releases: http://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=406143
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| http://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=406143 | <span class ="kicker">Remarks by Rep. Smith at Seton Hall Human Trafficking Event</span>1 in 4 Trafficking Victims Are Children;The Compelling Need to Educate the Children | 2019-09-27 | 2019 | 2019-09 | Republican | House | NJ | Christopher Smith | S000522 | chrissmith.house.gov | legacy | This morning Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) provided opening remarks via video at Seton Hall University's 2019 Forum on Modern Slavery: 21st Century Solutions. Smith, the prime author of the landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, thanked the participants for their commitment to end this modern day slavery and urged them to continue their good work on behalf of victimswho are mostly women and children. His remarks today can be watched in video below or by clicking here. The following are the text of his remarks: Special thanks to Dean Andrea Bartoli for your tireless work and dedication to eradicating the scourge of human trafficking. Deep thanks as well to all the assembled leadersfor your amazing commitment and effectiveness in this human rights and humanitarian cause. And words are inadequate to thank Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Muradfor her courage, tenacity, resiliency and witness against genocide. She not only heroically overcame unthinkable personal trauma, but she focused world attention and galvanized world opinion on slavery and slaughter by ISIS against the Yazidis. As the prime author of the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2018, which provides humanitarian, stabilization, and recovery assistance to victims of genocideespecially Christians and YazidisI truly thank Nadia for her extraordinary work. Twenty years ago at the 1999 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly in St. Petersburg, Russia, I sponsored the first human trafficking resolution designed to encourage over 300 members of congress and parliamentarians from 57 countries to develop policies to prevent trafficking in all of its ugly manifestations; rescue and protect victims; and prosecute, convict and jail the traffickers. A year later the U.S. Congress approved and the President signed legislation that I authoredthe Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000a comprehensive whole-of-government policy to combat these barbaric crimes in the United States and around the world. Pursuant to that law, on June 20th, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo released the 2019 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Reporta global analysis and ranking of every country including the United States. Combatting human trafficking isand will always bea team effort, requiring cooperation at every leveland across borders. As the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly's Special Representative on Human Trafficking, I've offered 20 resolutions over the years which the PA approvedeach focusing on new and effective strategies to be merged with each nation's ongoing work. At the July OSCEPA in Luxembourg I sponsored a special resolution designed to encourage lawmakers to educate their schoolchildren on how to avoid human trafficking. After a great debate, it passed. As you may know, this past January, I authored legislation that was signed into lawmy fifth major law on human trafficking The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Act. The new law honors the extraordinary legacy of one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. Working with Frederick Douglass' great-great-great grandson, Kenneth Morris, we crafted a new initiative designed to better ensure that school-aged children are educated in the classroom to recognize, resist and report any attempt to recruit or coerce them into the cruel world of human trafficking. Title I of the Frederick Douglass Act authorizes the U.S. governmentled by HHS and the Department of Educationto provide grants to local education agencies in partnership with NGOs to establish, expand and support programs: to provide age-appropriate information to students on how to avoid becoming victims of sex and labor trafficking; to educate school staff to recognize and respond to signs of sex and labor trafficking. Of course, you know all too well that the need for educating the children and training school officials is absolutely compellingand breakout panel one today will focus on this. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) one in four trafficking victims are children. Women and girls are disproportionately affectedby forced labor and account for most of the victims in the commercial sex industry. Traffickers exploit children due to their lack of awareness about the threatand a child's vulnerability can be compounded by poverty, a previous history of abuse and neglect, institutionalization, running away from home, being an unaccompanied minor, having a physical and/or mental disability, belonging to a minority group, lacking citizenship or birth registration, being an asylum seeker, refugee or internally displaced person (IDP). Today as never before, traffickers are using internet communication technologies (ICTs) to lure children into trafficking. According to a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children study the average age of online enticement that can result in being trafficked was 15. A number of NGOs have developed school courses. Those 21s Century solutions need to be aggressively implemented. Like you, I believe that we don't have a moment to lose in getting prevention education to our children and their teachers. Finally, allow me a brief word about International Megan's Lawa law designed to significantly thwart child sexual exploitation in the United States and abroad through a comprehensive and efficient system that warns law enforcement of traveling sex offenders. I first introduced International Megan's Law back in 2008. It passed the House four times2010, 2014, 2015, 2016and, thankfully, finally passed the United States Senate and was signed into law. Megan Kanka of Hamilton was just 7 years old when she was kidnapped, raped, and brutally murdered in 1994. Her assailant lived across the street. Unbeknownst to her family and other residents in the neighborhood, he was a convicted repeat sex offender sexual predator. We know from law enforcement and media documentation that Americans on the U.S. sex offender registries are caught sexually abusing children in Asia, Central and South America, Europe, and, frankly, everywhere. A deeply disturbing 2010 report by the GAO found that at least 4,500 U.S. passports were issued to registered sex offenders in fiscal year 2008 alone. Typically, a passport is valid for 10 years, meaning some or many of the tens of thousands of registered sex offenders possessing passports may be on the prowl internationally looking to exploit and abuse. International Megan's Law requires the passport of convicted child sex offenders to carry this endorsement: The Bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor and is a covered sex offender pursuant to 22 United States Code Section 212 (C) (I). The law is working. In just about two years, 10,541 covered sex offenders had been noticed by the U.S. government to foreign countriesand 3,681 individuals as of July who were convicted of sex crimes against children were denied entry into those nations. We are encouraging other governments around the world to establish their own national and international Megan's Law. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |