[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 21]
[House]
[Page 28836]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   PROTECT SEXUAL TRAFFICKING VICTIMS

  (Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, today the House Judiciary 
Committee will hold a hearing on the Trafficking Victims Protection 
Act. Sex trafficking has been called the slavery issue of the 21st 
century. And because girls and women are its victims, it is one of the 
great women's issues of our time.
  The lives of trafficking victims are pure horror. These photographs 
that are in the current issue of Prism magazine include mug shots or 
photographs of trafficked women arrested for prostitution over periods 
ranging from 1 to no more than 3 years.
  Better than words could ever convey, the photos display the 
destruction that takes place for hundreds of thousands of trafficked 
girls and women. Notice how when they were first arrested, they all 
look distinctly different. But in the end, they all look the same. You 
cannot tell the difference from one to the other. That is because they 
have been abused, psychologically battered, broken and devastated at 
the hands of their pimps.
  We need effective prosecution strategies against their traffickers.
  We need to protect the victims of the sex trade industry and punish 
the predators who exploit them.

                          ____________________