Sex Trafficking Demand Reduction Act

Sex Trafficking Demand Reduction Act

This bill expands requirements for fighting human trafficking that apply to foreign countries receiving U.S. foreign assistance. (The President is authorized to reduce assistance to, or take other actions against, countries that fail to meet such requirements and are not making significant efforts to do so.)

The Department of State, when evaluating whether a country has met such requirements, shall assess whether the country has made serious efforts to prohibit the purchase of commercial sex acts if the central government has authority to do so, whereas currently the State Department must assess whether a country has made serious efforts to reduce such activities. The State Department shall also assess whether a country has made serious efforts to educate buyers of commercial sex acts on how traffickers exploit prostituted persons.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4326 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 4326

  To amend the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 relating to 
 determinations with respect to efforts of foreign countries to reduce 
  demand for commercial sex acts under the minimum standards for the 
                      elimination of trafficking.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 12, 2019

 Mrs. Wagner (for herself, Mr. Jeffries, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, and 
 Mr. Walberg) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 relating to 
 determinations with respect to efforts of foreign countries to reduce 
  demand for commercial sex acts under the minimum standards for the 
                      elimination of trafficking.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Sex Trafficking Demand Reduction 
Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) It has been the longstanding position of the United 
        States to reduce the demand for sex trafficking victims. There 
        is also a wide international consensus on the necessity of 
        demand reduction in order to prevent human trafficking.
            (2) The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and 
        Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, 
        Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against 
        Transnational Organized Crime of 2000 (also referred to as the 
        ``Palermo Protocol(s)'') expressly addresses the requirement 
        that nations make serious efforts to reduce demand for 
        trafficked persons.
            (3) Article 9, addressing prevention of human trafficking, 
        specifically directs that, ``States Parties shall adopt or 
        strengthen legislative or other measures, such as educational, 
        social or cultural measures, including through bilateral and 
        multilateral cooperation, to discourage the demand that fosters 
        all forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and 
        children, that leads to trafficking.''.
            (4) The United Nations Protocol, the Europe Convention on 
        Action against Human Trafficking, and the 2011 European Union 
        Directive of the European Parliament and the Council on 
        preventing and combating trafficking in human beings also 
        specifically address the need to prevent human trafficking by 
        reducing demand for trafficking victims.
            (5) Research has shown that legal prostitution increases 
        the demand for prostituted persons and thus increases the 
        market for sex. As a result, there is a significant increase in 
        instances of human trafficking.
            (6) In 2012, researchers Seo-Young Cho, Axel Dreher, and 
        Eric Neumayer published their findings in World Development 
        establishing that, ``The scale effect of legalized prostitution 
        leads to an expansion of the prostitution market, increasing 
        human trafficking . . . . On average, countries where 
        prostitution is legal experience larger reported human 
        trafficking inflows.''.
            (7) In 2005, a study focused on 11 European Union countries 
        requested by the European Parliament's committee on Women's 
        Rights and Gender Equality and performed by Transcrime found 
        that stricter prostitution laws are correlated with fewer human 
        trafficking victims.
            (8) Case studies published by researchers Niklas Jakobsson 
        and Andreas Kotsadam support the possibility of a causal link 
        between harsher prostitution laws and reduced human 
        trafficking. Jakobsson and Kotsadam found that trafficking of 
        persons for commercial sexual exploitation is least prevalent 
        in countries where prostitution is illegal and most prevalent 
        in countries where prostitution is legalized.
            (9) Further data has demonstrated the correlation between 
        the adoption of legislation that criminalizes demand and 
        reductions in sex trafficking.

SEC. 3. AMENDMENT RELATING TO DETERMINATIONS WITH RESPECT TO EFFORTS OF 
              FOREIGN COUNTRIES TO REDUCE DEMAND FOR COMMERCIAL SEX 
              ACTS UNDER THE MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR THE ELIMINATION OF 
              TRAFFICKING.

    (a) In General.--Paragraph (12) of section 108(b) of the 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7106(b)) is 
amended to read as follows:
            ``(12) Whether the government of the country has made 
        serious and sustained efforts to--
                    ``(A) prohibit the purchase of commercial sex acts 
                to the extent such prohibition is within the authority 
                of the central government or implement a policy against 
                the purchase of commercial sex acts to the extent that 
                prohibition is not within the authority of the central 
                government;
                    ``(B) educate buyers of commercial sex on how 
                traffickers exploit prostituted persons for human 
                trafficking; and
                    ``(C) reduce demand for participation in 
                international sex tourism by nationals of the 
                country.''.
    (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) takes 
effect on the date of the enactment of this Act and applies with 
respect to determinations under subsection (a)(4) of section 108 of the 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 that are made on or after 
such date of enactment.
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