[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 88 (Monday, May 22, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H4411-H4414]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TARGETED REWARDS FOR THE GLOBAL ERADICATION OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and
pass the bill (H.R. 1625) to amend the State Department Basic
Authorities Act of 1956 to include severe forms of trafficking in
persons within the definition of transnational organized crime for
purposes of the rewards program of the Department of State, and for
other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 1625
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Targeted Rewards for the
Global Eradication of Human Trafficking'' or the ``TARGET
Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) Trafficking in persons is a major transnational crime
that threatens United States national security and
humanitarian interests.
[[Page H4412]]
(2) Trafficking in persons is increasingly perpetrated by
organized, sophisticated criminal enterprises.
(3) Combating trafficking in persons requires a global
approach to identifying and apprehending the world's worst
human trafficking rings.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that
the Department of State's rewards program is a powerful tool
in combating sophisticated international crime and that the
Department of State and Federal law enforcement should work
in concert to offer rewards that target human traffickers who
threaten United States national security and humanitarian
interests by preying on the most vulnerable people around the
world.
SEC. 3. REWARDS FOR JUSTICE.
Paragraph (5) of section 36(k) of the State Department
Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (22 U.S.C. 2708(k)) is
amended--
(1) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by striking
``means'';
(2) by redesignating subparagraphs (A) and (B) as clauses
(i) and (ii), respectively, and moving such clauses, as so
redesignated, two ems to the right;
(3) by inserting before clause (i), as so redesignated, the
following:
``(A) means--'';
(4) in clause (ii), as so redesignated, by striking the
period at the end and inserting ``; and''; and
(5) by adding at the end following new subparagraph:
``(B) includes severe forms of trafficking in persons, as
such term is defined in section 103 of the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7102).''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Royce) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that
all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their
remarks and to include any extraneous material in the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1625 is the human trafficking TARGET Act. It
authorizes the State Department and Federal law enforcement to target
international human traffickers, and they can do that by offering
rewards for their arrest or conviction anywhere around the globe.
Mr. Speaker, I think for all of us, with some of the cases we have
had in our districts, some of our constituents, some of the victims,
this is pretty close to all of us. It has touched many of our
communities, because trafficking in persons here in the U.S. and
worldwide is a major global crime that destroys countless lives at home
and abroad, and the most vulnerable are destroyed by this.
Many of these persons--and they are primarily women and children--are
trafficked into international sex trade by force or by fraud or by
coercion. And I will remind everyone, out in southern California, in
L.A., the average age of a girl being trafficked is 14. In Orange
County, the average age is 14.
So when I say ``by force,'' we are talking about abduction. When I
say ``by fraud,'' that is a situation where they get one of these
gigolos, one of those Romeos--they call them--to go out, convince some
girl to run off with him, get her out of State, and then he sells her
to a criminal gang. The gang sells her to the crime syndicate. Now her
fate is sealed. Or through coercion, and we have heard these cases. At
14, young people are pretty gullible, what this criminal organization
is going to do to her sister or to her parents if she does not go
along.
So this transnational crime also includes forced labor. It involves
significant violations of public health, human rights standards
worldwide, and every other kind of moral standard you could think of.
And that is why, as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and
as Representative for the 39th District in California, I have, over the
last few years, made working on this issue and moving legislation on
this horrific crime a top priority for the committee, and we have had
bipartisan support throughout for this legislation. We have enacted
many bills in recent years, including the International Megan's Law
last February. We have held committee hearings in Washington, in L.A.,
and in Orange County to hear firsthand from victims.
For example, at a field hearing in Fullerton, we heard from Angela
Guanzon, who was trafficked from the Philippines into coerced servitude
in Los Angeles where she worked for 18 hours a day every day without a
weekend off, without a holiday off, was forced to sleep on the hallway
floor until a sharp-eyed neighbor finally alerted law enforcement.
I helped establish a Human Trafficking Congressional Advisory
Committee. I established that in the 39th District for L.A., Orange
County, and San Bernardino. We have local law enforcement involved in
that as well as the Federal authorities, victims rights groups, and
community advocates in California to address these concerns, to try to
come up with solutions.
Mr. Speaker, we have made progress, but there is still so much work
to be done. If we are going to end human trafficking, it will take all
of us working together, so I want to thank Ranking Member Engel, of
course, Congressman Connolly, and the coauthor of my legislation here,
Lois Frankel, for their outstanding work on this measure.
As has been discussed today, trafficking in persons is increasingly
perpetuated and perpetrated by sophisticated transnational criminal
enterprises. The traffickers themselves operate outside sometimes of
our borders. Other times they are inside our borders, but the profits
from the trafficking industry contribute to the expansion of organized
crime and terrorism here and worldwide.
That is why combating human trafficking requires a global approach to
identify and apprehend the world's worst offenders. This TARGET Act for
traffickers does that. It targets human trafficking globally through
the Department of State's very successful Rewards Programs.
Rewards issued under these programs have led to the capture of major
terrorists and international criminals, including--I will remind
Members--Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in the 1993 bombing of the
World Trade Center, several members of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group
who kidnapped and killed American citizens, and over 60 major
international drug traffickers. All of them were convicted with the
help of this particular program that we want to expand now, that we
want to apply here.
A reward on one's head creates real fear for terrorists and
criminals. At one committee hearing, a State Department official
testified that one captured narcotics trafficker told DEA agents he
would no longer trust anyone in his organization after the U.S. put a
$5 million reward for his capture.
I remember the quote. He said he felt like a hunted man.
Well, Mr. Speaker, we want human traffickers to know the fear of
being hunted.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 1815
Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I laud the leadership of the gentleman from California
(Mr. Royce) and my good friend, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms.
Frankel), for taking a particular lead in our committee on this
terribly important topic.
I rise in support of H.R. 1625, the Targeted Rewards for the Global
Eradication of Human Trafficking Act. Let me start by again thanking
both of my colleagues for their leadership. I am also proud to be an
original cosponsor of this bill to help bring human traffickers to
justice.
Human trafficking is an abhorrent practice, increasingly perpetrated
by organized criminal enterprises, that deprives people of their most
precious gift: human autonomy. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness presume autonomy. Without autonomy, identity is lost, and the
ability to pursue those inalienable rights Thomas Jefferson wrote about
in our Declaration of Independence do not exist. They are nullified.
This major transnational crime threatens United States security and
humanitarian interests all over the world.
[[Page H4413]]
This bill would allow the State Department to pay cash through the
Rewards for Justice program for information leading to the arrest and
conviction of human traffickers worldwide. These cash rewards are a
proven method for cracking open international criminal networks.
Congress originally established the program to gain more information
in terrorism cases. We have since expanded it to include other crimes
as well. With this legislation, we will give law enforcement the
ability to use this valuable tool in the fight against human
trafficking.
Over the last two decades, the United States has actively fought
human trafficking through provisions laid out in the Victims of
Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which established the annual
Trafficking in Persons Report and subsequent reauthorizations.
Human trafficking is nothing short of modern-day slavery. As the TIP
Report demonstrates, human trafficking affects, unfortunately, every
country in the world, including, of course, the United States, as the
distinguished chairman described.
As ranking member of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government
Operations, I joined with the then-subcommittee chairman, James
Lankford, now Senator from Oklahoma, to investigate the abuse of
foreign nationals employed by government contractors. Together, we
introduced the End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act, which was
enacted as part of the fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.
Whether it takes the form of forced labor or sexual exploitation,
every case of human trafficking deprives an individual of their basic
human rights. More than 20 million people fall victim to this heinous
crime every year. A disproportionate share of the victims are women and
children, and only a very small fraction will ever see their
traffickers held accountable. We must and can do more to bring the
perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill. It will give law
enforcement a proven method to help finally bring an end to this
modern-day slave trafficking.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my
time to close.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from Florida (Ms. Frankel), my good friend and coauthor of this
important piece of legislation.
Ms. FRANKEL of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Connolly and, of
course, the chair of our committee for his fine work and our ranking
member.
Mr. Speaker, as we have heard already, human trafficking is a global
crisis of epic proportions. An estimated 12 to 20 million men and women
around the world are being subjected to slavery of some sort. In fact,
it is the number two criminal enterprise on Earth.
I have seen the effects of this human trafficking up close. Mr.
Speaker, I want to talk about a couple visits I made.
When I went to Peru, I went to a couple shelters there, which were
now the homes of young girls who had been trafficked. The first one I
went to, there were girls in their mid-teens who had been raised in
families that were very, very poor. Their families were approached by
these traffickers, who told them they would take their children, take
their daughters to ``the promised land.'' They were going to take them
to an area in Peru where they would be educated, well fed, and well
nourished.
What they really ended up doing was taking these young girls and
basically enslaving them. They found themselves in people's homes where
they would be locked up, literally, for years. From the time the Sun
came up to the time the Sun went down, these children told their
stories of having to, for example, peel potatoes, peel potatoes day and
night. No education, no mingling with their peers, just deprived of the
joy of childhood.
At another shelter we went to, we visited young girls, again, who had
been saved from their slavery. They had been kidnapped off the
streets--they were now teenagers--when they were 9 and 10 and 11. I
mean, it was just hard for me to hear these stories. I am sure it will
be hard for you to hear these stories. When they were preteens, they
were kidnapped off the streets. Some of them were locked in trunks.
They were beaten. They were forced in submission to become sex slaves
to miners. Again, children deprived of their education, deprived of
their innocence.
I am not only haunted when I think back on them, I am haunted because
I remember looking in their eyes--looking in their eyes--and saying to
myself: How could this happen? How in our civilization do we let this
happen to innocent children?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from Florida.
Ms. FRANKEL of Florida. Mr. Speaker, when I returned home to the
United States, I heard a story from a young woman named Shandra, who
had a work visa to come over here from Indonesia to work in a hotel. On
her way over, she was kidnapped by traffickers and forced into
commercial sex slavery for 2 to 3 years on the I-95 corridor. The way
she escaped was through a bathroom window.
I thank Mr. Royce for letting me have an opportunity to join him in
this legislation, which is going to target these sex and labor
traffickers, give a powerful tool to stop what we call modern-day
slavery. I am very proud to support the TARGET Act.
Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from
Florida (Ms. Frankel) especially for the trips that she has made
overseas--not just here in the United States--to do this investigative
work to expose trafficking and for being the original lead Democratic
coauthor with me on this bill. I also want to again thank Gerry
Connolly for his work.
I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), the chairman
of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and
Trade. He has done a great deal of work over the years on this issue as
well.
Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this is an excellent piece of
legislation.
Like Ms. Frankel mentioned during her comments on the floor, we had
the opportunity to go to Peru together to visit children who were way
up in the mountains being protected from those deviants who wanted to
traffic them not only in Peru, but other parts of South America.
I had, also, the opportunity to go to Costa Rica and meet some young
girls who were being trafficked in Costa Rica and into other foreign
countries. I remember one girl named Lilli. She was 7 years of age when
I met her. She did not talk at all, even though she had the physical
ability to talk, but she did not talk because of the trauma that she
had been through before she had been rescued and put in that shelter in
Costa Rica.
There are a lot of little girls like Lilli throughout the world,
including in the United States. Societies must make the decision now
that we will not tolerate the stolen innocence of young children by
those who sell them on the marketplace of slavery for money, whether
that is the trafficker, the slave master, or the buyer, the consumer.
We, as a world, cannot tolerate that.
The United States has taken the lead on international trafficking
and, I believe, on trafficking here in the U.S. This legislation, the
TARGET Act, makes it clear that we are not going to tolerate this
conduct and that those people who act this way in the slave trade are
going to be held accountable for their conduct, and the consequences
for what they do are not going to be pleasant. Plus, we are going to
rescue those young children.
I support this legislation, Mr. Speaker.
And that is just the way it is.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Let every Member of Congress who is a parent, let every American who
is a parent ask himself or herself: How would you feel if your loved
one, your child were made prey by human traffickers? Imagine the
heartache. Imagine the terrible grief, the trauma and tragedy of such a
situation--and now remember 20 million fellow human beings go through
that experience every year.
This is a crime that is repugnant to all human value. This is a crime
we can
[[Page H4414]]
stop. This is a subject matter that can bring us together, irrespective
of whether we are Democrats or Republicans, for the sake of our fellow
human beings, for the sake of that human autonomy that is celebrated in
the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the Constitution of
the United States and the United Nations' Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
Let us take this step today. Let us rededicate ourselves to the idea
that all human autonomy is sacred and that that is what we, too, are
dedicated to support and uphold. I urge passage of the legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Let me say that, for republics in Europe and our United States, we
credit our civilizations with having eradicated slavery some 150 years
or more ago, but clearly Judge Poe uses the right word here: Slavery
is, in fact, what is committed in these acts.
I can tell you, my chief of staff, having worked in relief efforts in
south Asia and in Cambodia with underaged girls as young as the ones
described by Judge Poe--7, 8, 9 years old--the most vulnerable people
on this planet are being sold into slavery. As long as force and fraud,
coercion is used to prey upon the most vulnerable, as long as profits
from these victims suffering from the ill-gotten gains are used to
build out criminal networks to snare more and more of these children,
as long as trafficking in persons is a global crime that extends beyond
the capacity of certain governments, then it requires a global response
and, again, as my colleagues have said, requires that the United
States, therefore, lead.
{time} 1830
So this bill targets human traffickers around the world through the
Department of State's successful reward programs by offering rewards
for their capture anywhere on Earth, it lets the victims of human
trafficking know we will not stop until they are free, and it tells the
predators that we will not stop until they are behind bars.
Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the
balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 1625.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________