Anniversary of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the signing of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. We are grateful for the accomplishments of the legislation over the past year. The JVTA has reinvigorated our Nation's commitment to fighting sex trafficking.

The legislation sought to undercut demand for sex trafficking by holding buyers and advertisers of trafficking accountable for their choices. Under the SAVE Act--my legislation that was signed into law as part of the JVTA legislative package--we have given prosecutors the tools they need to fight these Web sites and businesses that support human trafficking by knowingly advertising victims for profit.

Right now, tens of thousands of demented online advertisements are openly selling children into sexual enslavement. Predators in our communities are going online and having children delivered to their hotel rooms as easily as they would a pepperoni pizza. Today, human trafficking is moving from the streets to the Internet, making it more accessible and more insidious. The SAVE Act fights this sick explosion of trafficking on the Internet.

The SAVE Act is already demonstrating that it is an indispensable tool to attack online trafficking. Backpage.com and other exploitive Web sites, which enable human traffickers by allowing them to post ads selling the bodies and the souls of our children, are angry that the U.S. is now holding the advertisers of human trafficking accountable.

Backpage.com claims that their ability to post children for sex online is a matter of free speech. It is not a matter of free speech, Mr. Speaker. It is a flagrant violation of the dignity and the basic constitutional rights of these abused and vulnerable children. Facilitating the purchase of children for sex is not a right; it is a crime, and it is a crime of the most heartless and evil proportions.

In December 2015, backpage.com filed a lawsuit against the SAVE Act in the United States District Court of the District of Columbia, and they specifically named me, Ann Wagner, in their case. They are suing us because the SAVE Act has upset their pocketbooks and hindered them from making money off human trafficking sales. I take it as a huge success that we are finally moving in the direction where adults, Web sites, and businesses that exploit victims of human trafficking cannot profit and will not be given a free pass for their despicable crimes.

The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act creates a legal framework to ensure that those who sell children and young women for sex, those who buy children for sex, and those who profit from human trafficking will be held accountable for their choices. But this law will be rendered useless until the Department of Justice moves to fully implement it. To our knowledge, the Department has not opened any new investigations to target advertisers of trafficking.

The JVTA clarifies those who solicit and patronize victims of trafficking can and should be prosecuted as sex trafficking offenders under 18 U.S. Code section 1591. Failing to prosecute buyers perpetuates demand for trafficking and allows offenders to abuse our children with impunity.

But while buyers have been arrested over the past year, we have seen very few convictions. Exactly how many convictions? We don't know because the Department of Justice has not released this information. We do know that many buyers have inexplicably been allowed to walk.

America's children are not objects to be bought and sold and abused by predators. They are children who we, as adults, have the duty to fiercely, fiercely protect.

We are also waiting on the Department of Justice to levy a $5,000 assessment on convicted human traffickers, convicted buyers who exploit victims, and offenders of similar crimes. We passed the JVTA 1 year ago, but the Department has neglected to assess the vast majority of these offenders--perhaps all of these offenders--despite a number of related convictions.

These fines are meant to help populate the Domestic Trafficking Victims' Fund to provide assistance for victims of trafficking and child pornography and develop prosecution programs. We are waiting on the Department of Justice to establish and populate this fund to get survivors the services that they need.

In short, there is much work to be done and we will not just walk away. It is our most fundamental responsibility to fight to protect our most vulnerable from sexual enslavement. This is our most basic duty.

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