they have traveled from the baltics, south america, africa and europe to be with us today. they are courageous individuals to enhance, to extend legal protections for the affordable educate the public, and end the loathsome practice of child sex tourism. my friends, thank you for being here and thank you for helping to reinforce what these heroes are doing. and if there is a single theme that connects the diverse work of these heroes, it is the conviction that there is nothing inevitable about trafficking in human beings. it is a choice. that conviction is where the process of change really begins. with the realization that just because a certain abuse has taken place in the past does not mean that we have to tolerate that abuse in the future, or that we can afford to avert our eyes and pretend we just do not know what is going on. instead, we need to each be asking ourselves, what if that victim of trafficking was somebody we knew? what if it was a neighbor? or still worse, as a nightmare what if it was a son, daughter relative? the more we ask these questions, the more ea