On June 26, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved, by voice vote, a bill “to prioritize the fight against human trafficking within the Department of State according to congressional intent in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-386) without increasing the size of the federal government” (H.R. 2283).
The bill acknowledges that “nearly 21 million people are subjected to modern slavery around the world at any given time and that the majority of the enslaved are women and girls,” and thus seeks to strengthen the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons within the State Department. The bill seeks to reclassify the office itself and the head of the office, allowing both greater access to the secretary of State.
