Washington leading the fight against human trafficking

We tend to think that human trafficking and modern-day slavery happen only in distant third-world countries, not here in America.

But they do, more than any of us can imagine. Consider Susana Blackwell, from the Philippines, who was killed by her husband right outside Seattle's King County courtroom in 1995. And Anastasia King, from the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyztan, who was murdered just north of Seattle in 2000, also by her husband. Both women came to Washington believing they had found happiness.

Human trafficking is happening right here, right now. A recent story comes from a survivor, Yasmin Christopher, born in Bangladesh, who endured childhood hardship and abuse when members of her family were held captive on a remote farm by her father. Read her story in this February 16 Seattle Times report.
 

According to a 2009 United Nations study, it is very difficult to assess the real size of human trafficking because it takes place underground, and is often not even identified. But a conservative estimate puts the number of victims at any one time at 2.5 million. Sexual exploitation is the most commonly identified form of human trafficking (79%), followed by forced labor (18%).
 

Human trafficking is an enormous and widespread problem, but Washington and other states have taken important steps to prevent it. In fact, Washington passed 28 laws from 2002 to 2012 to fight human trafficking, modern-day slavery and sexual exploitation of children, making us the leader among all states in addressing this issue. Some of those laws:

• Prohibited human trafficking
• Created the Washington State Task Force against the trafficking of persons
• Improved services for human trafficking victims
• Prohibited sex tourism
• Created a new crime of the commercial sexual abuse of a minor
• Improved surveillance authority for human trafficking cases
• Expanded definitions to increase convictions
• Are helping provide a safe home for trafficking victims and their families

To learn more about these and the rest of the 28 laws passed in our state so far, please click here.

All those laws took a lot of time, work and collaboration among lawmakers, law enforcement agencies and stakeholders, but they are making a difference. We’re far from done, however, so in this legislative session, Rep. Tina Orwall is working on two new measures to continue helping victims of human trafficking:

• HB 1291 builds on last year’s HB 2692. Under this year’s legislation, fees from impounded vehicles involved in prostitution-related offenses would be directed to local governments to reduce the commercial sale of sex through more enforcement and rehab services for victims.
• HB 1292 would allow victims of trafficking forced into prostitution to clear their records of related convictions. This legislation passed the House today on a  91-1 vote. 

Watch the January 31^st public hearing on these two bills:

Read this story in Spanish.

Washington leads the way once again in the fight against human trafficking

“If this can happen to my daughter, it can happen to your daughter,” said, in this King 5 story, the mother of a young girl who was forced into the commercial sex industry right here in our state.

Human trafficking, which includes commercial sex and forced labor, is the fastest growing international crime and the second most profitable organized crime, behind drug trafficking. The U.S. Department of State reports that 14,500-17,000 persons are trafficked into the United States each year.

But not all the victims of human trafficking had to cross our borders or reach our shores, many of them are born and raised in our state. Since October 2008, King County courts have charged and prosecuted 67 offenders for sex trafficking-related crimes. Seventy-two percent of their victims were children. Currently, it is estimated that 300-500 youth are being forced into prostitution just in King County. But there are human traffickers in other counties as well such as Snohomish, Pierce, Yakima and Spokane.

In 2002 Washington became the first state in the nation to criminalize human trafficking. And now we are the first in the nation to require verification of age for online ads that promote sex-related services. That was one of a big package of anti-human trafficking bipartisan bills signed into law by Governor Chris Gregoire last week.

Gov. Chris Gregoire signs anti-trafficking bills into law.

The two bills we recently wrote about here, aimed at reducing the commercial sale of sex in our state by establishing heftier fines for both johns and pimps, were also among the bills to get the governor’s signature.

For more information on these and all the bills in the anti-trafficking package, go here.

To read this post in Spanish, click here.