Randy Weber: “It is a pleasure to be here and to work in a bipartisan fashion across the aisle for this very worthwhile cause. I will…”

“It is a pleasure to be here and to work in a bipartisan fashion across the aisle for this very worthwhile cause. I will tell you, Judge Poe is exactly correct. In Texas, we like to say that things are bigger in Texas. But, unfortunately, Texas has one record that we really didn't want, and that is that we have 25 percent of the sex trafficking in the country. We are 1 of 50 States, and yet we have 25 percent of the victims of sex trafficking going on right there in Texas. We were able to pass Texas House Bill 4009, which did a number of things. It actually instructed the enforcement officials to take a look at some of these young girls that were picked up--and, I guess, for that matter, young men as well--and to not just assume that they were willfully participating in the sex trade, but to look deeper into the background there. Some of these girls we found out were actually held against their will, were drugged and beat into submission. Some, as young as 12, were dancing in some of these strip clubs and, like Judge Poe said, some of the patrons would take notice of that and would actually get them help. In Texas, we did identify that pretty early on, about 5 or 6 years ago now, and were able to pass legislation to get the HHSC to put law enforcement together, to get some training for these officers, to get these NGOs together to say, look, we need to get some programs for these young girls to rehabilitate them.…”