President Trump stressed the plight of women kidnapped by human traffickers and smuggled across the southern border on Friday while announcing the temporary end to the government shutdown.
“Our [border] plan also includes desperately needed humanitarian assistance for those being exploited and abused by coyotes,” Trump said from the Rose Garden.
The State Department has estimated that 70 percent of all sex-trafficked people coming into the US are taken from Mexico. An estimated 50 percent are minors who are trafficked for prostitution.
Amnesty International said 60 percent of women and girls experience sexual assault while being trafficked across the border.
“Every day, powerful criminal networks and individual traffickers on both sides of the border recruit people for labor or sexual exploitation,” the Polaris Project — a nonprofit that fights human trafficking — states on its Web site. “To stop traffickers and support survivors, it is critical that civil society, governments, and law enforcement also collaborate internationally.”
A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 68 percent of US voters feel there is a humanitarian crisis at the border.
Trump himself painted a grim picture of the women’s ordeal as he said human trafficking was another way violent drug cartels facing increased pressure on the narcotics trade are cashing in.
“Women are tied up, they��re bound, duct tape put around their faces, around their mouths and in many cases they can’t even breathe. They’re put in the backs of cars or vans or trucks,” he said. “They don’t go through your port of entry. They make a right turn going very quickly. They go into the desert areas . . . and as soon as there’s no protection, they make a left or a right into the United States of America.”