USCCB official calls for more help for child victims of trafficking

Published: 2004-07-08

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Child victims of human trafficking may have "fallen through the cracks" in enforcement of U.S. laws designed to protect them, a representative of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told a Senate subcommittee July 7. Sister Mary Ellen Dougherty of the bishops' Migration and Refugee Services was one of seven witnesses before the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and property rights. She is manager for outreach, education and technical assistance in MRS' human trafficking program. "While efforts to find and assist victims of trafficking have been pursued with commendable commitment over the last several years, we fear that children, as a group, have fallen through the cracks of these enforcement efforts," said Sister Dougherty, a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Only 34 child victims have been identified in the United States since passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000, she said. "However, knowledge of the nature of trafficking, the sexual exploitation of children, and statistics gathered by the State Department on child-trafficking worldwide numbers lead one to conclude that many more children are being held involuntarily in trafficking situations in the United States than we have so far identified," she added.

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