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COMMEMORATING HUMAN RIGHTS DAY -- (Extensions of Remarks - December 08, 2003)
[Page: E2472] GPO's PDF
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SPEECH OF
HON. JAMES P. MORANOF VIRGINIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2003
- Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate International Human Rights Day which is to be observed on the 10th of December. Human Rights Day celebrates the day of December 10, 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the standard for equal and inalienable rights for all mankind. This historic document has been the foundation for freedom, justice, and equality around the world.
- Sadly, 55 years since its inception, human rights abuses are still endemic. I would like to draw attention to the widespread problem of human trafficking. The trafficking of persons is a modern-day form of slavery, involving victims who are typically forced, defrauded or coerced into sexual or labor exploitation.
- It is the fastest growing criminal enterprise, occurring around the world and in individual countries. Annually, nearly one million people, mostly women and children, are trafficked worldwide, including 50,000 persons into the United States.
- The fact of the matter is that the violent subjugation and exploitation of women and girls is on-going and not enough is being done by governments to adequately address it. Take for example Skopje, Macedonia. In a marketplace, women are forced to walk around a stage naked while brothel owners point their fingers to make a selection. Women are sold like cattle and they are treated like slaves.
- In Krong Koh Kong, Cambodia, 14 year old girls stand outside of a row of shacks where they charge the equivalent of $2 or $3 dollars for sex, half of which goes to their pimps. These girls, many of whom have AIDS, are discarded when they become too sick to continue working.
- Around the world, women and girls are sold as slaves and are forced to engage in unprotected sex because clients offer more money for such acts. These women have no control over their lives, their health, or their futures. Trafficking victims in the sex industry are exposed to HIV/AIDS, at much higher rates than the general population with no access to medical care. The fear of infection of AIDS among customers has driven traffickers to recruit younger girls, erroneously perceived to be too young
to have been infected.
- The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report classifies countries that allow human trafficking into three tiers. Some have observed that the United States has been soft on certain Asian countries thought to be lax on trafficking, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India, and Thailand. But because these countries are allies in the war on terror, they may have been given a pass.