By Susan Carpenter
Published April 23, 2026 at 5:25 PM ET

             WASHINGTON — A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers rallied at the Capitol on Thursday in support of a bill to prevent sex trafficking and protect victims.

             The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act will reauthorize and add to a 25-year-old law that was used to prosecute the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and to convict his longtime enabler, Ghislaine Maxwell.

             “This is about nameless, faceless individuals who are not here today, who may never see this press conference, who are just a step away from being snatched or tricked or lured into some sort of evil situation,” H.R. 1144 co-sponsor, Rep. Kwesi Mfume, D-Md., said at a news conference Thursday where he was joined by dozens of sex trafficking survivors and the organizations that advocate for them.

             The bill’s author, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said it was the experiences of sex trafficking survivors that informed the bill’s key tenets: to prioritize prosecutions, increase child trafficking education and strengthen partnership between federal, state and local authorities.

In this courtroom sketch, from left, Alon Alexander, Oren Alexander, defense attorney Teny Geragos, Tal Alexander, and Marc Agnifilo, listen for the verdict in Manhattan federal court with Judge Valerie Caproni presiding on the bench, Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

             “This legislation is of, by and for them to help heal, restore and to empower,” Smith said.

             Smith is the author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 — a federal law that made sex and labor trafficking federal crimes and provided support for victims. The law has led to the convictions of over 5,000 human traffickers, including Maxwell, and freed tens of thousands of victims, he said.

             “When we focus on prevention and prosecution and liberation, what is often missing in this conversation is what happens when systems fail to recognize victims,” said Hollie Nadel, a sex trafficking survivor and director of advocacy and engagement for the 3Strands Global Foundation. “In my own experience, I was not treated as a victim. I was treated as a criminal.”

             Nadel said she, like many survivors, was arrested, detained and punished for actions that were a direct result of being trafficked. Instead of being protected, she said she was processed through a legal system that only furthered the harm that had been done to her.

             “Survivors should not be penalized for crimes they were compelled to commit as part of their exploitation,” Nadel said. “This still happens every day across the United States.”

             Nadel praised the so-called non-punishment principle in the TVPA reauthorization bill, which stipulates that trafficking victims should not be prosecuted, detained or penalized for the illegal actions they were forced to commit.

             “We see every day how criminal records for forced action significantly hinder survivors’ efforts to rebuild their lives,” Nadel said. “If we are serious about ending human trafficking, we must fulfill our responsibility to ensure survivors are not criminalized by the very systems meant to protect them.”

             Designed to evolve with the crime of human trafficking, the new bill would provide $31 million to the Department of Health and Human Services to support victims of human trafficking with education and employment programs and to enhance child trafficking prevention and education.

             “We’ve got a major problem in the United States with American kids being bought and sold for sex or to be labor trafficked. We need to fight for our kids,” said Kevin Malone, a senior adviser on human trafficking at the Department of Health and Human Services. “At HHS, we see human trafficking as a domestic public health and human services issue, affecting communities across this country — urban, suburban, rural and tribal. And often it’s hidden in plain sight.”

             Malone said schools that have implemented human trafficking prevention education are identifying active trafficking situations among students and sometimes among families.

             “Traffickers are not waiting," Malone said. "They’re using technology. They’re using relationships and moments of vulnerability to exploit individuals wherever they are. That is why education matters.”

             He said one of the strongest predictors of whether a person is exploited is whether they can achieve economic stability. Survivors, he said, want jobs and the ability to support themselves.

             “They want stability, and without that stability, the risk of re-exploitation remains high,” he said. “Providing sustained access to employment, education and life skills support is not just about recovery. It is one of the most effective forms of prevention.”

             Malone implored Congress to “do the right thing” and pass the bill.

             Smith said Thursday that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., have vowed to bring the bill to the floor for debate and a vote within the next couple weeks.

             Last summer, Johnson described human trafficking as “an unspeakable evil” and a “scourge that represents an absolute human catastrophe.”

             The legislation is named for former slave and 19th century civil rights leader Frederick Douglass “because we stand for the principles that he stood for: all trafficking is wrong,” Mfume said.

             “He always thought that it was so immoral for people to be trafficked, whether they were slaves, whether they were women, whether they were children,” he said. “This notion of bondage was working against the American principle.”


This article was published on April 23, 2026 and can be found online at: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/us/snplus/politics/2026/04/23/trafficking-victims-prevention-and-protection-reauthorization-act