Corker’s anti-slavery efforts get big-name aid

Ivanka Trump urges dad to join fight against problem

WASHINGTON – Sen. Bob Corker appears close to getting some high-powered help in his campaign to end modern slavery.

The Chattanooga Republican was called to the White House last Thursday for a meeting with first daughter Ivanka Trump, who has taken an interest in the issue.

Corker’s office said they discussed a law he pushed through Congress last year to stop human trafficking and talked about “their shared commitment to fighting modern slavery in the United States and around the world.”

A week earlier, President Donald Trump and senior White House officials held what they called a “listening session” with organizations that are working to end human trafficking in the United States and across the globe.

“I want to make it clear today that my administration will focus on ending the absolutely horrific practice of human trafficking,” Trump said at the meeting, which was reportedly Ivanka Trump’s idea.

The president said he is prepared to bring “the full force and weight” of his administration — “whatever we can do” — to solving the problem.

Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was unable to attend that meeting. That same day, he

correct behaviors that prevent many of them from having a better life.

But unless such bills are paired with substantive measures designed to fix the economic and social circumstances behind those behaviors, then such bills aren’t about helping poor people have better lives.

They’re about making poor people pay for their sins.

And given the struggles they continually face in a political atmosphere in which they’re either targeted for scorn or for exploitation, it seems that they pay enough already.