[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 125 (Wednesday, July 25, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H7165-H7166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE IMPACT OF FOSTA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Missouri (Mrs. Wagner) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Speaker, in April, my bill, the Fight Online Sex 
Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, became law. FOSTA allows Federal, State, and 
local prosecutors to go after the online businesses that are 
trafficking our children.
  Signing FOSTA into law has decimated the online sex trade that fuels 
human trafficking in America. Scores of major websites that promoted 
sex trafficking and prostitution have shut down, and countless lives 
have been saved.
  Our communities are better off now because of FOSTA: fewer victims 
are being trafficked; buyers are no longer able to easily purchase 
women and children; and fewer pimps are getting their payday.
  The online slave trade has never been more fragile than today.
  After passage of FOSTA, global ad volume declined 87 percent from the 
daily average. Websites that dominated the illegal sex trade shut down 
for fear of being prosecuted. Websites like Massage Tolls, The Erotic 
Review, and Escorts in College are gone.
  Household names like Reddit, Google, PayPal, and Microsoft updated 
their terms of service to ensure that platforms aren't being abused by 
traffickers.
  Additionally, the Department of Justice shut down backpage.com, and 
its owners were arrested.
  Right now, we have this criminal enterprise on its heels. Buyers and 
pimps don't know where to turn, and traffickers are getting 90 percent 
fewer responses than they got on Backpage and the other leading 
trafficking sites that shut down.
  The bottom line is websites are doing everything they can to avoid 
criminal liability, while trying to keep their criminal enterprise 
alive. But the loopholes that they were utilizing no longer exist.
  Financial institutions are also cracking down on accounts used by 
trafficking. CC Bill, the payment processor of these porn and 
trafficking hubs stopped processing credit cards for websites that 
facilitate prostitution.

                              {time}  1100

  CC Bill was the domestic credit card processor of last resort, and 
websites are now struggling to find a viable alternative.
  Together, we are putting the online slave trade out of business. As 
trafficking becomes less profitable, fewer victims will ever be sold 
and raped.

[[Page H7166]]

  FOSTA is striking fear in the hearts of America's pimps and online 
predators.
  Law enforcement is seeing real results, and that is why FOSTA is 
being called the most significant anti-trafficking law in nearly 20 
years. Experts have repeatedly said that sex trafficking will flourish 
until market force of risk is increased and we create a real criminal 
deterrent. FOSTA establishes that deterrent, and as a result, fewer 
businesses will ever, ever enter the sex trade.
  Sex advertising is at a new low for this decade. And this Congress 
has demonstrated that we can and will hold accountable the businesses 
that profit from the sale of our most vulnerable.
  It is because of the massive bipartisan majorities of both the House 
and the Senate that FOSTA is law today. The results we are seeing in 
our communities are proof that Congress can, and does, work together to 
achieve real results for the American people.
  Lives have been saved, fewer children and women are being sold into 
slavery, and trafficking and prostitution websites are being shut down. 
We are delivering real results for real people and our country is 
better off now because of it.

                          ____________________