December 16, 2005

Sex Trafficking Bill Scores Victory
for Human Spirits

COLUMBUS, OH – Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Upper Arlington) today submitted the following editorial:

Silently and helplessly, hundreds of thousands of women and children across the planet are held captive in a hideous underworld of modern day slavery. They are the victims of sex trafficking -- humans bought and sold as commodities by purveyors of prostitution, and shipped around the world like cargo to a life of incomprehensible despair and degradation. The trafficking of people is a $9 billion industry which has recently tied illegal arms dealing as the second fastest-growing criminal activity in the world, and is now the third largest source of income for organized crime.

This week, the United States House of Representatives provided hope and salvation to these victims when it reauthorized the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Originally enacted in 2000, the Act established a framework for combating international trafficking in persons by utilizing our nation's arsenal of diplomatic powers to bear pressures on nations which actively promote or tacitly permit trafficking.

In reauthorizing the Act, Congress also approved language I authored that reinvigorates our focus on domestic human trafficking. While we as Americans understand the tragic consequences of human trafficking, we also widely identify it as a distinctly international problem. To do so is a mistake. Through ballpark estimations, it is believed that up to 20,000 people are trafficked annually into the Untied States, typically from Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. About half of them are forced into sweatshop labor; the rest are sold into prostitution and the sex industry, or sold for adoption. Typically, victims are promised employment, marriage, and a better life in America, but often end up in the slums and back alleys of our nation’s largest cities, and held captive through violence and psychological coercion.

The provisions I authored comprehensively attack domestic trafficking by primarily focusing on the users -- the johns and pimps who keep the demand for sex slavery high. Enforcement of existing laws that punish users has been particularly poor in the U.S., and the grants and training in this bill will help police and prosecutors better enforce the laws already on the books. The new provisions will curb demand for trafficked persons, provide financial and other assistance to the victims, assist State and local law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting cases, and require a more thorough statistical analysis of the breadth of the domestic problem.

A year ago, I led a fact-finding mission to Albania, Moldova, Greece, and Italy to address sex trafficking of women and children abroad and to exchange ideas about how better to prevent sex trafficking, protect victims of sex trafficking, and prosecute those who traffic, exploit and purchase women and children. It was among the most eye-opening and heart-wrenching experiences in my life. While in Moldova, I met Aurica – a 19 year Moldavian girl who was lured to Turkey through empty promises of exciting job opportunities. Upon her arrival in Istanbul, she was immediately sold to the owner of a brothel as a sex slave. Faced with spending her life as a sexual prisoner, Aurica leapt from a six story building, broke her back and pelvis, and nearly killed herself. Fortunately, with the help of the other Members of Congress on the trip and the charity of our constituents, we were able to get Aurica state-of-the-art health care in the United States that put her on the road to recovery and back to her life and family in Moldova. Tragically, Aurica is but one of 900,000 victims worldwide, each with a similar, horrifying story to tell; while we were blessed in our ability to rescue Aurica, the vast majority of these stories end far worse.

Passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act represents an incredible victory for victims of sex trafficking both in the United States and all over the planet. And for every man, woman and child extricated from this nightmare existence, passage also represents a victory for humankind.