East Asia. The Self Employed Women's
Association was founded in India in 1972 and ever since has
supported the poorest women in starting businesses--raising
living standards in ways that have dazzled scholars and
foundations. In Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus developed
microfinance at the Grameen Bank and targeted women
borrowers--eventually winning a Nobel Peace Prize for the
economic and social impact of his work.
I would note here--just a little sidenote, as I am reading through
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's book, to make everyone in this
Chamber remember why we are here. We are here to help girls, not just
in the United States, but in the world. We are here to hold up ``Half
the Sky.'' We are here to show that this Chamber, at its best, can
actually help the people we are supposed to help, the most vulnerable
in our society, instead of debating extraneous issues that we are
unable to resolve on this bill but that we seem able to resolve on
other bills that just must be more important than the girls and the
women of this world. That is all I can figure out.
But I would like to note, as I read about one of their suggestions
for things that help girls and women around the world, this idea of
microcredit. My dad, who is kind of an adventurer and goes around the
world, actually wrote a book on microcredit called ``The Miracles of
Barefoot Capitalism''--in case he is watching on C-Span, I thought he
would like that note--with his wife Susan Wilkes. They are big
believers in helping women around the world with microcredit.
So then they go on in the book to talk about helping people through
microcredit.
In the early 1990s, the United Nations and the World Bank
began to appreciate the potential resource that women and
girls represent. Investment in girls' education may well be
the highest return investment available in the developing
world.
I think it is something that we need to remember in the United States
as we look at the low numbers of girls that go into science and
technology and head up companies, because for some reason they do not
have the confidence to go into those fields or they are not encouraged
to go into those fields. If we in the Senate cannot even say they
should not be trafficked and we cannot do anything to help them, I do
not think we are helping that cause very much.
Larry Summers wrote, when he was the chief economist of the World
Bank: ``The question is not whether countries can afford this
investment, but whether countries can afford not to educate more
girls.''
In 2001, the World Bank produced an influential study,
Engendering Development Through Gender Equality in Rights,
Resources, and Voice, arguing that promoting gender equality
is crucial to combat global poverty. UNICEF issued a major
report arguing that gender equality yields a ``double
dividend'' by elevating not only women but also their
children and communities. The United Nation Development
Programme (UNDP) summed up the mounting research this way:
``Women's empowerment helps raise economic productivity and
reduce infant mortality. It contributes to improved health
and nutrition. It increases the chances of education for the
next generation.''
More and more, the most influential scholars of development
and public health--including Sen and Summers, Joseph
Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, and Dr. Paul Farmer--are calling for
much greater attention to women and development.
Private aid groups and foundations have shifted gears as
well. ``Women are the key to ending hunger in Africa,''
declared the Hunger Project. French foreign minister Bernard
Kouchner, who founded Doctors Without Borders, bluntly
declared of development: ``Progress is achieved through
women.'' The Center for Global Development issued a major
report explaining ``why and how to put girls at the center of
development.'' CARE is taking women and girls as the
centerpiece of its antipoverty efforts. The Nike Foundation
and the NoVo Foundation are both focusing on building
opportunities for girls in the developing world. ``Gender
inequality hurts economic growth,'' Goldman Sachs concluded
in a 2008 research report that emphasized how much developing
countries could improve their economic performance by
educating girls. Partly as a result of that research, Goldman
Sachs committed $100 million to a ``10,000Women'' campaign
meant to give that many women a business education.
I think this is actually a really good book. I just plan to keep
reading it whenever I can over the next few days until we get a
resolution to this problem.
I am going to take a look at how many pages it is. Well, if you
include the notes, it is 296 pages. I will obviously take breaks when
our colleagues come down here. But I do think it is really important
that we keep the pressure on, that the women and girls of this country
demand that this get resolved, because as I said, we have somehow been
able to resolve it on other bills. I think this bill and the bill that
I have, the safe harbor bill, are just as important. I think our
colleagues, in my discussions with them, know several ways we could
resolve this problem, including just eliminating this extraneous
provision. But there might be other ways as well. We know what they
are. I hope they keep working on them.
Concerns about terrorism after the 9/11 attacks triggered
interest in these issues as an unlikely constituency: the
military and counterterrorism agencies. Some security experts
noted that the countries that nurture terrorists are
disproportionately those where woman are marginalized. The
reason that there are so many Muslim terrorists, they argued,
has little to do with the Koran but a great deal to do with
the lack of robust female participation in the economy and
society of many Islamic countries. As the Pentagon gained a
deeper understanding of counterterrorism . . . it became
increasingly interested in grassroots projects such as girls'
education. Empowering girls, some in the military argued,
would disempower terrorists. When the Joint Chiefs of Staff
hold discussions of girls' education in Pakistan and
Afghanistan . . . you know that gender is a serious topic on
the international affairs agenda. That's evident also in the
Council on Foreign Relations. The wood-paneled halls that
have been used for discussions of MIRV warheads . . . are now
employed as well to host well-attended sessions on maternal
mortality.
This is now Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn speaking in their
book, which has been a national best seller, ``Half the Sky.'' It is
about sex trafficking and how important it is to take this issue on--
not just in our own country but the world.
We will try to lay out an agenda for the world's women
focusing on three particular abuses: sex trafficking and
forced prostitution; gender-based violence, including honor
killings and mass rape; and maternal mortality, which still
needlessly claims one woman a minute. We will lay out
solutions such as girls' education and microfinance, which
are working right now.
While the most urgent needs are in the developing world,
wealthy countries also need to clear up their own
neighborhoods. If we are to lead the way we must show greater
resolution in cracking down on domestic violence and sex
trafficking in our own neighborhoods, rather than just
sputter about abuses far away.
It is true that there are many injustices in the world,
many worthy causes competing for attention and support, and
we all have divided allegiances.
This sounds kind of like us, right? There are a lot of different
topics and things that we have to take on, and there are many worthy
causes that are calling for our attention and support. We all have
divided allegiances. I think that is kind of what is going on in this
Chamber. But why do we need to focus on this? Well, I will go back to
the book.
We focus on this topic because, to us, this kind of
oppression feels transcendent--and so does the opportunity.
We have seen that outsiders can truly make a significant
difference.
Consider Rath once more.
Now, remember, this was the girl that was sold into sex trafficking
in Malaysia.
We had been so shaken by her story that we wanted to locate
that brothel in Malaysia, interview its owners, and try to
free the girls still imprisoned there. Unfortunately, we
could not determine the brothel's name or address. (Rath
didn't know English or even the Roman alphabet, so she hadn't
been able to read signs when she was there.) When we asked
her if she would be willing to return to Kuala Lumpur and
help us find the brothel, she turned ashen. ``I don't know,''
she said. ``I don't want to face that again.'' She wavered,
talked it over with her family, and ultimately agreed to go
back in the hope of rescuing her girlfriends.
Rath voyaged back to Kuala Lumpur with the protection of an
interpreter and a local antitrafficking activist.
Nonetheless, she trembled in the red light district upon
seeing the cheerful neon signs that she associated with so
much pain. But since her escape, Malaysia has been
embarrassed by public criticism about trafficking, so the
police had cracked down on the worst brothels that imprisoned
girls against their will. One of those was Rath's. A modest
amount of international scolding had led a government to take
action, resulting in an observable improvement in the lives
of girls at the bottom
[[Page S1605]]
of the power pyramid. The outcome underscores that this is a
hopeful cause, not a bleak one.
Honor killings, sexual slavery, and genital cutting may
seem to Western readers to be tragic but inevitable in a
world far, far away. In much the same way, slavery was once
widely viewed by many decent Europeans and Americans as a
regrettable but ineluctable feature of human life. It was
just one more horror that has existed for thousands of years.
But then in the 1780s a few indignant Britons, led by William
Wilberforce, decided that slavery was so offensive that they
had to abolish it. And they did. Today, we see the seed of
something similar, a global movement to emancipate women and
girls.
By the way, later in the book--since I have read it already, but now
I will be able to read it again--they talk about how, in fact, it was
the evidence of that brutality of the slavery, of the stench of the
people who were slaves who were in the bottom of that ship that really
drove action. Yes, the activists and William Wilberforce understandably
get a lot of the attention and well-deserved credit for what happened,
but it was the evidence that led to Britain, the people and their
society, long before many other countries had even thought about
abolishing slavery--it was the evidence of the brutality that led them
to make a change.
That is one of the things that we need to talk about and why I am
talking about this here today. We have to get back on what really
matters here, such as the story of the 12-year-old girl in Rochester,
MN--a 12-year-old girl who just got a text message and went to a
McDonald's parking lot and was shoved into a car and then brought to
the Twin Cities and then raped. Then her pictures were taken--sexually
explicit pictures--and put on Craigslist. Then she was sold the next
day and raped by two men.
That is what this is really about. It is not about these extraneous
fights and what has been going on, dragging this Chamber down, and even
stopping us from confirming a well-qualified person for the Attorney
General of the United States. That is what they are talking about here.
It is the evidence that the American people see. They start demanding
change. I hope that is happening today.
So let's be clear about this up front. We hope to recruit
you to join--
These are the authors.
--an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global
poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts.
That is the process underway--not a drama of victimization
but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage
girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen.
This is a story of transformation. It has change that is
already taking place, and change that can accelerate if you
will just open your heart and join in.
I think we need some opening of hearts here in the Chamber. I am
going to take one break to talk to our staff, and then I will be back.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am reading the book ``Half the Sky,''
by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. I think it is a beautiful
book. It is on sex trafficking around the world and what has been
happening around the world. A part of this is that I think we need to
make the point that we can lead in our country when it comes to sex
trafficking.
We have Senator Cornyn's bill, and we know there is an issue with one
of the provisions that needs to be resolved--and I don't think it is a
provision that is related to this topic--but we are hopeful people of
good will can come together and resolve this issue. The easiest way
would be to take it out. We can have other discussions. Somehow,
through history, the Senate has been able to come together and take
care of this issue with the Hyde amendment and other bills.
I think the point I am trying to make today is this bill is just as
important as those bills and that these girls who are victims of sex
trafficking are just as important as anyone else in this country.
I am going to continue reading this book. I am hopeful--as I
mentioned, it is very long, and I will obviously pause for my
colleagues who come to the floor, but I am going to continue reading it
until we get this resolved.
We are now on chapter 1, ``Emancipating Twenty-First-Century
Slaves.'' The quote on this is actually from Christopher Buckley, one
of my favorite authors, from ``Florence of Arabia,'' from the beginning
of the chapter: ``Women might just have something to contribute to
civilization other than their vaginas.''
That might not have been said on this floor that many times, but he
is a humorous writer. Now, let's go on with the book:
The red-light district in the town of Forbesgunge does not
actually have any red lights. Indeed, there is no
electricity. The brothels are simply mud-walled family
compounds along a dirt path, with thatch-roof shacks set
aside for customers.
Children play and scurry along the dirt paths, and a one-
room shop on the corner sells cooking oil, rice, and bits of
candy. Here, in the impoverished northern Indian state of
Bihar near the Nepalese border, there's not much else
available commercially--except sex.
As Meena Hasina walks down the path, the children pause and
stare at her. The adults stop as well, some glowering and the
tension rises. Meena is a lovely, dark-skinned Indian woman
in her thirties with warm, crinkly eyes and a stud in her
left nostril. She wears a sari and ties her black hair back,
and she seems utterly relaxed as she strolls among people who
despise her.
Meena is an Indian Muslim who for years was prostituted in
a brothel run by the Nutt, a low-caste tribe that controls
the local sex trade. The Nutt have traditionally engaged in
prostitution and petty crime, and theirs is the world of
intergenerational prostitution, in which mothers sell sex and
raise their daughters to do the same.
Meena strolls through the brothels to a larger hut that
functions as a part-time school, sits down, and makes herself
comfortable. Behind her, the villagers gradually resume their
activities.
``I was eight or nine years old when I was kidnapped and
trafficked,'' Meena begins. She is from a poor family on the
Nepal border and was sold to a Nutt clan, then taken to a
rural house where the brothel owner kept prepubescent girls
until they were mature enough to attract customers. When she
was twelve--she remembers that it was five months before her
first period--she was taken to the brothel.
``They brought in the first client, and they'd taken lots
of money from him,'' Meena recounted, speaking clinically and
without emotion. The induction was similar to that endured by
Rath in Malaysia, for sex trafficking operates on the same
business model worldwide, and the same methods are used to
break girls everywhere. ``I started fighting and crying out,
so that he couldn't succeed,'' Meena said. ``I resisted so
much that they had to return the money to him. And they beat
me mercilessly, with a belt, with sticks, with iron rods. The
beating was tremendous.'' She shook her head to clear the
memory. ``But even then I resisted. They showed me swords and
said they would kill me if I didn't agree. Four or five
times, they brought customers in, and I still resisted, and
they kept beating me. Finally they drugged me: They gave me
wine in my drink and got me completely drunk.'' Then one of
the brothel owners raped her. She awoke, hungover and
hurting, and realized what had happened. ``Now I am wasted,''
she thought, and so she gave in and stopped fighting
customers.
In Meena's brothel, the tyrant was a family matriarch,
Ainul Bibi. Sometimes Ainul would beat the girls herself, and
sometimes she would delegate the task to her daughter-in-law
or her sons, who were brutal in inflicting punishment.
``I wasn't even allowed to cry,'' Meena remembers. ``If
even one tear fell, they would beat me. I used to think that
it was better to die than to live like this. Once I jumped
from the balcony, but nothing happened. I didn't even break a
leg.''
Meena and the others girls were never allowed out of the
brothel and were never paid. They typically had ten or more
customers a day, seven days a week. If a girl fell asleep or
complained about a stomachache, the issue was resolved with a
beating. And when a girl showed any hint of resistance, all
the girls would be summoned to watch as the recalcitrant one
was tied up and savagely beaten.
``They turned the stereo up loud to cover the screams,''
Meena said dryly.
India almost certainly has more modern slaves, in
conditions like these, than any other country. There are 2 to
3 million prostitutes in India, and although many of them now
sell sex to some degree willingly, and are paid, a
significant share of them entered the sex industry
unwillingly. One 2008 study of Indian brothels found that of
Indian and Nepali prostitutes who started as teenagers, about
half said they had been coerced into the brothels; women who
began working in their twenties were more likely to have made
the choice themselves, often to feed their children. Those
who start out enslaved often accept their fate eventually and
sell sex willingly, because they know nothing else and are
too stigmatized to hold other jobs.
[[Page S1606]]
China has more prostitutes than India--some estimates are
as high as 10 million or more--but fewer of them are forced
into brothels against their will. Indeed, China has few
brothels as such. Many of the prostitutes are freelancers
working as ding-dong xiaojie (so called because they ring
hotel rooms looking for business), and even those working in
massage parlors and saunas are typically there on commission
and can leave if they want to.
Paradoxically, it is the countries with the most
straightlaced and sexually conservative societies, such as
India, Pakistan, and Iran, that have disproportionately large
numbers of forced prostitutes. Since young men in those
societies rarely sleep with their girlfriends, it has become
acceptable for them to relieve their sexual frustrations with
prostitutes.
The implicit social contract is that upper-class girls will
keep their virtue, while young men will find satisfaction in
the brothels. And the brothels will be staffed with slave
girls trafficked from Nepal or Bangladesh or poor Indian
villages. As long as the girls are uneducated, low-caste
peasants like Meena, society will look the other way--just as
many antebellum Americans turned away from the horrors of
slavery because the people being lashed looked different from
them.
In Meena's brothel, no one used condoms. Meena is healthy
for now, but she has never had an AIDS test. (While HIV
prevalence is low in India, prostitutes are at particular
risk because of their large number of customers.) Because
Meena didn't use condoms, she became pregnant, and this
filled her with despair.
``I used to think that I never wanted to be a mother,
because my life had been wasted, and I didn't want to waste
another life,'' Meena said. But Ainul's brothel, like many in
India, welcomed the pregnancy as a chance to breed a new
generation of victims. Girls are raised to be prostitutes,
and boys become servants to do the laundry and cooking.
In the brothel, without medical help, Meena gave birth to a
baby girl, whom she named Naina. But soon afterward, Ainul
took the baby away from Meena, partly to stop her from
breast-feeding--customers dislike prostitutes who are
lactating--and partly to keep the baby as a hostage to
ensure that Meena would not try to flee.
``We will not let Naina stay with you,'' Ainul told her.
``You are a prostitute, and you have no honor. So you might
run away.'' Later a son, Vivek, followed, and the owners also
took him away. So both of Meena's children were raised by
others in the brothel, mostly in sections of the compound
where she was not allowed to go.
``They held my children captive, so they thought I would
never try to escape,'' she said. To some degree, this
strategy worked. Meena once helped thirteen of the girls
escape, but didn't flee herself because she couldn't bear to
leave her children. The penalty for staying behind was a
brutal beating for complicity in the escape.
Ainul had herself been a prostitute when she was young, so
she was unsympathetic to the younger girls. ``If my own
daughters can be prostituted, then you can be, too,'' Ainul
would tell the girls. And it was true that she had
prostituted her own two daughters. (``They had to be beaten
up to agree to it,'' Meena explained. ``No one wants to go
into this.'')
That is a good place to stop and talk a little about what we are
doing on the floor. No one wants to go into this. That is what these
bills are about. These bills are about having a victims fund. These
bills are about creating a safe harbor so we don't treat these young
victims as criminals, like we have in Minnesota with the safe harbor
law. And it is about trying to get something done.
We know an extraneous provision is on this bill and that we need to
resolve this one way or another. As I have noted, we have been able to
resolve this in the past, and I welcome my colleagues to come and speak
about this issue. I hope this blame game is behind us, and that we
won't be making accusations but instead we will actually work on
getting this bill done. Because lost in all of this is the fact this
isn't just some game people can play. These are actual young girls.
As I said, why is this international prostitution relevant to what we
are talking about? It is relevant because our country can actually
become a leader in this area. We can be a leader. We can actually do
something in America to show we are taking this on. Our bill, the safe
harbor bill I am leading, which we hope will be the first amendment to
this bill, sets up a national sex trafficking strategy. We don't have
one right now.
As a former prosecutor, I know when we work between Federal and State
and local authorities, and we take on these cases and do it in a smart
way, we actually are able to get things done. We did it with the
Violence Against Women Act, when everyone thought that was just a
situation where you can beat your wife and no one is going to notice.
It happened behind closed doors. But we took it on as a country and we
changed things and changed things for women in this country. Now we can
do this with prostitution.
We can no longer see this as a victimless crime. There is a victim.
The victim is 12 years old. She is someone in your State right now. So
that is why these bills are so serious and why we need to continue to
get them done. I am going to keep talking about this issue because I
think at some point we have to realize why we are here and what we are
talking about, instead of using it as a political football.
So the story goes on:
Meena estimates that in the dozen years she was in the
brothel, she was beaten on average five days a week. Most
girls were quickly broken and cowed, but Meena never quite
gave in. Her distinguishing characteristic is obstinacy. She
can be dogged and mulish, and that is one reason the
villagers find her so unpleasant. She breaches the pattern of
femininity in rural India by talking back--and fighting back.
The police seemed unlikely saviors to girls in the brothels
because police officers regularly visited the brothels and
were serviced free. But Meena was so desperate that she once
slipped out and went to the police station to demand help.
``I was forced into prostitution by a brothel in town,''
Meena told the astonished officer at the police station.
``The pimps beat me up, and they're holding my children
hostage.'' Other policemen came out to see this unusual
sight, and they mocked her and told her to go back.
``You have great audacity to come here!'' one policeman
scolded her. In the end, the police sent her back after
extracting a promise from the brothel not to beat her. The
brothel owners did not immediately punish her. But a friendly
neighbor warned Meena that the brothel owners had decided to
murder her. That doesn't happen often in red-light districts,
any more than farmers kill producing assets such as good milk
cows, but from time to time a prostitute becomes so
nettlesome that the owners kill her as a warning to the other
girls.
Fearing for her life, Meena abandoned her children and fled
the brothel. She traveled several hours by train to
Forbesgunge. Someone there told one of Ainul's sons, Manooj,
of her whereabouts, and he soon arrived to beat up Meena.
Manooj didn't want her causing trouble in his brothel again,
so he told her that she could live on her own in Forbesgunge
and prostitute herself, but she would have to give him the
money. Not knowing how she could survive otherwise, Meena
agreed.
Whenever Manooj returned to Forbesgunge to collect money,
he was dissatisfied with the amount Meena gave him and beat
her. Once Manooj threw Meena to the ground and was beating
her furiously with a belt when a respectful local man
intervened.
``You're already pimping her, you're already taking her
lifeblood,'' remonstrated her saviour, a pharmacist named
Kuduz. ``Why beat her to death as well?''
It wasn't the same as leaping on Manooj to pull him off,
but for a woman like Meena, who was scorned by society, it
was startling to have anyone speak up for her.
To have anyone speak up for her. That is what I hope we are going to
be doing in this Chamber in the next few days, that we are going to
speak up for these victims and show that we want to actually get
something done and that they have value outside of being a political
football.
Manooj backed off, and Kuduz helped her up. Meena and Kuduz
lived near each other in Forbesgunge, and the incident
created a bond between them. Soon Kuduz and Meena were
chatting regularly, and then he offered to marry her.
Thrilled, she accepted.
Manooj was furious when he heard about the marriage, and he
offered Kuduz 100,000 rupees ($2,500) to give Meena up--a sum
that perhaps reflected his concern that she might use her new
respectability as a married woman to cause trouble for the
brothel. Kuduz wasn't interested in a deal.
``Even if you offered me two hundred fifty thousand rupees,
I will not give her up,'' Kuduz said. ``Love has no price.''
After they were married, Meena bore two daughters with
Kuduz, and she went back to her native village to look for
her parents. Her mother had died--neighbors said she had
cried constantly after Meena disappeared, then had gone mad--
but her father was stunned and thrilled to see his daughter
resurrected.
Life was clearly better, but Meena couldn't forget her
first two children left behind in the brothel. So she began
making journeys back--five hours by bus--to Ainul Bibi's
brothel. There she would stand outside and plead for Naina
and Vivek.
``As many times as I could, I would go back to fight for my
children,'' she remembered. ``I knew they would not let me
take my children. I knew they would beat me up. But I thought
I had to keep trying.''
It didn't work. Ainul and Manooj didn't let Meena in the
brothel; they whipped her and
[[Page S1607]]
drove her away. The police wouldn't listen to her. The
brothel owners not only threatened to kill her, they also
threatened to kidnap her two young daughters with Kuduz and
sell them to a brothel. Once a couple of gangsters showed up
at Meena's house in Forbesgunge to steal the two little
girls, but Kuduz grabbed a knife and warned: ``If you even
try to steal them, I'll cut you into pieces.''
Meena was terrified for her two younger girls, but she
couldn't forget Naina. She knew that Naina was approaching
puberty and would soon be on the market. But what could she
do?
So these stories are pretty raw, and they are stories we usually
don't tell on the floor of the United States Senate. But I think we
need to, because maybe it is the only way people will remember why we
are here and what we are supposed to be doing right now, which is to
get these bills done and then hopefully confirm an Attorney General of
the United States, which is something else we need to do that seems
completely unrelated to these sex trafficking stories of these girls,
except for one reason, and that is that we would want to have an
attorney general in place so they can enforce the law.
Some of these cases are actually Federal, such as the one we had in
Minnesota involving the little girl from Rochester, or the case in
Senator Heitkamp's State of North Dakota involving the incident of a
sex trafficking ring in the oil patch. This is going on right now in
this country. So what could an Attorney General do? I would ask: What
can we do? What we can do is to get this bill done.
Again, I welcome my colleagues to come and talk about this issue, but
I hope when they talk about it we will actually focus on the matter at
hand--not blame anyone anymore, not talk about the things we disagree
on but what we agree on. And then, hopefully, that will lead to the
discussions I know are going on to resolve this bill because we can get
this resolved.
Continuing to read, this is the writers talking now:
Interviewing women like Meena over the years has led us to
change our own views on sex trafficking. Growing up in the
United States and then living in China and Japan, we thought
of prostitution as something women may turn to
opportunistically or out of economic desperation. In Hong
Kong, we knew an Australian prostitute who slipped Sheryl
into the locker room of her ``men's club'' to meet the local
girls, who were there because they saw a chance to enrich
themselves. We certainly didn't think of prostitutes as
slaves, forced to do what they do, for most prostitutes in
America, China, and Japan aren't truly enslaved.
Yet it's hyperbole to say that millions of women and girls
are actually enslaved today. (The biggest difference from
nineteenth-century slavery is that many die of AIDS by their
late twenties.) The term that is usually used for this
phenomenon, ``sex trafficking,'' is a misnomer. The problem
isn't sex, nor is it prostitution as such. In many
countries--China, Brazil, and most of sub-Saharan Africa--
prostitution is widespread but mostly voluntary (in the sense
it is driven by economic pressure rather than physical
compulsion). In those places, brothels do not lock up women,
and many women work on their own without pimps or brothels.
Nor is the problem exactly ``trafficking'' since forced
prostitution doesn't always depend on a girl's being
transported over a great distance by a middleman.
The story I told, by the way, of the girl in Rochester, she just went
about an hour-and-a-half drive. So this idea the trafficking is just
about going from one nation to another or being in the hold of a boat
or something like that is not necessarily always the case. So we use
the words sex trafficking because people have to understand this is
more than just one pimp and one prostitute, that these are usually
rings and these girls are usually brought someplace where they do not
want to be. But it doesn't necessarily mean they are brought long
distances.
So when we talk about the bills on the floor, let's remember that,
and I think this is a good reminder from this book.
And, by the way, if I ever mispronounce names or words, my apology to
the authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. I have to say it is
kind of small print, and I am trying my best. I know the Presiding
Officer has a good command of English and will help me out or correct
me if I make a mistake.
The horror of sex trafficking can more properly be labeled
slavery.
The total number of modern slaves is difficult to estimate.
The International Labour Organization, a UN agency, estimates
that at any one time there are 12.3 million people engaged in
forced labor of all kinds, not just sexual servitude. A UN
report estimated that 1 million children in Asia alone are
held in conditions indistinguishable from slavery. The
Lancet, a prominent medical journal in Britain, calculated
that ``1 million children are forced into prostitution every
year and the total number of prostituted children could be as
high as 10 million.''
Antitrafficking campaigners tend to use higher numbers,
such as 27 million modern slaves. That figure originated in
research by Kevin Bales, who runs a fine organization called
Free the Slaves. Numbers are difficult to calculate in part
because sex workers can't be divided neatly into categories
of those working voluntarily and those working involuntarily.
Some commentators look at prostitutes and see only sex
slaves; others see only entrepreneurs. But in reality there
are some in each category and many other women who inhabit a
gray zone between freedom and slavery.
I will note this number--I have always tried to get the right number
of how many victims we are talking about--but as I noted at the
beginning of my remarks this morning, the 27 million modern slaves
includes victims of not just sex trafficking but also labor
trafficking.
Back to the book.
An essential part of the brothel business model is to break
the spirit of girls through humiliation, rape, threats and
violence. We met a 15-year-old Thai girl whose initiation
consisted of being forced to eat dog droppings so as to
shatter her self-esteem. Once a girl is broken and terrified,
all hope of escape squeezed out of her, force may no longer
be necessary to control her. She may smile and laugh at
passersby, and try to grab them and tug them into the
brothel. Many a foreigner would assume that she is there
voluntarily, but in that situation complying with the will of
the brothel owner does not signify consent.
Our own estimate is that there are 3 million women and
girls (and a very small number of boys) worldwide who can be
fairly termed enslaved in the sex trade. That is a
conservative estimate that does not include many others who
are manipulated and intimidated into prostitution. Nor does
it include millions more who are under eighteen and cannot
meaningfully consent to work in brothels. We are talking
about 3 million people who in effect are the property of
another person and in many cases could be killed by their
owner with impunity.
Technically, trafficking is often defined as taking someone
(by force or deception) across an international border. The
U.S. State Department has estimated that between 600,000 and
800,000 people are trafficked across international borders
each year, 80 percent of them women and girls, mostly for
sexual exploitation. Since Meena didn't cross a border, she
wasn't trafficked in the traditional sense. That's also true
of most people who are enslaved in brothels. As the U.S.
State Department notes, its estimate doesn't include
``millions of victims around the world who are trafficked
within their own national borders.''
The bills that we have--the one before us and my bill, the safe
harbor bill, which we would like to see as the first amendment, which
passed the Judiciary Committee with 20 votes on a bipartisan basis--
these bills are focused on sex trafficking within our own borders,
although some of the victims will be brought in from other countries.
This book, ``Half the Sky,'' is so good because it really is about what
is going on all around the world and all these victims around the
world. Every country has their own problems. Despite all of the
political machinations and extraneous provisions and other things, what
we are trying to get done today is to do something real to help the
victims of sex trafficking through the fund Senator Cornyn has in his
bill and then in my safe harbor bill, which is also a strong bipartisan
bill, to make it clear there is a good model we can use across the
country that has been used in 15 States and others, and one dozen more
are working on them, where Minnesota has been one of the States leading
the way to view these girls as victims and not as criminals, when the
average age is 12 years old, not even old enough to go to a high school
prom, not even old enough to drive the car.
Again, I welcome my colleagues to come down and talk about this
issue. I am just going to keep filling in reading this book when no one
is on the floor. I only hope that when we talk about this bill and this
issue, we do it with some respect for the victims of these crimes and
the respect they deserve.
Technically, trafficking is often defined as taking someone
(by force or deception) across an international border. The
U.S. State Department has estimated that between 600,000 and
800,000 people are trafficked across international borders
each year, 80 percent of them women and girls, mostly for
sexual exploitation. Since Meena didn't cross
[[Page S1608]]
a border, she wasn't trafficked in the traditional sense.
That's also true of most people who are enslaved in brothels.
As the U.S. State Department notes, its estimate doesn't
include ``millions of victims around the world who are
trafficked within their own national borders.''
Again, as I have noted, 83 percent of the victims in the United
States are from the United States, and I don't think that is what we
think of when we first think about sex trafficking, but those are
facts.
In contrast, in the peak decade of the transatlantic slave
trade, the 1780s, an average of just under eighty thousand
slaves were shipped annually across the Atlantic from Africa
to the New World. The average then dropped to a bit more than
fifty thousand between 1811 and 1850. In other words, far
more women and girls are shipped into brothels each year in
the early twenty-first century than African slaves were
shipped into slave plantations each year in the eighteenth or
nineteenth centuries--although the overall population was of
course far smaller then. As the journal Foreign Affairs
observed: ``Whatever the exact number is, it seems almost
certain that the modern global slave trade is larger in
absolute terms than the Atlantic slave trade in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was.''
As on slave plantations two centuries ago, there are few
practical restraints on slave owners. In 1791, North Carolina
decreed that killing a slave amounted to ``murder,'' and
Georgia later established that killing or maiming a slave was
legally the same as killing or maiming a white person. But
those doctrines existed more on paper than on plantations,
just as Pakistani laws exist in the statute books but don't
impede brothel owners who choose to eliminate troublesome
girls.
While there has been progress in addressing many
humanitarian issues in the last few decades, sex slavery has
actually worsened. One reason for that is the collapse of
Communism in Eastern Europe and Indochina. In Romania and
other countries, the immediate result was economic distress,
and everywhere criminal gangs arose and filled the power
vacuum. Capitalism created new markets for rice and potatoes,
but also for female flesh.
A second reason for the growth of trafficking is
globalization. A generation ago, people stayed at home; now
it is easier and cheaper to set out for the city or a distant
country. A Nigerian girl whose mother never left her tribal
area may now find herself in a brothel in Italy. In rural
Moldolva, it is possible to drive from village to village and
not find a female between the ages of sixteen and thirty.
I believe this is one of the countries that Senator McCain visited,
when I talked to him after he came back last Easter, where he simply
didn't see the girls. He asked: Where are the girls? And they said:
Well, the girls--many of them have been sold into sex. So these are
things that are happening right now in this world and in our own
country.
A third reason for the worsening situation is AIDS. Being
sold to a brothel was always a hideous fate, but not usually
a death sentence. Now it often is. And because of the fear of
AIDS, customers prefer younger girls whom they believe are
less likely to be infected. In both Asia and Africa, there is
also a legend that AIDS can be cured by sex with a virgin,
and that has nurtured demand for young girls kidnapped from
their villages.
These factors explain our emphasis on sex slaves as opposed
to other kinds of forced labor. Anybody who has spent time in
Indian brothels and also, say, at Indian brick kilns knows
that it is better to be enslaved working a kiln. Kiln workers
most likely live together with their families, and their work
does not expose them to the risk of AIDS, so there's always
hope of escape down the road.
Inside the brothel, Naina and Vivek were beaten, starved,
and abused. They were also confused about their parentage.
Naina grew up calling Ainul [the brothel's owner] Grandma,
and Ainul's son Vinod, Father. Naina sometimes was told that
Vinod's wife, Pinky, was her mother; at other times she was
told her mother had died and that Pinky was her stepmother.
But when Naina asked to go to school, Vinod refused and
described the relationship in blunter terms.
``You must obey me,'' he told Naina, ``because I am your
owner.''
The neighbors tried to advise the children. ``People used
to say that they could not be my real parents, because they
tortured me so much,'' Naina recalled. Occasionally, the
children heard or even saw Meena coming to the door and
calling out to them. Once Meena saw Naina and told her, ``I
am your mother.''
``No,'' Naina replied. ``Pinky is my mother.''
Vivek remembers Meena's visits as well. ``I used to see her
being beaten up and driven away,'' he says. ``They told me
that my mother was dead, but the neighbors told me that she
was my mother after all, and I saw her coming back to try to
fight for me.''
Naina and Vivek never went to a day of school, never saw a
doctor, and were rarely allowed out. They were assigned
chores such as sweeping floors and washing clothes, and they
had only rags to wear--and no shoes, for that might encourage
them to run away. Then, when Naina was twelve, she was
paraded before an older man in a way that left her feeling
uncomfortable. ``When I asked `Mother' about the man,'' Naina
recalled, ``she beat me up and sent me to bed without
dinner.''
A couple of days later, ``Mother'' told Naina to bathe and
took her to the market, where she bought her nice clothes and
a nose ring. ``When I asked her why she was buying me all
these things, she started scolding me. She told me that I had
to listen to everything the man says. She also told me, `Your
father has taken money from the man for you.' I started
crying out loudly.''
Pinky told Naina to wear the clothes, but the girl threw
them away, crying inconsolably. Vivek was only eleven, a
short boy with a meek manner. But he had inherited his
mother's incomprehension of surrender. So he pleaded with his
``parents'' and his ``grandma'' to let his sister go, or to
find a husband for her. Each appeal brought him only another
beating--administered with scorn. ``You don't earn any
income,'' ``Father'' told him mockingly, ``so how do you
think you can look after your sister?''
Yet Vivek found the courage to confront his tormenters
again and again, begging for his sister's freedom. In a town
where police officers, government officials, Hindu priests,
and respectable middle-class citizens all averted their eyes
from forced prostitution, the only audible voice of
conscience belonged to an eleven-year-old boy who was
battered each time he spoke up. His outspokenness gained him
nothing, though. Vinod and Pinky locked him up, forced Naina
into the new clothes, and the girl's career as a prostitute
began.
So I think that is a pretty good place to break for a minute as we
talk about ``the only audible voice of conscience belonged to an
eleven-year-old boy.'' I think we have an opportunity in the Senate to
be an audible voice of conscience and to move on this bill.
When I came to the floor today, my job was to just manage the bill
for 4 hours; then I just decided, after being somewhat disgusted by all
of the anger that I have heard in this Chamber, that maybe I would just
start reading from this book. I had no plan to do it. I happened to
have it with me because I have used it when I have given speeches. This
isn't an official filibuster, as I guess we have been asked. I am just
going to keep reading from the book. When my colleagues want to come
down, I welcome them. But I only ask them one thing--if maybe they
could just focus on the issue at hand and stop all of this vengeance
and anger, and then maybe we will have an opportunity, if we stop
throwing darts, to get this done--and then also to confirm the next
Attorney General of the United States, which is completely unrelated to
this.
So let me continue on with this story, as we have an 11-year-old boy
in the story whose voice was the only voice of conscience.
``My `mother' was telling me not to get scared, as he is a
nice man,'' Naina remembered. ``Then they locked me inside
the room with the man. The man told me to lock the room from
the inside. I slapped him. . . . Then that man forced me. He
raped me.''
Once a customer gave Naina a tip, and she secretly passed
on the money to Vivek. They thought that perhaps Vivek could
use a phone, a technology that they had no experience with,
to track down the mysterious woman who claimed to be their
real mother and seek help from her. But when Vivek tried to
use the telephone, the brothel owners found out and both
children were flogged.
Ainul thought that Vivek could be distracted with girls,
and so he was told to try to have sex with the prostitutes.
He was overwhelmed and intimidated at the thought, and when
he balked, Pinky beat him up. Seething and fearful of what
would become of his sister, Vivek decided that their only
hope would be for him to run away and try to find the person
who claimed to be their mother. Somewhere Vivek had heard
that the woman's name was Meena and that she lived in
Forbesgunge, so he fled to the train station one morning and
used Naina's tip to buy a ticket.
``I was trembling because I thought that they would come
after me and cut me into pieces,'' he recalled. After
arriving in Forbesgunge, he asked directions to the brothel
district. He trudged down the road to the red-light area and
then asked one passerby after another: Where is Meena? Where
does she live?
Finally, after a long walk and many missed turns, he knew
he was close to her home, and he called out: Meena! Meena! A
woman came out of one little home--Vivek's lip quivered as he
recounted this part of the story--and looked him over
wonderingly. The boy and the woman gazed at each other for a
long moment, and then the woman finally said in astonishment:
``Are you Vivek?''
The reunion was sublime. It was a blessed few weeks of
giddy, unadulterated joy, the first happiness that Vivek had
known in his life. Meena is a warm and emotional woman, and
Vivek was thrilled to feel a mother's love for the first
time. Yet now that Meena
[[Page S1609]]
had news about Naina, her doggedness came to the surface
again: She was determined to recover her daughter.
``I gave birth to her, and so I can never forget her,''
Meena said. ``I must fight for her as long as I breathe.
Every day without Naina feels like a year.''
Meena had noticed that Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an
organization that fights sex slavery in India, had opened an
office in Forbesgunge. Apne Aap is based in Kolkata, the city
formerly known as Calcutta, but its founder--a determined
former journalist named Ruchira Gupta--grew up partly in
Forbesgunge. Other aid groups are reluctant to work in rural
Bihar because of the widespread criminality, but Ruchira knew
the area and thought it was worth the risk to open a branch
office. One of the first people to drop in was Meena.
``Please, please,'' Meena begged Ruchira, ``help me get my
daughter back!''
There had never been a police raid on a brothel in Bihar
State, as far as anyone knew, but Ruchira decided that this
could be the first. While Ainul Bibi's brothel had warm ties
with the local police, Ruchira had strong connections with
national police officials. And Ruchira can be every bit as
intimidating as any brothel owner.
So Apne Aap harangued the local police into raiding the
brothel to rescue Naina. The police burst in, found Naina,
and took her to the police station. But the girl had been so
drugged and broken that at the station she looked at Meena
and declared numbly: ``I'm not your daughter.'' Meena was
shattered.
Naina explained later that she had felt alone and
terrified, partly because Ainul Bibi had told her that Vivek
had died. But after an hour in the police station, Naina
began to realize that maybe she could escape the brothel, and
she finally whispered, ``Yes, you're my mother.''
So Apne Aap whisked Naina off to a hospital in Kolkata,
where she was treated for severe injuries and a morphine
addiction. The brothel had drugged Naina constantly to render
her compliant, and the morphine withdrawal was brutal to
watch. In Forbesgunge, life became more difficult and
dangerous for Meena and her family. Some of the brothel
owners there are related to Ainul and Manooj, and they were
furious at Meena. Even those in the Nutt community who didn't
like prostitution disapproved of the police raid, and so the
townspeople shunned Apne Aap's school and shelter. Meena and
her children were stigmatized, and a young man working with
Apne Aap was stabbed. Threats were made against Meena's two
daughters with Kuduz. Yet Meena was serene as she walked
about the streets. She laughed at the idea that she should
feel cowed.
``They think that good is bad,'' she scoffed, speaking of
the local villagers. ``They may not speak to me, but I know
what is right and I will stick to it. I will never accept
prostitution of myself or my children as long as I breathe.''
Meena is working as a community organizer in Forbesgunge,
trying to discourage parents from prostituting their
daughters and urging them to educate their sons and daughters
alike. Over time the resentment against her has diminished a
bit, but she is still seen as pushy and unfeminine.
Apne Aap later started a boarding school in Bihar, partly
with donations from American supporters, and Meena's children
were placed there. The school has a guard and is a much safer
place for them. Naina now studies at that boarding school and
hopes to become a teacher, and in particular to help
disadvantaged children.
One afternoon, Meena was singing to her two young
daughters, teaching them a song.
This is how it went:
India will not be free,
Until its women are free.
What about the girls in this country?
If girls are insulted and abused and enslaved in this
country,
Put your hand on your heart and ask,
Is this country truly independent?
The next part of the chapter: ``Fighting Slavery from Seattle.'' This
is a book, ``Half the Sky,'' by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It
is about sex trafficking, and I am reading it, one, because it is a
really good book and so people understand the issue, two, so people
will refocus on why we have these bills on the floor and work together.
We all know some potential ways to resolve this on both sides of the
aisle so we can pass this bill and resolve this Hyde amendment
provision which should not be on this bill. But there are ways to
resolve this, and we know what they are, and then, also, hopefully,
pass my safe harbor bill which was the bill that in addition to Senator
Cornyn's bill passed through our Committee on the Judiciary
unanimously. Every single person voted for it. It is slated to be the
first amendment vote on this bill, and it establishes safe harbor
incentives so that other States will do what Minnesota and about 15
States have done, which is not to consider these victims as criminals
but to consider them as victims. Then not only do we help these girls
so they have a chance of turning their lives around but also so that we
actually make better criminal cases.
I know as a former prosecutor, running an office of 400 people for 8
years--seeing some of these major cases come in our doors--the best way
to make these cases, if you have victims who feel that they are
protected, who feel they have another life they can lead, who feel they
can do something with their lives between going back to their pimp and
going back to the person who has beaten them up and gotten them hooked
on drugs, is by doing something like that. So those are two worthy
bills that are on the floor.
Again, my colleagues are welcome to come down here and join me. I
think it would be nice for a change if people focused on the issue at
hand instead of a partisan fight that has been going on, because I
think this institution is better than what we have seen in the last
week.
The next part of the chapter: ``Fighting Slavery from Seattle.''
People always ask how they can help. Given concerns about
corruption, waste, and mismanagement, how can one actually
help women like Meena and defeat modern slavery? Is there
anything an ordinary person can do?
That is a good question. I finally decided to start reading this book
because I was sick of what was going on here. I think ordinary people
around the country can do something about sex slavery by supporting
strong laws and making sure Congress gets its job done but also doing
work on their local and State level.
The authors say:
A starting point is to be brutally realistic about the
complexities of achieving change. To be blunt, humanitarians
sometimes exaggerate and oversell, eliding pitfalls. They
sometimes torture frail data until it yields the demanded
``proof'' of success. Partly this is because the causes are
worthy and inspiring; those who study education for girls,
for example, naturally believe in it. As we'll see, the
result is that the research isn't often conducted with the
same rigor as is found in, say, examinations of the
effectiveness of toothpaste. Aid groups are also reluctant to
acknowledge mistakes, partly because frank discussion of
blunders is an impediment in soliciting contributions.
The reality is that past efforts to assist girls have sometimes
backfired. In 1993, Senator Tom Harkin wanted to help Bangladeshi girls
laboring in sweatshops, so he introduced legislation that would ban
imports made by workers under the age of fourteen. Bangladeshi
factories promptly fired tens of thousands of young girls, and many of
them ended up in brothels and are presumably now dead of AIDS.
Again, I am reading from the book ``Half the Sky,'' by Nicholas
Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, which is a great book about sex trafficking
in order to refocus this Chamber on what we should be doing, which is
getting these bills done and coming up with a way to resolve timeworn
disputes which we somehow have been able do with other bills.
I am trying to make the case here that these girls, as reflected in
some of these stories, are just as important as some of the other work
that we do in the Senate and deserve our greatest efforts.
Yet many forms of assistance--particularly in health and
education--have an excellent record. Consider the work of
Frank Grijalva, the principal of the Overlake School in
Redmond, Washington, a fine private school with 450 students
in grades five through twelve. Annual tuition hovers around
$22,000, and most of the kids are raised in a sheltered
upper-middle class environment. Grijalva was looking for a
way to teach his students about how the other half lives.
``It became clear that we, as a very privileged community,
needed to be a bigger, more positive force in the world,''
Grijalva recalled. Frank heard about Bernard Krisher, a
former Newsweek correspondent who was so appalled by poverty
in Cambodia that he formed an aid group, American Assistance
for Cambodia. Rescuing girls from brothels is important,
Krisher believes, but the best way to save them is to prevent
them from being trafficked in the first place--which means
keeping them in school. So American Assistance for Cambodia
focuses on educating rural children, especially girls. Bernie
Krisher's signature program is the Rural School Project. For
$13,000, a donor can establish a school in a Cambodian
village. The donation is matched by funds from the World Bank
and again by the Asian Development Bank.
Grijalva had a brainstorm. His students could sponsor a
school in Cambodia and use it as a way of emphasizing the
importance of public service. Initially the response from
students and parents was polite but cautious, but then the
attacks of 9/11 took place, and suddenly the community was
passionately concerned with the larger world and engaged in
this project. The students conducted bake sales, car washes,
and talent shows, and also
[[Page S1610]]
educated themselves about Cambodia's history of war and
genocide. The school was built in Pailin, a Cambodian town on
the Thai border that is notorious for cheap brothels that
cater to Thai men.
In February 2003, the school construction was completed,
and Grijalva led a delegation of nineteen students from
Overlake School to Cambodia for the opening. A cynic might
say that the money for the visit would have been better spent
on building another Cambodian school, but in fact that visit
was an essential field trip and a learning opportunity for
those American students. They lugged along boxes of school
supplies, but as they approached Pailin by car, they realized
that Cambodia's needs were greater than they ever could have
imagined. The dirt-and-gravel road to Pailin was so deeply
rutted that it was barely passable, and they saw a bulldozer
overturned beside a crater--it had hit a land mine.
When the Americans reached the Cambodian school, they saw a
sign declaring it the OVERLAKE SCHOOL in English and Kmer
script. At the ribbon cutting, the Americans were welcomed by
a sea of excited Cambodians--led by a principal who was
missing a leg, a land-mine victim himself. Cambodian men then
had an average of only 2.6 years of education, and Cambodian
women averaged just 1.7 years, so a new school was
appreciated in a way the Americans could barely fathom.
The school dedication--and the full week in Cambodia--left
an indelible impression on the American students. So Overlake
students and parents decided to forge an ongoing relationship
with its namesake in Cambodia. The Americans funded an
English teacher at the school and arranged for an Internet
connection for e-mail. They built a playground and sent
books. Then, in 2006, the American school decided to send
delegations annually, dispatching students and teachers
during spring vacation to teach English and arts to the
Cambodian pupils. And in 2007, the group decided to assist a
school in Ghana as well, and to send a delegation there.
``This project is simply the most meaningful and worthwhile
initiative that I have undertaken in my thirty-six years in
education,'' Frank Grijalva said. The Overlake School in Cambodia is
indeed an extraordinary place. A bridge has washed out, so you have to
walk across a stream to reach it, but it looks nothing like the
dilapidated buildings that you see in much of the developing world.
There are 270 students, ranging in age from six to fifteen. The English
teacher is university educated and speaks good English. Most stunning
of all, when we dropped by, the sixth graders were busy sending e-mails
from their Yahoo accounts--to the kids at Overlake School in America.
One of those writing an e-mail was Kun Sokkea, a thirteen-
year-old girl who would soon be the first in her family ever
to graduate from elementary school. Her father had died of
AIDS, and her mother was sick with the same disease and
needed to be nursed constantly. Kun Sokkea is rail-thin, a
bit gangly, with long, stringy black hair. She is reserved,
and her shoulders sag with the burdens of poverty.
``My mom encourages me to stay in school, but sometimes I
think I should go out and earn money,'' Kun Sokkea explained.
``I have no dad to support Mom, so maybe I should provide for
her. In one day, I could earn seventy baht, [a bit more than
two dollars] cutting hay or planting corn.''
To address these financial pressures, American Assistance
for Cambodia started a program called Girls Be Ambitious,
which in effect bribes families to keep girls in school. If a
girl has perfect attendance in school for one month, her
family gets $10. A similar approach has been used very
effectively and cheaply to increase education for girls in
Mexico and other countries. Kun Sokkea's family is now
getting the stipend. For donors who can't afford to fund an
entire school, it's a way to fight trafficking at a cost of
$120 per year per girl. The approach helps because it is
typically girls like Kun Sokkea who end up trafficked. Their
families are desperate for money, the girls are poorly
educated, and a trafficker promises them a great job selling
fruit in a distant city.
Kun Sokkea showed us her home, a rickety shack built on stilts--to
guard against flooding and vermin--in a field near the school. The
house has no electricity, and her possessions were in one small bag.
She never has to worry about choosing what to wear: She has just one
shirt, and no shoes other than a pair of flip-flops. Kun Sokkea has
never been to a dentist and to a doctor only once, and she gets the
family's drinking water from the nearby creek. That's the same creek in
which Kun Sokkea washes the family clothes (she borrows someone else's
shirt to wear when she has to wash her own). She shares a mattress on
the floor with her brother, as three other family members sleep a few
feet way. Kun Sokkea has never touched a phone, ridden in a car, or had
a soft drink; when she was asked if she ever drank milk, she looked
confused and said as a baby she had drunk her mother's milk.
Yet one thing Kun Sokkea has beside her bed is a photo of
the American Overlake students on their campus. In the
evenings before she goes to sleep, she sometimes picks up the
photo and studies the smiling families and neat lawns and
modern buildings. In her own shack, with her mother sick and
often crying, her siblings hungry, it is a window into a
magical land where people have plenty to eat and get cured
when they fall ill. In such a place, she thinks, everybody
must be happy all the time.
For one thing, we know that is not quite true in our country. As we
know, we have these same crimes occurring in our country every single
day. Every single day, we have thousands of girls who are victims of
sex trafficking. We had it happen in Minnesota. We have had it happen
across the country. We have it happen when some girls are brought in
from other countries. We know it is going on every day in our own
Nation. We have an opportunity to do something about it, to tell the
rest of the world that this place is a place where good things get
done. But somehow we have gotten bogged down in a political game again
with blame going back and forth and back and forth, and I just don't
think that is dignified for the Senate.
While we can battle it out--and we should--on issues such as the
budget and on issues where we don't have an agreement when it comes to
our country's international affairs, this is an issue on which we
actually agree, but somehow we found a way to not agree, and I think we
need to find our way back. That is why I am going to continue to read
from this book.
Someone asked me if this is a filibuster. It is not a filibuster
because obviously I don't mind if my colleagues come down. I would like
them to come down and talk about this important topic. But I will point
out that at least when it comes to this issue of sex trafficking, we
can stop going back and forth on who is to blame and who knew what when
and what people did wrong and instead just focus on resolving this
issue and getting a bill passed and certainly not attaching it to the
Attorney General of the United States.
I will say that it is attached to the Attorney General in one way,
and that is when it comes to Federal sex trafficking cases. Most of
these cases are on the local level, county level, State level, the DA's
office, but there are cases that are handled federally. I know from
talking to the nominated Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, that she
cares very much about these cases. It would be good to have her in
place so we can start working on this national sex trafficking
strategy. So in that way they are connected, but they certainly are not
connected, in my mind, procedurally.
I know some of my colleagues have addressed this. I have spoken out
for her several times. Not everyone knows about Loretta Lynch's
background. Loretta Lynch is someone who grew up in a neighborhood--her
family didn't have a lot of money. Her dad was a pastor at the church.
When she was in elementary school, she took a test and did really
well on that test. The teacher came to her and said: You know what, we
don't really know if that was really you who took that test or if that
was really your score. So she took the test again, and she scored even
higher the second time.
When Loretta Lynch graduated from high school, she was actually the
valedictorian. The principal of that school came up to Loretta Lynch
and said: You know what, it is a bit controversial to have you as our
valedictorian, so you will have to share it with a White student. That
happened to Loretta Lynn, and she just waited it out, and that is what
she is going to do with this Chamber. She is going wait it out, and in
the end she will be confirmed as the next Attorney General.
Why is this relevant? Because some of our friends on the other side
of the aisle are attaching it to the sex trafficking issue, and I don't
think it should be attached to the sex trafficking issue. I think we
should get her confirmed.
But most importantly and the reason I am here on the floor reading
from this book is just to say, can we just stop going back and forth
and the vengeance and get this bill done?
From the very beginning, Senator Cornyn and I have worked on my bill,
the safe harbor bill--which is not the bill on the floor--together.
While I was not involved in the beginning of the drafting of his bill,
I believe that idea of helping victims in some way with some kind of
funding with shelters is a really good idea as well.
I hope we can resolve the issue on his bill, the Hyde amendment
provision,
[[Page S1611]]
and that we can then go on to pass my bill as the amendment. As we
know, there is significant support in the House for these bills, and
they are very important bills.
I will continue with the book:
Kun Sokkea and her family are not the only beneficiaries.
The Americans themselves have been transformed as much as the
Cambodians. And that is something you see routinely: Aid
projects have a mixed record in helping people abroad, but a
superb record in inspiring and educating the donors.
Sometimes the lessons are confusing, as Overlake found when
it tried to help Kun Sokkea get to middle school after
graduating from elementary school. She needed transport
because the middle school was far away, and young men in the
area often harassed girls on their way to school.
So, at the teacher's suggestion, Overlake bought Kun Sokkea
a bicycle, and for several months that worked very well. Then
an older woman, a neighbor, asked to borrow Kun Sokkea's
bicycle; the girl felt she couldn't say no to an older
person. The woman then sold the bicycle and kept the money
she received for it. Frank Grijalva and the American students
were beside themselves, but they learned an important lesson
about how defeating poverty is more difficult than it seems
at first. The Americans decided they couldn't just buy Kun
Sokkea another bicycle, so the girl returned to walking an
hour each way to school and back. Perhaps in part because of
the distance involved and the risks of getting to school, Kun
Sokkea began to miss a fair number of days. Her grades
suffered. In early 2009, she dropped out of school.
America's schools rarely convey much understanding of the
2.7 billion people (40 percent of the world's population) who
today live on less than $2 a day. So while the primary
purpose of a new movement on behalf of women is to stop
slavery and honor killings, another is to expose young
Americans to life abroad so that they, too, can learn and
grow and blossom--and then continue to tackle the problems as
adults.
``After going to Cambodia, my plans for the future have
changed,'' said Natalie Hammerquist, a seventeen-year-old at
Overlake who regularly e-mails two Cambodian students. ``This
year I'm taking three foreign languages, and I plan on
picking up more in college.''
Natalie's Cambodian girlfriend wants to be a doctor but
can't afford to go to university. That grates on Natalie: A
girl just like me has to abandon her dreams because they're
unaffordable. Now Natalie plans on a career empowering young
people around the world: ``All anyone should do is to use
their gifts in what way they can, and this is how I can use
mine. That is the weight of how valuable seeing Cambodia was
for me.''
This is now chapter 2 of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's book
``Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women
Worldwide.'' And I noted that really most of the book is about sex
trafficking and prostitution and why this is such a major problem
worldwide.
Look at what happened that night when those girls were doing nothing
but learning at a school and Boko Haram came in and broke into that
school and took those girls away. Their parents had nothing but
motorcycles and bicycles and bows and arrows to try to chase them. They
were never able to get their daughters back, and now Boko Haram said
they sold many of those children into sex slavery.
This should not be happening, but it is going on right now--and not
just internationally. It is going on everywhere in this country, and
that is why it is important. It is important not just for the victims
in America, it is also important because of the victims
internationally. We have an opportunity in this country to actually
stand up and say: We want to be a leader on this internationally. We
are going to cast this dysfunction aside and actually get this done and
show the world we can be a leader when it comes to elevating girls and
young women, when it comes to holding up half the sky.
Chapter 2, ``Prohibition and Prostitution.'' It starts with a quote
by Abraham Lincoln:
Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a
good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the
good of it, by being a slave himself.
After visiting Meena Hasina and Ruchira Gupta in Bihar,
Nick crossed from India into Nepal at a border village with
stalls selling clothing, snacks, and more sinister wares.
That border crossing is the one through which thousands of
Nepali girls are trafficked into India on their way to the
brothels of Kolkata. There they are valued for their light
skin, good looks, docility, and inability to speak the local
language. As Nick filled out some required paperwork at the
border post, Nepalis streamed into India, without filling out
a form.
While sitting in the border shack, Nick began talking to
one Indian officer who spoke excellent English. The man said
he had been dispatched by the intelligence bureau to monitor
the border.
``So what exactly are you monitoring?'' Nick asked.
``We're looking for terrorists, or terror supplies,'' said
the man, who wasn't monitoring anything very closely, since
one truck after another was driving past. ``After 9/11, we've
tightened things up here. And we're also looking for smuggled
or pirated goods. If we find them, we will confiscate them.''
``What about trafficked girls?'' Nick asked. ``Are you
keeping an eye out for them? There must be a lot.''
``Oh, a lot. But we don't worry about them. There's nothing
that we can do about them.''
``Well, you could arrest the traffickers. Isn't trafficking
girls as important as pirating DVDs?''
The intelligence officer laughed genially and threw up his
hands. ``Prostitution is inevitable.'' He chuckled. ``There
has always been prostitution in every country. And what's a
young man going to do from the time he turns eighteen until
he gets married at thirty?''
``Well, is the best solution really to kidnap Nepali girls
and imprison them in Indian brothels?''
The officer shrugged, unperturbed. ``These girls are
sacrificed so we can have harmony in society. So that good
girls can be safe.''
It is unfortunate. I hope that is not what we are going to be saying
in this body--from the Senate to the rest of the world and to
trafficked girls and to those groups who are advocating so hard,
especially over the last 2 years, in trying to get this done. I hope we
will not say: It is unfortunate. We were not able to resolve this.
These are major fights, and this person did this, and this person knew
about this, and this person didn't know about that.
That is what has been going on over this past week, and we are better
than that. People keep backstabbing and going after each other, but
personally I have had it. So if anyone wants to join me here--I know
the women in the Senate have always worked together--and at least talk
about this issue instead of simply fighting with each other, I think we
would really improve our chances of getting it done.
``But many of the Nepali girls being trafficked are good
girls, too.''
``Oh, yes, but those are peasant girls. They can't even
read. They're from the countryside. The good Indian middle-
class girls are safe.''
Nick, who had been gritting his teeth, offered an explosive
suggestion: ``I've got it! You know, in the United States we
have a lot of problems with harmony in society. So we should
start kidnapping Indian middle-class girls and forcing them
to work in brothels in the United States! Then young American
men could have fun, too, don't you think? That would improve
our harmony in society!''
There was an ominous silence, but finally the police
officer roared with laughter.
``You are joking!'' the officer said beaming. ``That's very
funny!''
Nick gave up.
People get away with enslaving village girls for the same
reason that people got away with enslaving blacks 200 years
ago: The victims are perceived as discounted humans. India
had delegated an intelligence officer to look for pirated
goods because it knew that the United States cares about
intellectual property. When India feels that the West cares
as much about slavery as it does about pirated DVDs, it will
dispatch people to the borders to stop traffickers.
The tools to crush modern slavery exist, but the political
will is lacking. That must be the starting point of any
abolitionist movement. We're not arguing that Westerners
should take up this cause because it is the fault of the
West; Western men do not play a central role in prostitution
in most poor countries. True, American and European sex
tourists are part of the problem in Thailand, the
Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Belize, but they are still only a
small percentage of the johns. The vast majority are local
men. Moreover, Western men usually go with girls who are more
or less voluntary prostitutes, because they want to take the
girls back to their hotel rooms, while forced prostitutes are
not normally allowed out of the brothels. So this is not a
case where we in the West have a responsibility to lead
because we are the source of the problem. Rather, we single
out the West because even though we are peripheral to the
slavery, our action is necessary to overcome a horrific evil.
One reason the modern abolitionist movement has not been
more effective is the divisive politics of prostitution. In
the 1990s, the American left and right collaborated and
achieved the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000,
which was a milestone in raising awareness of international
trafficking in the global agenda. The anti-trafficking
movement then was unusually bipartisan, strongly backed by
some liberal Democrats, such as the late senator Paul
Wellstone, and by some conservative Republicans, such as
Senator Sam Brownback.
I do want to pause from this book for a second to note that when I
was at the McCain Institute out in Arizona, Cindy
[[Page S1612]]
McCain and Heidi Heitkamp and I spoke about this issue to all of those
gathered. At the end, a guy came up to me and said that he was with the
State Department under a Republican administration, and he talked to me
about how when Paul Wellstone died, they put forward some kind of a
scholarship in his honor for students who wanted to work in the area of
combating sex trafficking and trying to eliminate sex trafficking.
It was at that moment last spring that I actually found out that Paul
Wellstone, the Senator from Minnesota, whom we miss so dearly, who died
in that tragic plane crash, had taken on this issue. He had taken on so
many other issues, speaking for the voiceless, from mental health to
domestic violence, that I did not know--and I think this shows how
sometimes this issue gets second shrift--that he was such a hero when
it came to sex trafficking.
I think part of that was Paul always believed that there were a lot
of causes around this building that had people advocating for them,
that keep people busy at meetings all day or that they get called up
for that are so important, but, in fact, those who can't afford that
kind of help--the victims of domestic violence or those with mental
illness or victims of sex trafficking--they don't have a lot of
lobbyists coming over here to meet with people and they need someone to
stand up for them, and they should not be forgotten or dismissed or
marginalized in becoming a political football, that maybe they need
someone advocating on their behalf.
The other thing about Paul is he always embraced that immigrant
experience. He believed that no matter where one comes from in this
country, or no matter what one's roots were, they should be able to
rise up. He also believed that everyone should be treated with dignity.
I will never forget when I first came to the Senate, Darrell, the
train driver who recently retired, came up to me and I told him I am a
Senator from Minnesota, and all he said was, ``Paul Wellstone,''
because he remembered him. Whether it was the cops at the front desk or
the secretaries, they remember Paul. So it is no surprise that Paul
Wellstone, along with conservative Republican Sam Brownback, actually
took this issue on.
In this book, ``Half the Sky,'' Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
continue talking about who worked on this when people were actually
working together. They say:
Hillary Rodham Clinton was also a leader on this issue, and
no one has been a greater champion than Carolyn Maloney, a
Democratic Congresswoman from New York.
In fact, Congresswoman Maloney, in conjunction with Congressman Poe,
a Republican Congressman, are sponsoring a bill that is not exactly the
same as Senator Cornyn's bill, but similar. They are also cosponsors of
the bill I am carrying, the safe harbor bill that Erik Paulsen is
carrying in the House. So we can see this work has continued. Some of
the people are the same, but somehow back then, we were able to reach
some kind of an agreement, and this was treated as a serious issue and
a serious bill which we need to do.
They go on to talk about who else worked on this.
They say:
. . . Paul Wellstone, Sam Brownback, Hillary Rodham Clinton,
Carolyn Maloney, a Democratic Congresswoman from New York.
Likewise, one of George W. Bush's few positive international
legacies was a big push against trafficking. Vital Voices and
other liberal groups were stalwart on sex trafficking, as
were International Justice Mission, and other conservative
evangelical groups. Yet, while the left and the right each do
important work fighting trafficking, they mostly do it
separately. The abolitionist movement would be far more
effective if it forged unity in its own rank.
Now we get back to something I always remember Mike Enzi talking
about, about how we can have disagreement on something like 20 percent
of the things, but we have agreement on 80 percent. Maybe that is what
we have to remember with this bill. We know how Senator Enzi always
worked well with Ted Kennedy, as did Senator Hatch, even with how
different they were politically. But they were able to find some common
ground.
Certainly this bill should not be devolving into a fight over
abortion. There is so much we agree on in this bill. There is also so
much we agree on in the safe harbor bill which doesn't contain the Hyde
provision.
So this idea that we are going back and forth and dwelling on whose
fault this was and how it happened--frankly, I think: Enough. I think
we need to resolve this. I know there are ways to resolve this. I hope
that is continuing to go on today. We have a lot of things, in addition
to passing this bill, we need to get done. We need to get the vote on
the next Attorney General of the United States. We have a major budget
that we need to get done. The budget needs to be approved. I am looking
at our staff and I know they are looking forward to one of those nights
where we are going until 3 or 4 in the morning. Maybe we wouldn't have
to do that if we could stop these kinds of fights.
This is kind of a practical argument for getting this done, I know
that, but one has to be slightly practical as we look at the fights
before us on important matters that we need to resolve. One of the
fights shouldn't be this. This is a fight against evil. This is a fight
against those who are trafficking in little girls. It shouldn't be a
fight across the aisle.
The authors talk about the groups that have worked on it and how we
would be more effective if we forged unity.
They continue:
One reason for discord is a dispute about how to regard
prostitution. The left often refers nonjudgmentally to ``sex
workers'' and tends to be tolerant of transactions among
consenting adults. The right . . . refers to ``prostitutes''
or ``prostituted women''.
Do my colleagues know what is so interesting about this--let me see
when this book was written: 2009. So even since that time, what is sort
of a cool thing is that we have gotten some agreement now on the fact
that when we see a Republican House of Representatives being able to
pass the safe harbor bill--the bill I wrote in the Senate, the bill
that is not yet on the floor, to make clear, but the bill that would be
considered as the first amendment--we have gotten some agreement here
in these two Houses that these younger victims are, in fact, victims. I
think that is really important for our country to hear that. Because
when we do things such as that--such as when we pass the Violence
Against Women Act, it changes the whole way people think about these
crimes. Who is committing the crime? It is the people running the ring.
It is the johns. It is not the victims.
So I think that is why as we move forward, trying to get these bills
passed, it is so important beyond the immediate bills.
OK. So they are talking about this debate. I don't think we should
dwell on debate. We have had enough of them in this Chamber, but that
is what this part of the book is about.
They continue:
What policy should we pursue to try to eliminate that
slavery? Originally, we sympathized with the view that a
prohibition won't work any better in prostitution today than
it did against alcohol in America in the 1920s. Instead of
trying fruitlessly to ban prostitution, we believed it would
be preferable to legalize and regulate it. That pragmatic
``harm reduction'' model is preferred by many aid groups
because it allows aid workers to pass out condoms and it
permits access to brothels so that they can be more easily
checked for underage girls.
Over time, we've changed our minds. That legalize-and-
regulate model simply hasn't worked very well in countries
where prostitution is often coerced.
This is a change. I think we remember back decades ago where people
were talking about legalizing prostitution. I think what we have
realized, those of us who have worked as prosecutors, is that so often
prostitution is not consensual. So often there are reasons--either the
pimp is keeping someone hooked on drugs to keep someone being a
prostitute or they are threatening their lives or threatening their
family lives--and this is something that we don't want to have be
legal.
I am going to finish this paragraph, and then I see we have been
joined by the great Senator from New Jersey who I am really happy has
come so I can sit down and drink some water.
It continues:
That legalize-and-regulate model simply hasn't worked very
well in countries where prostitution is often coerced.
Partly, that is because governance is often poor so the
regulation is ineffective, and partly it is because the legal
brothels tend to attract a parallel
[[Page S1613]]
illegal business in young girls and forced prostitution. In
contrast, there's empirical evidence that crackdowns can
succeed, when combined with social services such as job
retraining and drug rehabilitation, and that is the approach
we have come to favor. In countries with widespread
trafficking, we favor a law enforcement strategy that pushes
for fundamental change in police attitudes and regular police
inspections to check for underage girls or anyone being held
against their will. That means holding governments
accountable not just to pass laws but also to enforce them,
and monitoring how many brothels are raided and pimps are
arrested. Jail-like brothels should be closed down, sting
operations should be mounted against buyers of virgin girls,
and national police chiefs must be under pressure to crack
down on corruption as it relates to trafficking. The idea is
to reduce the brothel owners' profit.
With that, I will take a pause from this book. I will say that
Senator Booker has done not only an amazing job as a Senator, but he
also knows a little bit about being a mayor. He knows the struggle of
poverty and also understands that to govern, we have to have a change
of tone. I have always appreciated the work he has done across the
aisle and the tone he brings to the Senate. We are really trying to
push today as we try to come together to work on this bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for those incredibly
generous words. I recognize the Presiding Officer, Senator Perdue. I am
grateful to be able to serve with him, and it is great seeing him in
the captain's chair, to use my ``Star Trek'' parlance. I am happy to
have the chance to formally welcome the Senator from Georgia to the
Senate. It is good to serve with him as well.
Lynch Nomination
Mr. President, I am honored to stand on the Senate floor to express
my strong support for the historic nomination of Loretta Lynch to be
the Attorney General of the United States. Our Nation is fortunate to
have Ms. Lynch as the nominee for Attorney General. She is seasoned,
competent, wise, extraordinarily dedicated, and has already served this
Nation for many years, receiving accolades from across the country. She
is historic in and of herself and exceptionally well qualified. I wish
to tell everyone a little bit more about her.
First, though, I want to ask--and this should not be necessary, but I
want to ask: Why do we almost have a double standard for Ms. Lynch's
nomination? She is the first African-American woman appointed to head
the Department of Justice. She has had her nomination pending on the
Senate floor longer than any nominee for Attorney General going back
three decades. Ms. Lynch has had to wait 81 days for a hearing in
committee--longer than any of President George W. Bush's nominees for
Attorney General had to wait; more than twice as long for Attorneys
General John Ashcroft and Michael Mukasey; and 24 days longer than
Alberto Gonzalez. She waited 27 days for a committee vote after her
hearing, again longer than any of George Bush's nominees to be Attorney
General. Now her nomination has lingered on the Senate floor without a
vote for 20 days, which is again longer than the wait for any of the
last five Attorneys General combined. Her historic nomination has now
been pending in the Senate for more than 130 days since the President
first nominated her. I have not heard a single good reason germane to
her qualifications, to her values, to her views, and to the kind of
service she has rendered or will render, as to why she should not be
promptly confirmed.
She comes before the Senate having been twice appointed by two
different Presidents and twice unanimously confirmed by this very body,
to be a U.S. attorney. She has been a career Federal prosecutor for
almost a decade, a partner at a prestigious law firm, and led one of
the finest Federal prosecuting offices in the country, the Eastern
District of New York.
Her nomination has the support of dozens of law enforcement
organizations, civil rights organizations, and outspoken citizens from
across the country.
So, again, I wonder why are we here today still waiting? Why does
this President's exceptionally well-qualified nominee deserve such
unfair treatment?
Attorneys General are important because they lead the Department that
keeps us safe and secure and protects our rights. From securing the
right to vote to combating the violence of organized crime, to bringing
terrorists to justice, this position is too important for any kind of
political games and for any kind of delay.
Seventy-five years ago, another Attorney General, Robert H. Jackson,
spoke eloquently about the qualities of a good Federal prosecutor and
hence a good Attorney General, when he said: ``The citizen's safety
lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks
truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes,
and who approaches her task with humility.''
This is the type of prosecutor Ms. Lynch has always been and the type
of Attorney General she will be.
This appointment is historic. Once confirmed, Ms. Lynch will be the
first Black woman to serve in the Nation's highest law enforcement
position. She will be only the second woman and second African American
to be Attorney General. Her story is our story. It is an American
story. It reflects a long history of our Nation, the distance we have
traveled as a country.
It is a story of a Black woman who grew up in the Jim Crow South, the
daughter of a fourth-generation minister and segregation-fighting
mother who overcame discrimination and achieved the American dream
despite the early obstacles she faced. Once, while a student at a
predominantly White elementary school, her standardized test scores
were so high that the disbelieving school demanded she retake her test.
The great thing about that story is she retook the test and got a
higher score. On one other occasion, she was named the valedictorian of
her high school class which was a predominantly White high school, but
the White administrators in the school did not think it was appropriate
to have a Black girl as the top student, so they asked her to share
that honor with a White student, and she did so with dignity and grace.
She would go on to earn an Ivy League education, climb the highest
ladders of her profession, and stand today nominated by the President
of the United States of America, and when confirmed by the Senate, she
will be our 83rd Attorney General. Only in this great Nation can a
story such as this be possible, can a story such as this be told.
Today, we continue our efforts. All of us--Republicans and
Democrats--in this body are committed to building a more perfect Union.
I know this confirmation will inspire people all across our country--
people who may have lost their faith in law enforcement or in our
government's ability to get things done, to know that despite the odds
or challenges, we are still a great nation, that we are devoted to
overcoming our challenges.
We celebrate someone who has broken glass ceilings, who has broken
barrier after barrier, and now as a qualified candidate will hopefully
soon ascend to this position. It is a reaffirmation of the American
dream.
While history is important, I don't want to overshadow those
qualifications. I want to reiterate them.
She is a well-qualified nominee. She graduated with Harvard College
and Harvard Law School degrees, and went on to gain exceptional
experience as a prosecutor and as a manager. As U.S. Attorney for the
Eastern District of New York, she led one of the Nation's most
challenging prosecutorial offices. I know this. I live right across the
river from where she works. Her tough approach to fighting crime became
almost legendary. She won acclaim throughout our metropolitan region as
well as in the law enforcement community.
In that office she established a record that would make any
prosecutor proud. She led an office that had the tenacity to take on
violent criminals, to confront political corruption, and to disrupt
organized crime.
At a time when the Senate is considering legislation to combat human
trafficking, we need an Attorney General who will vigorously,
unapologetically, and courageously prosecute traffickers. Ms. Lynch has
been a leader on that very issue. Her
[[Page S1614]]
office prosecuted over 100 child exploitation cases and brutal global
trafficking cases. Her office tried more terrorism cases since 9/11
than any other office in the country.
I was impressed when she first came to my office. She was candid,
straightforward, and down to earth. What is clear from Ms. Lynch's
record is not just that she is a tough prosecutor but that she is a
leader with a vision and the right values to be Attorney General.
Too many Americans distrust the ability of law enforcement to fairly
enforce our laws. Ms. Lynch believes in the principles of equality and
justice first and foremost, and she will restore even more faith in our
system. In her committee testimony she articulated a vision about how
in a great time of tension in our country we can rebuild the trust
between dedicated, committed law enforcement officers on the streets
and the communities they serve. Too many Americans, as I said time and
again, go to prison for far too long. The majority of people
incarcerated today in Federal prisons are there for nonviolent
offenses. We have a nation that leads the globe in incarcerating
people, and we do it often in a way that is discriminatory against poor
people and minorities.
Ms. Lynch has a vision of alternatives to incarceration for
nonviolent offenders that are based on facts and based on her
experience. She supported her district's drug court with a diversion
program taking first-time nonviolent offenders out of the prosecution
system and giving them access to drug treatment. Her innovation and
successes speak volumes about her commitment to saving taxpayer dollars
and addressing our swelling prison population while also driving down
crime.
So I say in conclusion, she has sterling character. She has
incredible credentials. She has unflappable integrity. I am confident
that as Attorney General she will ensure that the Department leads in a
way that will make us proud.
The road to building a more perfect Union in this country has been
long, and the work still continues. We are at a time in this Nation
when cynicism with government is at an all-time high. One of the
highest-ranked concerns that Americans have right now--issues of
employment and education are now being caught up to by concerns that
Americans have about whether their very government will work together
to do what is right.
The delay in her nomination undermines the integrity of this body. It
gives a signal to all those who are cynical to further surrender to
that emotion. This great candidate passed through committee in
bipartisan fashion. She is a great woman, a great African American, and
most of all a great American and she should not be delayed on the
sidelines when there is work to be done, when her very delay begins to
undermine what we say this body can do when we all work together and
put petty partisan politics aside and stand up for something far more
important, which is the work to make this country a more perfect Union.
We can do that together, all of us in the Senate, by confirming Ms.
Lynch who will use that post to do the very same.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I wholeheartedly echo the passionate and
cogent presentation that my colleague from New Jersey has just given,
that this body can be well served--very well served--for us to go
immediately to the confirmation of Loretta Lynch. The delay in this
critical position is unacceptable, does a disservice to the individual,
a disservice to the office, a disservice to the executive branch, and a
disservice to justice in America.
Let's have that vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to the motion to
reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on the committee-
reported amendment to S. 178.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to
proceed.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
cloture was not invoked on the committee-reported amendment to S. 178.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to
reconsider.
The motion was agreed to.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The bill clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the committee-
reported substitute amendment to S. 178, a bill to provide
justice for the victims of trafficking.
Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Shelley Moore Capito, Steve
Daines, Roger F. Wicker, James Lankford, Deb Fischer,
Tom Cotton, Ron Johnson, Richard Burr, Daniel Coats,
Roy Blunt, Chuck Grassley, Tim Scott, Pat Roberts, Bill
Cassidy, Jerry Moran.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
committee-reported substitute amendment to S. 178, a bill to provide
justice for the victims of trafficking, shall be brought to a close,
upon reconsideration?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr.
Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is
necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 57, nays 41, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 74 Leg.]
YEAS--57
Ayotte
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Capito
Casey
Cassidy
Coats
Cochran
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Flake
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heitkamp
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kirk
Lankford
Lee
Manchin
McCain
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--41
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Boxer
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Coons
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Heinrich
Hirono
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Markey
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Peters
Reed
Reid
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--2
Alexander
Brown
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 57, the nays are
41.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted
in the affirmative, the motion, upon reconsideration, is rejected.
The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have had the opportunity in the 40 years
I have been in the Senate to lead with others of both parties many
efforts to help support victims--crime victims, domestic violence
victims, victims of child abuse, and human trafficking victims.
One of the things I have learned during that time is we have to pay
attention to what the survivors tell us when they tell us what they
need. None of us have walked in their shoes.
We can offer advice, but we can't second-guess them. We can't assume
we know best. Our job is to listen and try to help them rebuild their
lives.
If we would all just stop the political rhetoric and listen, the
message from these survivors is clear.
Earlier this week, the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic
Violence Against Women--this, incidentally, is a coalition of thousands
of organizations representing millions of survivors of domestic and
sexual violence--wrote:
[[Page S1615]]
We write today to express our deep concern about the
controversy of inserting the Hyde provision into the Justice
for Victims of Trafficking Act. The House passed a version of
that Act that did not include this new Hyde provision and we
ask the Senate to the do the same.
I agree with them. I worked very closely with this group for more
than 2 years as we drafted the Leahy-Crapo Violence Against Women
Reauthorization Act. They are some of the most dedicated advocates I
have ever worked with and I listen to what they say. I believe they are
showing us the way forward.
The House version of the very bill we are debating today does not
contain the unnecessary destructive provision that wreaks such havoc
here. Speaker John Boehner found a way to bring the House together--
Republicans and Democrats--and passed a bill without injecting abortion
politics into the discussion. Now, if that deeply divided body can do
it, I would assume we can do it here in the Senate.
Some are being very casual about the divisive partisan provision that
Senate Republicans injected into this Senate bill. They call it
boilerplate. Well, it is not. It places limitations on the health care
services victims can use as they access money collected from the very
people who trafficked them.
We are not talking about taxpayers' money. We are not talking about
taxpayers' dollars. We are talking about traffickers' money. This is
the money traffickers would pay in fines.
Criminals have already taken away so many choices for these young
women and girls, and we shouldn't be taking away their right to make
their own health care choices. We certainly should not require these
survivors to have to prove they were raped. That is offensive. It is
wrong.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. LEAHY. I yield to the Senator for a question.
Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator for coming to the floor. I know how
much he supports this bill to end human trafficking, sex trafficking,
and what a frustration he must feel--and which I share--that we have
been unable to bring a bill before us that has strong bipartisan
support and with few amendments is likely to be considered and would
pass very quickly in the Senate.
I thank him for pointing out what I tried to point out this morning.
In this 112-page bill, there is one sentence related to the Hyde
amendment, which changes what we have been doing here for more than 30
years and which is holding up the passage of this important bill. What
we have been pleading with the Republican leaders to do is to remove
this sentence, and then let's pass this bill.
Mr. LEAHY. I say to the Senator from Illinois, that the Republican
House of Representatives passed this Act without this provision, and
Democrats and Republicans here in the Senate should do the same.
Mr. DURBIN. Well, there may be partisan differences over this one
sentence, but there is bipartisan support for ending the trafficking
and helping the victims.
Thank you, because I know you want to offer another amendment about
runaways, which is very important. I have met so many of them, as you
have. It is a heartbreaking story how so many are abused and exploited.
Thank you for your leadership and for bringing this issue to our
attention today.
Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Senator from Illinois, who has worked on this
throughout his career, both in the House and in the Senate. It means a
lot. I will state what one survivor, Tina Frundt, a survivor of human
trafficking who now helps counsel other young trafficking victims,
said:
It is not for us to judge the type of services a survivor
of sex trafficking needs. We need the basic rights of medical
services without judgment.
I think, instead of our trying to be political about this, we should
listen to survivors such as Tina. We can't pass a bill that ignores the
requests of the various survivors it is designed to help.
Experts across the political spectrum who treat survivors of
trafficking are telling us to remove the language.
I heard, for example, from a group called HEAL Trafficking, an
organization of health care professionals who treat survivors. These
are physicians, nurses, and counselors. They wrote a letter to me and
said: ``We implore the Senate to pass S. 178 without the inclusion of
Hyde amendment language, which would place limits on trafficking
survivors' access to vital health services.''
I also heard from the service providers, whom I know and respect, at
the Vermont Coalition of Runaway and Homeless Youth. They work with
young people who are exceptionally vulnerable to becoming victims of
trafficking and sexual exploitation. They wrote: ``There should be no
doubt that legislation involving the well-being of individuals who have
been victimized by the most base of human behavior should be free of
partisan wrangling.''
It is time to listen to the people this bill is supposed to help.
They say: Take out the provision; pass the bill.
I hope that we will.
I can only imagine what these victims of trafficking go through. I
have said several times on the floor--I remember so vividly; I remember
as though it were yesterday, listening to some of the victims when we
were trying to prosecute the people who trafficked them or harmed them
or exploited them. I thought, wouldn't it be great if we had some help
to stop this horrible crime from happening in the first place.
But at least we did not have politicians telling us: Well, you can
offer this service, but you cannot offer that service. They simply
said: Find the best experts you can and use their advice.
The experts are there day by day by day. Let them do their work.
Don't play politics with them.
I have said before, when we considered the Leahy-Crapo Violence
Against Women Reauthorization Act, a victim is a victim is a victim. We
ought to do what we can to help them.
SSCI Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program
Mr. President, on another matter which goes into an interesting area,
each year, Sunshine Week reminds us we cannot take for granted our
democratic system of government. Our Nation's Founders understood that
to maintain a true democracy, we have to have an open government. Only
an open government can be truly accountable to the people.
But pulling back the curtain on the internal workings of governmental
agencies is not always easy. Sometimes, it is not even popular. In some
cases, it generates great controversy, as was the case of Senator
Feinstein's hard-fought efforts last year to declassify the executive
summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's historic torture report.
This extraordinary report thoroughly reviewed the CIA's use of
torture during the Bush administration and revealed that it was far
more brutal than we knew. Now, shedding light on the CIA's actions
demonstrates to the world that America is different. We acknowledge our
mistakes, so that we can learn from them. We do not sweep them under a
rug and pretend they never happened. But some seem to want just that.
When Senator Feinstein publically released the executive summary, she
also provided the full report, which totaled, I am told, more than
6,700 pages. She provided the full report to the President and the
relevant executive branch agencies. The report details the failures
that allowed this program to happen. She rightly put these details in
the hands of those officials who had appropriate clearances who could
learn from the mistakes and ensure that they do not happen again--
whether it is a Republican or a Democratic administration.
Unfortunately, some of the program's defenders will stop at nothing
in an effort to erase this ugly history. Immediately after the report
was issued, there was an unabashed campaign to discredit it and an
attempt to portray what happened as something other than what we all
know it was--torture.
I have had enough of the disingenuous euphemisms and acronyms used to
mask the truly brutal nature of what was done to other human beings. We
should acknowledge what it was. It was torture. The President has
acknowledged that. And Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch did
during her hearing, when she stated clearly and unequivocally that
waterboarding is torture. Instead, defenders of this brutality call it
something else. They claim it was justified, but then they
[[Page S1616]]
offer no evidence to support their assertions and insist outright that
they would do it again. Even though they have no evidence that it
helped, they imply as much.
But if that wasn't bad enough, some now want to make the report
itself disappear. In January, the incoming chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee asked the President and the agencies to return
the full report to the Senate.
That is essentially saying: let us pretend we made no mistakes. Let
us erase history. Let us be able to open the history book and just see
blank pages. We did nothing wrong.
Well, that is outrageous. Neither this historic Senate report nor the
shameful truths it reveals can be wiped out of existence.
It is also appalling to learn that several of the agencies that
received the full report in December haven't even opened it. In a
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking release of the full
report, Justice Department and State Department officials submitted
declarations stating that their copies remain locked away in unopened,
sealed envelopes. So they can say: I see nothing. It is locked up. It
is sealed.
I don't know if this was done in an attempt to bolster the
government's position in the FOIA lawsuit or to otherwise avoid Federal
records laws. I certainly hope not. But regardless of the motivation,
it was a mistake that should be rectified.
The executive summary of the torture report, which they have seen,
makes clear that both the State Department and the Justice Department
have much to learn from the history of the CIA's torture program. Both
agencies were misled by the CIA about the program. Both should consider
systemic changes in how they deal with covert actions. Yet neither
agency has bothered to open the final, full version of the report or,
apparently, even those sections most relevant to them.
The fight for government transparency and accountability is never
complete. I have joined with the distinguished Senator from Texas, Mr.
Cornyn, over the years to write and pass tougher provisions in FOIA. I
think the importance of the public release of this report's executive
summary cannot be overstated. It is one of the most important oversight
achievements of this body. Now we must ensure the full report,
containing the results of years of painstaking work, is put to good use
by those within the executive branch.
So today, as we recognize Sunshine Week, I send this message to the
executive branch agencies who received the full Intelligence Committee
torture report: Do not return your copy to the Senate. Ensure that the
appropriate people in your agencies, with appropriate clearances, have
access to it and learn from it. Initiate a process to consider the
lessons your agency should learn from this experience. Follow the
example of FBI Director Comey, who last week testified he would
designate appropriate people to consider the report and what
improvements could be made, because there are no instances when torture
is acceptable.
The Convention Against Torture does not make exceptions. There is no
doubt that if these actions were committed against American soldiers,
by a hostile government, we would immediately condemn them as torture
and a violation of international law. We have to make clear to the rest
of the world we follow international law. We don't torture. We have to
ensure that America never allows this to happen again.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, again today, just like yesterday, we saw
all but four Senate Democrats filibuster a bill that passed the Senate
Judiciary Committee unanimously, including nine Democratic Senator
votes. This is a bill that is cosponsored by 12 Democrats and a bill
that came to the floor by unanimous consent of the Senate--all 100
Senators. Any single Senator could have barred that from happening and
forced us to go through procedural hoops. I would like to believe they
did so because all of us agree--Democrat and Republican alike--that
helping the victims of human trafficking should be our sole and
solitary focus in this legislation. And that is what this bill does.
This bill is probably the last bill you would imagine would be
controversial--certainly one that people would be loath to politicize--
but, indeed, that is exactly what has happened. I just can't explain
it. Maybe some of our colleagues who have done this can. How can you
cosponsor a bill, how can you vote for it and then come to the floor of
the Senate on two occasions and vote to kill it?
Well, as I said earlier, we have four Senate Democrats who have
joined with Republicans to pass this piece of legislation, then
reconcile it with the House bill, and send it on to President Obama,
where I am confident he would sign it. I am confident he would sign it
because this is an issue where, if we can't do a bill to help victims
of human trafficking, I wonder what we can possibly accomplish. If
politics and the divisiveness here in Washington so polarizes people on
this bill, how are we going to do the other things we need to do, such
as pass a budget? How are we going to take care of our national
security needs? How will we deal with the immigration issue? How will
we deal with other things that are far more controversial?
Just to reiterate what this bill does, it focuses on the people on
the demand side of sex trafficking and the sex trade. In other words,
the people who actually pay for the services provided by these 12-to-
14-year-old girls and the pimps that basically manage them.
This takes the money from the people who create the demand. Once they
have been convicted and penalized, they pay into a crime victims
compensation fund. We estimate, if our calculations are correct, that
could generate as much as $30 million a year--$30 million a year. That
money would then be subject to grants to help organizations that are
set up to help the victims of human trafficking.
So not only are we interested in trying to rescue these children from
the grasp of these criminal organizations that run human trafficking
rings, we want to find a way to help them heal and get better. We have
all heard story after story about the tragedy of human trafficking. I
have talked to the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary
Committee, who, as a former prosecutor, understands this issue and the
human wreckage left in the wake of the people who purchase these
services and help facilitate these criminal organizations. So somehow,
some way, we need to find a way to help the victims. Our focus ought to
be on them and them alone.
We have heard a lot of, to my mind, phony excuses about this bill. I
actually had some Senators tell me they didn't know of this provision
that limits the use of the fines and penalties. This is a rule that has
prevailed for 39 years, known as the Hyde amendment. They say they
didn't know it was there. They didn't read the bill, apparently.
I don't actually quite believe that. I know that staff on both sides
in the Judiciary Committee and generally the staff in the Senate are
highly professional people. They are not going to let something slip
by. But if there is a reason why they did, I believe it is because this
language has become routine. It has become routine. It has been in
literally every appropriations bill since 1976. It had been in things
such as the Children's Health Insurance Program. It has been in Defense
authorization bills. It has been in ObamaCare. All of our colleagues on
the other side of the aisle have voted for this sort of language over
and over and over again.
I happen to be proudly pro-life, but we have many colleagues who
consider themselves pro-choice who have said: Well, I don't think we
ought to appropriate tax dollars to pay for abortions. I agree with the
Hyde amendment. So they have clearly had an opportunity to read and
understand the bill. I don't believe 12 Senators on the other side
would cosponsor a bill they hadn't read and didn't understand. I don't
believe nine members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the other
side would vote for it, including the distinguished ranking member,
without knowing what was in the bill.
The reason why this was so unremarkable is because, as I said, it
[[Page S1617]]
has become routine, and virtually all the legislation that touches on
this area has passed since 1976. So why here and why now? Why are we
threatening to kill this important piece of legislation to help the
most vulnerable victims that exist in America?
It is estimated that about 100,000 children are sex trafficked a year
in the United States. It happens in Texas, sadly; it happens in
Vermont; and it happens everywhere. The fact of the matter is, most
Americans are simply unaware of it because this is an underbelly of
life, a criminality that is really unbeknownst to most of us because it
happens outside of our view and outside of our experience. But we have
thousands of scared and abused children who need our help.
By killing this bill, as our friends across the aisle have done, with
the exception of four brave exceptions, instead of our helping hand we
are giving them a shrug of indifference. We are saying: You know what.
Our political fights here in Washington are more important than your
future and your life and the fact that you have been treated as human
baggage.
I happen to believe--and I know many share this belief--that we are
all created in the image of God, and it is a terrible sin and it is an
evil thing to treat a human being created in the image of God as a
commodity, as a thing to be bought and sold.
We went through a terrible period in our Nation's history where we
had African Americans treated as less than human. We fought a civil
war, where 600,000 people died, and then we passed a constitutional
amendment and other important legislation to try to heal those wounds
that existed from the very beginning of our Nation. Indeed, it has not
yet finished healing even today.
Knowing what we know about human slavery and what that has been in
our history, why in the world wouldn't we want to do something about
modern-day human slavery to try to rectify, to try to rescue, to try to
help heal these victims, which is what this legislation does?
To summarize: We have a piece of legislation that contains a
provision that has been the law of the land for 39 years. We have a
bill on the floor that was cosponsored by 12 Democrats on the other
side of the aisle. Unfortunately, most of them have voted to filibuster
this bill now that it has come to the floor because of this provision
they said they didn't know about or they weren't aware of or they
object to.
We have a piece of legislation that will not cost taxpayers anything
because it is financed by the fines and penalties assessed against
people who demand and purchase these illicit services. That is why this
is the sort of bipartisan consensus legislation I think the American
people would like to see us pass.
We need to overcome this obstacle. I know the majority leader,
Senator McConnell, is determined to give those who are filibustering
this bill a chance to change their mind and a chance to let us finish
this piece of legislation. Indeed, we need two, maybe three more
Senators on that side. I would think that among the 12 people who
cosponsored the bill, among the 9 who voted for it already in
committee, we could find at least 3 more who would vote for this
legislation and allow us to finish it.
I know the distinguished ranking member from Vermont has an amendment
he wants to offer on the bill, and he has that right. He should have
that right. But we can't do it unless we get past this hurdle of the
filibuster. This bill is simply too important to let politics get in
the way of helping the innocent victims who need our support.
So the Senate being the way it is, which is somewhat broken these
days, how in the world do we get to the point where we can actually
help the victims of human trafficking, given the filibuster? Well,
Senator McConnell has said he is going to keep bringing this bill back
again and again--and, indeed, this is now the second vote we have had
on this--until we can recruit at least two more Democrats to vote to
close off debate to allow us to finish the bill. He has also said we
are not going to be able to get to the confirmation of Attorney General
Loretta Lynch, which has been voted out of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, until we finish this bill. I agree with that. I think the
majority leader has made the right call, because, apparently, if the
cries and the needs of the innocent victims of human trafficking aren't
enough to move our friends across the aisle to let us finish this bill,
then we are going to have to look for whatever leverage we can.
Indeed, I would say this does not bode well for the future of the
114th Congress if this is the way we are going to be operating. I don't
know how many nominations will be voted out of committee and be
eligible for floor action that will not be considered on the Senate
floor because we are stuck in situations such as this--where we know
what the right thing to do is, all of the Senators know what the right
thing to do is, but somehow we can't quite seem to get it done. We have
to get it done. We have to get all of the Senate's business done,
including considering the President's nominees.
So I hope we do. I look forward to having another opportunity,
perhaps tomorrow, to vote to close off debate. My hope is that
overnight, sometime during the next 24 hours, at least 2 more of our
colleagues--we would be glad to have more--can examine their
conscience, can think about why it is they actually ran for the Senate,
why it is they are here. Is it to try to actually do something good to
help people who can't help themselves? I believe it is. I think that is
why all of us came here, to try to do that. But somehow, some way, we
have gotten off track, and some people think that political games and
obstruction are more important than actually doing what we got elected
to do and the reason why we actually volunteered to serve in the United
States Senate.
So I hope we have at least two more Senators on the other side
examine their conscience and reconsider their ``no'' vote and decide to
close off debate by providing the votes. We need to do that tomorrow.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I totally agree with the senior Senator
from Texas that the Hyde amendment has been in a number of bills that
spend tax dollars. I have been in the Appropriations Committee for
nearly 40 years. I am aware of that. But as the distinguished senior
Senator from Texas just stated, there are no tax dollars in this
matter. The way he has drafted this bill, it would take moneys from
fines levied against those who are convicted of sex exploitation.
This would be the first time, to my knowledge--and I would stand
corrected if I am wrong, but I cannot think of a time in the past 40
years that we have applied the Hyde amendment to such funds. I think
that is probably why--because there are tax dollars in the House
companion bill--that the House of Representatives did not include the
Hyde amendment.
I have voted for appropriation bills with the Hyde amendment in it so
we could move them to the floor. But to go to this expansion when all
these different groups who have written in to us tell us please don't
do this, and the groups who actually work with victims--they say don't
include it. I agree with them.
I think there can be a way forward. We came together in this body to
pass the Leahy-Crapo Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, with
the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act as an amendment.
We worked for some time, but we passed it.
I also want to say that--again, based on my experience here--I cannot
think of a time, whether the Senate was under Democratic control or
Republican control, that a piece of legislation has been used like this
to hold up a key member of the President's Cabinet. Loretta Lynch has
been held up longer than the past four Attorney General nominees--four
men--put together. She is still being held up. I think that is
unfortunate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would say to my friend and colleague,
the Senator from Vermont, whom I have worked with closely on a number
of pieces of legislation and whom I would love to be able to work with
to find a solution to the current impasse that we have on this
legislation--I would say to my friend that if the objection is
[[Page S1618]]
that this fund is not subject to the appropriations process, then that
is something we ought to discuss and talk about.
Why the fund is so important to me is because the fines and penalties
that go into this save the taxpayers money. It actually takes the money
from the people who create the demand and uses that to help heal and
save and rescue the victims.
I guess I would have a little difference of opinion--and maybe it is
just semantics--that once the fines and penalties are paid to the
Treasury, my view is they become public dollars although they
technically aren't derived from taxes, per se. But beyond that point, I
would say once this money is paid into the fund, I think we could come
up with a mechanism that would then allow the Appropriations Committee
to play its traditional role in directing the money to the purposes for
which Congress designates. And I know, as a long-time member of the
Appropriations Committee, the Senator believes--and I respect--that is
an important part of the process.
It is important, though, to note that this would still be subject to
the same rule which has prevailed for 39 years, and that is the Hyde
amendment. Here is where I don't understand the principle of the
objection--because the Hyde amendment has an exception, as the Senator
knows, for the physical health and mental health of the mother, as
certified by a physician, and also in cases of rape. I can't imagine
any case where a potential beneficiary of this fund would be excluded
from services that would be allowed under the legislation as written.
But I would say if the Senator thinks that might be a fruitful area for
us to continue conversations and to figure a way to structure this so
that it would be subject to an annual appropriation process--subject to
those limitations that have prevailed now since 1976--I think there
might be some room for discussion.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Ms. Warren pertaining to the introduction of S. 793
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Ms. WARREN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I was here for nearly 3 hours this
morning when there was some spare time on the floor to get us refocused
on the issue at hand, which is the issue of the victims of sex
trafficking.
As I noted this morning, this is now the third biggest criminal
enterprise in the world. The first is illegal drugs, the second illegal
guns, and the third is the illegal sale of children. The average age of
a victim of sex trafficking is 12 years old--not even old enough to go
to their first prom or not even old enough to get a driver's license.
That is what we are talking about here.
As I said, we have seen it in every part of the country. Just last
week, there was a case out of Rochester, MN, of a 12-year-old girl who
was charged by the U.S. Attorney's office. She got a text and went to a
McDonald's parking lot. She thought she was going to go to a party. She
got shoved in a car and got brought up to the Twin Cities, got raped.
Sexually explicit pictures were taken and posted on Craigslist by the
pimp. She was sold for sex to two men, raped by two men. Finally, the
guys got caught and they have charged the case. So that is what we are
talking about here.
I know there are disagreements on the issues of our time, whether
they are the issues of our economy and the budget fight that is going
to be coming up next week, or whether it is the issues of foreign
relations, but there shouldn't be a disagreement about this. This is a
bipartisan bill. There is a provision in this bill that I don't believe
needs to be in this bill. There are some potential solutions here and I
hope my colleagues are talking about them.
We have to refocus our efforts on what matters. That is what we have
to remember. I am tired of looking back at who is blaming who and whose
fault it is and now, somehow, it has gotten tied to the confirmation of
the next Attorney General of the United States. This makes no sense at
all. If these issues are connected at all, it is simply because the
Attorney General of the United States helps to enforce the sex
trafficking laws. Their office sometimes takes on Federal cases such as
we saw in the oil patch of North Dakota. They enforce our other laws,
such as what we care about right now in Minnesota where we have had a
number of people indicted for going to help ISIS, or we have had 20
people indicted and 9 convictions for helping al-Shabaab, and here we
have an Attorney General who is immensely qualified and who literally
has the highest number out of her office of terrorism prosecutions in
the Nation. So let's just get Loretta Lynch confirmed. That is for
starters.
As to this bill, I would like to see a different tone as we discuss
it. I would like to see people on both sides of the aisle talk about
solutions and remember what we are dealing with here. We have been able
to deal with this issue on other bills. I don't understand why we can't
deal with it on this bill. Are these girls less important? Is this
something that can just be a political football back and forth? I don't
think so.
I want to remind people that in addition to the bill that is on the
floor, Senator Cornyn's bill, which sets up a victims fund, there is
another bill, and that is the Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking
Act. That is my bill. Senator Cornyn is the cosponsor. There are 19
bipartisan cosponsors. It is a bill that went through the Judiciary
Committee a few weeks ago--unanimously on the vote. Every single
Senator voted for it. A similar version led by Representative Erik
Paulsen of Minnesota has gone through the House. I like ours a little
better because it includes a national sex trafficking strategy. Those
two bills will be easily resolved to get this done.
My hope is--my bill is supposed to be the first amendment once we can
go on to this bill, once we get the fix of the bill--the provision of
the bill that is in controversy. I want to remind people that this bill
is equally important. It sets a standard--the safe harbor bill--so
other States will start looking at Minnesota and what about 15 other
States have done. It says these 12-year-olds are not criminals; they
are victims.
How can you say a 12-year-old is a criminal? They are victims. Once
you start thinking like that, it changes the way you handle the cases.
As a former prosecutor, what matters to me is that when you change the
way you look at the case, you have a better case because then you have
a victim who feels they have some place to go--a shelter. They can get
a job. They can get an education. They are much more likely to turn on
the pimp and to turn on the perpetrator that is running the sex ring.
In Minnesota, last year we got a 40-year sentence against a guy. John
Choi, the chief attorney for Ramsey County, got a guy that was running
one of these rings. That is what is going on here when we talk about
this bill and the importance of passing this bill.
We have the 20 women Senators who came together and asked for a
hearing on sex trafficking. We got that done. Now is the time where I
hope we can come together and resolve this.
So one of the things I have taken to doing is reading Nicholas
Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's great book ``Half the Sky.''
``Half the Sky'' refers to women holding up half the sky. It refers
to the fact that we have countries and systems that marginalize women
and don't treat them as equal. This is not good for our world.
We have seen countries that do it the worst, that treat them as sex
slaves, that allow that to happen. Those countries tend to have very
poor human rights records. They tend not to be good partners for our
country. If we
[[Page S1619]]
want to lead the way for the world, we have to start on our own turf,
where 86 percent of the victims in sex trafficking in the United States
are from the United States.
If we are going to reach out to other countries, such as Heidi
Heitkamp, Cindy McCain, and I did last spring--we went down to Mexico
to work with them on some of the issues of cases on which they have
actually helped in the United States with the U.S. attorney's office.
We need to be able to show that our country is doing the right thing,
and this is an opportunity to do that.
So I have been reading from this book in part in the hope that we can
change the tone and remember who we are here to protect. It is also a
great book. They have actually written another book as well that is
focused on domestic sex trafficking that I will be reading from
tomorrow as well.
I note this is not an official filibuster, but whenever I have time
and there is time on the floor, I am simply going to come down here to
remind people of the importance of getting this bill done.
So we are talking in the book--I was in the chapter on ``Prohibition
and Prostitution.'' I talked about the fact that ``the tools to crush
modern slavery''--I am reading from the book--``but the political will
is lacking.''
That seems to be what is going on in this Chamber when extraneous
bills are in the way of getting this done. When my Republican coauthor
over in the House has said that these kinds of politics don't belong on
these bills, I agree.
The tools to crush modern slavery exist, but the political
will is lacking. That must be the starting point of any
abolitionist movement. We're not arguing that Westerners
should take up this cause because it's the fault of the West;
Western men do not play a central role in prostitution in
most poor countries. True, American and European sex tourists
are part of the problem in Thailand, the Philippines, Sri
Lanka, and Belize, but they are still only a small percentage
of the johns. The vast majority are local men. Moreover,
Western men usually go with girls who are more or less
voluntary prostitutes, because they want to take the girls
back to their hotel rooms, while forced prostitutes are not
normally allowed out of the brothels. So this is not a case
where we in the West have a responsibility to lead because
we're the source of the problem. Rather, we single out the
West because, even though we're peripheral to the slavery,
our action is necessary to overcome a horrific evil.
So that is my argument here, that by doing something here in this
Chamber and by showing that we care about these girls in the United
States, then we show we care internationally and it should be a major
tenet of our foreign policy.
One reason the modern abolitionist movement hasn't been
more effective is the divisive politics of prostitution.
I talked about this earlier today. The issue that we have is that a
number of people way back--including the late great Senator Paul
Wellstone of Minnesota, Senator Brownback of Kansas, Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Carolyn Maloney, whom I just left on the Joint Economic
Committee, and George W. Bush--showed great leadership in this area. So
we have seen time and again people being able to come together across
party lines to get this done.
So they talk about how things have changed, and they say that ``over
time, we've changed our minds'' about how we look at this. They talk
about the fact that it used to be: Well, let's legalize prostitution
and regulate. That will really work. I think we have learned that it
will never really work. It doesn't work in those countries that have
tried it, and it certainly doesn't work for these young girls who are
victims of the sex trade. So they talk about how we, in fact, through
law enforcement, need to go after the profits and we have to take this
on. That is what the bills we are considering help to do. They give
State and local prosecutors and shelters the tools that they need.
They say:
We won't eliminate prostitution. In Iran, brothels are
strictly banned, and the mayor of Tehran was a law-and-order
hard-liner until, according to Iranian news accounts, he was
arrested in a police raid on a brothel where he was in the
company of six naked prostitutes. So crackdowns don't work
perfectly, but they tend to lead nervous police to demand
higher bribes, which reduces profitability for the pimps. Or
the police will close down at least those brothels that
aren't managed by other police officers. With such methods,
we can almost certainly reduce the number of fourteen-year-
old girls who are held in cages until they die of AIDS.
This is happening in our world.
``It's pretty doable,'' says Gary Haugen, who runs
International Justice Mission. ``You don't have to arrest
everybody. You just have to get enough that it sends a ripple
effect and changes the calculations. That changes the pimps'
behavior. You can drive traffickers of virgin village girls
to fence stolen radios instead.''
Many liberals and feminists are taken aback by the big
stick approach we advocate, arguing that it just drives sex
establishments underground. They argue instead for a
legalize-and-regulate model based on empowerment of sex
workers, and they cite a success: The Sonagachi Project.
Sonagachi, which means ``golden tree,'' is a sprawling red-
light district in Kolkata. In the 1700s and 1800s, it had
been a legendary locale for concubines. Today it has hundreds
of multistory brothels built along narrow alleys, housing
more than six thousand prostitutes. In the early 1990s,
health experts were deeply concerned about the spread of AIDS
in India, and in 1992 they started [this project]. . . . A
key element was to nurture a union of sex workers . . . which
would encourage condom use and thus reduce the spread of AIDS
through prostitution.
DMSC seemed successful in encouraging the use of condoms.
It publicized its role as a pragmatic solution to the public
health problems of prostitution. One study found [this
project] increased . . . condom use by 25 percent.
They go on to explain it.
But then they say--and this is key to our approach to trying not to
allow prostitution to continue:
As we probed the numbers, however, we saw that they were
flimsier than they at first appeared. HIV prevalence was
inexplicably high among new arrivals . . . 27.7 percent among
sex workers aged twenty or younger. Research had also shown
that, initially, all sex workers interviewed . . . claimed to
use condoms nearly all the time. But when pressed, they
admitted lower rates. . . .
This goes on and they talk about the problem with this. What we are
talking about here is underage girls and what is really going on.
I am going to quote from one story they told when they went to this
brothel.
While the madam spoke with others in the room, gushing
about the group's success, the three of us on the bed asked
the prostitute in Hindi to tell us if those things were true.
Afraid and timid, the prostitute remained silent until we
assured her that we wouldn't get her in trouble. Barely
audible, she told us that almost none of the prostitutes . .
. came with aspirations of being a sex worker. Most of them
like herself were trafficked. . . . When I asked her if she
wanted to leave Sonagachi, her eyes lit up; before she could
say anything, the DMSC official put her hand on my back and
said that it was time to move on. . . .
These are stories about how it doesn't really work to have this model
of allowing the prostitution to continue and regulate.
In the developing world, however, this difficult,
polarizing debate is mostly just a distraction. In India, for
example, brothels are technically illegal--but, as we said
earlier, they are ubiquitous--the same is true in Cambodia.
In poor countries, the law is often irrelevant, particularly
outside the capital. Our focus has to be on changing reality,
not changing laws.
Congress took an important step in that direction in 2000
by requiring the State Department to put out an annual
Trafficking in Persons report--the TIP report.
I will remind again that this was done on a bipartisan basis. We
didn't see the kind of fights we are having now because people decided
that here is one thing that we could agree on--from Paul Wellstone to
Sam Brownback--and that perhaps without having outside political
debates, we can agree that we do not want young girls aged 12 to be sex
trafficked.
What did this report do?
The report ranks countries according to how they tackle
trafficking, and those in the lowest tier are sanctioned.
This meant that for the first time U.S. embassies abroad had
to gather information on trafficking. American diplomats
began holding discussions with their foreign ministry
counterparts, who then had to add trafficking to the list of
major concerns such as proliferation and terrorism. As a
result, the foreign ministries made inquiries of the national
police agencies.
Simply asking questions put the issue on the agenda.
Countries began passing laws, staging crackdowns, and
compiling fact sheets. Pimps found that the cost of bribing
police went up, eroding their profit margins.
This approach can be taken further. Within the State
Department, the trafficking office has been marginalized,
even relegated to another building. If the secretary of state
publicly and actively embraced the trafficking office--
I think we see this has happened since this book was written--since
2009
[[Page S1620]]
under Secretary Clinton and Secretary Kerry.
. . . that would elevate the issue's profile. The President
could visit a shelter . . .
And, by the way, that is something that Heidi Heitkamp, Cindy McCain,
and I did when we went to Mexico.
Europe should have made trafficking an issue in negotiating
the accession of Eastern European countries wishing to enter
the European Union, and it can still make this an issue for
Turkey in that regard.
The big-stick approach should focus in particular on the
sale of virgins. Such transactions, particularly in Asia,
account for a disproportionate share of trafficker profits
and kidnappings of young teenagers. And the girls, once
raped, frequently resign themselves to being prostitutes
until they die. It is often rich Asians, particularly
overseas Chinese, who are doing the buying--put a few of them
in jail, and good things will happen: The market for virgins
will quickly shrink, their price will drop, gangs will shift
to less risky and more profitable lines of business, the
average age of prostitutes will rise somewhat, and the degree
of compulsion in prostitution will diminish as well.
This is from ``Half the Sky,'' written by New York Times reporter
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. They have a more recent book that
they have written called ``A Path Appears,'' and this is about domestic
prostitution, which I will also be reading from. But I thought I would
start that tomorrow, as we continue to focus on this, so people
understand what we are really talking about.
As we all know, the bills before the Senate today are about domestic
trafficking. They are about what is happening in the United States
right now in every town in this country.
We talked earlier this morning about why this is happening, why we
are seeing this kind of increase, and we are talking about it more. The
reason is that more and more because of the Internet people can
anonymously advertise. They can send instant messages and texts. It is
just more hidden, and it is harder to track down for law enforcement.
That is part of why we are seeing this going on right now and why this
is such a major issue in our country.
I would tie it into our international theme, because, again, first of
all, we have a percentage of these victims--mostly girls--who come from
foreign countries. So it matters to us what goes on in foreign
countries with their law, which is the focus of ``Half the Sky.''
But it also matters to us because we want a better world, and we want
these countries to do better. We don't want to put all our money in
military spending. We want these countries to become democracies, to
become trading partners, to become places that we can work with.
Instead, if we allow these girls to be subjugated and we allow them to
be chattel and we allow them to be treated like slaves, they are never
going to get the kind of democracy that we want them to get to and that
will allow for a better country. You are not going to have a woman
elected to the Senate in one of these countries if they believe that
women can be treated as chattel, as we are seeing in so many of these
places.
So I am going to go to the next part of the chapter, which is called
``Rescuing Girls Is the Easy Part.''
We became slave owners in the twenty-first century the old-
fashioned way: We paid cash in exchange for two slave girls
and a couple of receipts. The girls were then ours to do with
as we liked.
Rescuing girls from brothels is the easy part, however. The
challenge is keeping them from returning. The stigma that the
girls feel in their communities after being freed, coupled
with drug dependencies or threats from pimps, often lead them
to return to the red-light district. It's emotionally
dispiriting for well-meaning aid workers who oversee a
brothel raid to take the girls back to a shelter and give
them food and medical care, only to see the girls climb over
the back wall.
That is what I talked about earlier. That is why, when we look at it
from a U.S. perspective, what these bills focus on is trying to turn
these girls' lives around and trying to set that standard. We are not
mandating it in other States; we are simply creating some incentives
and giving them some funding so that States can start doing these cases
in a different way and start seeing them as victims and making it
easier to go after the people who are running the ring.
Back to the book:
Our unusual purchase came about when Nick--
Referring here to Nick Kristof--
traveled with Naka Nathaniel, then a New York Times
videographer, to an area in northwestern Cambodia notorious
for its criminality. Nick and Naka arrived at the town of
Poipet and checked into an $8-a-night guest house that
doubled as a brothel. They focused their interviews on two
teenage girls, Srey Neth and Srey Momm, each in a different
brothel.
Neth was very pretty, short and light-skinned. She looked
fourteen or fifteen, but she thought she was older than that;
she had no idea of her actual birth date. A woman pimp
brought her to Nick's room, and she sat on the bed, quivering
with fear. She had been in the brothel only a month, and Nick
would have been her first foreign customer. Nick needed his
interpreter present in the room as well, and this puzzled the
pimp, who nevertheless accommodated.
Black hair fell over Neth's shoulders and onto her tight
pink T-shirt. Below, she wore equally tight blue jeans, and
sandals. Neth had plump cheeks, but the best of her was thin
and fragile; thick makeup caked her face in a way that seemed
incongruous, as if she were a child who had played with her
mother's cosmetics.
After some awkward conversation through the interpreter, as
Nick asked Neth about how she had grown up and about her
family, she began to calm down. She stopped trembling and
mostly looked in the direction of the television in the
corner of the room, which Nick had put on to muffle the sound
of their voices. She responded to questions briefly and
without interest.
Now we have been joined--I am going to stop reading from the book for
a while. Senator Feinstein has come to the floor. Senator Feinstein has
been a true leader on this issue of sex trafficking. She is a senior
member of the Judiciary Committee--the only other woman on the
Judiciary Committee besides me, with, I think, 20-some guys. She knows
how important this issue is. I know she is going to talk a little bit
about that as well as some other things. I welcome her to the floor.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for
such time as I may consume.
As Senator Klobuchar stated, I come to the floor to speak on the sex
trafficking bill. I know it is now held up by certain language, which I
will go into in the details of my remarks, but briefly, I would like to
begin by describing the bill's highlights. The bill clarifies that a
person who buys a sex act from a minor or other trafficking victim can
be prosecuted under the Federal commercial sex trafficking statute. The
bill authorizes block grants for State and local governments to develop
programs to rescue trafficking victims and investigate and prosecute
traffickers. The bill also includes nearly all of the provisions from
the Combat Human Trafficking Act which Senator Portman and I introduced
in January.
I am very grateful to the authors--Senator Klobuchar, Senator
Cornyn--for adding these. Those provisions establish a minimum period
of 5 years of supervised release for a person who conspires to violate
the commercial sex trafficking statute.
It would require the Justice Department to train on investigating and
prosecuting buyers, on seeking restitution, and on connecting victims
with health services. It would require reporting on sex trafficking
prosecutions. It would expand wiretap authority to cover all human
trafficking offenses. It would expand the rights of crime victims--
something I have been interested in since Senator Kyl and I did the
Crime Victims' Bill of Rights.
The bill, which is not controversial, should pass, except for the
surreptitious inclusion--I use this word considered--of a provision
that is known as the Hyde amendment. The provision was not included by
language but by cross-reference to provisions in another previously
enacted appropriations bill.
Here is what it says:
Limitations. Amounts in the Fund, or otherwise transferred
from the Fund, shall be subject to the limitations on the use
or expending of amounts described in sections 506 and 507 of
division H of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014
(Public Law 113-76; 128 Stat. 409) to the same extent as if
amounts in the Fund were funds appropriated under division H
of such Act.
This provision was not included in the bill Senator Cornyn introduced
last Congress, which I cosponsored. His staff approached my staff and
staffs of other Senators early in 2015. They asked if I would cosponsor
again. My staff asked whether the bill was identical to last year's
bill and for an explanation of any changes that were
[[Page S1621]]
made. Senator Cornyn's staff then sent back an email with a list of
changes--seven changes in all. That list did not include the Hyde
amendment language that had been added. That language was not mentioned
to my staff at any point.
In other words, an important and sensitive change was made to the
bill and was not disclosed upon request. That does not excuse us for
not catching this, but if you see the complicated and sort of
obfuscated nature of this--I am not saying it is intended obfuscation,
but all of the numbers that are in there--I think it makes it
understandable.
If the Hyde amendment--which is what this is--if that language comes
out, this bill will pass easily.
Let me address for a moment the enormous problem we are trying to
address with this bill. Today, high demand and easy access fuels a huge
amount of sex trafficking. Human trafficking today is the second
largest criminal industry in the world. It is only behind illegal
drugs.
In 2005, human trafficking was a $32 billion criminal enterprise.
Today, some 9 years later, it is a $150 billion estimate of illegal
gains. Two-thirds of the proceeds from human trafficking come from sex
trafficking.
Children as young as 12, 13, and 14 can be found on the street or
over the Internet. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is
modern-day slavery. Those victims are moved against their will to
cities throughout the country and even to other countries, wherever
demand is high.
Trafficking rings are also run by gangs. In San Diego, for example,
profits are so great and the risk of being caught so minimal that rival
gangs do not fight each other over sex trafficking, as they do when
drugs are involved.
Some traffickers make as much as $33,000 per week. These are numbers
gathered by the Urban Institute: Atlanta, gross take per trafficker per
week, $32,833; Denver, $31,200; Seattle, $18,000; Miami, $17,741;
Dallas, $12,025; Washington, DC, $11,588; and San Diego, $11,129. This
is weekly gross cash intake per individual trafficker.
Traffickers lure victims through promises of love and money or
sometimes use an older trafficked girl as a recruiter. Those criminals
prey on the most vulnerable children in our society, including those
who are homeless or in the foster care system. They target children who
have been victims of sexual abuse. Once they have a victim under their
control, they may traffic him or her from city to city based on demand.
For example, this is a slide of California. It is from the Orange
County Human Trafficking Task Force, and it shows the route traffickers
take to move victims around the State of California to meet demand. You
can see these circles from Oakland to Sacramento and then down into the
Inland Empire and then from Los Angeles all the way around into the
Inland Empire. So you can actually track various routes. Orange County
did this. The orange center here is meant to be Orange County.
This particular task force is comprised of a number of Federal and
local law enforcement agencies in Orange County, including Anaheim and
Huntington Beach police departments, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the
FBI, and the District Attorney's Office.
Now, here it comes: Regardless of how children are first trafficked,
one thing is almost universal--victims will be advertised on the
Internet. By one estimate, 76 percent of child sex trafficking
victims--76 percent of them are sold over the Internet.
My staff and I have spoken with a number of law enforcement officials
in California about the Internet's role in connecting sellers of
underage children with buyers. Nearly every single official we spoke
with said the Internet is the primary means to connect sellers with
buyers. So this is where we next must take decisive steps to stop sex
trafficking. Purveyors of these online ads must be held accountable.
Senator Kirk and I have an amendment that will do that.
There are at least 19 distinct Web sites that accept ads relating to
trafficking underage boys and girls. Here they are: Backpage.com;
EscortAds
.xxx; ErosAds.com; EscortsInCollege.com; AsianEscortSF.com;
EscortsInThe.us; LiveEscortReviews.com; MyProvider
Guide.com; EroticMugShots.com; NaughtyReviews.com; EscortPhone
List.com; RubAds.com; Eros.com; TheEroticReview.com; RubMaps.com;
APerfectSin.com; EscortDater.com; MyRedBook.com; and NightShift.com.
Nineteen Web sites act as purveyors of child sex trafficking in this
country. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
This site I am going to show you, Backpage.com, allows a purveyor to
post an advertisement for an escort or a body rub. In fact, nearly all
of these ads are for commercial sex acts; many of them depict minors.
When you view an ad for an escort or a body rub, you will see pictures
of young girls, often with few or no clothes on.
Now I am going to show you two girls. The first is a missing 17-year-
old girl. She is here as a runaway. This is a listing of the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a very legitimate
organization which I am fully in support of. It is entitled
``Endangered Runaway,'' and it is information about her, her date of
birth, her age, her sex, her race, and all of it, and where you can get
in touch if you have any information.
I wish to show how this is also used. This is the same girl on
Backpage, and this essentially says:
Hello Texas,
Are you looking for an unforgettable experience? Look no
further!
I am 100% Great service provider!
I am very down to earth, warm, sensitive, passionate,
and genuinely interested in giving you a great experience.
And it goes on and on.
This is the same picture of this same girl.
We blocked out the image, and it is shocking. It is simply shocking
that this is going on to the extent it is in our country, right in a
ribald way on the Internet.
Law enforcement officials and anti-trafficking organizations say
there are a number of key indicators that allow them to identify ads
that are likely for trafficking victims.
In this advertisement we see three of those key indicators. First,
the title states the victim is ``New to your City.'' Anti-trafficking
organizations say this is code for being underage. You may also see
girls in ads described as ``new,'' ``fresh,'' or ``new in town'' to
indicate they are underage. Second, we see a victim is listed from
outside the area. Here she is listed as from Miami for a posting that
is in the Houston area.
Third, the victim also has an out-of-area phone number.
Those are three indicators of what this ad is for--to sell sex with
children. Law enforcement and experts confirm this point.
The Cook County Sheriff's Office in Illinois found that 100 percent
of women claiming to be massage therapists or platonic escorts on one
Web site, Backpage, were being sold for sex. This isn't mine, this is
the Cook County Sheriff's Office.
The sheriff's office set up so-called dates with 618 girls via
Backpage. All 618 agreed to provide sex for money.
The sheriff's office concluded: ``This presents irrefutable evidence
that Backpage is indeed a haven for pimps and sex solicitors who are
victimizing women and girls for their own gain. Any notion that
Backpage employs a legitimate business model simply does not stand up
to the facts.''
This is a direct letter from Sheriff Tom Dart, Cook County, IL.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
a memorandum to Sheriff Tom Dart.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Cook County Sheriff's Office Memorandum
Date: 6/9/2014.
To: Sheriff Thomas J. Dart.
From: Deputy Chief Michael Anton, Cook County Sheriff's
Police.
Subject: Backpage.com Arrests.
Per Sheriff Dart's direction, the Cook County Sheriff's
Police Vice Unit has utilized Backpage.com as its primary
forum for recovering victims of human trafficking in Cook
County. Please find our year-to-year Backpage arrest
statistics
Cook County Sheriff's Police Arrests Off of Backpage:
2009: 142
2010: 108
2011: 63
[[Page S1622]]
2012: 121
2013: 135
2014 (through the end of May): 49
Total: 618
Additionally, the Cook County Sheriff's Police Vice Unit
has made 42 arrests for Involuntary Servitude, Human
Trafficking or Prostitution since 2007, with many of those
investigations originating from responses to Backpage ads.
It is important to note that 100% of the women claiming to
be massage therapists or platonic escorts on Backpage have
accepted the offer of money for sex from our undercover male
officers. Our team has set up ``dates'' with 618 via this
website--all 618 have turned out to be prostitutes. This
presents irrefutable evidence that Backpage is indeed a haven
for pimps and sex solicitors who are victimizing women and
girls for their own gain. Any notion that Backpage employs a
legitimate business model simply does not stand up to the
facts.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. A study of ads placed in this year's Super Bowl in
Phoenix concludes that 65 percent of the ads placed on Backpage's
Phoenix Web site around the weekend of the game had indicators that the
ad was for a victim of sex trafficking.
Simply put, there are Internet companies that are profiting off the
rape and abuse of children. This must stop.
One way we can combat sex trafficking over the Internet is to make it
a crime for a person such as the owner of a Web site to knowingly
advertise a commercial sex act with a minor. As I said, Senator Kirk
and I have introduced such an amendment. It would create a new offense
of knowingly advertising a commercial sex act with a minor on the
Internet.
The amendment is identical to a House bill that has 52 cosponsors and
passed that Chamber by voice vote.
If we come to a point where we are voting on amendments to Senator
Cornyn's bill, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I
know Senator Kirk and I would bring it to the floor.
Last October, 53 attorneys general offered a letter to the Senate
Judiciary Committee in support of the bill that Senator Kirk and I
introduced last June that is similar to the amendment. This is the list
of the attorneys general.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the letter of 53 attorneys general.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
National Association of
Attorneys General,
Washington, DC, October 20, 2014.
Hon. Patrick Leahy,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, DC.
Hon. Chuck Grassley,
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Grassley: We, the
undersigned state and territorial attorneys general, urge you
to join us in the fight against human trafficking in the
United States. We commend your recent action to pass
legislation to increase federal penalties and victim
restitution and encourage you to act to protect children from
being trafficked on the Internet by passing S. 2536, the Stop
Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act (SAVE Act).
Human trafficking is tied as the second largest and is the
fastest growing criminal industry in the world, generating
roughly $150 billion each year. According to a study of
Department of Justice human trafficking task force cases, 83
percent of sex trafficking victims identified in the United
States were U.S. citizens. Shockingly, there are numerous
cases nationally of children being used in prostitution as
young as 12.
Every day, children in the United States are sold for sex.
The use of the ``adult services sections'' on websites such
as Backpage.com has created virtual brothels where children
are bought and sold using euphemistic labels such as
``escorts.'' The involvement of these advertising companies
is not accidental--these companies have constructed their
business models around income gained from those participating
in commercial sex. In just one week this June, law
enforcement arrested 281 alleged sex traffickers and took 168
children out of prostitution in a nationwide FBI crackdown
where many child victims were offered for sale on ``escort''
and other ``adult services'' websites. Organized crime groups
as well as street gangs are involved with human trafficking,
and many of these perpetrators use the Internet to sell their
victims.
The undersigned attorneys general respectfully request that
the Senate Judiciary Committee pass the SAVE Act so that
these websites that are facilitating trafficking through
their very business model will have to take steps to verify
the identity of individuals posting advertisements and the
age of those who appear in these advertisements.
We thank you in advance for your continued dedication to
the eradication of human trafficking.
Greg Zoeller, Indiana Attorney General; Luther Strange,
Alabama Attorney General; Tom Horne, Arizona Attorney
General; Kamala Harris, California Attorney General;
George Jepsen, Connecticut Attorney General; Irvin
Nathan, District of Columbia Attorney General; Robert
W. Ferguson, Washington Attorney General; Michael
Geraghty, Alaska Attorney General; Dustin McDaniel,
Arkansas Attorney General; John W. Suthers, Colorado
Attorney General; Joseph R. ``Beau'' Biden III ,
Delaware Attorney General; Pamela Jo Bondi, Florida
Attorney General; Samuel S. Olens, Georgia Attorney
General; David Louie, Hawaii Attorney General; Lisa
Madigan, Illinois Attorney General; Derek Schmidt,
Kansas Attorney General; James ``Buddy'' Caldwell,
Louisiana Attorney General; Douglas F. Gansler,
Maryland Attorney General.
Bill Schuette, Michigan Attorney General; Lenny Rapadas,
Guam Attorney General; Lawrence Wasden, Idaho Attorney
General; Tom Miller, Iowa Attorney General; Jack
Conway, Kentucky Attorney General; Janet Mills, Maine
Attorney General; Martha Coakley, Massachusetts
Attorney General; Lori Swanson, Minnesota Attorney
General; Jim Hood, Mississippi Attorney General; Tim
Fox, Montana Attorney General; Catherine Cortez Masto,
Nevada Attorney General; John Jay Hoffman, New Jersey
Attorney General (Acting); Eric T. Schneiderman, New
York Attorney General; Wayne Stenehjem, North Dakota
Attorney General; Michael DeWine, Ohio Attorney
General; Chris Koster, Missouri Attorney General; Jon
Bruning, Nebraska Attorney General; Joseph Foster, New
Hampshire Attorney General.
Gary King, New Mexico Attorney General; Roy Cooper, North
Carolina Attorney General; Gilbert Birnbrich, Northern
Mariana Islands Attorney General (Acting); Scott
Pruitt, Oklahoma Attorney General; Ellen F. Rosenblum,
Oregon Attorney General; Cesar R. Miranda Rodriguez,
Puerto Rico Attorney General; Alan Wilson, South
Carolina Attorney General; Herbert H. Slatery, III,
Tennessee Attorney General; Sean Reyes, Utah Attorney
General; Mark R. Herring, Virginia Attorney General;
Peter K. Michael, Wyoming Attorney General; Kathleen
Kane, Pennsylvania Attorney General; Peter Kilmartin,
Rhode Island Attorney General; Marty J. Jackley, South
Dakota Attorney General; Greg Abbott, Texas Attorney
General; William H. Sorrell, Vermont Attorney General;
Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia Attorney General.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. The attorneys general wrote:
The use of the ``adult services sections'' on websites such
as Backpage.com has created virtual brothels where children
are bought and sold using euphemistic labels such as
``escorts.''
This is a quote from a letter to this effect--I don't want anybody to
think this is what I am saying, it is what they are saying.
The use of the term ``adult services sections'' on websites
such as Backpage.com has created virtual brothels where
children are bought and sold using euphemistic labels such as
``escorts.''
Put simply, if you have knowledge that an advertisement placed on
your Web site is for commercial sex with a minor, then you should be
prosecuted. That is what our amendment would do.
I have no doubt that prohibiting misconduct by a Web site owner is
constitutional. As the Supreme Court has held on several occasions:
``Offers to engage in illegal transactions are categorically excluded
from First Amendment protection.''
In fact, the Supreme Court in 1973 wrote: ``We have no doubt that a
newspaper constitutionally could be forbidden to publish a want ad
proposing a sale of narcotics or soliciting prostitutes.''
This amendment targets illegal conduct--commercial sex with minors--
that would not be protected by the First Amendment.
It imposes liability on Web sites that know that their sites are
being used to advertise minors for sex.
In conclusion, the Internet has made this industry what it is, the
second largest criminal industry in the world, second only to drugs,
and it is up to us to do something about it.
One of our duties in this body is to protect the most vulnerable of
individuals. That includes children, and this is what this amendment
does.
Some say other parts of the bill will help stop sex trafficking, and
we don't need to touch the Internet. That makes no sense to me.
Seventy-six percent of sales of sex trafficking victims begin on the
Internet. So you can just touch
[[Page S1623]]
a small part of it--this touches 76 percent of victims.
We cannot allow these Web sites to continue to operate with impunity.
It is time to take a stand, stop the ads, and stop the exploitation of
children.
I look forward to Senator Kirk coming to the floor, presenting our
amendment, assuming we can get past this block. This is so much more
important than putting the Hyde amendment, cloaked in difficult
language, in this bill, when the House bill doesn't contain it. The
House understands that it is going to have difficulty passing it with
this in the bill. Why isn't that recognized in this House? If they take
that out, this bill swims through.
Mr. CORNYN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I yield to the Senator.
Mr. CORNYN. I was in my office and watching the Senator on TV, so I
thought I would come to the floor and maybe we could get to the bottom
of this. There seems to be a ship passing in the night, it seems to me.
I know the Senator from California cares passionately about this
issue, and I don't question that for a moment. It is very clear to me.
But I ask the Senator from California, she graciously agreed to
cosponsor this legislation?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I did.
Mr. CORNYN. She voted for it in the Senate Judiciary Committee that
passed unanimously. It does contain, on page 50 and 51 of this bill,
the language that the Senator referred to. I saw it on my TV screen in
my office, which incorporates the limitation that was contained in the
Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. It incorporates that into the
bill by reference.
Not only--I believe the Senator voted for the bill in committee and
cosponsored it. The Senator also voted for that limitation in the
Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. This is the same or similar
language of what was contained in the Affordable Care Act, contained in
the Defense authorization bill, and contained in literally every
appropriations bill since 1976.
This is what I would love to have my friend, the Senator from
California, explain to me: Why is it that it all of a sudden becomes
objectionable on this legislation--when you care and I care so
passionately about getting help for these victims--that this is the
reason to derail the legislation?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Because of what this legislation is. This legislation
is the raping and the misconduct, sexually, with young girls, girls 14,
15, and 16. What if they are impregnated? Should they be entitled to be
able to go and get an abortion? Does this body really want them to be
forced to bear somebody else's child?
So this offers the opportunity for some funding. These aren't wealthy
girls. They don't live in Beverly Hills, Hyde Park, or any of these
places that are prominent. They are on the streets. They are lost,
maybe lost mentally, lost physically. They may have been abused, and
now they are caught up in an industry where they are held hostage in
the night.
I have read of some in a neighborhood in my city being handcuffed at
night, stripped, so they don't have clothes and can't run away. They
are put out on the streets, they are watched. They are moved around. If
it becomes too hot in one area, they are moved to another. They are
moved to another State, and they come from other countries.
It just seems to me to have this in this bill--and, Senator, I have
great respect for you. I have wanted to work with you on this. I know
you are sincere.
It is not in the House bill. So maybe the House understands this. I
can't speak for the House.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a
colloquy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I am pleased to do so.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. Otherwise, we are going to have to keep addressing
questions through the Chair and keep asking for permission. I think it
is great to have an honest conversation with my friend.
So it is clear that the Senator from California has voted for this
restriction on use of taxpayer funding for abortions previously,
correct?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Not to my knowledge. Let me put it that way. Now you
can blame me and say I should have known--I am not the only one on our
committee, Senator, who is in this position, either, who communicated
with your staff and was under the impression that the bill was
identical to last year, with the exception of seven pieces, which are
not this. The seven were detailed to us.
Mr. CORNYN. I am not going to engage in a debate about whether the
Senator should have known or how she voted in the past. I believe the
record would demonstrate that she and others voted for the Affordable
Care Act, which actually National Abortion Rights Action League says is
an expansion of the Hyde amendment.
I ask the Senator, you rightly point out that these child victims of
sexual assault will have been raped, either statutory rape--they are
below the age of consent--or they are adults and they have been
assaulted, criminally assaulted.
Isn't it your understanding of the Hyde amendment that the exclusion
to the Hyde amendment would still allow them to gain access to the
services that you believe they need or deserve?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Yes. I think that is correct. I suppose we could
change this to have a rape implication, but the gauntlet has been
thrown down. And it is not up to me alone to remove it. There was no
open discussion in our committee when we discussed this that there was
a highly sensitive issue in it, Senator.
Now, I will plead mea culpa. And guess what. I will wave a whip and
get my staff and say: Look henceforth at every code change. But my
colleague and I both know that occasionally things slip through. I will
plead mea culpa on that. But once I found out, I had an obligation to
do something about it.
So I am pleading with my colleague, let's just take it out. Let's
just pass this bill. Let's put the Kirk-Feinstein amendment in. Let's
go after the Internet purveyors. Let's go after 19 sites that put
pictures of girls 12, 13, and 14 to be sold all around the United
States, to be sold after big football games in various areas of the
country. Let's go after them. Isn't that more important?
I would like to ask my colleague a question.
Mr. CORNYN. That is the reason I am so confused by the filibuster of
this legislation by people, including my friend, who are cosponsors of
the legislation and who already voted for it.
I am not about pointing fingers in terms of what staff or Members
should have read or understood about the legislation, but I believe the
reason it was not debated at the Judiciary Committee level is because
it had become a routine matter since 1976, when the Hyde amendment was
passed. Every appropriation of Labor-HHS or other funding that could
arguably use tax dollars for abortions has been limited by the Hyde
amendment language.
I had a couple of Senators in my office yesterday afternoon who are
proudly pro-choice. I am proudly pro-life. But even my pro-choice
friends said we still believe taxpayer funds should not be used for
abortions except in the case of rape or to protect the health of the
victim.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Well, why then, if I may ask a question,
respectfully.
Mr. CORNYN. Sure.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Why isn't it in the House language?
Mr. CORNYN. I would say to my friend that I can't vouch for the
House's product. I can just say what the Congress as a whole has done
since 1976, and it has limited the expenditure of funds for this
purpose under the terms of the Hyde amendment.
That was the reason we referred in the legislation, on page 50, which
my colleague has blown up here, referring to the language in the
Committee on Appropriations, which I am confident my friend, the
Senator from California, voted for, just as she did in the limitation
that was contained in the Affordable Care Act and all the other times
that Hyde has been part of our process. This has become so unremarkable
and so routine that it hardly seems like something someone would point
out because this language doesn't change the status quo at all.
So we have talked about ways to get past this impasse, and I would
just
[[Page S1624]]
have to say I think abandoning the Hyde amendment would be a dramatic
mistake and something I am not willing to be a part of. It has become
this one area, in a divisive area of abortion, where there has been
bipartisan consensus for 39 years, at least to the point it has
remained the law of the land effectively. To take it out and say
somehow we are going to depart from that today or this week would, to
me, be a dramatic expansion of taxpayer funding for this purpose that I
can't support.
So I would say, if there are ways we can deal with this fund, as a
fund that can be appropriated on an annual basis subject to the normal
restrictions--that is something I talked about with the ranking member,
our friend from Vermont, that possibility--I think there are ways we
might be able to get to a solution. But stripping out this limitation,
which has been the law of the land for 39 years, is not acceptable
because it would represent a huge expansion on the use of taxpayer
funding for abortions in ways many of my pro-choice friends don't
support.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Well, I guess I disagree with that. Those of us who
believe a woman should control her own reproductive system, in concert
with her family and her doctor, have objection to the government
getting involved and telling us what to do. It is actually not your
reproductive system--and I say ``you'' generically, as a man--it is our
reproductive system. In a sense this has been a battle for our
identity.
I sat on a term-setting and paroling authority in California in the
1960s, when abortion was illegal. I sentenced women to State prison for
abortion. It had then an indeterminate sentence of between 6 months and
10 years. I saw abortionists come back to prison. I asked one, when I
was setting the sentence: Why do you keep doing this? Her first name
was Anita. And she said: Because I feel so sorry for the women.
That was the way it was. I remember passing the plate at Stanford for
a young woman to go to Tijuana for an abortion. The morbidity that was
done to women through back-alley abortions, this has opened a Pandora's
box of big emotional issues for women.
As to the Hyde amendment, if there is rape and you can prove it, that
is right; and then there is a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old who is out on
the streets as a prostitute, which is a different thing--sort of the
same but sort of different. The overwhelming evil of this trade
overcomes any of this, because you take a young woman, and you probably
change their life for the worse for the rest of her life.
Imagine your daughter being out on the street; my daughter, my
granddaughters being out on the street like this and what it would do
to them being handcuffed and moved and traded around the country and
girls brought from Nepal through India, all over Europe. This is what
is going on in the world today, and we are sitting here arguing
essentially about the availability of an abortion in this area. To me,
that is so secondary to the enormous harm that is being done.
I have great respect for my colleague. He has been a very
distinguished jurist in his State. He makes sense when he speaks on the
Judiciary Committee. We have listened to each other for more than a
decade now. Let this drop. Let us get on with the work of this bill--
and the work of this bill isn't completed until we get some of the
amendments that relate to the bill--and then I think we can debate this
another day.
I would say I plead a mea culpa. I wish I had known. All I can say is
I did not know. Is that my fault? Probably. But I didn't know. So if
you don't know, and you make a mistake, isn't the right thing to try to
set that right? That is what we have tried to do, and women on our
side, and some on my colleague's side, feel very strongly about this.
My colleague knows over the years we have lost virtually every battle
that has been on this floor and we are tired of it. So we are taking a
stand and we are going to hold that stand.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I obviously don't agree with my friend
from California, but I respect her for answering the questions I have
posed here today. I just find it a terrible shame we are going to
relitigate what has been the law of the land for 39 years on this bill
in a way that would block help to the very people I know the Senator
from California cares so passionately about.
If we are going to undo the Hyde amendment, which the Senator has
voted for in some form or another repeatedly over the years, then we
are not going to make any progress. If we can find some other way to
structure the funds so the appropriators will have a more direct role
in appropriating the fines and penalties paid into this fund on an
annual basis, I think maybe there is some room to talk. But I thank the
Senator for her courtesy in answering my questions. I am sorry we find
ourselves at this loggerhead, but I hope at some point that can be
resolved.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. May I say one more thing? It is my understanding--
breaking news coming here--that there is no language in Federal statute
on sex trafficking that defines a trafficking survivor as a victim of
rape. So the victim would have to prove she is a victim of rape.
Now, look at what happens. I don't know if in my colleague's legal
career it took him close to very young victims of this who cover up and
who don't want to let people know. I am sure my colleague knows all of
the vicissitudes, the hard life. We are asking someone to prove it.
Mr. CORNYN. I would say to my friend that when I was attorney general
of Texas for 4 years, I had responsibility for administering the Crime
Victims' Compensation Fund as part of my duties of office, and we
worked very directly with victims groups, including those who took care
of very young children who had been sexually assaulted, sometimes by
members of their own family--just the worst, the most reprehensible
sorts of crimes.
But if I can ask the Senator just one last question. Of course, we
have had the procedural vote on the floor, twice now, where Democrats
have blocked our ability to both vote on amendments, including
amendments the Senator may have with the Senator from Illinois, Mr.
Kirk. Why is there an objection to processing those amendments and
allowing the Senate to work its will? Why can't we vote on them? Why
can't the Democratic minority take up the majority leader's offer for a
vote to strip the language out that your side objects to?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Can I answer that as honestly as I feel?
Mr. CORNYN. I wish the Senator would.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Because there are many of us who believe this is one
small step for womankind. It is one battle we can win, and we have had
loss after loss after loss.
You know, many of us ran on the right to choose. I was one of them. I
am old enough to have seen the way it was before, to have sentenced
women who committed illegal abortions with coat hangers. That is sort
of the systemic root of all of this. It is our history, Senator. We are
trying to change that history, and we keep losing. So there is one
small thing in this.
My colleague is right, we didn't see it, and we have to live with
that. I understand that. But now we see it and we are trying to do
something about it and, thankfully, our party is standing up with us.
So we say make that small change and we pass this bill, and maybe we
can even strengthen it with amendments.
My colleague has done a superior job in putting the bill together.
Let it go.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would just say, in conclusion, that I
think it is a terrible shame that my colleague's side of the aisle has
decided to take this bill hostage to try to litigate something that has
been the law of the land for 39 years. I understand she feels
passionately about it. I don't question that for a minute--the
sincerity of my colleague's deeply held personal views.
But why in the world would my colleagues take as a hostage a piece of
legislation that is going to help those 100,000 children who are sex-
trafficked each year? Why should they suffer so my colleagues can make
a point on this particular piece of legislation?
I don't understand that and I think it is a terrible shame.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Well, let me answer a question with a question. Why
doesn't my colleague just take it out? It is not in the House bill.
Then we don't have to conference it, we don't
[[Page S1625]]
have to have another fight, we can get the amendments in the bill to
strengthen the bill, and we can move on, with the two parties together
doing something that is right for the Nation. Why don't we do it?
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would say to my friend, I don't blame
her for asking, but why in the world would we change settled law for 39
years in order to accommodate the minority's view on this bill, and to
change, as I said, what has been the law of the land?
Since the Senator voted for this very language previously this year
in the Judiciary Committee--since she cosponsored it, I don't really
understand it since she voted for the legislation that is referred to
here that has that amendment. Does the Senator see this as breaking new
ground? Is she trying to expand or eliminate the Hyde amendment?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I see it for standing up for a principle. I know
something about these girls. I know something about the history of
abortion in this country. I am old enough to have gone through it and
know that I don't want to go back to those days. I don't want young
women who take the law now so much for granted to have to return back.
This is just one small step. There is nothing wrong with
accommodating the minority on what is a relatively small point. In the
House, 435 people over there didn't want it in. So why not accommodate
the minority? The Senator just comes out a bigger person.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would say to my friend I appreciate her
courtesy and her indulgence in having this conversation. I also feel on
principle this limitation on tax dollars is an appropriate one. I
understand the Senator disagrees and she would like to eliminate this
from this point forward. But I am simply unable on principle to
accommodate the Senator in that request.
As I said, I do appreciate her courtesy.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I appreciate it, too. And I appreciate the
discussion. Principle doesn't know minority and majority. Principle is
deeply held.
I thank the Senator very much.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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