[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3324-3325]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HUMAN TRAFFICKING

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, we spend a lot of time, as one would 
expect in a legislative body, talking about the technical aspects of 
legislation and the procedure we use to consider it and pass it, a 
subject which

[[Page 3325]]

perhaps many of us enjoy but which probably turns the public--puts a 
glaze in their eyes and bores them because they don't see the relevance 
of it.
  We talk about motions to proceed and cloture and filibusters, but 
what is important in the Senate is the subject matter of the 
legislation that we apply this procedure or these rules to. This week 
in the Senate we will be undertaking a very important subject; that is, 
how to protect our fellow citizens, many of them children, who are 
needing our help and waiting to be rescued. Those are children who are 
being trafficked in the commercial sex and forced-labor trade--not over 
there, not necessarily just in some other country, but right here in 
the United States of America.
  I believe that we are all created in the image of God, that all human 
beings are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. But the 
criminals who traffic in human flesh treat these same human beings 
created in the image of God as a thing. They treat these children as a 
commodity to be bought and sold. To me that is the very definition of 
evil. A few weeks ago the Judiciary Committee heard from several 
witnesses on what has been called modern day slavery--human 
trafficking.
  I know many of us thought that slavery was an ugly part of our 
Nation's beginning but certainly only something in the past. But the 
truth is that there exists today something that you could legitimately 
call modern day slavery, and that is human trafficking. Now, even 
though institutionalized slavery has long been cast into the dustbin of 
history and is something we read about in our history books, human 
trafficking, particularly sex trafficking, still affects the lives of 
hundreds and thousands of our children.
  Tragically, many of them are young girls. As the father of two 
daughters, it turns my stomach to realize that a majority of the human 
beings who are trafficked are girls who are of middle-school age. In 
the Judiciary Committee, we heard from Malika Saada Saar who represents 
a wonderful organization called Rights4Girls.
  Malika spoke of a young woman named Aviva. According to Malika, Aviva 
was in foster care when a trafficker kidnapped her and held her hostage 
for almost a year. During this time, we learned in the Judiciary 
Committee during that hearing, Aviva was sold to as many as 10 
different men a night. Of course, she did not understand. She could not 
comprehend why an adult man would want to buy her body when she was 
just a child.
  When law enforcement officials found Aviva, she was arrested for 
prostitution at the age of 15. Let me repeat that because it is 
important. This young girl who was kidnapped, raped, and sold nightly--
daily--was treated like a criminal, not a victim. In 1992 Holly Austin 
Smith ran away from home and was forced into a sex trafficking ring the 
summer before her freshman year of high school.
  Within hours of running away, 14-year old Holly was sold for $200 to 
a man who wanted her for sex because he said she reminded him of his 
granddaughter. When police eventually found Holly--still only a child, 
scared and confused, as you can only imagine--they treated her as a 
criminal, not as a victim. Too often these children, who are not of the 
age of consent, are treated as child prostitutes.
  As many of us who have worked on this issue for some time know, there 
is no such thing as a child prostitute. If you are not of the age of 
consent, you cannot consent, and you cannot agree to be used in such a 
horrific way. These are children who are bought and sold for sex--plain 
and simple--as nauseating as that truth is. Malika powerfully said 
during our hearing: ``There should be no difference between raping a 
child and paying to rape a child.'' Now, the individuals who commit 
these crimes--not just the people who traffic in them but the people 
who purchase these services--too often pay a fine and get on with their 
lives. Yet they are the child rapists who should be treated as the sex 
traffickers they are.
  If it were not for the demand, sex trafficking would not have a 
business model. But unfortunately, there is too great of a demand. But 
often the people who purchase these children are treated with impunity. 
Tomorrow, I expect the Senate will move to consider legislation that I 
have introduced with a number of our colleagues from Minnesota, 
Illinois, and Oregon. Indeed, there are a number of Senators who have 
already contributed a lot of very good and constructive work to the 
product we will turn to tomorrow.
  The bill is called the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. The 
most important thing that it does is that it ends the culture of 
impunity for the people who purchase children and other victims of 
human trafficking. It holds the so-called johns and the pimps 
accountable, and it does not focus on the victim who should be treated 
like a victim and helped to heal and get on with their lives. But too 
often they are the ones who are prosecuted and treated as a criminal.
  Instead of being treated as criminals, this bill makes sure that the 
future Avivas and Hollys are treated for what they are, and that is as 
victims. What this bill also does is it takes the money and assets 
forfeited from convicted human traffickers and directs it to services 
for the victims. So future Avivas and Hollys would have a shelter, a 
place to live, a roof over their head, a bed to sleep in, and somebody 
who loves them and cares enough to help them heal and get on with their 
lives. That is the kind of treatment these victims of human trafficking 
deserve--not jail time.
  We know that Washington can be a dysfunctional place more times than 
we would like to admit. So often there are political issues or 
ideological issues that divide us. But the fight against human 
trafficking reminds us that it does not have to be this way. Indeed, I 
was heartened a few weeks ago when this particular piece of legislation 
passed the Judiciary Committee with unanimous support. All Republicans 
and all Democrats on the committee voted to support it.
  Indeed, Republicans and Democrats--not just in Congress but across 
the country--support this legislation, as evidenced by the more than 
200 different organizations, from victims' advocates to law enforcement 
groups, which have joined forces to fight this modern day slave trade 
and to support the legislation we will turn to tomorrow. It is a fight, 
sadly, that must be acknowledged and it must be fought. But it is a 
fight we can win, finally delivering our Nation's promise of freedom to 
those who are enslaved.
  It is not the kind of slavery we read about in our history books or 
the kind that resulted or helped precipitate the Civil War, but it is 
the kind that goes on unbeknownst to most Americans and most people but 
which represents that seamy underbelly of society, one that we must 
expose and one we must reveal as the evil that it is.

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