Real Clear Politics: Hawley Pushes Stepped-Up Human Trafficking Reforms

This week U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) talked to Real Clear Politics about the necessity of tougher legislation against human trafficking.

...Congress is expected to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act this year, and Hawley, RealClearPolitics is first to report, plans to introduce a host of reforms to strike harder at human traffickers while also providing new support for victims as they try to get back on their feet.

"We are a nation of liberators, and the fight against global slavery is an urgent fight that needs leadership right now. It's not going to happen without leadership from the United States of America," Hawley said in an interview, citing the need to set an example domestically for the rest of the world.

"The number of people trapped in global slavery has been going up, not down. It is truly a scourge that continues to affect us in this country, to impact our own children, whether we're talking about sex trafficking, or labor trafficking," he continued.

...Hawley's office has spent months preparing an "all of the above" strategy to combat what the first-term senator described as "a pernicious crime that persists in the shadows." Just last week, for instance, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina brought charges against individuals for conspiring to traffic seasonal farm workers, allegedly failing to pay their wages, forcing them to work excessively long hours, and confiscating their passports.

..."The United States has tremendous moral capital to bring to bear here on this fight -- our own struggle with it in our country, our history struggling to end slavery in this country, struggling to secure freedom to all of our people and all of our citizens," he said. "All of this positions us to be a leader worldwide, and to say, "We have not accepted slavery or servitude in our country. We're not willing to partner with it in any way around the globe.'"

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