Pryce Helps Launch Local Human Trafficking Collaborative

July 30, 2007

Pryce Helps Launch Local Human Trafficking Collaborative

Columbus, Ohio – Today, Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Columbus) joined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, and a broad collaboration of law enforcement, human services and nonprofit agencies to launch the Columbus Rescue and Restore campaign. The HHS Rescue and Restore program engages local social service organizations, local law enforcement, and healthcare professionals in the effort to identify and assist victims of human trafficking.

Said Pryce, the author of a 2006 law designed to help eradicate human trafficking within the U.S., “The trafficking of human beings is one of the greatest human rights abuses of the 21 st century, and our nation has a moral obligation to fight this evil. By utilizing a broad arsenal of federal and local resources, agencies and expertise, America has initiated a zero-tolerance policy against human trafficking within our borders. We cannot with clean conscience condemn nations where trafficking exists, when it tragically occurs on our own soil.”

“One thing is plainly evident -- no single department or agency can be tasked with cleansing our nation of trafficking,” Pryce continued. “Rather, it is critical that local, county, state, and federal law enforcement work hand in glove with human service agencies, NGO’s, border security, and our State Department to identify both perpetrators and victims alike. I commend all of our Columbus partners who now stand poised to help extricate victims from this underground of degradation and misery.”

An estimated 14,500 – 17,500 men, women and children are trafficked into the United States each year, and held as captives in the underground worlds of sex slavery and forced labor. Last January, Congress passed an international anti-trafficking bill called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which included provisions that Pryce authored to combat the problem of trafficking in the U.S. Among other things, these provisions provide grants to establish and expand assistance programs for victims of sex trafficking, help state and local law enforcement agencies initiate programs to investigate and prosecute sex trafficking cases, and promote more effective means of combating unlawful commercial sex activities by targeting demand for trafficked victims. As a result of the new law, more than $28 million was appropriated for these efforts in FY 2006, providing new hope for the tens of thousands of women and children in the US who are coerced into this underworld of violence and degradation.

Columbus becomes the twenty-first city in America to initiate a Rescue and Restore program. Following the campaign kickoff, Coalition members received training from the Administration for Children and Families to help the Columbus partners recognize the signs of human trafficking and learn how to take action to assist victims. One featured component of Rescue and Restore is its National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline -- (888) 373-7888 -- which connects victims of trafficking to Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) who can help victims in their local area. The resource center helps intermediaries determine whether they have encountered a victim of human trafficking, connects victims to resources, and coordinates with local social service organizations to protect and serve victims of trafficking.

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