IV 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 528 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the Victims 
of the Terror Protection Fund. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 16, 2015 
Ms. JACKSON LEE (for herself, Ms. JUDY CHU of California, Mr. DOLD, Mr. 
RANGEL, Ms. HAHN, Ms. KELLY of Illinois, Ms. FUDGE, Mrs. WATSON 
COLEMAN, Ms. SEWELL of Alabama, and Ms. WILSON of Florida) sub-
mitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives 
regarding the Victims of the Terror Protection Fund. 
Whereas the United Nations Convention Against Corruption 
(UNAC) obliges state parties to implement a wide and 
detailed range of anticorruption measures affecting their 
laws, institutions and practices; 
Whereas these measures aim to promote the prevention, de-
tection, and sanctioning of corruption, as well as the co-
operation between state parties on these matters; 
Whereas the UNAC promotes preventive measures, criminal-
ization of a wide range of offenses and contains a broad 
definition of the term public official, including offenses 
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•HRES 528 IH 
related both to public sector corruption and private sector 
(private-to-private) corruption; 
Whereas the UNAC’s asset recovery provision is robust and 
delineates a global asset recovery framework and strategy 
and covers countries in a variety of nation states from 
the north and south; 
Whereas the technical cooperation and information exchange 
provision of the UNAC provides for ‘‘enhanced financial 
and material assistance’’ to developing countries and 
technical assistance to developing countries and countries 
in transition to help them implement the Convention, 
without which such countries will be in a position to im-
plement UNAC requirements; 
Whereas asset recovery is a fundamental principle of UNAC, 
where high-level corruption has plundered the national 
wealth, and where resources are badly needed for recon-
struction and the rehabilitation of societies under new 
governments; 
Whereas the needs of countries seeking the illicit assets had 
to be reconciled with the legal and procedural safeguards 
of the countries whose assistance is sought with emphasis 
on cooperation and assistance; 
Whereas in the case of embezzlement of public funds, one of 
the manners in which the confiscated assets could be dis-
posed of is as compensation to the victims affected by the 
underlying crime; 
Whereas an effective asset recovery provision created by a 
state party such as the United States will support the ef-
forts of other countries to redress the worst effects of 
corruption while sending a message to corrupt officials 
that there will be no place to hide illicit assets; 
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•HRES 528 IH 
Whereas the United States Department of Justice imple-
ments and enforces the UNAC vis-a-vis its Justice’s 
Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative; 
Whereas to date, the forfeited ‘‘Abacha funds’’ is the largest 
kleptocracy forfeiture action ever brought in the United 
States totaling approximately $458,000,000 of forfeited 
assets recovered by Justice’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery 
Initiative from former Nigerian Dictator Sanni Abacha; 
Whereas, as delineated in the UNAC and pursuant to Jus-
tice’s Kleptocracy Initiative, upon recovery of proceeds of 
crime or corruption-related assets, the Attorney General 
as the Chief Prosecutor of the United States has the dis-
cretion to dispose of the funds as she deems fit, especially 
where high-level corruption has plundered the national 
wealth, and where resources are badly needed for recon-
struction and the rehabilitation of societies under new 
governments; 
Whereas the Abacha Administration embezzled Nigerian pub-
lic funds under among other false claims that the Admin-
istration was investing in national security measures to 
protect Nigeria and the Nigerian people; 
Whereas, as a result of or in part because of the Government 
of Nigeria’s failure to invest in and implement security 
measures, the security in Nigeria is tenuous and the 
country is currently under continuous threat by the ISIS 
affiliated group Boko Haram; 
Whereas, as recently as May 2015, Nigeria is reported as 
having the highest number of displaced persons in Africa 
and the third largest in the world following Syria and Co-
lombia in part because of security issues and the con-
tinual threat of Boko Haram; 
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Whereas according to a report by the Internal Displacement 
Monitoring Center, an estimated 3,300,000 persons have 
been displaced and 5,500 killed as a result of violence in 
general and Boko Haram specifically in Nigeria; 
Whereas according to a UNICEF report, Nigeria, with its 
population of 174,000,000 people, has seen an estimated 
1,500,000 people flee their homes to escape Boko Haram 
trafficking and terrorist related violence; 
Whereas according to Amnesty International, thousands of 
women and girls have been abducted by the group with 
some ‘‘shared’’ to fighters as a reward or trafficked as 
sex slaves; 
Whereas in April 2015 alone, 700 women and girls were res-
cued from Boko Haram militants in the Sambisa Forest 
with hundreds ‘‘visibly pregnant’’; 
Whereas Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for traf-
ficking, kidnapping, deaths, and displacement of thou-
sands of Nigerian children, women, and men; 
Whereas among others, Boko Haram also allegedly kidnapped 
276 school girls from their dormitories in Chibok in 
northeastern Nigeria while they were in the midst of 
exam preparation; 
Whereas the still missing Chibok girls are part of the ap-
proximately 3,300,000 persons displaced in the Lake 
Chad Basin which sits on the edge of the Sahara which 
encompasses Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria; 
Whereas the United Nations Convention against Transnation-
al Organized Crime is a legally binding instrument 
through which state parties commit to taking a series of 
measures against transnational organized crime; 
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Whereas the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Traf-
ficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, was 
adopted by General Assembly resolution 55/25 and en-
tered into force on December 25, 2003; 
Whereas the Convention and the Protocol are the first global 
legally binding instruments with an agreed definition on 
trafficking in persons; 
Whereas a key objective of the Protocol is to protect and as-
sist the victims of trafficking in persons with full respect 
for their human rights; and 
Whereas the human rights of the victims of Boko Haram to 
life, security, and livelihood have been violated in deroga-
tion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 
United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child, 
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 
and its two Optional Protocols, and the International 
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 
among others: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) Boko Haram and other terrorist organiza-
tions be declared an existential threat to the human 
rights, well-being, and security of the Nigerian peo-
ple and their regional neighbors with its relentless 
drive to commit genocide in Nigeria; 
(2) there is an urgency for a framework to ad-
dress the unprecedented migrant and refugee crisis 
across the Mediterranean triggered by violent extre-
mism, conflict, and natural disasters; 
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