[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19567]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   SEX AND LABOR TRAFFICKING IN LIBYA

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the auctioneer shouted: ``Does anybody 
want to buy a worker? Here is a worker, a big strong man. He will dig.
  ``What is the bid? What is the bid?
  ``Sold to the highest bid of $400.''
  Mr. Speaker, West Africans go to Libya thinking that they will get a 
job in Europe but, instead, are sold in Libya to labor and sex 
traffickers. These Africans simply seek a new life, free from 
terrorism, persecution, and famine; however, they become victims of 
modern-day slavery.
  In the years following the United States' overthrow of the Libyan 
Government, the nation became a failed state. Sinking further into 
despair, the failed state became a brothel of slavery: human sex and 
labor trafficking. People are bound to the slave block and sold at the 
marketplace of sex slavery and labor trafficking.
  Mr. Speaker, slavery is a crime against humanity, and the United 
States must exercise caution when toppling regimes without 
understanding the long-term consequences like human slavery.
  And that is just the way it is.

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