Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced legislation on Wednesday to combat domestic youth sex trafficking.
The legislation, dubbed the “Improving Outcomes for Youth at Risk for Sex Trafficking, IO YOUTH,” requires states to show that they have policies in place to identify youth believed to be at risk of being trafficked.
“There is an epidemic of abuse that is taking place in America today,” Hatch said. “Some estimates have found hundreds of thousands of children and youth are at risk of domestic sex trafficking. Making matters worse, up to 60 percent of sexually-exploited children are recruited out of our nation’s child welfare and foster care systems.
“We owe these young people better than this. This legislation I am introducing today addresses some of the endemic and wide spread conditions in the child welfare and foster care systems that make children and youth particularly vulnerable to being sexually trafficked. It doesn’t add a penny to our debt and, most importantly, helps protect our children from the most vile kind of abuse and victimization.”
The legislation would provide children in foster care with more control over decisions affecting their lives while promoting policies to recruit and train quality foster parents.
Additionally, the legislation would redirect funds from the Social Services Block Grant program to provide resources to state to keep children safely at home, improve the courts, support adoption, and provide housing to trafficked and other vulnerable youth.