MR. SPEAKER, TODAY I am introducing the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, which is intended to improve the United States’ efforts in combating the scourge of human trafficking. I am very pleased to have Congressmen Lantos, Ranking Member of the International Relations Committee, Congressman Pitts and Congresswoman Slaughter, join me as original cosponsors.

According to a recently released U.S. Government estimate, 800,000 to 900,000 women, children and men fall victim to international trafficking each year and end up prisoners of slavery-like practices in the commercial sex industry, domestic servitude, sweatshops, and agricultural farms, among other destinations.

In October 2000, we adopted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), P.L. 106—386. As a result of that law, the U.S. Government allocated $68.2 million last year to combat trafficking in human beings. In the past two years, federal prosecutors initiated prosecutions of 79 traffickers—three times as many as in the two previous years. Nearly 400 survivors of trafficking in the United States have received assistance, facilitated by the Department of Health and Human Services, to begin recovering from their trauma and to rebuild their shattered lives. Thanks to the efforts of the State Department, USAID, and the spotlight put on the issue through the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, governments worldwide have also begun taking significant actions against human trafficking.

Despite these substantive inroads, people continue to be bought and sold in modern day slavery. Victims continue to face obstacles in the process of securing needed assistance. We are not yet addressing trafficking in persons as an organized crime activity. We have not yet aggressively targeted sex tourism as a factor contributing to the demand for trafficked persons in prostitution, and more specialized research is needed.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthonzation Act (TVPRA) would address these and other areas of concern, would authorize funding to continue our government's efforts against trafficking, and would build upon the experience of implementing the TVPA to refine U.S. laws and practices to better fulfill the intent of that law. Specifically, the TVPRA would enhance the prevention of human trafficking by:

• • Requiring that U.S. Government contracts relating to international affairs contain clauses authorizing termination by the United States if the contractor engages in human trafficking or procures commercial sexual services while the contract is in force;