Ted Poe: “Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are in the midst of a situation in the United States, and throughout the world, where slavery…”

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are in the midst of a situation in the United States, and throughout the world, where slavery has crept back into our environment and into our communities, and it is the slave trade of women and children for sexual assault. People don't want to talk about it, but it is taking place. Unfortunately, my hometown of Houston used to be one of the hubs in the United States. What I am talking about is the buying and selling of people, primarily women and children, on the marketplace of sex slavery. {time} 1745 A lot of Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle worked on this very issue to try to get a grip on what is taking place in our country. We had 11 bills in the House that had to do with helping stop this scourge. I was glad to work with Carolyn Maloney from New York. I mean, that is about as bipartisan as you can get, Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, and Ted Poe, a Texas Republican. We are separated by common language, but I worked with her, and that is about as bipartisan as you can get. We passed those 11 pieces of legislation. Members of Congress had sponsored several pieces of those. It passed the House overwhelmingly. It went to the Senate, and they combined those 11 pieces into two, sent it back. We passed it, and it became law. President Obama signed it. What it does, this legislation goes after the trafficker, the person who buys and sells women and children, and makes sure that our law punishes those people to the fullest extent.…”