Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, when a young girl is kidnapped in a foreign country and brought into the United States and used as a sex slave and law enforcement gets involved, she is treated as a victim of crime. If a young girl who is an American citizen is forced into sex slavery as an 11- or 12-year-old and she is trafficked across the United States and law enforcement gets involved, unfortunately that girl is not treated as a victim, but a criminal, and criminal charges are filed on her for prostitution and she goes through the system. Many times, law enforcement does that just to protect that young child. We need to change that, and today this House of Representatives passed legislation, the Domestic Trafficking Victims Act, which will treat those victims as victims and give resources to put them in places throughout the United States where we can protect them, rescue them, prosecute the trafficker, and prosecute the customer who buys that sex from that poor girl for money. We need to treat these victims with the dignity that they deserve. This legislation is important. I am glad it passed the House. And that's just the way it is. ____________________”