[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 122 (Thursday, July 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5100-S5101]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   STOP ENABLING SEX TRAFFICKERS ACT

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to report back to my 
colleagues here in the Senate and to the American people about the 
results of legislation which we passed here in the Senate and the House 
and which was signed into law by the President. We don't do that often 
enough, and we tend to pass legislation and don't do the oversight to 
figure out whether it is working.
  In this case, this was legislation we passed back in April on a 
bipartisan basis called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act. This 
legislation allows the victims of sex trafficking to get the justice 
they deserve by being able to sue websites that knowingly trafficked 
them online and have some accountability for these horrible crimes that 
are committed online. It also allows prosecutors at the State and local 
level to prosecute these cases.
  We drafted the legislation because after looking at this for several 
years, we realized that there was a rise in trafficking of underage 
girls, women, and sometimes underage boys and that this was increasing 
primarily because of the dark side of the internet. We are hearing a 
lot about what is going on on the internet these days in terms of 
meddling in our elections and so on. With all the positives, there is 
also a darker side. We realized this was happening increasingly, and it 
was a ruthlessly, efficient way to sell people online.
  We looked at it and found there was a Federal law put in place--with 
good intentions, I believe--a couple of decades ago to try to ensure 
freedom of the internet, which, of course, all of us support, but it 
provided an effective immunity to these websites even if they were 
knowingly selling people online. So we wrote legislation to get at 
that, spent about a year trying to get that through the process, and 
eventually got it to a vote and got it passed.
  The law that provided the immunity was part of the Communications 
Decency Act. Again, it was meant to encourage freedom of the internet 
but was taken too far, particularly in how it was interpreted by the 
courts. The internet was something we had to address because without 
that, we would see this increase in drug trafficking and sex 
trafficking.
  So what happened? After passing the law, there was a pretty dramatic 
change.
  On Monday, I was in Cincinnati, OH, my hometown, at a place called 
the CHANGE Court. The CHANGE Court is a place where women who are 
trafficked and incarcerated for prostitution are able to go through a 
2-year program to help them get clean and, if they are willing to go 
through this program, to walk away with a clean record, understanding 
that sex trafficking is not a crime and that they are in effect victims 
of trafficking.
  It is very inspiring to go there. I talked to about a dozen women who 
are currently in the program and some women who had graduated from the 
program. The stories are unbelievable--women getting their lives back 
together; getting back to work and getting back to their families; in 
almost every case, getting back to their children--in almost every 
case, these are moms; having the self-respect and dignity that comes 
with work; getting back with their families; and getting their lives 
back on track. It is a much better alternative than the system of 
throwing people into jail who are, in effect, victims of trafficking 
and not

[[Page S5101]]

dealing with their issues, whether it is the trauma or the drug 
addiction. In almost every case, there was a drug addiction issue. 
Almost all of them were opiate addicts or recovering addicts. One was 
addicted to alcohol. This is common.
  In talking to these women, almost every one of them said the same 
thing, which was that, yes, they had been trafficked online, and they 
were very interested in this legislation. They had been through it, and 
they wanted to save future women and girls from having to go down this 
dark path.
  We passed the legislation and assessed the legislation meant to help 
on this issue, and I was able to tell these women at the CHANGE Court 
what the results were. They are pretty dramatic.
  On Monday of this week, I also met with the National Center for 
Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC. This is the leading anti-
trafficking group in the country. They work day and night trying to 
stop online sex traffickers. They keep track of the statistics and 
data. They particularly focus on rescuing kids from being exploited.
  According to NCMEC, the results from SESTA being signed into law has 
been swift and significant. NCMEC said:

       Since the enactment of SESTA and the government's seizure 
     of Backpage, there has been a major disruption in the online 
     marketplace. The robust marketplace for sex trafficking, 
     including the sale of children for rape and sexual abuse, 
     that took a decade to build, fragmented over the course of 
     just a few days.

  They also said:

       Many sites or portions of sites where NCMEC knew children 
     previously have been sold for sex have voluntarily shut down.

  Their bottom line:

       This means it is much harder to purchase a child . . . 
     online.

  This means it is much harder to purchase a child online. That is 
great news, and that is exactly what we intended this legislation to 
do--to save these kids, women, and sometimes boys from being subjected 
to this horrific crime.
  Another analysis was shared with me recently, and you can find this 
online. This analysis found that since our legislation passed, online 
ads selling women and children have been reduced by between 60 and 80 
percent, depending on the State. That is a dramatic change, having the 
effect of saving literally thousands of children.
  I am hopeful we will continue to be vigilant about this issue because 
when you push something down in one place, it often pops up somewhere 
else. But we have done an effective job of dealing with a very real 
problem. Backpage.com, which we talked about, was the industry leader. 
They have now been shut down. The CEO of the company has pled guilty to 
numerous money laundering and trafficking-related charges.
  Because prosecutors can now do their work and go after these online 
traffickers and because victims of this crime can finally have their 
day in court, websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking are 
being shut down and being held liable for their actions.
  This never would have been possible without the work of the Permanent 
Subcommittee on Investigations. The staff and investigators spent 2 
years working on this issue, investigating it. We had to come all the 
way to the floor of this Chamber in order to enforce our subpoenas to 
get the information that we were able to unveil, which no one else had 
been able to find, and that showed clearly that they knew what they 
remember doing. They knew they were selling underage kids online. I 
chair that subcommittee. It is bipartisan. I am very proud of those 
investigators. They do good work, and they deserve to be applauded, 
given the results we are now seeing.
  It is not just Backpage; a lot of other, classified websites have 
also shut down their personal ads or sex-related operations.

                          ____________________