In the Press...
Trentonian article on Intl Megan's Law Final Passage'Congressman Chris Smith’s International Megan’s Law bill will finally reach Obama’s desk'By Trentonian Staff Writer Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman -
After eight years of political legwork, the International Megan’s Law bill that was sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith (R-Hamilton) has finally cleared both chambers of Congress effective Monday and will soon arrive on President Barack Obama’s desk to be signed into law.
The International Megan’s Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking, also known as H.R. 515, is inspired by the domestic Megan’s Laws across the 50 states that require public notification of convicted sex offenders living in the community.
The international version authorizes U.S. authorities to notify other countries when a high-risk American child molester travels abroad. The international version also is intended to encourage other countries to notify the United States when foreign sex offenders seek to travel to America. “It is imperative — and long overdue — that the United States take the child protection lessons it has learned domestically with the successful notification systems first created by Megan’s Laws and expand them globally to prevent convicted U.S. sex offenders from harming children abroad,” Smith said Monday in a prepared statement. “International Megan’s Law will ensure that potential predators are on the radar of U.S. and foreign law enforcement.”
Megan’s Law and Smith’s international version are named after Megan Kanka, a Hamilton 7-year-old who was kidnapped, raped and murdered in 1994 by a notorious sex offender, Jesse Timmendequas, who lived across the street, unbeknownst to residents in the neighborhood. Before the International Megan’s Law bill passed Congress without any opposition, Smith on Monday afternoon gave a U.S House floor speech praising the “the extraordinary work by Megan’s courageous parents — Maureen and Richard Kanka” for them inspiring every U.S. state and territory to enact Megan’s Law. “Because of this law, parents, guardians, school officials, sport coaches, law enforcement and the public at large are now empowered with the critical information they need to mitigate harm to children,” Smith said in his floor speech about the benefits of Megan’s Law. In terms of his push for an international Megan’s Law, “We know from law enforcement and media documentation that Americans on U.S. sex offender registries are caught sexually abusing children in Asia, Central and South America, Europe — everywhere,” Smith said on the House floor. Congressman Smith, who has represented the Central Jersey area since 1981, has been a longtime champion of human rights, having pioneered the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000 to clamp down on what he refers to as “modern-day slavery” — that is, children forced into prostitution. |