Louise Slaughter: “I rise today to urge all my colleagues to support my resolution to demand that our Government work to stop the sex…”

“I rise today to urge all my colleagues to support my resolution to demand that our Government work to stop the sex trafficking and forced prostitution of women and girls from Burma into Thailand. I was appalled and disgusted to discover that the Government of Thailand has permitted the trafficking of women of brothels. Credible reports have indicated that thousands of Burmese women and girls, as young as 14, are being led into Thailand with false promises of employment, only to be forced to work in brothels under conditions which include sexual and physical violence, debt bondage, exposure to HIV, passport deprivation, and illegal confinement. In addition, members of the Thai police are often actively involved. And now we read in our own New York Times, that Thai women are being brought to the United States for the same purpose. This is a practice the U.S. Government must not support and we must work to stop it, before it becomes a practice quietly condoned and supported worldwide. As we debate the foreign aid budget, we must remember the gross human rights violations which occur against women, and we must remember we have a moral duty to pay attention. We have ignored it for too long. This is an issue of fundamental human rights.”