ROCHESTER, Mich. — Republican presidential candidate John McCain called for an interagency task force to crack down on human trafficking and child pornography, noting it is a problem that harms mainly women and children around the globe but also in the U.S.
Mr. McCain, on the second day of a two-day Michigan visit, gave a broad speech yesterday morning on human rights violations and the value of liberty at a town-hall meeting at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich.
Noting the role of the Internet in exploiting children, the presumptive Republican nominee called human trafficking “an evil form of 21st-century slavery every bit as important as drug trafficking.”
“We must do more to ensure governments that tolerate human trafficking crack down on this modern form of slavery,” Mr. McCain said, defending religious liberty abroad and at home. “We can support efforts to change the economic incentives and do more to aid the victims.”
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) said the Arizona senator was being hypocritical by talking about human trafficking while having opposed a study of the issue in 2001. The DNC also said one part of Mr. McCain’s proposed solution, a task force on trafficking, already exists.
Mr. McCain, accompanied by wife Cindy, spoke to a crowd of about 1,500 gathered at Oakland University’s Shotwell-Gustafson Pavilion while making his first Michigan visit since the state’s Jan. 15 primary.
He called on U.S. law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, to join forces with the State and Justice departments in the prevention of human trafficking and the rescue of its victims.
“Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity,” Mr. McCain said. “America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility.”
Mr. McCain said during the question-and-answer portion of his town-hall meeting that he supports drilling for oil in the U.S., but also allowed that it wasn’t his place to say where.
“I do believe we should drill for it, but I am a federalist. I do believe in the rights of states to make these decisions.”
Mr. McCain told displaced Michigan auto workers to take advantage of new industry opportunities when queried by a man who identified himself as a former GM employee. The man argued that U.S. automakers that make larger sport utility vehicles are being hurt economically by foreign competitors who produce vehicles that are more fuel efficient.
The senator said negotiations between U.S. auto company management and labor unions have cut costs that in the past had served to hurt auto workers. Those efforts have served to level the global playing field.
“I believe that we have to have CAFE standards,” Mr. McCain said, referring to the fuel-efficiency guidelines that the Big Three automakers have lobbied against.
While older-style line jobs are not coming back, “the auto industry in the state is not finished,” he said.
“The technology and the green technology is here … in this great state of Michigan,” said Mr. McCain, adding that displaced workers need to be retrained to take advantage of new job opportunities such as creating more hybrid vehicles and other future alternatives.
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