Date: December 22, 2003
For Release: Immediately
Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343
STATEMENT BY TOMMY G. THOMPSON
Secretary Of Health And Human Services
On the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization
Act of 2003
President Bush on Friday signed important legislation
that will authorize more than $200 million across the federal government
to combat the practice of human trafficking -- including women and children
forced into prostitution. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization
Act of 2003 (TVPRA) renews the U.S. government's commitment to identify and
assist victims exploited for labor or sex in the United States and
worldwide.
As President Bush declared before the United Nations
General Assembly in September, "Nearly two centuries after the abolition
of the transatlantic slave trade, and more than a century after slavery was
officially ended, the trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed
to thrive in our time."
The TVPRA is a decisive step toward meeting the President's
challenge. It provides fresh resources and initiatives to assist, in particular,
the 18,000 - 20,000 victims of human trafficking who are trafficked into
the United States every year. It augments the legal tools which can be used
against traffickers by empowering victims to bring federal civil suits against
traffickers for actual and punitive damages, and by including sex trafficking
and forced labor as offenses under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt
Organization statute. It also encourages the nation's 21,000 state and local
law enforcement agencies to participate in the detection and investigation
of human trafficking cases.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has
a significant role in implementing the law's victim-centered, compassionate
approach to finding and aiding the victims of this modern-day slave trade.
HHS is launching a major public awareness campaign, targeted at local officials
and service providers most likely to encounter victims, to find, rescue and
restore victims to a humane condition of life. HHS welcomes the additional
authority this Act provides to assist victims from the moment of
detection.
A bedrock principle of this legislation is that victims
of trafficking in the U.S. (who likely are not legal aliens and may be involved
in illegal practices such as prostitution) are not perpetrators of crime
-- they are the victims of crime, and they ought be allowed to rebuild their
lives by staying here in the United States.
By signing the reauthorization of the federal human
trafficking program, the President is reaffirming his Administration's commitment
to end the horror of human trafficking, and to ensure that the real criminals
-- the traffickers of innocent people -- are prosecuted to the fullest extent
of the law.
Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets
and other press materials are available at
http://www.hhs.gov/news.
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