Amy Klobuchar: “I was here for nearly 3 hours this morning when there was some spare time on the floor to get us refocused on the issue…”

“I was here for nearly 3 hours this morning when there was some spare time on the floor to get us refocused on the issue at hand, which is the issue of the victims of sex trafficking. As I noted this morning, this is now the third biggest criminal enterprise in the world. The first is illegal drugs, the second illegal guns, and the third is the illegal sale of children. The average age of a victim of sex trafficking is 12 years old--not even old enough to go to their first prom or not even old enough to get a driver's license. That is what we are talking about here. As I said, we have seen it in every part of the country. Just last week, there was a case out of Rochester, MN, of a 12-year-old girl who was charged by the U.S. Attorney's office. She got a text and went to a McDonald's parking lot. She thought she was going to go to a party. She got shoved in a car and got brought up to the Twin Cities, got raped. Sexually explicit pictures were taken and posted on Craigslist by the pimp. She was sold for sex to two men, raped by two men. Finally, the guys got caught and they have charged the case. So that is what we are talking about here. I know there are disagreements on the issues of our time, whether they are the issues of our economy and the budget fight that is going to be coming up next week, or whether it is the issues of foreign relations, but there shouldn't be a disagreement about this. This is a bipartisan bill.…”