Oregonians know Ron as a senator who listens and innovates. For example, Ron has secured landmark health care and economic wins for our workers and retirees. Always citing the need to "throw open the doors of government for Oregonians," he holds an open-to-all town hall meeting in each of Oregon's 36 counties each year. Thus far he has held more than 970 meetings, as well as several virtual town hall meetings sponsored by the nonpartisan Town Hall Project. Wyden's dedication to hearing all sides of an issue and looking for common sense, nonpartisan solutions has won him trust on both sides of the aisle and put him at the heart of so many of the Senate's most important debates. In 2011, the Almanac of American Politics described Wyden as having "displayed a genius for coming up with sensible-sounding ideas no one else had thought of and making the counter-intuitive political alliances that prove helpful in passing bills." The Washington Post's Ezra Klein wrote: "The country has problems. And Ron Wyden has comprehensive, bipartisan proposals for fixing them."
After leading the campaign to put domestic sex trafficking of children on the national agenda, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), worked with Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy to include key provisions of his legislation into the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). The TVPRA, with several of Senator Wyden’s provisions, was passed into law as an amendment to the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act in 2013 and represents an important step forward in putting an end to modern-day slavery.
The Wyden-authored provisions passed in VAWA created a pilot block grant program for four areas of the country hardest hit by sex trafficking. Once funded, these grants can be used to create a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach to combat sex trafficking of minors. Each block grant is authorized at $1.5 to $2 million per year for up to four years.
Research suggests that the majority of trafficked youth in the United States have been in and out of the child welfare system, specifically foster care. Too often, the protections, services and protocols established for abused and neglected children within the child welfare system are not extended to trafficked children and youth, and in many states, such children aren’t even categorized as victims. Instead, they are often sent to the juvenile justice system and criminalized for being raped and trafficked.
One of the struggles in gaining attention to the issue of child sex trafficking is the lack of reliable data. Senator Wyden and Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced the bipartisan Child Sex Trafficking Data and Response Act of 2013 to address this shortcoming, particularly as it relates to children in the child welfare system.
The bill would improve state and national data on the scope and prevalence of child sex trafficking and bring reforms to better identify and assist victims of child sex trafficking.
Learn more about The Child Sex Trafficking Data and Response Act of 2013
Most recently, Senator Wyden introduced The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act with U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.) which supports programs that help trafficking victims by creating a deficit neutral “Domestic Trafficking Victims’ Fund.” The Fund is financed through fines on persons convicted of trafficking and other sex crimes and will increase federal resources available by up to $30 million per year.