The fight to keep American minors out of the hands of sex traffickers was the topic of a hearing today at which Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Human Trafficking testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

    “Tragically, homegrown demand, enabled by the misuse of the internet drives much of the domestic minor sex trafficking in the U.S.,” said Smith, a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and author of the landmark Trafficking Victims and Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) and other anti-human trafficking laws. “The internet has opened a whole new front in the war with human trafficking—allowing demand to run free without practical obstacles.  We must develop more effective safeguards and enforcement of existing laws to ensure that neither obscenity nor child pornography is protected speech, therefore we must stop the criminal misuse of the internet for human trafficking and child pornography.” Click here to read Cong. Smiths’s entire testimony.