[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 37 (Thursday, February 28, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1584-S1585]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT AND TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the White House recently unveiled the 
Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, W-GDP, an 
interagency plan to increase women's global labor force participation 
and advancement in the workplace, improve access of women entrepreneurs 
to market opportunities, and remove barriers to economic growth for 
women.
  I support the initiative, although not based on the erroneous claim 
of some in the White House that it is the first women's initiative ever 
launched by the United States. On the contrary, I and many other 
Members of Congress and previous administrations have supported such 
efforts for many years. However, there is still a lot of work to be 
done, and I hope W-GDP builds on those efforts.
  Too many of this administration's actions have fallen far short of 
the President's rhetoric or have been the antithesis of what he 
promised, so while I am ready to do what is necessary to support W-GDP, 
I worry that this initiative may be part of the same story. From human 
trafficking at the southern border, to processing asylum applicants, to 
combating HIV/AIDS, this administration purports to be serious about 
addressing global problems while implementing policies or proposing 
budgets that bear no resemblance to effective solutions and in many 
cases would make the situation worse.
  For example, while the objectives of W-GDP are laudable, it is being 
implemented by the same White House that sought to cut the budget for 
the Department of State and foreign assistance programs by roughly 30 
percent in fiscal years 2018 and 2019, cuts that would have decimated 
funding for programs that address the needs of the world's poorest 
people, for water and sanitation, maternal and child health, education 
and employment opportunities, to stave off poverty and disease that 
disproportionately afflict women and girls. In fact, the President's 
budget did not include a single dollar for W-GDP.
  This administration has also waged war on reproductive health, 
reportedly directing the omission of reporting on reproductive rights 
in the State Department's annual Country Reports on Human Rights, and 
one of President Trump's first acts after his inauguration was to 
reinstate the Global Gag Rule. In fact, egged on by extremists in his 
administration, he expanded it to condition funding for every 
nongovernmental organization, NGO, implementing any health programs for 
the United States overseas, even if their programs have nothing to do 
with reproductive health. In other words, if an NGO spends millions of 
dollars in India to combat HIV/AIDS, but spends $1 of its own private 
funds--not U.S. taxpayer funds--to provide counseling on abortion, it 
is ineligible for any U.S. Government funding for either purpose. Such 
a policy would be unlawful in our own country.
  So while I support W-GDP, I caution all those who defend women's 
rights and support economic opportunities for women to not be 
distracted by one initiative this administration launched on the backs 
of the Congress's rejection of President Trump's budget and to call on 
the White House to adopt a more consistent, comprehensive approach to 
supporting women around the world.
  With that in mind, I hope the White House will speak out forcefully 
and consistently about the institutionalized and systemic persecution 
and discrimination of women in Saudi Arabia and other countries whose 
autocratic and corrupt governments this White House has embraced. If 
the White House expects to be taken seriously about women's 
empowerment, it cannot remain silent about governments whose laws and 
policies treat women as property and that imprison women's rights 
activists.
  This is not the only area in which the administration is purporting 
to support vulnerable populations while its short-sighted policies are 
having the opposite effect.
  In a November 30, 2018, op-ed in the Washington Post, Ivanka Trump 
announced that the administration had

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decided to limit the number of waivers for assistance for countries 
that are identified in the State Department's annual Trafficking in 
Persons Report as failing to meet minimum standards for combating human 
trafficking. She also noted the administration's pledge of $45 million 
to a fund to end modern slavery, funds that, as is true for W-GDP, the 
President did not include in his budget and from an account the White 
House proposed to cut.
  I agree with the goal of holding governments accountable for failing 
to meet minimum standards for preventing trafficking in persons, but 
informed people know that cutting funding for health, education, 
environmental conservation, counterterrorism, and governance programs 
does nothing to prevent human trafficking, while it undercuts our 
ability to make progress on other issues of national interest.
  Yet that is exactly what the administration has done. By belatedly 
approaching human trafficking as if nothing else matters and limiting 
use of the waiver authority Congress provided, administration officials 
have spent months tying themselves in knots over which programs to 
continue and which to suspend. The result is that implementing partners 
are running out of money, services are not being delivered, and 
important programs are shutting down.
  The Trump administration needs to stop governing by sound bite. If 
the White House is serious about addressing human trafficking and other 
complex challenges, it should work with Congress to secure the 
necessary funding and apply the law in a common sense manner that is 
consistent with our national interests.

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