Human Trafficking Bill

 

With people opening their eyes to the problem of Human Trafficking, it would seem that the government should be taking a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the bills (H.R.181 - Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015) and (S.178 - Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015). For the longest time this bill was stalled in congress over what some would say a small issue, the abortion issue.

Human trafficking represented an estimated $31.6 billion of international trade per annum in 2010. Human trafficking is thought to be one of the fastest-growing activities of trans-national criminal organizations.

This bill addresses the issue of abortion with Trafficking Victims was set to go down in a partisan firefight. The cause of the row? Democrats didn’t read the 68-page bill to discover its provisions dealing with abortion, and Republicans didn’t disclose the abortion language when Democratic staffers asked them for a summary of the legislation. But the firefight didn’t happen after all.

The aim of the bill, sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), is simple. It would create a “Domestic Trafficking Victims’ Fund” financed by fines from crimes, with the money used to aid victims. The legislation breezed through a Judiciary Committee markup on Feb. 26 with minimal changes.

Anti-trafficking advocates, meanwhile, were left to try and make sense of how the Senate managed to muck up a popular bipartisan cause. The Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking called on senators to “turn away from this divisive debate and find a bipartisan approach to serve the needs of survivors.”

The Senate unanimously passed legislation Wednesday April 15 to help the victims of human trafficking, ending a tortuous partisan standoff over abortion. The vote was 99-0 to approve the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which expands law enforcement tools to target sex traffickers and creates a new fund to help victims. The House has passed similar legislation and the White House has voiced support.

One part of the fund would be made up of fines paid by sex traffickers, and it could not go for health services, rendering the abortion restrictions moot. The other part of the fund, which could go for medical services, builds on $5 million already appropriated by Congress for Community Health Centers, which are already subject to abortion spending prohibitions. The compromise allowed both sides to claim a win since Republicans ensured any money for health services could not go for abortions, while Democrats could say that they had prevented prohibitions on spending federal money for abortions from being expanded to a new source of money.

The amendments that did get attached to the bill passed with little controversy, though one, by Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., drew concerns from at least one advocacy group. The measure would make it illegal for websites or social media sites to "knowingly" sell advertisements for sex services involving minors.

A pro-privacy group, the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the measure was so vaguely written that it potentially makes every U.S. company that hosts web content subject to criminal prosecution.

"You hear about it here and there, and I have seen some television specials," Charles Johnson, a DJ, said of the problem. "I thought maybe it's in a little club on a side road in a small town. But it's happening in big markets, and we're a gigantic market."

A piece from the bill [(Sec. 101) This section amends the federal criminal code to impose an additional penalty until the end of FY2019 of $5,000 on any non-indigent person or entity convicted of an offense involving: (1) peonage, slavery, and trafficking in persons; (2) sexual abuse; (3) sexual exploitation and other abuse of children; (4) transportation for illegal sexual activity; or (5) human smuggling in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (exempting any individual involved in the smuggling of an alien who is the alien's spouse, parent, son, or daughter).] If you want to read the bill that was passed with in the walls of the senate check out the webpage: www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/178.

Since the passage of the landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the United States has been a leader in the international community’s fight to end modern day slavery.  This law ushered in a new strategy that addressed human trafficking on multiple fronts. The most recent statistics show that during the twelve-year period from 2000-2012, over 1,100 traffickers were charged in the U.S., resulting in 755 successful convictions. (from US.gov/humantrafficking)

Jane White “I just finished reading the book, which is awesome. I had absolutely no idea that this goes on in our country today. I know that there are many people, especially illegal immigrants who don't earn fair wages but had no clue about slavery, especially child slavery.”

 

1 (888) 373-7888

National Human Trafficking Resource Center

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Hours: 24 hours, 7 days a week

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Website: traffickingresourcecenter.org