Mark Souder: “anyone who has been exposed to this is just appalled. And one thing that surprises me is even as our own country was…”

“anyone who has been exposed to this is just appalled. And one thing that surprises me is even as our own country was lackadaisical on international prostitution for many years and would not stand up on international conferences, and as we are lackadaisical about looking at the horror of pornography worldwide, we are then surprised that there is this huge demand for both young boys and young girls in sexual trafficking. We need to understand what some of the core issues are that are driving this. In the subcommittee I chair, we got involved in a case where USAID funded an NGO that was complicit in human trafficking. With one group of funds to one NGO from the State Department, they were trying to rescue minor girls from a brothel in India. Another NGO funded by our tax dollars at USAID interfered in the rescue and ultimately facilitated the potential retrafficking of the girls. We need legislation like this so we can be the leader in stopping sex trafficking and go directly after those agencies in the United States that are complicit in this. Lastly, I want to thank our former colleague, Linda Smith, for devoting so much of her personal time in rescuing these young girls. Human trafficking is--plain and simple--modern slavery. The victims of human trafficking, by and large, are women and children in extreme poverty. They suffer some of the worst crimes imaginable.…”