Hillary Clinton Gets Trafficking!

Ok, I'm going to try and write this without gushing too much, but two of my all time favorite congressional women, Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton discussed and committed to fighting human trafficking yesterday in Clinton's confirmation hearings for Secretary of State.  I am as excited as an 11-year-old girl mixing Pop Rocks and Coke with the Jonas Brothers in a unicorn reserve!

Senator Boxer mentioned a number of international violence against women issues, including domestic violence, rape and marital brutality which is often disguised as "culture" in some parts of the world.  She then brought up Nicholas Kristof's recent series of articles on human trafficking in the New York Times, saying

Kristof tells us the story of a Vietnamese girl named Sina Vann, who was kidnapped at age 13. She was sold as a sex slave in Cambodia. When she refused to see customers, she was tortured brutally with electric shocks and locked in a coffin full of insects. And Kristof illustrates an act of horrific brutality in a piece called, "If This Isn't Slavery, What Is?" in which a young Cambodian girl had her eye gouged out by her brothel owner, after taking time off to recover from a fourth abortion.

Senator Clinton, of course, was already well-versed on the issues Boxer brought up.  Here's her exact wording:

I have also read closely Nick Kristof's articles over the last any months, but in particular the last weeks on the young women that he had both rescued from prostitution and met who have been enslaved and abused, tortured in every way -- physically, emotionally, morally. And I take very seriously the function of the State Department to lead our government, through the Office on Human Trafficking, to do all that we can to end this modern form of slavery. We have sex slavery; we have wage slavery. And it is primary a slavery of girls and women.

There are several ways Hillary shows she "gets" human trafficking in her response:

1. She's read the articles, which means she regularly reads about important international human rights issues.
2. She uses the word "enslaved". Awesome.
3. She gives props to the Trafficking in Persons Office of the State Department, and shows that she sees this issue as part of her job.
4. She mentions "wage slavery", which covers slavery in non-commercial sex industries and acknowledges that some trafficking victims are paid.
5. She frames this as a women's issue, since women and girls are disproportionally affected.

I'm sure that once her wheels hit the pavement, I'll come down from this sugar high and find something to criticize, but for now, I am basking in the glorious bright light that is Hillary Clinton.