[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 13425-13427]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN THE U.S.

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 2, 2012

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the problem of 
human trafficking. Every day all over our country, vulnerable women, 
and children and even men are stolen away from their communities and 
forced into work to line the pockets of criminals. Their stories and 
situations are different, but one common denominator remains: they are 
moved away, they are forced to work, their wages are stolen, and they 
are unable to leave. They are modern day slaves.
  Under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, human 
trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, 
provision, or obtaining of a person to perform labor or a commercial 
sex act through force, fraud, or coercion. You can find human 
trafficking victims everywhere. They are working in restaurants; nail 
salons; as maids and nannies; on farms; in factories; in brothels, on 
the street, and as online escorts--they exist in any industry where 
one's work and freedom can be stolen from them.
  The Justice Department supports task forces dedicated to 
investigating human trafficking cases. Between 2008 and 2010, these

[[Page 13426]]

task forces rescued 527 confirmed human trafficking victims. Some of 
the people rescued were sex trafficking victims, others were labor 
trafficking victims. But the statistics are telling. The majority of 
trafficking victims are women: women made up 98 percent of sex 
trafficking victims and 68 percent of labor trafficking victims. The 
traffickers were overwhelmingly (81 percent) male. Most of the victims 
were under the age of 25. With sex trafficking, most of the victims 
were U.S. citizens, while labor trafficking largely affected 
undocumented individuals. But this data just scratches the surface of 
the problem that is out there, within our own borders.
  Hundreds of thousands of trafficking victims are exploited every year 
in the United States. The Polaris Project estimates that there are 
100,000 child sex trafficking victims in the U.S. alone each year. This 
figure came into clear focus in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio back in 
2005, when a child prostitution ring in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was 
broken up. The sting involved 177 girls, 77 of whom were from Toledo. 
One was a ten year old girl. They had all been stolen away from their 
family, from their community, and forced into prostitution in a city 
over 400 miles away. That discovery led to the discovery of many other 
girls from Toledo who had fallen victim to sex trafficking.
  The problem is big, but progress is being made. One state 
representative from Toledo has worked tirelessly to address this issue 
at the state level. Representative Teresa Fedor recently saw her 
signature legislation signed into law. The legislation, Ohio's ``Safe 
Harbor'' law, ensures that children who have been trafficked are 
treated as victims and not charged with violations like solicitation. 
The law also increases the penalties faced by adult traffickers and 
helps victims access services to help return to society. Prior to the 
signing of this law, Representative Fedor passed a law to create a 
human trafficking charge that could be added to related crimes to 
increase the severity of the sentence.
  The good work that Representative Fedor has done will undoubtedly 
help victims of trafficking in Ohio. I would like to ask unanimous 
consent to include an article from the Toledo Blade detailing her work 
in this area.
  Human trafficking will remain a scourge on our society until we can 
assure that no human being is turned into a slave. I applaud the steps 
that have been taken so far, but also recognize that much more needs to 
be done.

               [From the toledoBlade.com, July 31, 2012]

               Fedor Found Voice in Human-Traffic Battle

                           (By Jim Provance)

       Columbus.--``Without her, we wouldn't have a voice,'' a 
     former human-trafficking victim recently said of Rep. Teresa 
     Fedor.
       But one might also say that it was this victim and others 
     like her who gave the Democratic lawmaker from Toledo her 
     voice.
       The former elementary school teacher and former Air Force 
     staff sergeant has without a doubt experienced political 
     success. She'd been in the Ohio House only two years before 
     Lucas County voters promoted her to the Senate in 2002. In 
     2010, when term limits forced her out of the chamber, they 
     sent her back to the House. She faces no Republican 
     opposition for re-election this year.
       But making legislative gains proved more elusive.
       An unscientific poll in the summer of 2007 by Columbus 
     Monthly magazine of 100 lawmakers, lobbyists, and players in 
     Gov. Ted Strickland's administration, and other Statehouse 
     insiders ranked her among the least effective and politically 
     savvy of state lawmakers.
       Her colleagues in the Senate Democratic Caucus, a very 
     small club, dumped her as their elected leader in early 2008 
     after an internal coup.
       But just two weeks ago, many of those same Democratic 
     senators and their more plentiful Republican counterparts 
     gave Ms. Fedor a standing ovation after the chamber 
     unanimously passed House Bill 262, the so-called ``Safe 
     Harbor'' bill.
       Gov. John Kasich is to sign it into law Wednesday at Second 
     Chance, a Toledo social service program offering help to 
     trafficking victims and prostitutes.
       ``There's no higher calling than fighting for those who 
     can't fight for themselves,'' said Sen. Mark Wagoner (R., 
     Ottawa Hills), the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman who 
     helped to work through last-minute changes to get the bill 
     over the finish line.
       ``Teresa is to be commended for taking up this issue, for 
     the energy she put behind it, and for the commitment to see 
     it through,'' he said.
       The bill seeks to push the reset button for government, law 
     enforcement, judges, and others to look at those forced or 
     coerced into selling themselves, especially minors, as 
     victims rather than as criminals.
       Initially struggling to get bipartisan support, Ms. Fedor 
     reached out to a man who, at least through much of 2011, was 
     considered by Democrats to be the enemy--Mr. Kasich.
       When the Republican governor signed on, Ms. Fedor was in 
     disbelief.
       ``This was different for her,'' Mr. Kasich recalled. ``She 
     asked me, `Are you really serious that you're going to help 
     me?'''
       The highly contentious fight over Senate Bill 5, which 
     ended last November when voters rejected the Republican-
     passed restrictions on public employee unions, was still 
     fresh in lawmakers' minds.
       ``I know I'm dancing on the edge of a knife here, but this 
     issue's more important than the politics of this place,'' 
     said Ms. Fedor.
       No political backlash came.
       The trafficking issue has brought Mr. Kasich, the father of 
     12-year-old twin daughters, close to tears multiple times.
       ``I knew about human trafficking worldwide, but I was 
     certainly not aware of the situation in this state. . . .'' 
     he said. ``It doesn't just touch me because I have daughters. 
     That's part of it, but it's anybody's children.''
       In addition to signing the bill into law, Mr. Kasich's own 
     interagency task force on trafficking will release its 
     recommendations on how the state can better respond to the 
     problem on Wednesday.
       ``Instead of prosecuting these people, we're beginning to 
     recognize these people are victims,'' Mr. Kasich said. 
     ``Secondly, those people who knowingly engage with these 
     traffickers and abuse them, the book is going to be thrown at 
     them. We had this bust [near Bowling Green] that's had a 
     significant amount of attention, so the word is out: You're 
     going to jail and for a long time.
       ``And the women who are out there, the people who have been 
     trafficked, they can come forward, and we will not prosecute 
     you,'' he said. ``We will treat you and help you get your 
     life back.''


                           Incremental gains

       The gains have been incremental. In 2008, Ms. Fedor 
     persuaded her colleagues to amend a separate bill to create a 
     human trafficking specification that, when attached to a 
     related crime such as compelling prostitution, could increase 
     the severity of the sentence.
       Ms. Fedor said she knew the specification would not be 
     used, but saw it as the first step to getting human 
     trafficking recognized in Ohio law.
       More important, she said, was a provision authorizing then 
     Attorney General Richard Cordray, a Democrat, to create a 
     commission to quantify modern-day slavery in Ohio.
       The statistics that emerged from the commission were a kick 
     in the stomach.
       They suggested that as many as 2,879 youths born in Ohio 
     are at risk for sex trafficking and that 1,078 have been 
     trafficked over the course of a year.
       In terms of raw numbers of arrests, investigations, and 
     rescues of children involved in the sex trade, the commission 
     suggested that Toledo ranked fourth in the nation behind 
     Miami, Portland, Ore., and Las Vegas. When adjusted for 
     population, Toledo climbed to No. 1.
       ``We feel that the models were reasonable and 
     conservatively estimated, but I also think the estimate woke 
     some people up,'' said Celia Williamson, professor of 
     criminal justice and social work at the University of Toledo 
     and leader of the commission subcommittee that presented the 
     numbers.
       But even when armed with those numbers, she was surprised 
     at the success Ms. Fedor had.
       ``I was astonished that she was able to pass such a 
     comprehensive Safe Harbor law,'' Ms. Williamson said. ``It's 
     more than we could have realistically dreamed.''
       The numbers were somewhat skewed by a 2005 federal child 
     prostitution sting in Harrisburg, Pa., involving 177 females. 
     Seventy-seven of them, including a 10-year-old, were from the 
     Toledo area. A 2006 series by The Blade trained a spotlight 
     on Toledo's role as a major recruiting hub for children in 
     the sex trade.
       ``It made no sense to me that pimps weren't getting 
     arrested, that johns weren't getting arrested,'' Ms. Fedor 
     said. ``They were all misdemeanors. The whole focus was on 
     the prostitutes. In other words, it was always the woman's 
     fault. . . . And then, when I saw that it was reaching down 
     to our children, I thought, `Enough is enough.'?''


                          Rugged determination

       Judge Tim Grendell of Geauga County Common Pleas Court was 
     a Republican state senator in 2010 when he teamed with then 
     Sen. Fedor for the next step, creation of Ohio's first stand-
     alone, second-degree felony of ``trafficking in persons.'' 
     Mr. Grendell's northeast Ohio district was dealing with its 
     own problem of Asian massage parlors investigated for 
     trafficking.
       ``She brought a rugged determination and dedication to the 
     issue that, I think, was critical in passage of that 
     legislation a year and a half ago and this legislation,'' he 
     said. ``In my personal opinion, [the latest bill] certainly 
     would not have passed in this advanced state without her 
     efforts.''
       But he also said that without Mr. Kasich's intervention, a 
     bill as strong as the one that ultimately just passed 
     probably still would have been several years off.
       ``She's been a huge force,'' said Attorney General Mike 
     DeWine, a Republican who resurrected the trafficking 
     commission begun under his predecessor.
       ``She has a real passion for this and persistence,'' he 
     said. ``I've found in government that you have to have those 
     two, and she has them on this issue.''

[[Page 13427]]

       Theresa Flores, of Columbus, a former trafficking victim 
     and now a member of Mr. DeWine's commission, detailed her 
     story in the 2007 book The Sacred Bath: An American Teen's 
     Story of Modern Day Slavery: As a teenager in an affluent 
     Detroit suburb, she was blackmailed and trafficked at night, 
     even if she did return to her own bed under her unsuspecting 
     parents' roof before the sun rose.
       ``[Ms. Fedor] really is empowering victims and survivors to 
     find their voices,'' she said. ``She's helping them to 
     realize that what happened to them wasn't necessarily their 
     fault. Somebody did this to us, and we need to go after 
     them.''
       Although happy with the bill that reached Mr. Kasich's 
     desk, Ms. Fedor is already plotting her next move, battling 
     what she perceives to be a misunderstanding among her 
     colleagues over whether a trafficking victim can consent to 
     prostitution--even if she is over 16, the legal age of 
     consent.
       ``Age of consent should never apply,'' she said. ``These 
     victims are not consenting. They're enslaved. They can't get 
     out. They're being forced to have sex with 20 or 30 men a 
     night--beaten, drugged, raped, kidnapped. They go from city 
     to city. There's no consent involved at all.''

                          ____________________