[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1846]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the tragedy of human sex trafficking 
cannot be fully realized until one sees the pain of hopelessness in the 
victims' eyes.
  On a recent trip to Honduras, I visited two shelters for sex 
trafficking victims: La Alianza and El Refugio Shelters. Some of these 
victims were as young as 12 years of age. They had been raped, drugged, 
abused, and exploited. These shelters are helping them to regain their 
lives, their dignity and, yes, their hope.
  But don't be fooled into thinking that this vile crime of sex 
trafficking only happens somewhere else. It happens in the United 
States as well. The average age of girls trafficked in the United 
States is between 12 and 14 years of age.
  Like Honduras, our country lacks shelters for these girls. There are 
about 5,000 shelters for animals throughout the country, according to 
the ASPCA, but there are only 226 beds available for domestic minor sex 
trafficking victims, according to Shared Hope.
  This has got to change, Mr. Speaker. It is time for us to rescue the 
child victims of sex slavery and then put the traffickers and the child 
abusers in the jailhouse where they belong.
  And that's just the way it is.

                          ____________________