Everything is bigger in Texas — including sex trafficking. Each year, about 10,000 people are trafficked through the state for the purpose of prostitution. One out of every three calls made to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline is from the Lone Star state. And to make matters worse, the Super Bowl, a massive attraction for prostitution, will be held next February in Dallas. Although Texas has done a terrific job of taking preemptive measures to crack down on pimps and sex traffickers — including proposing a new trafficking law — it is still neglecting victims. Urge Texan lawmakers to allot funds for trafficking shelters as part of proposed legislation SB 98.
SB 98, which was proposed by Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio), would increase the minimum jail time for offenders to 25 years in prison, require convicted traffickers to serve at least half their time before being eligible for parole, and register traffickers as sex offenders. The bill would also grant additional legal protection to child trafficking victims. Although these measures are a good start, the bill doesn’t provide sufficient assistance to victims. The legislation should fund specific shelters for victims of sex trafficking, and a campaign to publicize the availability of these safe houses to victims.
A common theme among trafficking victims is that they simply have no place to go. For example, when a Thai woman named Kiki, managed to pay off her “debt” to her pimp, earning him over US$200,000, she was locked out of her massage parlor in the middle of the night. With no alternative shelter, she asked to be let back in. Later, when she was brutally raped by knife point, she called the only phone number she knew — her pimp’s. Trafficking victims need shelters that provide care and security tailored to their predicament, and they need to know about them. One good example of this is the recent poster campaign in Washington state.
Although it may be more politically attractive to support legislation that punishes offenders, victims’ emotional and physical scars don’t go away after their pimps are in jail. Even if Texas’s progressive lawmaking manages to throw every trafficker operating during the Super Bowl in prison, the victims — often non-English speakers lacking identification — won’t have any place to go.
A legislative assistant for Sen. Van de Putte recently told The Texas Tribune that SB 98 is a “shell bill,” and will include the parts that people agree on. Let’s agree that shelters for victims of sex trafficking are just as important as law enforcement when it comes to combating this national issue. Tell Texas Senator Van de Putte to fund shelters for human trafficking victims as part of SB 98.
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Dana Liebelson Dana Liebelson is a writer from Washington, DC, and works for an international journalism non-profit organization.
Texas Sex Trafficking Bill Leaves Victims in the Dust | End Human Trafficking | Change.org
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