Human Trafficking

Every year, thousands of men, women and children around the world are trafficked into the United States to be sold for commercial sex and labor. Human trafficking is the fastest growing and the third-largest criminal activity in the world. This exploitation of young women, men, and children is a tragic human rights offense. As a co-chair and cofounder of the Human Trafficking Caucus, Congresswoman Maloney is working to end this terrible crime, both in New York and internationally.

Taking care of survivors: Congresswoman Maloney was the lead House Democratic Cosponsor of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA), which was signed into law on May 29, 2015. Congresswoman Maloney has met and worked with many survivors of human trafficking who escaped their captors and pimps, but then have nowhere to turn to for support. These men and women often end up homeless, which can facilitate a return to prostitution or exploitation. The JVTA creates a “Domestic Trafficking Victims’ Fund” within the Treasury Department to support critically needed services for victims, such as training law enforcement to rescue victims, prosecute human traffickers, and restore the lives of victims.

Attacking the demand side: Congresswoman Maloney understands that in order to effectively prevent trafficking in the future, Congress must attack the demand side of sex trafficking. This means we must work to eliminate the demand for sex with minors, child pornography and trafficked labor.

Business transparency: Large businesses and corporations are some of the main consumers of trafficked and child labor. Congresswoman Maloney believes it is necessary for these large businesses to provide consumers information on products that are free of child labor, forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking. That is why she introduced the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act. This legislation would make businesses with more than $100 million dollars in international receipts transparent about their labor policies, and make it necessary to report to the Securities and Exchange Commission measures they have taken to rid their supply chains of human slavery and post this information on their company websites. This way, businesses and consumers can use publicly available disclosures to avoid promoting and purchasing goods and products that are associated with these tainted supply chains.

Eradicating advertising for commercial sex: Congresswoman Maloney has called on internet sites, such as backpage.com, to shut down their adult services pages that aid in the exploitation and sexual abuse of minors. She has supported legislation that would designate funding to attack internet sites that exploit minors to have them shut down.

Catching the perpetrators: Trafficking is an extremely secretive and underground business, making it difficult to find and prosecute those responsible. Congresswoman Maloney has sponsored a bill to target conduct committed by those involved in the promotion of commercial sex acts, by enabling the IRS to prosecute sex traffickers for tax evasion and recover the profits from their crimes.  

Missing Children: Congresswoman Maloney fought to pass the law that ensures every missing child is entered into the National Crime Information Center database. This policy makes certain that every step is taken to recover missing children and provide local law enforcement agencies with as much information as possible to find missing children and return them to their families. Read more