[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8192-8194]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    TARGETED REWARDS FOR THE GLOBAL ERADICATION OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING

  Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and 
pass the bill (H.R. 1625) to amend the State Department Basic 
Authorities Act of 1956 to include severe forms of trafficking in 
persons within the definition of transnational organized crime for 
purposes of the rewards program of the Department of State, and for 
other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 1625

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Targeted Rewards for the 
     Global Eradication of Human Trafficking'' or the ``TARGET 
     Act''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
       (1) Trafficking in persons is a major transnational crime 
     that threatens United States national security and 
     humanitarian interests.
       (2) Trafficking in persons is increasingly perpetrated by 
     organized, sophisticated criminal enterprises.
       (3) Combating trafficking in persons requires a global 
     approach to identifying and apprehending the world's worst 
     human trafficking rings.
       (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that 
     the Department of State's rewards program is a powerful tool 
     in combating sophisticated international crime and that the 
     Department of State and Federal law enforcement should work 
     in concert to offer rewards that target human traffickers who 
     threaten United States national security and humanitarian 
     interests by preying on the most vulnerable people around the 
     world.

     SEC. 3. REWARDS FOR JUSTICE.

       Paragraph (5) of section 36(k) of the State Department 
     Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (22 U.S.C. 2708(k)) is 
     amended--
       (1) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by striking 
     ``means'';
       (2) by redesignating subparagraphs (A) and (B) as clauses 
     (i) and (ii), respectively, and moving such clauses, as so 
     redesignated, two ems to the right;
       (3) by inserting before clause (i), as so redesignated, the 
     following:
       ``(A) means--'';
       (4) in clause (ii), as so redesignated, by striking the 
     period at the end and inserting ``; and''; and
       (5) by adding at the end following new subparagraph:
       ``(B) includes severe forms of trafficking in persons, as 
     such term is defined in section 103 of the Trafficking 
     Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7102).''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Royce) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.


                             General Leave

  Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their 
remarks and to include any extraneous material in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1625 is the human trafficking TARGET Act. It 
authorizes the State Department and Federal law enforcement to target 
international human traffickers, and they can do that by offering 
rewards for their arrest or conviction anywhere around the globe.
  Mr. Speaker, I think for all of us, with some of the cases we have 
had in our districts, some of our constituents, some of the victims, 
this is pretty close to all of us. It has touched many of our 
communities, because trafficking in persons here in the U.S. and 
worldwide is a major global crime that destroys countless lives at home 
and abroad, and the most vulnerable are destroyed by this.
  Many of these persons--and they are primarily women and children--are 
trafficked into international sex trade by force or by fraud or by 
coercion. And I will remind everyone, out in southern California, in 
L.A., the average age of a girl being trafficked is 14. In Orange 
County, the average age is 14.
  So when I say ``by force,'' we are talking about abduction. When I 
say ``by fraud,'' that is a situation where they get one of these 
gigolos, one of those Romeos--they call them--to go out, convince some 
girl to run off with him, get her out of State, and then he sells her 
to a criminal gang. The gang sells her to the crime syndicate. Now her 
fate is sealed. Or through coercion, and we have heard these cases. At 
14, young people are pretty gullible, what this criminal organization 
is going to do to her sister or to her parents if she does not go 
along.
  So this transnational crime also includes forced labor. It involves 
significant violations of public health, human rights standards 
worldwide, and every other kind of moral standard you could think of. 
And that is why, as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and 
as Representative for the 39th District in California, I have, over

[[Page 8193]]

the last few years, made working on this issue and moving legislation 
on this horrific crime a top priority for the committee, and we have 
had bipartisan support throughout for this legislation. We have enacted 
many bills in recent years, including the International Megan's Law 
last February. We have held committee hearings in Washington, in L.A., 
and in Orange County to hear firsthand from victims.
  For example, at a field hearing in Fullerton, we heard from Angela 
Guanzon, who was trafficked from the Philippines into coerced servitude 
in Los Angeles where she worked for 18 hours a day every day without a 
weekend off, without a holiday off, was forced to sleep on the hallway 
floor until a sharp-eyed neighbor finally alerted law enforcement.
  I helped establish a Human Trafficking Congressional Advisory 
Committee. I established that in the 39th District for L.A., Orange 
County, and San Bernardino. We have local law enforcement involved in 
that as well as the Federal authorities, victims rights groups, and 
community advocates in California to address these concerns, to try to 
come up with solutions.
  Mr. Speaker, we have made progress, but there is still so much work 
to be done. If we are going to end human trafficking, it will take all 
of us working together, so I want to thank Ranking Member Engel, of 
course, Congressman Connolly, and the coauthor of my legislation here, 
Lois Frankel, for their outstanding work on this measure.
  As has been discussed today, trafficking in persons is increasingly 
perpetuated and perpetrated by sophisticated transnational criminal 
enterprises. The traffickers themselves operate outside sometimes of 
our borders. Other times they are inside our borders, but the profits 
from the trafficking industry contribute to the expansion of organized 
crime and terrorism here and worldwide.
  That is why combating human trafficking requires a global approach to 
identify and apprehend the world's worst offenders. This TARGET Act for 
traffickers does that. It targets human trafficking globally through 
the Department of State's very successful Rewards Programs.
  Rewards issued under these programs have led to the capture of major 
terrorists and international criminals, including--I will remind 
Members--Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in the 1993 bombing of the 
World Trade Center, several members of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group 
who kidnapped and killed American citizens, and over 60 major 
international drug traffickers. All of them were convicted with the 
help of this particular program that we want to expand now, that we 
want to apply here.
  A reward on one's head creates real fear for terrorists and 
criminals. At one committee hearing, a State Department official 
testified that one captured narcotics trafficker told DEA agents he 
would no longer trust anyone in his organization after the U.S. put a 
$5 million reward for his capture.
  I remember the quote. He said he felt like a hunted man.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, we want human traffickers to know the fear of 
being hunted.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I laud the leadership of the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Royce) and my good friend, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. 
Frankel), for taking a particular lead in our committee on this 
terribly important topic.
  I rise in support of H.R. 1625, the Targeted Rewards for the Global 
Eradication of Human Trafficking Act. Let me start by again thanking 
both of my colleagues for their leadership. I am also proud to be an 
original cosponsor of this bill to help bring human traffickers to 
justice.
  Human trafficking is an abhorrent practice, increasingly perpetrated 
by organized criminal enterprises, that deprives people of their most 
precious gift: human autonomy. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness presume autonomy. Without autonomy, identity is lost, and the 
ability to pursue those inalienable rights Thomas Jefferson wrote about 
in our Declaration of Independence do not exist. They are nullified. 
This major transnational crime threatens United States security and 
humanitarian interests all over the world.
  This bill would allow the State Department to pay cash through the 
Rewards for Justice program for information leading to the arrest and 
conviction of human traffickers worldwide. These cash rewards are a 
proven method for cracking open international criminal networks.
  Congress originally established the program to gain more information 
in terrorism cases. We have since expanded it to include other crimes 
as well. With this legislation, we will give law enforcement the 
ability to use this valuable tool in the fight against human 
trafficking.
  Over the last two decades, the United States has actively fought 
human trafficking through provisions laid out in the Victims of 
Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which established the annual 
Trafficking in Persons Report and subsequent reauthorizations.
  Human trafficking is nothing short of modern-day slavery. As the TIP 
Report demonstrates, human trafficking affects, unfortunately, every 
country in the world, including, of course, the United States, as the 
distinguished chairman described.
  As ranking member of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government 
Operations, I joined with the then-subcommittee chairman, James 
Lankford, now Senator from Oklahoma, to investigate the abuse of 
foreign nationals employed by government contractors. Together, we 
introduced the End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act, which was 
enacted as part of the fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.
  Whether it takes the form of forced labor or sexual exploitation, 
every case of human trafficking deprives an individual of their basic 
human rights. More than 20 million people fall victim to this heinous 
crime every year. A disproportionate share of the victims are women and 
children, and only a very small fraction will ever see their 
traffickers held accountable. We must and can do more to bring the 
perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill. It will give law 
enforcement a proven method to help finally bring an end to this 
modern-day slave trafficking.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my 
time to close.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Florida (Ms. Frankel), my good friend and coauthor of this 
important piece of legislation.
  Ms. FRANKEL of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Connolly and, of 
course, the chair of our committee for his fine work and our ranking 
member.
  Mr. Speaker, as we have heard already, human trafficking is a global 
crisis of epic proportions. An estimated 12 to 20 million men and women 
around the world are being subjected to slavery of some sort. In fact, 
it is the number two criminal enterprise on Earth.
  I have seen the effects of this human trafficking up close. Mr. 
Speaker, I want to talk about a couple visits I made.
  When I went to Peru, I went to a couple shelters there, which were 
now the homes of young girls who had been trafficked. The first one I 
went to, there were girls in their mid-teens who had been raised in 
families that were very, very poor. Their families were approached by 
these traffickers, who told them they would take their children, take 
their daughters to ``the promised land.'' They were going to take them 
to an area in Peru where they would be educated, well fed, and well 
nourished.
  What they really ended up doing was taking these young girls and 
basically enslaving them. They found themselves in people's homes where 
they would be locked up, literally, for years. From

[[Page 8194]]

the time the Sun came up to the time the Sun went down, these children 
told their stories of having to, for example, peel potatoes, peel 
potatoes day and night. No education, no mingling with their peers, 
just deprived of the joy of childhood.
  At another shelter we went to, we visited young girls, again, who had 
been saved from their slavery. They had been kidnapped off the 
streets--they were now teenagers--when they were 9 and 10 and 11. I 
mean, it was just hard for me to hear these stories. I am sure it will 
be hard for you to hear these stories. When they were preteens, they 
were kidnapped off the streets. Some of them were locked in trunks. 
They were beaten. They were forced in submission to become sex slaves 
to miners. Again, children deprived of their education, deprived of 
their innocence.
  I am not only haunted when I think back on them, I am haunted because 
I remember looking in their eyes--looking in their eyes--and saying to 
myself: How could this happen? How in our civilization do we let this 
happen to innocent children?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentlewoman from Florida.
  Ms. FRANKEL of Florida. Mr. Speaker, when I returned home to the 
United States, I heard a story from a young woman named Shandra, who 
had a work visa to come over here from Indonesia to work in a hotel. On 
her way over, she was kidnapped by traffickers and forced into 
commercial sex slavery for 2 to 3 years on the I-95 corridor. The way 
she escaped was through a bathroom window.
  I thank Mr. Royce for letting me have an opportunity to join him in 
this legislation, which is going to target these sex and labor 
traffickers, give a powerful tool to stop what we call modern-day 
slavery. I am very proud to support the TARGET Act.
  Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Frankel) especially for the trips that she has made 
overseas--not just here in the United States--to do this investigative 
work to expose trafficking and for being the original lead Democratic 
coauthor with me on this bill. I also want to again thank Gerry 
Connolly for his work.
  I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), the chairman 
of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and 
Trade. He has done a great deal of work over the years on this issue as 
well.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this is an excellent piece of 
legislation.
  Like Ms. Frankel mentioned during her comments on the floor, we had 
the opportunity to go to Peru together to visit children who were way 
up in the mountains being protected from those deviants who wanted to 
traffic them not only in Peru, but other parts of South America.
  I had, also, the opportunity to go to Costa Rica and meet some young 
girls who were being trafficked in Costa Rica and into other foreign 
countries. I remember one girl named Lilli. She was 7 years of age when 
I met her. She did not talk at all, even though she had the physical 
ability to talk, but she did not talk because of the trauma that she 
had been through before she had been rescued and put in that shelter in 
Costa Rica.
  There are a lot of little girls like Lilli throughout the world, 
including in the United States. Societies must make the decision now 
that we will not tolerate the stolen innocence of young children by 
those who sell them on the marketplace of slavery for money, whether 
that is the trafficker, the slave master, or the buyer, the consumer. 
We, as a world, cannot tolerate that.
  The United States has taken the lead on international trafficking 
and, I believe, on trafficking here in the U.S. This legislation, the 
TARGET Act, makes it clear that we are not going to tolerate this 
conduct and that those people who act this way in the slave trade are 
going to be held accountable for their conduct, and the consequences 
for what they do are not going to be pleasant. Plus, we are going to 
rescue those young children.
  I support this legislation, Mr. Speaker.
  And that is just the way it is.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Let every Member of Congress who is a parent, let every American who 
is a parent ask himself or herself: How would you feel if your loved 
one, your child were made prey by human traffickers? Imagine the 
heartache. Imagine the terrible grief, the trauma and tragedy of such a 
situation--and now remember 20 million fellow human beings go through 
that experience every year.
  This is a crime that is repugnant to all human value. This is a crime 
we can stop. This is a subject matter that can bring us together, 
irrespective of whether we are Democrats or Republicans, for the sake 
of our fellow human beings, for the sake of that human autonomy that is 
celebrated in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the 
Constitution of the United States and the United Nations' Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights.
  Let us take this step today. Let us rededicate ourselves to the idea 
that all human autonomy is sacred and that that is what we, too, are 
dedicated to support and uphold. I urge passage of the legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Let me say that, for republics in Europe and our United States, we 
credit our civilizations with having eradicated slavery some 150 years 
or more ago, but clearly Judge Poe uses the right word here: Slavery 
is, in fact, what is committed in these acts.
  I can tell you, my chief of staff, having worked in relief efforts in 
south Asia and in Cambodia with underaged girls as young as the ones 
described by Judge Poe--7, 8, 9 years old--the most vulnerable people 
on this planet are being sold into slavery. As long as force and fraud, 
coercion is used to prey upon the most vulnerable, as long as profits 
from these victims suffering from the ill-gotten gains are used to 
build out criminal networks to snare more and more of these children, 
as long as trafficking in persons is a global crime that extends beyond 
the capacity of certain governments, then it requires a global response 
and, again, as my colleagues have said, requires that the United 
States, therefore, lead.

                              {time}  1830

  So this bill targets human traffickers around the world through the 
Department of State's successful reward programs by offering rewards 
for their capture anywhere on Earth, it lets the victims of human 
trafficking know we will not stop until they are free, and it tells the 
predators that we will not stop until they are behind bars.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 1625.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________