The Polaris Project ranked states based on the presence or absence of 10 categories of state laws that it believes are critical to a comprehensive anti-trafficking legal framework.
“This report highlights the fact that Massachusetts is well behind the rest of the nation in our laws to combat human trafficking. The passage of a human trafficking law would give us the tools to go after those who are exploiting children and other victims right in our own communities,” Coakley said in a statement released Monday.
Coakley, Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey of Quincy and other prosecutors are pushing for passage of a bill that would make human trafficking a crime in Massachusetts and create harsher penalties for pimps who sell adults and adolescents for labor and sex.
The House unanimously approved the bill in June and it is now in the state Senate.
Human trafficking hit home in May when a 28-year-old Boston man was charged with kidnapping a 15-year-old girl at an MBTA stop and forcing her to have sex with men at motel rooms, including the Best Western Adams Inn in Quincy.
Norman Barnes is still being held without bail and is due back in Quincy District Court on Sept. 6. Norfolk County prosecutors charged him with kidnapping and child enticement, which carry maximum penalties of 10 and five years, respectively. Those charges are the best tools currently available in Massachusetts in human-trafficking cases, prosecutors say.
Victim advocates said the bill at the State House would fix an “upside down” system in which victims of the crime are viewed as delinquents or prostitutes who are subject to penalties themselves.
A “safe harbor” provision in the bill would remove from the juvenile justice system anyone 18 or younger involved in commercial sexual exploitation and offer the same support services extended to child abuse victims.
“What can happen now is there isn’t clear communication, so kids fall through the cracks. They are seen as delinquent or invisible,” Lisa Goldblatt Grace, program director for My Life, My Choice, a nonprofit that provides services to adolescent girls involved in sexual exploitation in the Boston area and as far south as Plymouth, said earlier this summer.
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