[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 14377-14378]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       TRAFFICKING AWARENESS TRAINING FOR HEALTH CARE ACT OF 2014

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RENEE L. ELLMERS

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, September 9, 2014

  Mrs. ELLMERS. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Trafficking 
Awareness Training for Health Care Act of 2014. This bill will improve 
the health care system's ability to recognize and respond to victims of 
trafficking by providing health care professionals with the knowledge 
and training they need to deal with this modern day form of slavery.
  We know that the victims of sex and labor trafficking in the United 
States suffer from wide-ranging physical and mental health problems. In 
one study, over 87% of these victims have sought care from an emergency 
ward in a hospital, a neighborhood clinic, or a family physician. 
Because of this, these health care professionals are in a unique 
position to identify trafficking victims and help them recover.
  At the same time, we are also discovering that healthcare providers 
and professionals remain unaware of sex trafficking and the role that 
they can play to help them. In fact, even when medical personnel think 
they have identified a victim, which is only about half the

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time, they don't know how to help or are not even aware that there are 
protocols in place to refer them to others for help. This is even more 
distressing because the medical professional is probably the one expert 
most likely to encounter a victim at some point during their 
enslavement.
  Although trafficking is demonstrably expensive to our society--and a 
debilitating public health issue--current federal law does not require 
medical care professionals to receive training regarding the nature and 
scope of sex trafficking in this country. Nor does current law require 
health care professionals to be trained to identify possible 
trafficking victims, nor how to respond to victims if they are able to 
identify them. My bill would take the first necessary steps to make 
this training available.
  The Trafficking Awareness Training for Health Care Act mandates that 
HHS take steps to develop evidence-based protocols to recognize and 
respond to victims of trafficking. It also sets up a comprehensive 
pilot program to test these protocols and determine whether or not the 
protocols will actually result in victim identification and rescue. 
Those protocols that are shown to be evidence-based can then be taught 
to health care professionals as part of their medical and nursing 
school curriculum. They can also be included in continuing-education 
modules.
  The U.S. government estimates that more slaves exist today than ever 
before. Currently, there are more than 20 million victims of human 
trafficking worldwide. Yet most Americans don't realize that 
trafficking is also a huge problem here in the United States. Some 
estimate that as many as 300,000 U.S. children are at risk of sex 
trafficking each year.
  We must take action to stop this horrendous danger to our people. The 
bill I am introducing today instructs the Department of Health and 
Human Services to work with medical and nursing schools to evaluate 
existing protocols, and develop new ones to identify and respond to 
victims of trafficking. It is an appropriate concern for healthcare 
workers and it is my hope that, once health care professionals are 
convinced that the protocols are tested and evidence-based, they will 
welcome the opportunity to incorporate them into their medical training 
so that they can assist the victims and help them heal.

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