Date: 2016-02-01
Speaker: BRENDAN F. BOYLE (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Pennsyl

vania. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of this measure. Mr. Speaker. I want to thank Chairman ROYCE and also Ranking Member ENGEL for their leadership and for their hard work on this bill. It seems that every day we see another report about the way modern slavery touches our lives. Fish caught by an enslaved sailor in Southeast Asia ends up in our grocery stores. Rare metals that are needed to power our smartphones are mined through forced labor in Central Africa. Oranges and tomatoes grown right here in the United States are picked by migrants who end up trapped and isolated. Human trafficking is a crime that affects every nation on Earth. It undermines stability. fuels criminal networks. and robs tens of millions of people of their basic freedom. It touches all of our lives. United States Government has long been a leader in the fight against trafficking. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have focused hard on the best way to prevent modern slavery. protect its victims. and prosecute those responsible. The State Departments Annual Trafficking in Persons Report is the global gold standard for assessing how well governments are doing to combat this problem. As we learn more and more about this crime. how it has worked its way into the global supply chain and labor market. we find new ways of disrupting trafficking networks. Part of American leadership on this issue must be to make sure. first and foremost. that we are not making this problem worse. Our foreign affairs agencies employ thousands of foreign contract workers overseas. These men and women work in construction. food service. and security projects abroad. In 2011. inspectors interviewing some of these workers found that 77 percent of them had paid recruiting fees to the company arranging the work. What that means is before workers are able to get these jobs. they need to pay a recruiter a hefty sum. Sometimes these fees are 6 months or even a years wages. These fees can include the high costs of housing or transportation to a worksite in a foreign country. So often. a worker arrives at a new job saddled with debt and is forced to work until he or she can pay the socalled recruiter back. This sort of treatment is unacceptable under any circumstances. The fact that this is happening to individuals working for the United States Government is absolutely intolerable. We cannot be the worlds leader in the fight against modern slavery if taxpayer dollars are flowing into the hands of traffickers. The Obama administration saw this problem and took steps to deal with it. An executive order forbids any U.S. Government contractors from charging unreasonable recruitment fees. But so far the State Department and USAID have been unable to enforce this requirement. The reason whyneither agency has defined recruitment fees. so their guidelines for fair treatment of workers by contractors are unenforceable. Mr. Speaker. this is simply not acceptable. This bill requires that the State Department and USAID adopt a legally binding definition of recruitment fees. In addition. the agencies must improve how they monitor contractors to detect and prevent human trafficking. This legislation represents a commonsense step to resolve this problem and to make sure we have a clean House as we lead global antitrafficking efforts. Mr. Speaker. I urge my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.