John Conyers: “Mr. Speaker, this bill, the Wilberforce bill, tracks the definitions in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of the…”

“Mr. Speaker, this bill, the Wilberforce bill, tracks the definitions in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of the year 2000, builds upon the good work of the civil rights division within the Department of Justice and its anti-trafficking task forces around the country which vigorously confront modern-day slavery which does exist in forced prostitution and forced labor alike. We expect these efforts to continue, and we will monitor them with great scrutiny. In the 1800s, escaped slaves such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, who came out of this brutal experience in America, spoke out against chattel slavery. Their voices and the voices of many others led to a constitutional commitment that everyone in this country would be forevermore free from bondage. The young lady who testified with an assumed name before the Judiciary Committee did not allow her suffering to silence her. And neither will our voices be silenced. We urge that this bill pass, hopefully unanimously, from the House of Representatives.”