White House 1600 Daily: The scourge of sex trafficking in America
Driving the Day
• At 1:45 p.m. ET in the Rose Garden, President Donald J. Trump will announce new survey results showing historic confidence from U.S. manufacturers after tax reform.
• Elected leaders from rural America are joining the President this morning to discuss how better trade deals can protect American farmers and open foreign markets.
The scourge of sex trafficking in America
Human sex trafficking is an epidemic. According to the International Labor Organization, there may be nearly 25 million victims of forced labor across the world. That plight isn’t confined to developing countries: Since 2007, the National Human Trafficking Hotline has received reports of 22,191 sex trafficking cases in the United States.
The Trump Administration is taking the fight to human traffickers. Shortly after taking office, President Trump signed Executive Order 13773, “Enforcing Federal Law with Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking,” to boost the government’s response. Last month, Ivanka Trump led a bipartisan roundtable at the White House to discuss pending legislation.
Yesterday, President Trump took further action. The President signed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (FOSTA), which gives both law enforcement officials and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking. Among these tools, FOSTA makes it easier to seek legal action against any websites that enable these crimes.
Learn more about this new law to fight sex trafficking in the United States.
A memorial just steps from the White House
Each day, 116 Americans die from an opioids overdose. In addition to “hard drugs” such as heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, opioids include a range of prescription medications that roughly a quarter of patients reportedly misuse in some way.
President Trump wants the Nation to hear these victims’ stories. Beginning today, for one week, the engravings of 22,000 people who died from prescription opioid addiction in 2015 will be on exhibit as part of a temporary memorial just outside the White House. The project, led by the nonprofit National Safety Council, is intended to show Americans the depth and human toll of the crisis.
The memorial is free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.
Just steps from the White House, a memorial to victims of America’s drug crisis.Interested in visiting?See more details about the memorial.