Preventing Child Trafficking Act of 2025
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Preventing Child Trafficking Act turns specific GAO recommendations into follow-through obligations for federal anti-trafficking offices. It defines the relevant recommendations as those from GAO report GAO-24-106038, Child Trafficking: Addressing Challenges to Public Awareness and Survivor Support. The Director of the Justice Department Office for Victims of Crime, working with the HHS Administration for Children and Families Office on Trafficking in Persons, must continue implementing the anti-trafficking recommendations. The implementation work must improve collaboration called out by GAO, develop prevention and survivor-support strategies, and establish objective, measurable, quantifiable performance goals for anti-trafficking grantees using baseline data. The Director must report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees within 180 days on implementation progress.
Who Benefits and How
Children vulnerable to trafficking benefit if the agencies build stronger prevention strategies and coordinate public-awareness work. Child trafficking survivors benefit if survivor-support programs use clearer performance goals and grantee baseline data to improve services. Anti-trafficking grantees benefit from clearer federal expectations and performance metrics, even though reporting obligations increase. Congressional Judiciary Committees benefit from a defined 180-day implementation report rather than relying only on broad agency assurances.
Who Bears the Burden and How
Office for Victims of Crime staff must coordinate implementation, performance-goal design, grantee data use, and congressional reporting. HHS trafficking prevention staff must work with Justice on the GAO recommendations. Anti-trafficking grantees may have to provide or standardize baseline data for performance goals. The agencies also face oversight risk if the 180-day report shows limited progress on GAO recommendations.
Key Provisions
- Defines anti-trafficking recommendations by reference to GAO report GAO-24-106038.
- Requires the Justice Department Office for Victims of Crime to continue implementing those recommendations with HHS trafficking officials.
- Requires strategies to prevent child trafficking and support survivors.
- Requires objective, measurable, quantifiable performance goals using baseline grantee data.
- Requires a 180-day report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Requires the Justice Department Office for Victims of Crime and the HHS Office on Trafficking in Persons to keep implementing GAO child-trafficking recommendations, build measurable performance goals, use grantee baseline data, and report to Congress within 180 days.
Key Policy Areas
Social Services, Law Enforcement, Child Welfare
Primary Purpose
Requires the Justice Department Office for Victims of Crime and the HHS Office on Trafficking in Persons to keep implementing GAO child-trafficking recommendations, build measurable performance goals, use grantee baseline data, and report to Congress within 180 days.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Children vulnerable to trafficking
- Child trafficking survivors
- Anti-trafficking service grantees
- Congressional Judiciary Committees
Identified Costs
- Office for Victims of Crime staff
- HHS trafficking prevention staff
- Anti-trafficking service grantees
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMr. Owens (for himself and Mr. Magaziner) introduced the following …
Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Introduced in House
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Congressional Judiciary Committees, HHS trafficking prevention staff, Office for Victims of Crime staff
Positive-direction: Congressional Judiciary Committees
Negative-direction: HHS trafficking prevention staff, Office for Victims of Crime staff
Child trafficking survivors, Children vulnerable to trafficking
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology