[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10652-10653]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                INTERNATIONAL TRAFFICKING OF YOUNG GIRLS

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, while we are in this morning business 
period, I want to take a few minutes to advise the body about a bill 
that has cleared through the House and we have held two hearings on in 
the Foreign Relations Committee and one I hope we are going to be able 
to clear through here and pass into law during this session.
  It is a bill dealing with one of the darker sides of the 
globalization of the world's economy that has occurred around us. 
Globalization of the world's economy has been, by and large, a very 
good thing, a positive thing for growth and opportunity, but it also 
has a seamier side to it. One of the seamier issues that is coming to 
light now is the international trafficking of primarily young girls in 
the sex trade, or as its known, international sex trafficking.
  One is astounded by the level at which this is occurring today around 
the world. By our own Government's numbers, approximately 600,000 
primarily young girls are trafficked from one country to the next for 
the business of prostitution.
  There are about 50,000 girls who are, against their will, trafficked 
into the United States each year into this terrible sort of activity.
  In January of this year, I was in Nepal and visited a home where 
girls who have returned from this terrible trafficking of human 
individuals live. What I saw there was a ghastly sight. There were 
young girls, 16, 17, 18 years of age, most of whom had been tricked out 
of their villages in Nepal and promised a job at a carpet factory or a 
job as a housekeeper in Katmandu--sometimes in Bombay, India these 
girls took the job offered, not having any other economic opportunities 
available to them. Once taking the job and moving out of their villages 
and away from their families they were forced into a brothel. They were 
locked in a room, beaten, starved, and submitted to the sex trade, at 
times being subjected to as many as 30 clients a night.

  I saw them after they had escaped. Or in this case, there was a 
nongovernmental organization, private sector group that was actually 
organized to try to return the young girls to Nepal. Once they were 
freed and got back to Nepal, most of these girls returned only to die. 
Two-thirds of them come back with such things as AIDS or tuberculosis. 
They are coming back to die.
  It is a disgusting, terrible thing that is taking place. We held two 
hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We have had 
witnesses before the committee who had been forced into this trade, 
tricked into it, deceived into it, or thought they were going to do 
something else, and were ultimately trafficked into different places 
around the world.
  Dr. Laura Lederer of Johns Hopkins University has spent several years 
tracking this flow. The committee heard from women from Eastern Europe 
and Europe who had been trafficked into Israel, people who had been 
trafficked throughout Asia and then into the United States from Mexico. 
Most of the trafficking into the United States occurs from Asia.
  They described the conditions surrounding their being bought and 
sold. After they are forced into one brothel, if the brothel owner 
wants somebody else, they will sell this person to another brothel. 
They told us $7,000, $8,000 will exchange hands for the sale of human 
flesh from one place to another--all against this person's will. They 
hated the conditions that they were in, and yet they found themselves 
unable to escape.
  This bill that I mention has passed the House of Representatives. It 
is a bipartisan bill that Congressmen Chris Smith and Sam Gejdenson 
have pushed to get passed through the House of Representatives.
  Senator Wellstone and I have the Senate version of this bill. While 
ours is a different bill, there are a lot of similarities with the 
House bill--which is at the desk. We are seeking to get it passed, we 
hope by unanimous consent, by this body because the issue is so 
terrible, so disgusting, and awful. We need to put some focus on this 
and have some remedies to it.
  Increasingly, you are seeing international organized crime groups 
getting involved in the trafficking of human flesh. Apparently, they 
believe this is a business they can be successful at, that unlike 
drugs, it does not involve as many criminal activities because much of 
this has not been criminalized. They are saying it is a situation where 
they can resell their ``property.'' Unlike drugs they sell once, they 
can sell human flesh multiple times.
  It is just a ghastly, terrible thing that is taking place. Organized 
crime is increasing its activity in this arena, trafficking. We need to 
step up and address it.

[[Page 10653]]

  The bill we have put forward would allow the prosecution of people 
who traffic in human flesh and increase the criminal penalties for 
doing such. It would provide visas for people who are trafficked into 
this country, so they can stay and provide evidence, testifying against 
those who have trafficked them into this country.
  This bill would provide some help to the countries they come from by 
providing educational assistance to work with those governments, to 
work with people that are in-country to work against this sort of 
activity, and to provide more information to people that sex 
trafficking is going on on an expanded, global scale. Nearly some 
600,000 people a year are trafficked in human flesh. Much of this 
happens in the United States, 50,000 people are trafficked into the 
United States on an annual basis.
  I will happily provide to any offices interested in this issue the 
hearing record Senator Wellstone and I have compiled on this bill, so 
Members can look into this issue. If they seek to make modifications to 
improve the bill, our office will be open to work with any office so we 
can reach unanimous consent on this important issue. It is something we 
need to and can address. The Administration wants this addressed as 
well and is working with us to make that happen. The focus on this 
issue is increasing. In fact, you may have seen one of the recent news 
reports about this hideous practice.
  I am hopeful the time is coming where this body will address this, 
that it will not get held hostage to any other legislative matter that 
might be having problems. I am hopeful that we see this as clearly 
something we can address and that needs to be addressed. I will be 
bringing to the Senate individual stories of people who have been 
trafficked because they really tell the terrible plight.
  One lady testified in our committee who was trafficked out of Mexico 
who thought she was going to get a job washing dishes at a restaurant 
in Florida. She agreed to having somebody take her across the border 
illegally. Once in the United States, she was their hostage, she was 
their slave, if we want to put it in those gross types of terms. They 
said: Instead of being a dishwasher, you will be a prostitute for us. 
We are going to move you around in trailers to use, and we will subject 
you to 30 clients a day and, after that is done, to the owners of this 
brothel as well.
  This was the testimony of a witness who reported on activities 
occurring in this country within the past several years. It is 
occurring on a large scale. We need to address it; we need to deal with 
it.

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