Mark Kirk Quotes

We tend to think of human trafficking as a foreign issue, not something that could happen here in our own back yards. But it's a fast-growing problem in the United States, in every area, with no real defined demographic.

Selling the commodity of humans has to be the biggest business out there, as it is the most lucrative. I cannot go to sleep at night, unless I know that I am using all of my platforms to fight human trafficking.

We all have our own narrative of what human trafficking is supposed to be, but if you do a little research, human trafficking happens, in many different forms and shapes, right in our backyard.

In 2009, at the Vancouver Peace Summit, I met a supporter of Free the Slaves, an NGO dedicated to eradicating modern-day slavery; weeks later, I flew down to Los Angeles and met with the director of Free the Slaves; thus began my journey into exploring modern-day slavery.

Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it exists all over the world.

Modern day slavery is the great tragedy of our time and the U.S. cannot turn a blind eye to it on our soil or another nation's.

Human trafficking robs victims of their basic human rights, and it occurs right under our noses. Many efforts have been focused in other regions of the world, but this is a major problem here at home.

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, a time to recognize that this evil affects communities all over the world, including here in Nevada.

I believe that modern slavery is the most outrageous assault on the rights of an individual. It is something that touches me deeply because I grew up in rural Brazil and could see first-hand how poverty forced people to work in harsh, exploitative conditions.

The swelling epidemic of human trafficking makes a mockery of the law and its protections.

It is troubling that modern slavery is a crime that can be hidden in the supply chains of the goods and services we use every day. The uncomfortable reality is that the money we spend could be driving demand for slavery across the globe.

I want to be the last girl in the world with a story like mine.

And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone.

When people think of slavery, they think of an era from the distant past. Grainy photographs from Civil War times. And yet it goes on.

The Slave Trade, though nominally abolished, is actively pursued here, eighty-three slaves having been landed just before my arrival, and another cargo during my stay.

If you keep on buying things made by child slaves in such conditions, you are equally responsible for the perpetration of slavery.

You cannot afford a world with slavery, which literally takes someone and turns them into a machine.

Economic growth will not stop slavery, at least not anytime soon.

In the 19th century, the chains [of slavery] were metal. Today, the chains are debt—the worker has to repay his transportation, his tools, his food.

The slave trade must be suppressed.

I think the United States has to take the leadership for the entire world [on human trafficking].

We believe slavery was abolished with Abraham Lincoln; unfortunately, human slavery is alive and well.

I cannot ignore this reality, and I encourage my all colleagues to join me in this fight to end modern day slavery in our own backyard.

In our fields, on our fishing vessels, in our factories and our homes, there are people deprived of their freedom and trapped in a life of unimaginable suffering.

I can literally count on one hand how many slave stories have gotten notoriety over the past few years.