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SENATE RESOLUTION

 
2     WHEREAS, HR 3887, as introduced and passed with only two
3 dissents in the U.S. House of Representatives, introduces a
4 cohesive legal framework for fighting trafficking by combining
5 and streamlining efforts against the international and
6 domestic sale of human beings; and
 
7     WHEREAS, HR 3887 constitutionally targets the demand for
8 international trafficking by directly addressing the networks
9 that buy and sell women and children for commercial sexual
10 exploitation; and
 
11     WHEREAS, HR 3887 removes a barrier to effective
12 prosecutions against traffickers by making "force, fraud, and
13 coercion" part of aggravated trafficking rather than a
14 requirement for all convictions; and
 
15     WHEREAS, HR 3887 makes exporting sexual exploiters to other
16 countries ("sex-tourism") as significant a crime as importing
17 victims for sexual exploitation; and
 
18     WHEREAS, HR 3887, as drafted in and passed by the U.S.
19 House of Representatives, will assist many victims of
20 trafficking and the sex trade in Illinois; in Chicago alone,
21 16,000-25,000 women and girls are involved in prostitution

 

 

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1 every year; statewide, an estimated 6,500 youth are prostituted
2 annually; this bill will enhance legal options on a federal
3 level to help stem a significant piece of why so many women and
4 children are forced into the sex trade in Chicago and Illinois:
5 the pimps and traffickers; and
 
6     WHEREAS, Sixty-two percent of women and girls in
7 prostitution in Illinois were first pimped out before they were
8 18; many adult women in Illinois are also trafficked and pimped
9 by third parties who financially profit from keeping them in
10 prostitution; the majority of these adult women would face
11 violence if they did not give the money they make in the sex
12 trade to these third parties; and
 
13     WHEREAS, Pimps and traffickers do not always use force,
14 fraud or coercion to bring adult women into prostitution, but
15 pimping and trafficking is always unlawful, and it is virtually
16 always practiced on previously harmed, notably vulnerable and
17 objectively disempowered women; and
 
18     WHEREAS, Seventy-five percent of women and girls in
19 prostitution in Illinois are survivors of sexual assault - most
20 of multiple rapes - and 66% are victims of incest; and
 
21     WHEREAS, Fifty percent of women and girls in prostitution
22 are homeless; often, trading sex is the only means of survival

 

 

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1 for these women and girls; pimps and traffickers often exploit
2 these economic hardships to maintain adults and children in
3 prostitution; many traffickers and pimps profit from the
4 commercial sexual exploitation-while the women and children
5 trafficked remain poor; and
 
6     WHEREAS, Recognizing that trafficking is a serious and
7 over-looked problem in Illinois, the General Assembly
8 implemented Public Act 94-0009, the Trafficking of Persons and
9 Involuntary Servitude Act; though a powerful first step in the
10 fight against sex trafficking, state resources are limited and
11 local prosecutors do not have the ability to research, uncover
12 and prosecute domestic trafficking cases; many local
13 traffickers are not held accountable and continue to prey upon
14 victims in Illinois; HR 3887 will assist victims in Illinois by
15 allowing federal resources to be used to prosecute local
16 traffickers; therefore, be it
 
17     RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-FIFTH GENERAL
18 ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that Federal
19 anti-trafficking laws should focus on the actions of people and
20 businesses that prostitute others, not on the resistance level
21 of victims; and be it further
 
22     RESOLVED, That prostituted women and children often appear
23 to be in the industry by choice when they are anything but

 

 

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1 free; and be it further
 
2     RESOLVED, That lies about victim "willingness" to engage in
3 the sex trade are now being used by pimps and traffickers to
4 avoid accountability for modern day slavery and the sexual
5 exploitation of the world's most vulnerable and harmed people,
6 prominently women and children, but also boys, men, and
7 transgendered individuals; and be it further
 
8     RESOLVED, That the U.S. House of Representatives and our
9 Illinois Delegation are commended for their leadership in
10 expanding federal anti-trafficking legislation so that it more
11 accurately represents the experiences of victims in Illinois
12 and expands the ability of federal prosecutors to bring
13 domestic traffickers to justice; and be it further
 
14     RESOLVED, That the Illinois State Senate supports HR 3887
15 as passed, and we urge our U.S. Senators to champion federal
16 anti-trafficking legislation by supporting the passage of HR
17 3887, without modification, in the U.S. Senate; and be it
18 further
 
19     RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be
20 forwarded to United States Senators Richard J. Durbin and
21 Barack Obama.