Nearly every year for the past decade, a prominent anti-trafficking organization has handed out a “report card” on the United States, assigning each state a grade on its laws to protect victims of child sex trafficking. The goal: Motivate legislators who do not want bad grades to pass bills that ensure that children sold for sex are not treated as criminals but as victims in need of services. With each new report, more laws were passed. States watched their “grades” improve from D’s and C’s to A’s and B’s.
Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight
But this November, when Shared Hope International convened in Washington to release its new round of grades, it announced that the rubric it had been using to score each state had changed. Rather than focus on the basic laws needed to protect victims, the report delved into the nuanced issues of prevention, training, victim identification, law enforcement strategy and more.
This time, 40 states were handed F’s.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
“It was time for a fresh look at where we are,” said Christine Raino, who led the research effort. “It used to be that any kind of protections from criminalization felt like a win. Now that a lot more states have those protections, we are really looking at the details.”
Now, as the 45-page report is circulating among lawmakers, prosecutors, judges, advocates and survivors across the country, leaders in the anti-trafficking movement are re-examining what counts as success — and just how much work remains to be done.
Sex-trafficked kids are crime victims. In Las Vegas, they still go to jail.
The nation’s capital, which has long prided itself on a victim-centered approach, scored an F. So did Virginia. Maryland ranked among the worst states for child victims in the country, in 44th place.
Story continues below advertisement
“The dismal score that we got as a state is a call to action,” said Maryland state Sen. Susan C. Lee (D-Montgomery). “We clearly need more housing resources and better mechanisms to connect victims with services, and we must provide ‘safe harbor’ to youth victims of human trafficking, not only in words, but in deeds.”
Advertisement
“Safe harbor” has been an issue for half a decade in Maryland, as dozens of other states implemented laws to stop police and prosecutors from charging minors with prostitution or solicitation. Such legislation echoed federal law that says children, unlike adults, do not have to prove force, fraud or coercion to show that they are being trafficked. Any time a person under 18 is sold for sex, under the Department of Justice definition, the criteria for trafficking have been met. Rather than being sent to juvenile detention or a court system, many argue, the children should be connected to medical assistance, safe housing, mental health support and other social services they may need.
Although Maryland has successfully set up a program to connect victims with immediate services so they don’t end up in juvenile detention facilities, the state has yet to codify that children cannot be punished for being sold for sex.
Story continues below advertisement
Experts say children most often end up in trafficking when they are groomed by trusted adults who persuade them not to disclose what is happening to them. Advocates believe laws that send trafficked children into the juvenile justice system reinforce the message that “they have done something wrong and need rehabilitation,” said Melanie Shapiro, the public policy director at the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, a leader in the state’s anti-trafficking task force.
Advertisement
“They’re every bit of a victim as everybody else,” Shapiro said. “It’s the trafficker that should be held accountable.”
The state of Ohio vs. a sex trafficked teenager
Shapiro is among those working to try once again to pass a “safe harbor” law when the Maryland General Assembly reconvenes in 2022. They intend for the bill to include protections for children who are charged with prostitution or solicitation, but also with nonviolent crimes such as drug possession, trespassing, theft and fraud, which they might be forced to commit by the people exploiting them.
Story continues below advertisement
“We have to be more comprehensive, otherwise these children will continue to be prosecuted and criminalized for actions taken as a direct result of the fact that they are being victimized,” said Del. Brooke E. Lierman (D-Baltimore), who plans to champion the bill along with Lee, the senator from Montgomery County.
Advertisement
Although the supporters of safe harbor may receive pushback from police and prosecutors wary of limiting their options, advocates and survivors are hopeful that with the majority of states putting similar laws on the books, and with the pressure of the “F” grade from Shared Hope, they may have more momentum than in previous years.
“When you have national groups saying, ‘You’re really behind the eight ball here,’ more people will pay attention,” said Amanda Rodriguez, who spearheads legislative efforts for the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force as executive director of TurnAround Inc.
Story continues below advertisement
Her message is being echoed by advocates throughout the nation as states grapple with the new low grades assigned by Shared Hope. Alaska, Arizona and Idaho are ranked lowest, with researchers pointing to their lack of mandatory training for law enforcement and minimal access to supportive services for victims. The state with the highest score was Florida, in part because of the state’s comprehensive laws to provide protection to child victims who testify against their exploiters, prevention education in schools and mandatory training for child welfare and juvenile justice agencies.
Advertisement
To come up with the grades, Raino and other researchers at Shared Hope spent more than two years surveying police, prosecutors, legislators, child welfare agencies, service providers and survivors of trafficking. Then came months of analyzing every state’s laws to see how they ranked in the 40 different issue areas deemed most important in protecting victims.
Now, they will wait to see whether the grading system will once again work to galvanize states into changing their laws. In Maryland, the General Assembly reconvenes on Jan. 12.
Read more:
He was sexually abusing underage girls. Then, police said, one of them killed him.
The state of Ohio vs. a sex trafficked teenager
Sex-trafficked kids are crime victims. In Las Vegas, they still go to jail.