{"id":22800,"date":"2024-04-21T14:37:07","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T18:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/?post_type=press-releases&#038;p=22800"},"modified":"2024-04-21T14:37:20","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T18:37:20","slug":"news-sens-ossoff-grassley-bipartisan-bill-to-protect-children-from-human-traffickers-passes-u-s-senate","status":"publish","type":"press-releases","link":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/news-sens-ossoff-grassley-bipartisan-bill-to-protect-children-from-human-traffickers-passes-u-s-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"NEWS: Sens. Ossoff, Grassley Bipartisan Bill to Protect Children from Human Traffickers Passes U.S. Senate\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>According to Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia is a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsav.com\/crime-safety\/fbi-gbi-say-human-trafficking-has-increased-during-pandemic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>\u201chotspot\u201d<\/em><\/a><em>&nbsp;for human trafficking<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Washington, D.C. \u2014&nbsp;<\/strong>U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff\u2019s bipartisan bill to protect children from human traffickers passed the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this year, Sens. Ossoff and Chuck Grassley (R-IA)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/sens-ossoff-grassley-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-protect-children-from-human-traffickers\/#:~:text=Ossoff%20and%20Chuck%20Grassley%20(R,HHS)%20to%20prevent%20child%20trafficking.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">introduced<\/a>&nbsp;the bipartisan&nbsp;<em>Preventing Child Trafficking Act of 2024<\/em>&nbsp;to strengthen coordination between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to prevent child trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/assets\/d24106038.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a>, agencies within the Departments collaborate to prevent human trafficking broadly, but there&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">are<\/a>&nbsp;no mechanisms in place to collaborate specifically on child trafficking prevention. Improving collaboration would \u201cenable the offices to overcome challenges specific to children and meet the distinct needs of child trafficking survivors,\u201d the GAO report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChild trafficking in Georgia and nationwide is a crisis. Senator Grassley and I brought Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen Federal protections for vulnerable children and increase support for victims of trafficking,\u201d<strong>&nbsp;Sen. Ossoff said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe federal government can and must do more to prevent children from falling prey to the evils of human trafficking. The Senate advanced that objective today by passing our bipartisan bill to help protect vulnerable children and strengthen prosecutions. I\u2019ll continue working to make it law,\u201d&nbsp;<strong>Grassley said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsav.com\/crime-safety\/fbi-gbi-say-human-trafficking-has-increased-during-pandemic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">According to news reports<\/a>, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has warned that Georgia is a hotspot for human trafficking with a large international airport, easy access to highways across major cities, and several large sporting events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bipartisan&nbsp;<em>Preventing Child Trafficking Act of 2024&nbsp;<\/em>is endorsed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the Rape, Abuse &amp; Incest National Network (RAINN).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is proud to support the&nbsp;<em>Preventing Child Trafficking Act of 2024,\u201d&nbsp;<\/em><strong>said Michelle DeLaune, NCMEC President &amp; CEO.&nbsp;<\/strong>\u201cWe thank Senator Ossoff and Senator Grassley for their continued leadership on legislative initiatives to protect children from sexual exploitation and their work to ensure collaborative efforts to combat child sex trafficking are maximized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sen. Ossoff continues working to protect children from abuse and trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In December, Sen. Ossoff\u2019s bipartisan&nbsp;<em>REPORT Act<\/em>&nbsp;to protect children from online sexual abuse and exploitation&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/breaking-sen-ossoffs-bipartisan-bill-to-protect-children-from-online-sexual-exploitation-passes-u-s-senate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">passed<\/a>&nbsp;the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In September, Sens. Ossoff and Blackburn&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/sens-ossoff-blackburn-launch-bipartisan-inquiry-into-fbis-capacity-to-investigate-child-sexual-abuse\/#:~:text=child%20sexual%20abuse.-,Sens.,child%20sexual%20abuse%20and%20exploitation.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">launched an inquiry<\/a>&nbsp;with Attorney General Merrick Garland about the FBI\u2019s capacity to investigate and respond to crimes involving child sexual&nbsp;abuse&nbsp;and exploitation, highlighting a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/d9\/2023-06\/2023_national_strategy_for_child_exploitation_prevention_interdiction_-_combined.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">June 2023 report to Congress<\/a>&nbsp;in which the DOJ cited an international threat assessment demonstrating that \u201cthe growth in online child sexual exploitation is outpacing our ability to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last month, Sens. Ossoff and Grassley\u2019s bipartisan&nbsp;<em>Preventing Child Sex Abuse Act of 2023<\/em>&nbsp;was signed into law, which will strengthen Federal protections against the sexual abuse of children, including online exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Child-Trafficking-Bill_v3_MDM24057.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Click here<\/a>&nbsp;to read the&nbsp;<em>Preventing Child Trafficking Act of 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"># # #<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia is a&nbsp;\u201chotspot\u201d&nbsp;for human trafficking Washington, D.C. \u2014&nbsp;U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff\u2019s bipartisan bill to protect children from human traffickers passed the U.S. Senate. Earlier this year, Sens. Ossoff and Chuck Grassley (R-IA)&nbsp;introduced&nbsp;the bipartisan&nbsp;Preventing Child Trafficking Act of 2024&nbsp;to strengthen coordination between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22800","press-releases","type-press-releases","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/22800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press-releases"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/22800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22802,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/22800\/revisions\/22802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}