IMHO: In My Humble Opinion

Are we fighting to end sex trafficking? 

The year started out grim as the FBI revealed that the Bay Area was among the 13 national hot spots for child sex trafficking.

Predators trolled train stations, bus routes and schoolyards for girls to turnout on prostitution strolls like South First Street in San Jose. Some have bought girls from different parts of the state, country or globe.  Some have tapped into the high-tech sex market and taken their trade online. Sex trafficking is apart of the criminal world’s top three earning enterprises: drug trafficking is number one, followed by illegal gun trade.

How has the community responded to this uptick in sex traffic? Relatively quiet. After Proposition 35 passed in California a general outcry was heard but later the buzz sizzled out. Some offenders received light sentences and as traffickers face no major penalties, the incentive to stop paled.

The fear is that California is not doing enough. From 2011 to 2013 a review of the state’s record on sex trafficking of minors by Protected Innocence Challenges has received an F. The failing grades for three years straight seems to show a devaluing of the young girls and a lack of resources or will to fight. The reports found the state had forged no major legal remedy for child porn cases and has overlooked the need for greater penalties for predators who received financial gain from sex trafficking. Other areas detailed were the need for more victim protection and a call for the use technology to investigate criminals accused of sex trafficking.

When a lighter touch in enforcement, sentencing and penalties prevail – as it has in other parts of the globe and nation - the machine around sex trafficking will continue to churn out new and younger victims.  Then police may also become de-sensitized to younger victims and treat them as equals with sex workers who can earn $500 an hour in their chosen field, sexually servicing Silicon Valley high-earners.

South Bay Sex Trafficking Task force is actively trying to transform both the public and law enforcement’s response to younger girls on 'the  track'. Sergeant Kyle Oki has worked with civic leaders to combat the bureaucracy and judicial ideas that can cloud the issues of sex trafficking.  Most of the trafficked victims police and social services are trying to save are (98 percent) are girls ages 10-18. Srgt. Oki and the San Jose Police Departments ongoing efforts included a recent sting. They joined a nationwide FBI raid last summer – Operation Cross County – to take down sex traffickers; in Bay Area alone they arrested 17 predators and rescued 12 young American girls.

Large FBI raids and small local efforts to save victims fuel excitement that this virus can be removed from our culture.

Sources: 

http://sharedhope.org/PICframe3/reportcards/PIC_RC_2013_CA.pdf

http://www.caseact.org/learn/law/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/29/justice/child-prostitution-arrests/

http://www.heat-watch.org/blog/2013/aug/operation_cross_country

Source News Report: 

http://abc7news.com/archive/9389453/