Orrin Hatch: “today we will again resume consideration of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. This is an important bill to me.…”

“today we will again resume consideration of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. This is an important bill to me. I have been working on it for many years. Without a doubt, this legislation is incredibly important. Right now in this country there are thousands of human beings--mainly young people--living as slaves. Women and children are stolen from their homes, stripped of their God-given rights, and robbed of their human dignity. These individuals live among us. They live in our neighborhoods and in our suburbs, our biggest cities and our smallest towns. They live in a world of silence, fear, hopelessness, and unspeakable suffering. The State Department estimates that up to 17,500 individuals are trafficked to the United States every year. The majority of these are women and children. Some of them are forced into a life of unpaid servitude, many others into sex work. Worldwide, the International Labor Organization estimates that 4.5 million people are currently enslaved through sex trafficking. These numbers are staggering, but they only illustrate the scope of the problem. The suffering of each individual victim should not be lost in a sea of statistics. For victims of human trafficking, the surreal horror of their lives bears testimony to the gravity of the crime. A number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have worked tirelessly to update our legal framework for fighting this scourge.…”