And so their are things you can do to shift the culture to show who the real perpetrators are sent to the victims are. And i want to commend cindy for the work she is doing to bring the super bowl here and working with the nfl. But we no, it is one of the biggest events in the country. Perpetrators gravitate to these kind of things. That is Something Else to keep an eye on. We just stumbled upon an advertisement for models. I talked to the fbi yesterday, and they got them it was amazing. We are making headway. One of my favorite topics, backpage. Com. It was just purchased by an overseas company. I did not no that. But for exactly what we talked about, the ability to go offshore. I would like to hear about your opinion, organizations like that. A lot of this is trying to figure out ways, our First Amendment rights. You run into legitimate issues. The key is to try to figure out when things are criminal and to try to get this out there. We want to make it easier to get the information they need. One of the things, simply do away with the Adult Services section, much like what craigslist did. The First Amendment issue comes into play because they hide behind it. Lets go offshore for a minute and talk about mapping for a minute. Hopefully, build a map of these cartels and then be able to predict. A lot of this we know victims are in the us. Not just victims of sex trafficking but drugs and other things they are trafficking. And so mapping and being able to figure out where the victims are and what is happening can make all the difference in international prosecutions. What we saw in mexico, for instance, the Mexican Government is heightening awareness and have been a huge help in working with us in victims in the us, a lot of times girls. And that kind of mapping which i think i think involves talking to major airlines, Major Hotel Chains and getting their employees up to speed. It is not just about one gas station but figuring out where these International Hotels are. Awareness of employees and having eyes all over the world employing technology and get information together this is a combination of changing the culture and our mindset, changing the laws which i am convinced we we will do this year. A version of this bill passed the house. We want to see it updated a little bit, but we have worked well with the house. That is not the issue. We need to get this done, i would hope in the First Six Months of the year so we can set an example not just to the rest of the countries but the private sector partners that we are serious. We have time for one more. Now that we get through the sporting season, we are packed with events going on. I thought you meant congress at the end of the year. [laughter] continue on. Anyway, what do we do . Is there a way that we can really encourage these large conventions and large events that occur to not put up with this and help stop it before it starts . I love your idea of looking at this as a criteria. Groups look at the criteria of whether or not local Law Enforcement and states have this as part of their enforcement routine. You know that major conventions, this attracts some of these sex traffickers. If you are an organization deciding where your convention will be, you should look at the laws on the books and how involved lawenforcement is. It is simply something you look at. The local chambers will go, why dont we get a law in the books on this . I think it we will help us. Exactly. I want to thank you. I have been given the sign. I just want to say, i am proud to be able to work with senator Amy Klobuchar on this issue. I will let you no how we survived the super bowl. Its coming to minnesota in 2018. When they tried to bid they kept talking about how warm new jersey was. They did not mention the temperature yesterday, 20 degrees below zero. This is the week of the super bowl. It might be a little warmer in arizona. We welcome everyone to minnesota. Thank you very much. [applause] also speaking at the Mccain Institute, right for girls and google on child sex trafficking were texas representative and representative Carolyn Maloney of new york. They talked about legislation that have cosponsored for Human Trafficking, fraud enforcement act. This is almost one hour. Good morning. We are going to start our second panel in just a moment. If you could all take your seats. Thank you all for being here. I am the director of law and policy for rights4girls and work with lawmakers in washington to advance policies to protect vulnerable children. Today we are joined by members of congress. One of our members we are waiting for, we are honored to have with us today congressman maloney, congressman zero, congresswoman bass, and congresswoman Wasserman Schultz thank you so much for being here. I first wanted to give our memebers oh, and we are joined by congressman weichert. Thank you so much. Welcome and thank you for being here. I want to give out panelists and opportunity to talk about why this is an important issue. I thought we would get things started with you, congressman Wasserman Schultz. [inaudible conversations] thank you both to google and rights4girls and, yasmin vafa, for your lead. This is an issue, something i have been passionate about and had the privilege of working on since my days as a state legislator. I passed the first state law that makes it a lw in congress. One of the last pieces of legislation i passed as a member of the state legislation. The protect our children act coordinated the largest lawenforcement Army Quarterback of the department of justice to the instead of the silos that previously existed, make sure we have one coordinated effort specifically focused on and often underworked piece of the puzzle, the exportation of children online. Just like child pornography is not pornography, child prostitution is not prostitution. It is rape. Between 12 and 14, the average for a girl once she begins being trafficked is to be raped 6,000 times during her time being trafficked. There is no acceptable number, but that is horrific. The average Life Expectancy is seven years. As a mother of an 11yearold and 15yearold girl, it is hard to get your mind wrapped around that kind of horror. And the fact that in the United States of america, one in four girls will be the victims of Sexual Violence is an epidemic. You must be careful about throwing the word epidemic around, but it is an epidemic. And we have an opportunity, for me as a member of the appropriations committee, in addition to the incredible legislation and work my colleagues on this panel are doing, to Work Together. Try as we might, our Founding Fathers came up with a good map, a final for the appropriations process to make sure we can make a difference not only to the appropriate dollars to combat these crimes but adding language that ensures we have some agencies and federal i hate to use the term bureaucrats, but the people who help us fight these crimes make sure they are moving in the right direction. To give you an idea in the cromnibus that passed, 42 million for department for department of justice victim support, 68 million for the missing Childrens Fund and the requirement of a prioritized traffic prevention and participate in the task force. We need to effectively Work Together so that we can make sure we reach achievable goals. I look forward him to the discussion. Let me thank google and rights4girls and the Mccain Institute. Often the public talks about the dysfunction in congress. Everybody on this panel has worked together. A worked together. I look forward to the next congress. The particular focus i have is the intersection between child trafficking and the Child Welfare system. Let me sum it up this way a young woman that many of us here have probably encountered said this to me, and it devastated me. What she said is, you know being a foster child prepared me to be trafficked. I looked at her stunned. She said, you move me around every few months, and so i never attached to anybody, and everyone in my life was paid to be in my life. What difference was it when a pimp came along . In fact, the difference she made was, he was the first person that said he loved me. I was stunned in silence. Think about that. Until we fix the Child Welfare system, the average kid is moved multiple times. I met an 18yearold who had been in the Child Welfare system since two and had been moved 66 times. With him how could she attach to anybody . The problem the problem is child abuse and neglect is defined in our country as the abuser or neglect or is a caretaker or parent. Where does a pimp fall and that . This is not defined in our system. The piece of legislation was a bill a bill that said, we need to look at the Child Welfare system and make sure it is prepared to deal with the population. Overwhelmingly girls, but but there are boys involved as well. We should not view them as prostitutes. We should also not use the term john for the purchaser because that person is a child molester, and that is how they should be viewed. That is something we need to take care of. Thank you. Well, good morning. My name is ted poe and i am a member of congress from texas. In my other life, i was a prosecutor and criminal court judge. In congress i am aware, as you you are, of what is taking place in our country, the selling of americas youth across the nation. There are two types of trafficking. I first came in contact with this issue in the ukraine several years ago, more recently in central and south america. I met a girl named lily in honduras. She was ten, a trafficking victim, many young women in the americas and other places and death in the United States. Ended up in the United States. We have International Trafficking of children in the us. We also have the issue of American Children being trafficked across the country. I am from houston. Unfortunately, houston, texas is one of the hubs in the nation for trafficking of children. We have been working on this issue for a long time trying to get our hands around what the problem is and what we can do about it. The problem generates, of course, with the trafficker. There are three entities. The trafficker. I call them the slave master and it is modernday slavery. On the other end, the victim. Of course, that is a victim and not a child prostitute. Society needs to understand and especially Law Enforcement needs to understand when they arrested child for child prostitution they should not be arrested for child prostitution. They should be taken to a shelter where they are treated as a victim of criminal conduct. The real issue is the person in the middle, and that is the demand. There is a demand for trafficking. The days of boys being boys is going to be over in the United States. [applause] they will be treated like criminals because they are. Theres a demand. Those three entities are dealt with in a bill sponsored last year that passed the house. Carol maloney and i may not agree on a lot of things, and after she and i got through the language barrier she is from new york. She thinks i talk funny. We dealt with those three entities, trafficking, strong punishments against them treat the victims as victims rescue, restore. Statistics, i will give you one. There are about 2500 to 3000 animals shelters in the United States. Good. We need them. I have three dalmatians, and i got one from operation rescue, but their are only about 300 beds for child trafficking sex victims in the United States. We have to change that, provide them places to go. In all fairness to Law Enforcement, when they arrest the child and know they are not a criminal, they dont have a a place to take them, so they put them in the juvenile justice system. We have to change that as well. And also the person in the middle, the demand, we will let the public know who they are. They will they we will go to jail and pay for the crime they committed. Hopefully when this bill comes up again this year, we will add a provision to make sure federal judges who convict these traffickers and those people involved in the demand have the option also to impose stiff fees because a lot of these people have a lot of money. Lets take it away from them because it was money that was gained illegally. That money then needs to go to a fund for child trafficking victims to provide resources shelters, and attention that they need. Make those criminals pay for the crime they have committed and provide an avenue for victims to receive compensation and help. [applause] we are going to send this message. We are working together in a bipartisan way, unanimous way, an american way. Thanks to yall for being here. Americas kids are not for sale. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much. I am pleased to be here with google and the Mccain Institute and rights4girls. I want to mention my good friend, susan. They are now hosting the the first class that will be the first High Tech School just for high tech where we will graduate the next geniuses. I am so pleased to be here with representative poe. We introduced our bill yesterday. And in your observations, and say the deadly is a very fun person and a great housemate we share a house together the deadly debby is a very the person a great housemate and we share a house together. We will have a great time. Really sex trafficking is the worst crime. It is a modernday form of slavery. It is such a horrible crime that you do not want to believe it exists. Sometimes what talking to other members about sex trafficking why dont you go on this bill they do not want to believe it happens in the United States of america, and there are startling statistics out of the state department, and i was one of the legislators that helped develop their program, the trafficking and persons report that rates Foreign Countries how they treat trafficking and whether they treat it combat it and try to stop this terrible crime, but their numbers are roughly 600,000 to 800,000 around the world. We really dont have good numbers for america. Its been put in several bills ive authored but never seems to happen. We need put more pressure on the Justice Department to come up with good data. Without good data you dont get good programs, and im glad to hear we have 300 beds. When i did my survey three years ago, we had 50 beds to treat victims of trafficking. And i have a bill in, probably with poe. If hes not on it, he should be on it, that would help and fund more beds for people that are trafficked. And along with our important bill that shifts the focus away from the victim and on to who is causing the crime, the molester of children, this is an important step forward. Building on that bill i, i have a bill i absolutely love. Why it hasnt passed i dont understand because its so good and cost no money which the republicans always love. Costs no money, it makes money. It gives tools to the irs to go after the traffickers, and to put them in jail, and to fine them, and take those fines and put them into building beds for those young people who have been victimized, and abused. We dont want to believe that it even happens in our own country, that its trafficked into our country, and the numbers are staggering, about those trafficked into our country, but it happens domestically, too. Often times foster care children are trafficked. They are trafficked, and when they come to you and tell you their stories you dont want to believe them, that no one helped them. Their teachers, guidance counselors, when they showed them them their bruises and they were advertised in books to be a child prostitute. So the crime is out there. We need to really work hard together to stop it. I became involved in 2000 when there was a constituent of mine in queens, called big apple tours. Norman babarash and he would advertise even had brochures they handed out to go to thailand, to go to the philippines, have as many young girls as you wanted, or boys just come with me and you can have just you want five, ten . Just outrageous. So, i wrote a letter to the d. A. s in my districts, and really to janet reno, and of their response back was, we do not have the tools to put these people in jail. It wasnt really a federal crime. And so working together his was always a unifying issue. Debra price did a brilliant job. We used to have hearings and the Financial Services committee and the oversight committee. I have difficulty getting hearings now. You guys have to help us out on getting these hearings. We passed a number of bills that made it a crime. Now you can go to jail for 30 years for going across the world to victimize a young child. You can go to jail, and people have been put in jail because of that. The first written in 2003 had a bill signing with the president of the United States then bush, and it has always been a strong bipartisan issue because it is such an outrage, and since then we have authored a number of bills, most recently the wilber force named after the leader to combat slavery, to combat this type of slavery, that gave more tools than previous bills. I tried to put in the language we have in this, that is very strong, bill we introduced yesterday that goes after the child molesters and it was always shot down. You could never keep it in. But as a prosecutor we can keep the language in. Its a tough and important bill. I feel so strongly about this issue, i wrote a book about and it had a whole chapter, and i want to show you one picture that haunts me and inspires me to work every day on this issue, and it is mug shots of young girls who were convicted of prostitution. When you look at the first shot, theyre young and beautiful and you see their personalities, you see their strength. They are then convicted, nine other times, and in each progressive shot, you can see the humanity leaving their face, leaving their body, and in the last picture they are a shell of a tortured, destroyed, person. It is haunting, it is true, and in its own way it is inspiring for all of us to spend some of our time each day, each week working to stop this horrible crime against humanity. So, i want to thank all the sponsors for bringing us together and inspiring to us Work Together to end and to combat child sex trafficking. So thank you very much. Its my honor to be here. [applause] well, thank you for inviting me to be here, and i also want to thank the sponsors. Im going to make a confession right off the bat. Im really nervous. And ill tell you why. Im nervous because im afraid im not going to be able to get through this. Let me compose myself a little bit. Those pictures really threw me off. Maybe some of you know, my background. I know you do. I am so excited to have these people sitting in the dais with me, and all of you in the audience and watching this because now were shining a light on this, people can see the children are losing not only their dignity and their hope and their freedom, but in some cases theyve lost their life. So, for those of you who dont know, im an old cop. People think that when they look at me, ive been in congress for 40 years. But ive only been here ten. I was a cop for 33 years. And 19 years was part of that was a 19year effort with a great team of people to track down a killer, who murdered probably 70 to 80 young girls, pled guilty to 49, we closed 51 cases. Closed 51 cases. Most prolific serial killer in the United States. But you dont hear much about him, and im not going to mention his name. When i was working this case when i started, was 31 years old. I was 68, 240pounds and dark brown hair. This is what happens. But what i remember about that case is meeting the families and working with the families, and they still call me today. One of the mothers lost a dear friend a few weeks ago. She called me on the phone to cry, and just i was there to try to console her. I just in the last few weeks got two emails from young woman who were working on the street back in the early 1980s so, one happened to have the opportunity to meet my grandson at a church event, and she is now a counselor for young women, and she met caleb, and she started to cry and hug caleb. Because she said he looked like me, so i dont know if thats a good thing. So you poor kid, youll look like your grandfather, or but she felt that connection, and she added in her email, i cried because i remember he cared. And i know all of you care. My focus in congress has well, let me just say this first. I was a runaway. I grew up in a family of Domestic Violence, and so i know that kind of part of the story. Why people leave their homes. Thats only one part of the story, Domestic Violence. But the physical abuse, the emotional abuse, the sexual abuse, the kids being driven out of their homes, looking for as i think debbie said, looking for love, or karen may have said that. Looking for love and find it in the wrong places on the street and then not knowing really what love is. And getting trapped in that life. And snatched away from people who truly do love them. We have a responsibility, and especially focusing on the kids who are runaways and end up in foster care, and we just passed a bill this is the one bill that passed last year, that came out of my committee, subcommittee, human resources, that focuses on foster kids, because if you were driving down the street and saw ten Young Children standing on a street corner, six out of ten of those would be foster kids in our system in our states, across the country, that we have responsibility to take care of and were not. Were not. And ive talked to those kids on the street. You talk to a young girl, one week, and the next week im recovering her body. You give her a warning, get off the street. Theres people out here who will hurt you. Or take your life. Once theyre in the life, its hard to get them out. You all know that. All of you listening know, in working in the field. The bill we passed tries to focus on what well, does focus on the foster kids to get them out of the street, into permanent homes, not bouncing from foster home to foster home, from School District to School District to School District, but to get them in a permanent loving home. It helps create an atmosphere for kids who are in foster care to have a normal childhood. Where they can participate in events after school, where they can feel part of the school community. Its hard to believe that the way the law was previously the laws were across the state and in some states the kid couldnt participate in athletic activities. They didnt have a way home. They can only take ride with the foster parents. So the foster parents couldnt pick them up, they cant get a ride with the coach or with the music teacher or whomever, another parent, so they couldnt participate. The law also collects data and trying to find those services that really impact foster kids lives, get them out of that lifestyle, and when we asked t and others to testify, they told their stories and in my subcommittee hearings, what we tried to focus on were those young girls and young women who have been through the system who knew what services worked and what services did not work. Its great to hear from all the directors of the social and Health Services across the country and all the caseworkers. Thats valuable information. But the most valuable information comes from the people who lived it. And i think its a great start and i know that ted and caroline and debbie and others are working on additional legislation, and we need to continue this battle. Our goal i was on the Domestic Violence council in king county as the sheriff there, and the goal was to end Domestic Violence. Not to reduce it. To end it. And our goal in Human Trafficking is not reduce Human Trafficking, but its to end it, period. And i couldnt agree more with whats been said and she judge said it best, though, and im right in line with that, the crooks need to go to jail. These guys are raping young girls. They need to go to jail. And they need to go to jail for a long time. We need to send a strong message. We will not be tolerating people that take advantage of these young women and young girls, and we wont tolerate the pimps either. So, i thank you for the opportunity to be here today and share my story. I got a little emotional when caroline showed the pictures. I wrote a book also that goes to a charity called the Pediatric Interim Care Center in kempt its called chasing the devil and a story about tracking down the killer. All the money goes to help drug addicted babies, and one of the things ive always kept are the photos of all of the dead bodies, the dead young women that i collected over those years. And i can close my eyes and picture those remains each and every one of them. Their names, and their sites and their families. Thats our motivation, ladies and gentlemen. Remember the faces of the young women that caroline showed you and the faces of those young women that have died. I thank you for having me. [applause] thank you all so much for those powerful remarks. We began todays discussion by looking at the legislative efforts in the senate but we turn our attention now to the house, where we witnessed incredible bipartisanship and dedication to the issue of child trafficking with the passage of several bipartisan pieces of legislation. The justice for victims of trafficking act is one of those pieces of legislation, and it was cosponsored by congressman po and congressman maloney, you spoke about the provisions of the legislation, but i wonder if you can tell us about its significance and the plans you have for exit in this congress. What can we expect . The bill was reintroduced yesterday. It passed last congress, just didnt become law. One of the primary pieces of legislation were pushing through the Judiciary Committee im on. We want get to it passed out of the house and senate and signed in lie and we think it will happen very soon, add more provisions to make it stronger but this is an issue that both the senate and the house agree in total principle that this has to be passed, needs to be passed, to for all the ropes reasons that have been stated. I think if anything is going to pass this year, i think this one be. Something that actually passes out the house, the senate, and becomes law so im very optimistic. I want to thank both of you for your remarks about and many of you actually mentioned the demand. I know that when we talk about combating child sex trafficking our attention goes to the trafficker and often times the roles of the buyers are overlooked and how they are not only fueling the sex trafficking market, but also for their culpability in the crimes they commit, so i think with your thank you both for your leadership. Can i weigh in on that . Yes. Always got something to say. Texas, you in the. The number one criminal enterprise in the world that brings in the most filthy money is the drug trafficking. We all know that. But close and second behind is the sale and trafficking of people. Primarily women and children. Why is it such a moneymaker . One, because drugs are used once. Children, like debbie pointed out, are used hundreds of times. Second, the laws dont punish the trafficker, the demand, as much as you get punished if youre a drug dealer. And, third, the risk of apprehension is so much lower than it is for a drug dealer. And that is why its evergrowing money enterprise, it deals with a lot of kidsed kids, but its all about the money. And thats why this bill that Carol Maloney and i sponsor goes after the root of the evil, the child abuser, who is paying for that child. Just to follow up on what ted said, there is, as i mentioned really an under the radar piece of this, and that is the ability to traffic and promote trafficking exponentially because of the internet. Previously, before you really had the internet, it all really had to be done in person. There was very it was very difficult for the buyers to get access to feed their habit. Because of the internet, Law Enforcement and because of our advancements in being able to identify who are the victims and actually who are the perpetrators, Law Enforcement has been able to identify nearly 500,000 individuals trafficking in child pornography over the internet. Now, before you glaze over on child pornography, what we have to remember is that this is a different element of child trafficking, because every one of those photographs is a crime scene. Is a victim who is being victimized by someone who is raping them, and then that is a whole commercial enterprise by itself, beyond the selling of children. You have the selling of the photographs of those perpetrators, and actually one thing i want to do just to interrupt myself is cindy mccain has come back in, and i want to congratulate you on the incredible work the Mccain Institute and you particularly have engaged in. Were here in part because of you and your leadership on this issue has been absolutely remarkable and we have made so much progress because of your involvement in it. So thank you so much. [applause] as much as we are able to realize how much of this is going on the internet, because of the lack of resources, Law Enforcement is able to investigate less than two percent of these crimes. Now, the protect act we passed a few years ago we have been able to appropriate 185 million specifically to be able to give the internet crimes against Children Task forces the ability to investigate more, but we know that they have the ability technologically to identify and go after these perpetrators and find their find them online bust up these child sexual predator crime rings, and we have been able to make, since the passage of the law, 45,000 arrests. So, ted, youre absolutely right. Its amazing to hear a republican im going to repeat it because you also said its about money, which you rarely hear from a republican. Often times we gloss over that people like to say in the appropriations in the legislative process, you cant throw money at it. This is one thing that if we put money into this, were going to be able to get more criminals. But the other thing we have to put money into is the best way to deal with this, we have been talking about, arresting people, going after the buyers, making sure that the girls dont get arrested and instead get into services. Thats all after theyre trafficked. We have to invest in the vulnerable population of girls to prevent them from being trafficked in the first place. We know who they are and there are programs like the pace center for girls in my district the most amazing program. I want to get you all information about them. We have been able to get them appropriations, grants, and what they do is they marry Therapeutic Services and education and other program because they have a vulnerable population of girls they know are the girl that would likely be trafficked, but you get them into a life and on a path towards having selfworth and recognizing that they should have selfesteem and they dont have to travel down that unfortunately too well worn path, and so we have to invest their, too. And i hope that to work with all of you make sure we can do that. I also wanted to connect the dots. What judge poe was saying, which is absolutely right in terms of the most lucrative criminal activity being the drug trade and also connecting that up with child sex trafficking, because there is the intersection there, and one of the things that is happening around the country certainly happening in the los angeles area, is the intersection between street gangs who were selling drugs and still are selling drugs, diversifying their criminal enterprises and now, because of the reasons that judge poe said, are now trafficking in girls. And so if we look at it just as debbie was saying, on the prevention side, we really do have to look at transforming our Child Welfare system because we are fueling the number of kids that are trafficked because of Child Welfare. And i do have to say that sometimes theres also foster boys that are involved. One being trafficked but also as traffickers, and we have to stop that. We know how to prevent this. In the Child Welfare system, any child that is taken from home is our responsibility. We become the parent. We, meaning government, becomes the parent, and so we shouldnt be neglectful or abusive. We should make sure that we take care of the kids on the front end. Youre talking about a population of about half a million children that are involved in the Child Welfare system, in our country. Ill give you good example in the los angeles area. We have a court system called the star court, and the star court is a specific part of the Dependency Court that focuses on girls that are trafficked, and i went to star court one time, it was amazing experience because before we went into the actual courtroom, we were with social workers, educators, treatment providers, Child Welfare folks all sat around the table and discussed each and every girl. So when we went into the courtroom, the girl was not treated at all as though she were a criminal, but you had everybody from all of these different agencies, all of these different sectors, embracing the child. But we also do have to recognize, and i believe that my colleague, dave, was mentioning that it is difficult for these girls to break out of the cycle. Well, the number one reason is difficult for them to break out over cycle is because they have nowhere to go. Judge poe referenced the fact it what happens is we wind up incarcerating them. So 300 beds. We need 300,000 beds. We certainly need the shelters and also have to understand, too, that just like an addiction, the girls have to make the decision on their own and so we have to be open in addiction. You have to understand that its a disease of relapse. Well, these girls relapse, too. They go in and go out. We cannot give up on them. We cannot say, we gave you a chance, you didnt take advantage so to heck with you. We have to continue to have our door open to have those resources, and to embrace these children. [applause] id like to once again thank the Mccain Institute and google as media partnerships in this. If have been part of many bipartisan letters in congress that advertises the exploitations of children. The village voice, a whole section on it. They never stop. And one young woman who was trying to get out of the profession, came to me and she and her pimp she was drugged in a nightclub. She woke up with her pimp and anyway, she became a prostitute. They had their own business just running ads in newspapers. Where people would just call them. Just so the use of the media to advance the exploitation of children is outrageous. And i heard that drugs was the worst, and i thought selling guns was the second. But now the selling of the human body over and over again usually until they die, has become the second most lucrative crime. This one bill, when we finally convicted al capone, it was on tax evasion, and this bill uses the irs to go after johns and traffickers and pimps for their tax evasion, and puts them in jail and uses the money to supply more beds. So, i think thats a good approach to move forward. But one of the problems we confront is that hollywood sometimes makes it look glamorous. A song called the pimp song won the best song of the year one year. Pretty woman makes prostitution looks like its a pretty profession. Its anything but. It kills people. And they even have a pimp ball in new york, where the pimps get together and have this big party. I think we should all go and demonstrate against the pimps. Or do something to stop this sort of glamour approach to the profession that you see sometimes in the media and in movies and other areas. It is exploitation. It is murder. And it is slavery, and its horrible, and we have to come bat it in every way. Once again, thank you for bring us together. On of the other issues raised by some of the panelist is a factor that has come to light in recent years, the fact that many, if not the majority, of child sex trafficking victims in the u. S. Have had previous involvement in our Child Welfare system. Congresswoman bass, i know you had legislation in the last congress that would extinct reform Child Welfare. Can you talk about that . Very specifically what the bill calls for is training Child Welfare social workers to recognize this. There was one department in my region where i called and asked about trafficking, and they actually were not aware it was going on, but yet i met with the fbi and they said this particular Geographic Area is where it was the highest, and that they estimated they believed it was an undercount that the underage girls, 60 of them were in the Child Welfare system. So, our system as a whole needs to be prepared to deal with it. We need to train Child Welfare workers, but we also need to begin to have the dat the data to document it. We do have this problem where a girl girls who are not abused by their parent or caregiver are not cared for in the Child Welfare system so we dont have a part of our social safety net even prepared to deal with this population. So thats why we have to look at it from those three areas. And then one of the other problems in the Child Welfare system system is that trebling technically to access federal funding you need to break up the family. You need to remove the child from the family. We need have a more flexible way to deal with the funding so you can actually prevent the problem from happening to begin with. One aspect thank you. [applause] one aspect of the foster care system that is the most vulnerable are girls in group homes, because theyre not even in a family setting at a