[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14429-14434]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  THE SCOURGE OF MINOR SEX TRAFFICKING


                             BIPARTISANSHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Ms. Sinema from the 
State of Arizona for her holding the last Special Order, bipartisan, to 
talk about this terrible plight that has happened to our veterans. 
Twenty-two veterans a day, Americans, commit suicide. So I thank the 
gentlewoman for bringing that to the attention of the House and to the 
American public. That's an issue that we will continue to work on in a 
bipartisan way to help our veterans.
  I would like to, Mr. Speaker, at this time, yield to the gentlewoman 
from the great State of Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen).
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much to the great gentleman from the 
wonderful State of Texas. And I'm so glad that the gentleman brings up 
the word ``bipartisan'' to describe what we just witnessed, very 
heartfelt testimony.
  But, Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of work to do right here in the House 
as well and with the Senate and with the President, because it's time 
for all parties to work together in a genuine, bipartisan, and adult 
manner to avoid a government shutdown. A shutdown is not some abstract 
exercise, as the gentleman knows. It has real consequences for our 
communities and our families.
  The American people sent us to Washington to work together for our 
great Nation, and it is unacceptable for one side to refuse to 
negotiate.

                              {time}  1700

  Where's the President in all of this? The bully pulpit can just as 
equally be used for constructive leadership as it can be used for 
political showmanship.
  Let us work together, get something done, and help America's 
vanishing middle class.
  Mr. Speaker, it is just as important to remember that in addition to 
the constant legislative battles happening right here in Congress, life 
goes on outside of the Capitol. And I want to take

[[Page 14430]]

just a few minutes today to recognize two remarkable south Florida 
organizations that are holding events this weekend.
  Tomorrow, Go Red for Women will be celebrating its 10th anniversary 
in south Florida. The Go Red for Women organization is an impressive 
force to be reckoned with. Many people don't know this, but heart 
disease is the number one killer of women. It is more deadly than all 
forms of cancer.
  Fortunately, we have the strong women of Go Red taking the fight to 
heart disease. Mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends all are 
standing together and leading the change and the charge that we need to 
educate, to advocate, and to raise awareness about heart disease.
  I want to especially congratulate Jessica Cerda-Antomarchi, the Miami 
Heart Society director, as well as Gabrielle Finley-Haze, the 2013 
chair, and all of the women of Go Red. With their continued strength 
and leadership, we will finally put an end to heart disease.
  Finally, let me congratulate the Lupus Foundation of America's 
southeast Florida chapter. They will be holding this year's Walk to End 
Lupus Now in Miami this month. Despite approximately 1.5 million 
Americans suffering from lupus, including my stepdaughter, the lovely 
Katharine Lehtinen, we still do not know what causes lupus. It is a 
cruel and mysterious disease.
  We know that almost 28,000 people are suffering from lupus in my 
south Florida community. While that disease cuts across racial, gender, 
and social lines, we do know that lupus disproportionately impacts 
women and ethnic minority populations.
  So I'm extremely grateful for the outreach and the advocacy of the 
Lupus Foundation of America and especially its southeast Florida 
chapter. As cochair of the Congressional Lupus Caucus, I will keep up 
the fight against this terrible disease, and I extend my deepest 
gratitude to Amy Kelly-Yalden and everyone in the southeast Florida 
chapter for their continued incredible work.
  Let's continue to work together in a bipartisan way to avoid a 
government shutdown, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Reclaiming my time, I want to spend some time 
talking about what I think and believe has become a scourge--a scourge 
not only in America, but in other parts of the world.
  Several years ago, I had the opportunity to be in the Ukraine. I was 
there on some energy issues, and I came in contact with that scourge 
that I will talk about today.
  The Ukraine, because of its location, because of its former Soviet 
connections, and because of its high poverty, has a problem that a lot 
of countries do--and that's human trafficking. I'm not talking about 
people going from one country to another legally or even illegally. I'm 
talking about people being trafficked to other locations for sex 
slavery. The Ukraine is just one of many countries where this seems to 
be occurring.
  One scenario is that young Ukranian women looking for jobs--and 
people from foreign countries come to the Ukraine--they promise them a 
job in another country and that they will be paid a lot of money if 
they will go to this country and work doing whatever. They buy into 
that. They go to that other country, and they are forced into sex 
slavery. There, they are in a situation that is awful. Many of them 
never get out of it. The only way to get out, for some of them, is to 
get someone else convinced to replace them in this scourge.
  The Ukraine is not the only country. It's not even one of the primary 
countries. But it's just one.
  And so I learned about that, and I learned about the situation and 
what they were doing in the country of Ukraine in trying to educate 
young girls about this issue and how this was a trap that they could 
get themselves involved in.
  Recently, I had the chance to be in Central America for several 
reasons. One was about terrorism, narcotics trafficking, drugs, et 
cetera. But I also came upon a situation in Central America in the 
nation of Costa Rica that's a little different, but not really that 
different than what's taking place in Europe and in North Africa, and 
that is the plight, once again, of sex slavery, sex trafficking.
  In all of Costa Rica, there is one shelter for minor sex trafficking 
victims. It is called Salvando Corazones. If my Spanish is correct, 
that means ``saving hearts.'' It's run by an American lady who went 
down to Costa Rica for other purposes, found this problem, and just 
decided to stay. Maria is doing, I think, a tremendous job saving 
hearts. I call her the Mother Teresa of Central America. Her story is 
unbelievable--what she is doing to rescue young girls out of this sex 
slavery, sex trafficking that is taking place domestically in Costa 
Rica.
  So I and Congresswoman Janice Hahn, a Democrat from California, spent 
a Sunday afternoon--it was supposed to be about an hour--talking to 
these folks at this shelter. We spent the whole afternoon talking to 
these girls about their plight, what had happened to them, and what 
Salvando Corazones and Maria are trying to do to treat them and help 
them get back into a life. Because many of them had no life.
  Let me explain it further.
  Prostitution in Costa Rica is legal for adults. Minor prostitution is 
illegal. Prostitution, generally, is legal in Costa Rica. And they 
attract a lot of foreigners to that country, for a lot of reasons, but 
this is one reason: for sex tourism. People from other countries and 
people in Costa Rica take advantage of the legal prostitution system. 
And that's a debate for Americans to have at another time.
  But what occurs is that once that phenomenon starts, it's an easy 
move for a pimp to sell a child into prostitution. Even though they're 
working with legal prostitution, which is also sometimes sex slavery, 
it's easy to move into using children.
  And I asked as many people as I could--the people in the government, 
the people at the shelter--to tell me who these foreigners are that 
come to this nation for sex tourism. And they all really just told me 
the same thing: it's Americans. It's primarily Americans--Europeans and 
other countries as well--for the legal prostitution.
  But then you have these young girls that get caught in this system 
that are sold into trafficking by everybody that comes in contact with 
them. Sometimes it's their own family members. And so this shelter run 
by Maria tries to rescue these young girls and salvage their lives and, 
as the saying goes, save their hearts.
  I have a lot of examples. Time doesn't permit for me to go but only 
an hour. We can't have filibusters in the House of Representatives. But 
during this hour I just want to mention some of the situations and try 
to focus on how sex trafficking, human trafficking of children, affects 
Americans and what may be some things that we need to be aware of. And 
I have changed all the names of these girls because I respect their 
privacy.
  Abigail was born in Miami. Her father was a Costa Rican. Her mother 
was from New York. At the age of 5, Mr. Speaker, her father began 
sexually assaulting her. At 8, she had her first injection of heroin to 
keep her quiet during sex. She was removed from public school and kept 
out of school because teachers were getting suspicious.
  Then, at the age of 11, she was sent by her father to Costa Rica so 
he could have her shared with other people. Generally, the family 
members. She got pregnant twice and decided that if all she was good 
for was sex and the people who really loved her treated her this way, 
she might as well turn to prostitution. So she did.
  She started when she was 11. She was eventually found at a bus stop, 
apparently strung out on drugs, barely hanging onto life. She was 
rescued by this organization and treated with the dignity that she 
deserved. And the process now is a success story. After she was home-
schooled by Maria, she began the healing process. And now she's older, 
she's sober, and she's married, and a child is on the way. That's a 
success story of someone that was put into international sex 
trafficking.

[[Page 14431]]

  At the age of 5--another 5-year-old--Diana was sold by her mother for 
a cell phone in Costa Rica. She was sold every week, for over a year, 
until somebody saw the problem and complained to the government. She 
was actually raised thinking this was a normal lifestyle for a 5-year-
old. The staff at Salvando Corazones rescued her, and they're working 
with her today. I had the chance to meet her. A remarkable person.
  Felicia was raped by her stepfather, gave birth at 13 to her 
brother's child, and is now pregnant again at 16. She was sold by her 
stepfather to someone who wanted to put her to work on the streets. Her 
stepfather thought, this is easy money for me to sell my stepdaughter 
on the streets of Costa Rica. She recently was rescued and is at this 
safe house.
  Of course, we need to understand that these girls are tough. They're 
tough victims to work with. If you talk to anybody, including the 
numerous groups in the United States working especially with these 
young women, they're hard victims. They're mad at the world. They have 
a lot of hate and anger. Of course they do. Who wouldn't, being treated 
this way from a mere infant?
  And so I just want to make it clear to Americans that these victims 
are hard to work with. Understandably, we can see why they are in the 
situation that they are in.
  Why have they become victims? The reason, Mr. Speaker, boils down to 
one word: demand. There is the demand to abuse these young girls for 
money. And the demand being money--the pimp sells the girl so he can 
get money--and the demand being the customer.
  There's three people in this scenario. There is the trafficker that 
goes around trafficking these young women either domestically or 
internationally. On the other end is the victim. And she is a victim. 
She is not a criminal. She is not a prostitute. She's forced into this 
conduct.

                              {time}  1715

  But in the center is the person who demands that service and is 
willing to pay for it. I'm going to spend the rest of my time 
mentioning the demand and what needs to be done about that.
  Beatriz, she was just 14 and was brought to Costa Rica from 
Nicaragua, an internationally trafficked child, to work in a home, 
similar to the young lady that I mentioned in the Ukraine--promised a 
job in another country. She's going to help her family, good person, 
but she's trapped once she gets into that foreign country and that is 
not what she's going to get as a job. But that's what she was promised, 
that you could get a job in Costa Rica. You're from Nicaragua, you're 
poor, you don't have any money; I've got a job waiting for you in Costa 
Rica.
  So she goes, had the thought of helping her family out, and instead 
she was trapped into sex trafficking and forced into prostitution. She 
was sold in hotels, brothels, and luxury condos, and she had to have 
sex with men up to 17 times a day for money. She was gang-raped by 
foreigners, she was tortured into compliance by her pimp, and she was 
drugged so that she would comply. That is slavery, Mr. Speaker, forced 
slavery in the name of money.
  There was a young mother from Mexico named Alma. She came to the 
United States to work in 2009. She, like many others who come here 
looking for a better opportunity, wanted to help her family. She paid a 
coyote to help her cross the border into my home State of Texas. Her 
ultimate destination was South Carolina, but the coyote wanted to stop 
in Houston for some other business. Alma arrived at what she thought 
was a safe house in my congressional district, in an area of what is 
called Spring Branch. She later discovered that this wasn't a safe 
house at all. She said it was a living hell--the home of the leader of 
a human trafficking ring in Houston, Texas.
  Alma and some others that had been trafficked were all told that they 
had to give the trafficker information, because the information they 
gave was about their families so the trafficker could hold them for 
ransom because they were kidnapped. The trafficker made the ransom 
calls to the families demanding money. The problem was, with Alma, her 
family had no money. She was held in that safe house as a hostage, in 
that prison--living hell--and she was sexually assaulted numerous 
times.
  The family, like I said, could not afford to pay any money, and so 
the trafficker used her as a sex slave. She was sold to customers who 
had the demand for that activity. Eventually, though, she was arrested, 
and she was glad she was arrested. Law enforcement did a good job--went 
after the trafficker, got him, got Alma and rescued her. She believed 
that she would have been killed or certainly further abused had she not 
been rescued by the police. Other than the name, it's a real person, 
real victim, trafficked internationally into the United States.
  Unfortunately, many victims are not rescued. Some certainly are not 
rescued very quickly at all, and they face the daily abuse of being a 
slave.
  Who are the individuals that traffic these victims? Well, they cover 
a lot of individuals. You have the drug cartels, for example, and the 
criminal gangs. They traffic young women, and they do it for money as 
well.
  The thing about using a sex slave, there's more money involved in sex 
slavery than there is bringing drugs into the United States. I mean, 
you bring drugs into the United States, it's a one-time deal. You get 
the money. As the bad guy, you're gone, you're captured, you go to 
prison. I used to be a judge. I sent a lot of them to prison. But with 
sex slavery, the trafficker has the ability to use the slave more than 
once, and there's a lot of money. And the risk of what punishment may 
happen to the trafficker is really less than in selling drugs.
  So you have the drug cartels. You have criminal gangs, like the one I 
mentioned with Alma. You have individuals doing this. You have family 
members doing this, either trafficking these kids in their own country 
or moving them to foreign countries.
  And it's happening worldwide, Mr. Speaker. It's not just happening in 
a handful of countries. I don't know the estimate of the number of 
people human trafficked throughout the world, but the numbers are 
staggering from what I do hear.
  I'd like to mention one other person from Texas. Cheryl grew up in an 
abusive home. She was sexually and physically abused by her father. Her 
mother left when Cheryl was young to escape the abuse by this abusive 
male. So at the age of 12, Cheryl ran away. Some of these victims turn 
out to start as runaways from home. She began hitchhiking with truck 
drivers and anyone else that would take her. This led her to end up 
being with a motorcycle group, a biker club, and she was taken 
advantage of by those individuals.
  One of those individuals became a trafficker. So what happened to 
her, after she left home at 12, she was forced to dance at a strip club 
by day, and then at night she was sold on the streets. She was in this 
world of human trafficking. She was not a criminal; she was a victim. 
We need to make sure that's understood. She had no idea how to get any 
help because of the abuse that the trafficker would instill on her if 
she tried to leave.
  It actually happened that she was performing at a strip club and one 
of the patrons figured out she was not an adult. She was 15 by then, 
after all these 3 years of abuse. One of the patrons helped her escape.
  There's a long road to recovery and restoration, but Cheryl's a 
survivor, and she has personally founded the Mission at Serenity Ranch 
to help other victims of human trafficking.
  So those are some examples, Mr. Speaker, of some real individuals.
  When Ms. Hahn and myself were visiting those young girls in Costa 
Rica, their shelter, like I said, is the only one in the country. It's 
up in the mountains. It's hard to get to. We complained a little bit--I 
did--about the rough road, the dirt road going up into the mountain to 
visit this shelter. After visiting with those girls, we didn't complain 
anymore about the rain, the roads. When we left, we just thought about 
those girls. I call them

[[Page 14432]]

girls because they were girls; they're minors. I believe the youngest 
one that I talked to that day was 10 and the oldest was 13.
  When we left, all we could talk about--we didn't really talk much at 
all--was about the plight of how here we are in the year 2013, how 
humanity maybe has progressed in some areas, but in the area of 
slavery, sex slavery, it's maybe getting worse. It has become a 
scourge.
  So, does it just happen in other places? No, sir, it does not. I've 
already mentioned Houston. Houston, because of its location, is one of 
the hubs in the United States for sex trafficking. It's close to the 
Mexican border, the Gulf of Mexico. It's an international city. Young 
girls are brought there, and adult women, and trafficked to other parts 
of the United States.
  So what happens? Well, the police will raid a prostitution ring, 
let's say. They will arrest the trafficker, the pimp. They will arrest 
the victim, even though, in many cases, she was forced into 
prostitution. They put the victim in the criminal justice system--
usually the juvenile justice system, but it's still the criminal 
justice system. They go to jail.
  And here's one of the reasons why--and I'm not faulting the police, 
because I know a lot of police officers and a lot of them that work in 
this area; tough assignment. But, Mr. Speaker, there's no place to put 
them. There's no place where that police officer can take that 12-year-
old trafficked victim that has been forced into prostitution, either 
domestically or internationally. There is no place to put them at all.
  I understand from SPCA that there are about 5,000 animal shelters in 
the United States. That's great. I have dalmatians. I've gotten 
dalmatians from Operation Rescue, from a shelter, from the SPCA, so I 
think that's a good thing that we've got those shelters for animals.
  But in the United States, for minor sex trafficking victims, there 
are 226 beds. That's it. That's all there is. So the police officer 
often doesn't have a place to take this victim, a minor sex trafficked 
victim, except put them in jail for their safety and for other 
purposes.
  You can see a lot of problems with putting them in jail. First, they 
have a criminal record even though they are not a criminal at all. 
They're forced into this. So that doesn't make them a criminal. That 
makes them a victim. They have a criminal record. They're put in the 
criminal justice system. Once they're in the criminal justice system, 
they stay in the criminal justice system because there's no place to 
put them.
  I will put into the Record the statistics I have obtained of the 226 
beds for minor sex trafficked victims, where it comes from, different 
organizations, Shared Hope, et cetera.

    Shelters for Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Victims in the U.S.

       According to a provider survey conducted by Shared Hope 
     International, ECPAT-USA, and the Protection Project in 
     conjunction with Children at Risk as part of their 2012 
     National Colloquium on shelters and services, there are 226 
     beds for domestic minor sex trafficking victims in the U.S.
       According to a survey conducted by Polaris Project from 
     January-June 2012, there are 348 beds in the U.S. designated 
     specifically for sex trafficking victims.
       There are about 5,000 community animal shelters nationwide 
     according to the ASPCA.

  So that is a problem we need to work on--finding places to put them 
when they are rescued--and having a mindset changed in this country 
that we as Americans see this situation in three parts:
  We see the trafficker;
  We see the demand, the customer--I'll get back to that person again 
in a minute;
  But we see this third person as a prostitute, no, but a victim, yes, 
and treat them as a victim, and we can go a long way helping stop this 
problem of the scourge of human trafficking.
  So I've introduced legislation, bipartisan legislation, with Carolyn 
Maloney, a Democrat. Carolyn Maloney has been working on this 
trafficking issue before I was ever in Congress. But we've introduced 
the End Sex Trafficking Act, along with Kay Granger from Texas, Rick 
Nolan, and Kristi Noem in the House. On the Senate side, it's 
bipartisan as well. Senator John Cornyn and Senator Amy Klobuchar have 
the same bill in the Senate.
  What does it do? Well, let me mention this. The United States spent 
about $25 million in 2010 on domestic antitrafficking. The United 
States spent $85 million on international efforts to stop human 
trafficking. Yes, there is more for international trafficking issues, 
helping those, than there is in the United States, $25 million.
  That is a number, but in the big scheme of things, what is $25 
million? Well, I understand a Predator costs $25 million. The United 
States spent $25 million teaching pottery classes in Morocco. About $25 
million was given to Pakistan for their schools. I'm just saying how 
much $25 million is. It's not a lot of money, but that's how much money 
was spent in the United States in 2010 on this issue.

                              {time}  1730

  So what we want to do is to expand that amount of money. I'll show 
you how we are going to do it without raising taxpayer money. But 
specifically talking about the End Sex Trafficking Act that we've 
introduced.
  Here's what the Federal law does. If the trafficker, a bona fide 
human trafficker gets caught, Federal law is tough. These Federal 
judges, God bless them, they are really nailing these traffickers, as 
they should. I mean, they are the scum of the Earth, these people that 
sell little girls--and boys too--for sex slavery.
  On the other end, of course, we are not doing a whole lot to find 
homes, shelters, for the young girls. But the person that escapes, 
really, prosecution is the person in the middle--the customer. So what 
we have done in this bill, the End Sex Trafficking Act, we are going 
after the customer, the demand, because as I mentioned earlier, that is 
the root of all this evil, is that there is the demand for it. All we 
do is we apply the same Federal laws to the trafficker to the 
customer--sure there has got to be a Federal nexus. Interstate commerce 
has got to be involved. We are talking about only Federal cases, we are 
not talking about State cases--so that the demand is decreased by 
punishment because, as we all know, we've seen the reports of when a 
prosecution ring is busted somewhere, not involved in trafficking 
necessarily, you find out the name of the pimp and how careful we go 
out of our way to protect the identity of the person that's the 
customer. Well, those days are going to end if we get this legislation 
because those customers are going to be able to be punished under the 
law for buying sex, giving that money to a trafficker to have sex with 
minor children in the United States. So that's what we do in this bill. 
The days of ``boys being boys,'' they're gone, hopefully. We can make 
sure that they are gone by making sure that they're held accountable 
for the actions that they chose to voluntarily do.
  As I mentioned, I used to be a criminal court judge in Texas. If I 
had my way and I was writing the law the way I thought it would be best 
to stop the demand, these people who are convicted, they would not only 
go to jail--you talk about having photographs on the Internet--we would 
have the photograph of the customer, the person that abused the child 
that had been sold into sex slavery. That would slow that down. It 
would slow the demand down if we started publicizing who those people 
were if they were convicted. If there was no demand, there would be 
less supply. The demand is the answer, I think, Mr. Speaker, into going 
in after stopping the scourge on the United States and other countries.
  There are over 100 organizations that support this bipartisan 
legislation. I would like to put the names of these 100 organizations 
into the Congressional Record.
  That's the first step: hold a person who buys this girl--this crime--
accountable for their conduct.
  But let's go back to the victims of the crime. The victims of the 
crime need help as well. In fact, that should be our first priority, 
rescuing those victims. I told you about how many shelters there are in 
the United States,

[[Page 14433]]

or beds, less than 300 beds for minor sex trafficking victims 
exclusively. We need places to take these young women primarily and 
help them regain some life because life had been stolen from them.
  How do we do that? I mentioned to you we spend $25 million a year on 
domestic sex trafficking victims, about $85 million a year, foreign 
countries receive that. We are introducing soon the Justice for Victims 
of Trafficking Act. Once again, Carolyn Maloney from New York--
bipartisan--is the cosponsor in the House. I mention ``bipartisan'' for 
a lot of reasons. This is a bipartisan issue. But Carolyn Maloney, she 
and I don't see a lot alike on a lot of issues. I mean, we disagree on 
a lot of things. We don't even speak the same language. I mean, she's 
from New York, I'm from Texas. We need an interpreter when we talk to 
each other.
  But this issue it is an American issue. I appreciate the work she's 
done, and others on both sides, on focusing in on trying to solve this 
problem. And once again, John Cornyn in the Senate is leading the 
efforts over there.
  So what we are going to do on this legislation is try to fix current 
law, a law that was first originated, I think, by Chris Smith from New 
Jersey years ago.
  Let me explain to you the problem with this. When a victim from 
another country is trafficked into the United States--and let's use a 
girl, a young girl--because she is from a foreign country, and she is 
trafficked internationally into the United States--and if she is 
rescued she is able to receive certain services from Health and Human 
Services--she can be certified as a human trafficking victim. Once she 
receives that certification that she is actually a trafficking victim, 
there are certain services available to her, but only to international 
victims.
  So this law will say, look, we are going to treat international 
victims, yes, help them, but if it's a domestic victim they're going to 
be able to receive those same services, and shelters will be able to 
receive those same services as an international trafficking victim. So 
once they can obtain certification that they are a trafficking victim, 
then they can apply and receive those same services as well.
  But also we want to be able to have funding for the shelters that we 
need throughout the country. Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to talk to you 
about raising taxes--that's not the issue--or even taxpayer money.
  How are we going to come up with some money for grants for these 
nonprofits throughout the country that are really doing as good a job 
as they can but are short on money? Well, let's go back to the 
courthouse. We have got people that are coming down to the courthouse 
that are being convicted of being involved in human trafficking. We get 
the customers involved in punishment, as well as the trafficker.
  This legislation would require that these criminals pay rent on the 
courthouse. They'll pay for the crime that they have committed, the 
system they have created. Not just with going off to the penitentiary, 
the Do Right Hotel, but they are going to pay into a fund--$5,000 will 
go into a fund. This fund then will be money that will be open for 
grants, going through the grant process of the Federal Government, for 
nonprofit organizations and other organizations, other government 
entities, to receive for funding to help the victims.
  The money is needed. We are spending $25 million. Let's get some 
more. Let's punish those criminals, make them pay for it, go to prison, 
hold them accountable, pay the fine. And, of course, the fine would 
come after restitution. There will be restitution to the victim. 
Federal judges know how to do all of those things. Then the money would 
go into the fund that would go to trafficking victims, similar to the 
VOCA fund concept that was used or began several years ago where 
criminals generally in Federal Court pay into a crime victims 
compensation fund. That money then goes to crime victims. But this 
would be a special fund that those people convicted of those dastardly 
crimes would be required to pay into.
  That's the basis of the bill. Let's try to get a grip on this issue--
hold people accountable, hold the trafficker accountable, hold the 
person that is the customer accountable, and then rescue the victim and 
treat her with the dignity that she deserves as a human being and get 
them out of that slavery that they have been trapped into. We will soon 
introduce that legislation in the House and in the Senate.
  Mr. Speaker, this conduct that I have talked about I would hope would 
concern Americans. As I mentioned, I spent a lot of time at the 
courthouse in Houston, first as a prosecutor, 22 years as a criminal 
court judge, saw a lot of victims of crime, a lot of children, a lot of 
those cases, many of these cases, were crimes that were sexual assault.
  Sexual assault cases are a unique type of case, Mr. Speaker. Sexual 
assault cases against minors have a dramatic impact on the minor. 
Sexual assault against minors that have been trafficked into slavery, I 
don't know of anything worse because of the repetition of the crime 
that is committed against that child.
  These traffickers, when they commit these crimes, these assaults, on 
young women primarily, boys as well, or older adults who are still 
forced into prostitution, that is a sexual assault, it is a crime. When 
a person commits the crime of sexual assault against another, it is 
more than a physical crime. It is a crime where the perpetrator tries 
to steal the soul, the very life, the very heart of the victim, and 
sometimes, Mr. Speaker, they are successful.
  That is why sexual assault is such a horrific crime, because it goes 
after the inner being of the victim. That's why it ought to bother us 
that that occurs. It ought to bother us that what's taking place in 
other parts of the world--whether it's in Europe, central South 
America, and in the United States--against children, it ought to make 
us mad so that we can do something about it and hold people 
accountable.
  Congressman Jim Costa and myself--a Democrat from California and I--
started the Victims' Rights Caucus several years ago in 2005, 
bipartisan, to try to help victims of crime. We have a lot of Members 
on it--almost 100. We are focusing on this issue of minor sex 
trafficking victims in the United States, and in other countries, to 
try to get them rescued--to take them to shelters like Mario runs in 
Central America, the same type.
  When Ms. Hahn and I were there at this shelter talking to these girls 
they were happy to see us--really happy to see Ms. Hahn. She just has 
that personality. You know, I'm kind of a grumpy old guy from Texas. 
They were pleased that somebody actually cared about them, and they 
made us things. I have a bracelet that a young girl made for me--Ms. 
Hahn has one too. They tied it on our wrist. I get a lot of things. I 
have 10 grandkids. They make me things. I wear this bracelet for a lot 
of reasons. One, because a child gave it to me that had just horrible 
things happen to her in her life.
  It is important for us--with all of the issues we've got to deal with 
here in Congress in the United States--that we get back to some basics 
about how other people in this country are treated. When they are not 
treated right we need to be upset about it. In this case, we need to 
hold people accountable for doing things to kids.
  We can do that. We can make things better--treat victims like they're 
victims, hold criminals accountable, stop the demand for minor sex 
trafficking by putting those folks in jail, making them pay into a fund 
that goes to grants that will end up in the hands of shelters that try 
to help these kids, and some other things.
  Awareness is very important. It has been said by a lot of people over 
the years that when we are judged, either as a Nation, Congress, 
country, we are not judged by the way we treat important folks, we are 
not going to be judged by the way we treat the rich, the famous, the 
powerful.

                              {time}  1745

  We are going to be judged by the way we treat the poor, the 
unfortunate, the elderly, children, and victims of human suffering.

[[Page 14434]]

  I hope we are judged well.
  I hope we see the American conscience raised to a level of: this is 
important. Children are important in this country, and those who have 
had bad things happen to them, we're going to be concerned about it and 
not just walk over, as the Good Book says, on the other side of the 
road and pass them by.
  And that's just the way it is.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

       American Association of University Women (AAUW), American 
     Bar Association (ABA), Americans Overseas Domestic Violence 
     Crisis Center, Araminta Freedom Initiative, Attorney General 
     of Texas Greg Abbott, Aware, Inc., Breaking Free, Coalition 
     Against Trafficking in Women Child Justice, Inc., Child 
     Welfare League of America, Children's Advocacy Institute-
     Sacramento, Children's Assessment Center-Houston, Children's 
     Defense Fund, Children at Risk, Council on Church Financial 
     Integrity.
       County Welfare Directors Association of California, 
     Courtney's House, Covenant House International, Crittenton 
     Services for Children and Families, Division of Indian Work, 
     Erik L. Bauer, Attorney at Law, WA, Empire State Coalition of 
     Youth and Family Services, End Child Prostitution and 
     Trafficking-USA Equality4Women, Equality Now, Florida 
     Coalition Against Trafficking, Foster Family-based Treatment, 
     Association Fraternal Order of Police, Futures Without 
     Violence, Georgia Women For a Change, Inc., Girls for Gender 
     Equity.
       Give Way to Freedom, Harris County, TX Sheriff Adrian 
     Garcia, Heartland Girls Ranch, Human Rights Project for 
     Girls, Illinois Victims.org, Innocents at Risk, International 
     Association of Chiefs of Police, International Initiative to 
     End Child Labor, Jesse Duplantis Ministries, Jewish Women 
     International, Junior League of Seattle, Lakewood Church, 
     Lauren's Kids, Lutheran Social Services of New England 
     MaleSurvivor.
       Maryland Human Trafficking Taskforce, Men Can Stop Rape, 
     Minnesota Alliance on Crime, Minnesota Indian Women's 
     Resource Center, Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault 
     Coalition, Multnomah County, OR Department of Community 
     Justice, Nancy O'Malley, District Attorney, Alameda County, 
     CA, National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (NAESV), 
     National Association for Children's Behavioral Health, 
     National Association of Council for Children, National 
     Association of County Human Services Administrators, National 
     Association of Police Organizations, Inc., National CASA 
     Association, National Center for Housing and Child Welfare.
       National Children's Alliance, National Coalition Against 
     Domestic Violence, National Council of Juvenile and Family 
     Court Judges, National District Attorneys Association, 
     National Domestic Violence Hotline, National Network to End 
     Domestic Violence (NNEDV), National Network for Youth (NN4Y), 
     National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA), National 
     Organization of Women, National Task Force to End Sexual and 
     Domestic Violence, New Media Company, New York State Anti-
     Trafficking Coalition NOMI Network, PACE Center for Girls.
       People Against Violent Crime, Perhaps Kids Meeting Kids Can 
     Make a Difference, Pierce County, WA Coalition Against 
     Trafficking, PROTECT, Sanctuary for Families, Saving 
     Innocence, Sensibilities Prevention Services, Sex Trafficking 
     Survivors United, Shared Hope International, Sheriff Marlin 
     Gusman, Sheriff of New Orleans Sheriff Thomas Dart, Cook 
     County Illinois Sheriff Southeast King County, WA Coalition 
     Against Trafficking, State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, 
     Washington District 36.
       State Senator Sandra L. Pappas, Minnesota District 48 and 
     President of Senate, Street Grace, Susan D. Reed, District 
     Attorney, Bexar County, TX, Texas Association Against Sexual 
     Assault (TAASA), Texas CASA, The Advocates for Human Rights, 
     The Center for Children & Youth Justice The Demand Project, 
     The Family Partnership, The Freedom Center of New Orleans, 
     The National Crittenton Foundation, The NYC Association of 
     Runaway, Homeless, and Street-Involved Youth Organizations.
       The Protection Project, The Women's Center of Tarrant 
     County, The Women's Foundation of Minnesota, To Love Children 
     Educational Foundation International, Inc., Washington 
     Engage, Witness Justice, World Hope International, World 
     Vision International, YouthCare youthSpark/A Future. Not A 
     Past.

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