Political Quotes

“there is an issue that I have spoken about so often on this floor, and it is one that should concern each and every one of us; and that is the issue of human trafficking and sex trafficking that is happening in this country. And what we have learned is that today in the United States a child is either bought or sold for sex every 2 minutes. Now, think about that and think about the harm that is happening to children because of this amount of human trafficking and sex trafficking. What we also have learned is that, globally, this has turned into a $150 billion-a-year business. This is something that we also have learned affects every town, city, and community in our Nation. It is pervasive. In Tennessee, my home State, there were 1,170 reports of human trafficking through November of last year, and that is according to the data we have from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations. Now, that number was actually down from the number in 2023, which had been 1,432 reports, and that was because of the effort that our Governor, Bill Lee, the Tennessee General Assembly, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations made into fighting this human trafficking and trying to bring an end to what truly is modern-day slavery. But, unfortunately, what we saw as we looked at the data was that last year's total of 1,170 was still 62 percent higher than the number in 2019.…”