Emerging State Safe Harbor Responses to Sex Trafficking and Prostitution of Minors

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We sat in court and Raquel doodled butterflies and rainbows and wrote a poem about feeling lost. I scribbled down our next court date and told her I would meet her in the lock-up when the court officers led her away. She was my first young client charged with prostitution. Sitting beside me with long fake nails and extensions in her hair, she looked older than her age of 14, but not much. The idea that our justice system charges young girls like Raquel with prostitution, and sometimes locks them up — she spent one year in detention — shocked my friends and relatives who were frequently surprised about the realities of the juvenile justice system when I shared moments from my work.

Illinois Enacts Law Against ‘Epidemic’ of Human Trafficking

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By  Maryam Jameel and Natalie Krebs 

Illinois strengthened its legal arsenal against human trafficking this weekend when Gov. Pat Quinn signed House Bill 5278 into law. The new legislation aims to provide further protection and services for trafficking victims while also allowing prosecutors to crack down on pimps and other offenders. The law applies to both minors and adults, and shares a number of similarities with the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, passed in 2000. The TVPA and its subsequent reauthorizations created new categories of human trafficking crimes and provided protections and benefits for human trafficking victims. Similarly, the new Illinois law extends the statue of limitations for offenders and broadens the definitions of “serious harm” and “involuntary servitude.”

The signing came a day after the American Bar Association’s Juvenile Justice Committee hosted a panel to address the “epidemic” of juvenile sex trafficking in Chicago. While authorities confront traffickers for their offenses, it can be equally difficult to work with trafficked youth, many of whom don’t consider themselves victims of sexual abuse.

Justice Department Report Sheds Light On Human Trafficking Stats

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Just less than half of suspected human trafficking incidents in recent years involved the prostitution or sexual exploitation of children, according to United States Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Nearly half – 48 percent – of human trafficking allegations investigated between January 2008 and June 2010 involved allegations of adult prostitution, the Bureau said; 40 percent of cases pursued during that same time period involved children. According to the report during the study period:

• Federally funded task forces, led primarily by local law enforcement agencies, investigated 2,515 incidents of suspected human trafficking. Most incidents involved allegations of sex trafficking, but 350 incidents involved allegations of labor trafficking in unregulated industries (i.e. drug sales or roadside sales) and/or commercial industries (i.e. hair salons, hotels and bars). The information in the report is being provided in response to a congressional mandate for biennial reporting on the scope and characteristics of human trafficking incidents in the U.S. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, human trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person to perform labor or a commercial sex act through force, fraud, or coercion.