News
| Study: N.C. lax on human trafficking |
| Laws don't have bite, advocacy group contends |
| Published Thursday, December 29, 2011 10:30 am |
North Carolina – like most of the U.S. – is failing the grade against human trafficking, according to a study.
The state scored 61 – a D – on a survey commissioned by the advocacy group Shared Hope International, which found the state lacks basic victim protections, especially for children forced or coerced into the sex trade. It also found North Carolina doesn’t effectively punish adults who seek their services or promote law enforcement assets, such as mandating training on domestic minor sex trafficking.
More than half the states examined earned D or F on the survey.
“I was absolutely shocked when we started sending people into states (posing) as sex tourists, and they would go in, and they would come into the city maybe from another country, maybe another state, and they could buy kids so easily,” Linda Smith, SHI’s founder and a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, told National Public Radio earlier this month.
The Protected Innocence Initiative study found that North Carolina makes the trafficking of a minor a distinct crime but children indentified as a victim of sex-for-hire don’t get the same level of protection. Forty percent of trafficking victims identified in North Carolina in 2010 were under 18 years of age.
North Carolina has several commercial sexual exploitation laws, including the promotion of prostitution of a minor, participating in prostitution of a minor, first- and second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and employing a minor in an obscene act.
“They didn’t have trafficking laws, or if they had a trafficking law, it didn’t deal with commercial sex …or didn’t distinguish between children and adults,” Smith said.
The study also found differing penalties for traffickers in North Carolina courts and the federal standard of 10 years to life. In North Carolina, a conviction for facilitating trafficking or commercial sex trade of a minor carries a sentence of 58-73 months.
The National Association of Attorneys General, made up of 51 top state law enforcement officials from across the U.S., has made stemming the flow of human trafficking a top priority.
“In our understanding of human trafficking, we are today about where we were with the problem of domestic violence about 40 years ago – low levels of awareness, low levels of law enforcement response, almost no services for victims,” NAAG President and Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna told NPR.
Human trafficking is often a misunderstood crime among law enforcement and the general public, and experts aren’t sure how many people are victimized annually. McKenna told NPR estimates start at around 100,000 in the U.S. Human trafficking is second only to narcotics as one of the most lucrative and fastest-growing crimes across the globe, according to United Nations and U.S. data.
The state scored 61 – a D – on a survey commissioned by the advocacy group Shared Hope International, which found the state lacks basic victim protections, especially for children forced or coerced into the sex trade. It also found North Carolina doesn’t effectively punish adults who seek their services or promote law enforcement assets, such as mandating training on domestic minor sex trafficking.
More than half the states examined earned D or F on the survey.
“I was absolutely shocked when we started sending people into states (posing) as sex tourists, and they would go in, and they would come into the city maybe from another country, maybe another state, and they could buy kids so easily,” Linda Smith, SHI’s founder and a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, told National Public Radio earlier this month.
The Protected Innocence Initiative study found that North Carolina makes the trafficking of a minor a distinct crime but children indentified as a victim of sex-for-hire don’t get the same level of protection. Forty percent of trafficking victims identified in North Carolina in 2010 were under 18 years of age.
North Carolina has several commercial sexual exploitation laws, including the promotion of prostitution of a minor, participating in prostitution of a minor, first- and second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and employing a minor in an obscene act.
“They didn’t have trafficking laws, or if they had a trafficking law, it didn’t deal with commercial sex …or didn’t distinguish between children and adults,” Smith said.
The study also found differing penalties for traffickers in North Carolina courts and the federal standard of 10 years to life. In North Carolina, a conviction for facilitating trafficking or commercial sex trade of a minor carries a sentence of 58-73 months.
The National Association of Attorneys General, made up of 51 top state law enforcement officials from across the U.S., has made stemming the flow of human trafficking a top priority.
“In our understanding of human trafficking, we are today about where we were with the problem of domestic violence about 40 years ago – low levels of awareness, low levels of law enforcement response, almost no services for victims,” NAAG President and Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna told NPR.
Human trafficking is often a misunderstood crime among law enforcement and the general public, and experts aren’t sure how many people are victimized annually. McKenna told NPR estimates start at around 100,000 in the U.S. Human trafficking is second only to narcotics as one of the most lucrative and fastest-growing crimes across the globe, according to United Nations and U.S. data.
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