Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions Votes to Support Child Sex Trafficking

Recently, the U.S. Senate was moments away from passing landmark legislation that would have provided critical care and shelter to child sex trafficking victims in America. The Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010, bi-partisan legislation introduced by Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Cornyn (R-TX), had already passed the Senate unanimously and the House with minor changes. But when it came time for the Senate to approve those changes and give hope to thousands of trafficked kids, one man stood in the way: Senator Jeffrey Sessions of Alabama. Why did Senator Sessions, who has previously supported the bill, end up voting for child sex trafficking?

The Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010, the bill Senator Sessions blocked, would have provided critical resources for the over 100,000 children sex trafficked in the U.S. every year. Child sex trafficking victims experience violent trauma, manipulation, and are often arrested and detained in juvenile detention. They need safe places like shelters to recover from that abuse. But there are only a handful of shelter beds in the whole country for child sex trafficking victims. Right now, there aren't enough aftercare facilities to serve even 1% of the estimated victims of child sex trafficking in the U.S. The lack of shelter for child trafficking victims is a national crisis.

Last year, the Victims Support Act unanimously passed the Senate, but when it arrived in the House,  it languished in the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime until two days before the end of the session. Before it was returned, however, the House removed two Senate amendments added by Senator Sessions. As the bill no longer contained his amendments, Sessions refused to let the bill go to a final vote, which almost surely would have result in its passage, but instead resulted in its death. By blocking the Victims Support Act, Senator Sessions exacerbated that crisis and helped make sure hundreds of thousands of child trafficking victims will remain on the streets of America, being raped and enslaved. He helped ensure men who are looking to buy sex with children have ample opportunity to do so. And he helped keep money in the pockets of pimps and traffickers who sell children as young as 11 for sex.

In addition to Senator Sessions's block, Concerned Women for America issued an 11th hour letter urging lawmakers not to pass the Victims Support Act. Their reasoning? Trafficked children, though they are defined by laws as victims of a crime, should be arrested for prostitution, even if they were forced into the industry. This from a group that claims to support "family values."

Why is Senator Sessions supporting child sex trafficking? Does he think, like CWA, that children can consent to their own rapes in the commercial sex industry? Or does he simply not care that his vote has meant more abuse, more homelessness, more disease, more violence, and more trauma for thousands of children in America.

Please, tell Senator Sessions to compensate for the error he made in preventing legislation that would shelter trafficked kids by supporting the passage of The Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010 in the next Congressional session.

Photo credit: loveiswritten