[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3154-3155]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING DO NOT BELONG IN SHACKLES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, in her formative years, Lena wore 
turtlenecks and baggy clothes to school every day.
  Why did she do so?
  To hide the bruises that covered her entire body.
  Soon, Lena's abusive foster mother lost custody of her. And when her 
foster mother lost custody, Lena just ran away. She was 13.
  After bolting from the front lawn at the Houston middle school, she 
ran into a friendly-looking stranger, and

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that is when she discovered a false sense of comfort in the hands of a 
dastardly human trafficker. He offered to look after her, protect her, 
and love her; that was if she made him a little money. And he offered 
her the one thing she was missing in her 13 years, someone who said 
they loved her.
  Mr. Speaker, love doesn't come with black eyes and bruises, however. 
The trafficker even promised Lena drugs so she could focus on something 
else while she was having sex with the buyers of children.
  For the next 3 months, Lena would have many different traffickers and 
many different buyers. She would spend a few months or weeks with them, 
moving from motel to motel, then she would get scared and try to go 
back to foster care, and then just disappear again.
  Finally, she was arrested after police responded to an internet post 
advertising sex with children. They arrested her trafficker in the 
hotel next door. With her help, the police ultimately charged two 
individuals with forcing a child into prostitution, or human 
trafficking, as we call it.
  Upon her arrest, it was revealed that not only did she have three 
sexually transmitted diseases, she was also pregnant.
  The problem then, Mr. Speaker, is that Lena had nowhere to go. 
Authorities found themselves with an abused, traumatized, demoralized 
trafficking victim, a child, on their hands. Remember, Lena was a 
victim of crime. She was not a criminal. Children cannot be willing 
prostitutes under the law.
  But there were no resources to put her anywhere, no resources to get 
her help and the support that she needed. The very limited number of 
nearby trafficking shelters were all full and there was no place to 
send her, so she was locked up in the county jail.
  Victims of trafficking, Mr. Speaker, do not belong in shackles and 
orange jumpsuits. They belong in safe, nurturing environments. They 
deserve to have access to resources and help to get their stolen lives 
back for them.
  How can a victim begin to recover, while a child, languishing in 
jail?
  The justice system failed Lena and many others just like her, but it 
doesn't have to be this way. Lena deserves justice.
  Sitting here in Washington, D.C., there is a victims' fund totaling 
over $12 billion. Money in this fund comes from fines and fees imposed 
on convicted felons, people like deviants who trafficked Lena. 
Unfortunately, year after year, only a small amount of this money is 
actually taken out of the fund to help victims. Most of it stays in the 
fund and is used by appropriators to offset the costs of their pet 
projects that have nothing to do with victims of crime.
  This is not acceptable, Mr. Speaker. The money, remember, is not 
taxpayer money. It is money that comes from criminals when they are 
convicted in Federal court, and we should give this money to victims of 
crime.
  Money in the fund should be spent only on what victims like Lena 
desperately need so that they can get their lives back together and 
recover from the trafficking abuse they suffered.
  Lena and other trafficking victims deserve justice. They deserve the 
money that is in the fund, and bureaucrats need to quit using that 
money as an offset for other projects. The victim fund is partially the 
answer.
  Mr. Speaker, this should be spent on victims of crime because no 
trafficking victim belongs in the shackles of a county jail.
  And that is just the way it is.

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