When Michael Horowitz read the headline from Israel about sex traffickers bringing 100,000 women out of Russia, the Jewish activist knew he had found another issue to practice 'odd couple' humanitarian politics.Horowitz, who works for the conservative Hudson Institute, knows something about bringing together diverse groups. He was instrumental in creating a coalition of Christian and Jewish leaders that successfully promoted the International Religious Persecution Act last year.This year's coalition against sex trafficking also features Christians and Jews, and adds several leading secular feminists to the mix. "This is an amazing, somewhat vulnerable, but remarkably cohesive coalition of feminists and church groups," Horowitz says.Feminists have stayed in the alliance with a single-mindedness that has hit the Clinton administration and some members of Congress "like a blast," he says. "Even at the risk of embarrassing an administration which they generally support, the feminists want more attention and active prosecution of pimps and traffickers—and no serious prosecution of the women and children in the trade who are victims."

This year the new coalition is pushing Congress to pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, cosponsored by House members Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) and Samuel Gejdenson (D-Conn.). The bill defines sex trafficking as coercion and transportation of women and children into the international sex trade. It also specifies sanctions against noncomplying governments.Republicans see sex trafficking as a symbolic issue that hits the Clinton administration where it is vulnerable. The President's Interagency Council on Women, led by Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been loathe to resist an ...