Political Quotes

“I rise to draw attention to the international plight of human trafficking and its relationship to our Nation's trade agenda. According to the State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, ``Human trafficking'' is about recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud or coercion. It is an unacceptable global scourge that must end and cannot be rewarded by any trade agreement. Sexual exploitation, forced labor, forced marriage, debt bondage, and the sale and exploitation of children around the world should be a global cry for justice. But as Benjamin Franklin once said: ``Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.'' Today, we are all outraged at the violence, the psychological terror, and the greed that drives human trafficking. We are outraged that there are 50 million refugees and displaced people around the world, the largest number since World War II, many of whom are targets of traffickers. We are outraged that 36 million women, children, and men around the world are subjected to involuntary labor or sexual exploitation. We are outraged when we hear that over 5 million of them are children, that forced labor generates about $150-plus billion in profits annually, the second largest income source for international criminals next to the drug trade.…”