WASHINGTON (AP) — Actress and activist Jada Pinkett Smith urged Congress on Tuesday to step up the fight against human trafficking in the U.S. and abroad.The actress testified during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that she plans to launch a campaign to raise awareness and spur action against human trafficking and slavery. She said the “old monster” of slavery “is still with us,” almost 150 years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves in the U.S.“Fighting slavery doesn’t cost a lot of money. The costs of allowing it to exist in our nation and abroad are much higher,” the actress said. “It robs us of the thing we value most, our freedom.”She said the issue was brought to her attention by her daughter Willow, 11, who sat nearby with actor Will Smith, Pinkett Smith’s husband and Willow’s father. The Smiths all wore blazers over T-shirts that read, “Free Slaves.”The actress called for an extension of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which provides funding to combat trafficking and help trafficking victims. The act also created a task force, chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, which coordinates among federal agencies to implement policies against human trafficking.
let's listen to see if congress takes any action or dose it's majority see nothing wrong here?
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., pledged to try to gather bipartisan congressional support to further fund the act.The State Department estimates that at least 14,500 people are trafficked to the U.S. annually.
but is that enough, i understand pressing issues of today can tend to back burner an issue like this, and congress has proven it has problems walking and chewing gum. those caught in this atrocity of human existence, are they not worthy American's?
Kudos to celebrities who pursue worthy causes
the claims of this country how great it is, has America become to big to care or shrinking to the population of care less entities?
