Sam Brownback: “let me start this debate and discussion with the story of Irina. Irina's story appeared in the New York Times not that…”

“let me start this debate and discussion with the story of Irina. Irina's story appeared in the New York Times not that long ago, and it is similar to the story of a number of women with whom I have met and who have been caught in this situation of sex trafficking--young ladies I met with in Nepal, and several testified in committee. I think Irina's story tells in graphic detail why this is a problem and why the Senate needs to act. Irina always assumed that her beauty would somehow rescue her from the poverty and hopelessness of village life. A few months ago, after answering a vague ad in a small Ukrainian newspaper, she slipped off a tour boat when it put in at Haifa, hoping to make a bundle dancing naked on the tops of tables. She was 21, self-assured and glad to be out of Ukraine. Israel offered a new world, and for a week or two everything seemed possible. Then, one morning, she was driven to a brothel, where her boss burned her passport before her eyes. ``I own you,'' she recalled his saying. ``You are my property and you will work until you earn your way out. Don't try to leave. You have no papers and you don't speak Hebrew. You will be arrested and deported. Then we will get you and bring you back.'' That was her master. The article goes on. It happens every single day. Not just in Israel, which has deported nearly 1,500 Russian and Ukrainian women like Irina in the past three years.…”