House approves bill for tougher penalties for child prostitution cases

A bill that would set harsher penalties for prostitution-related crimes involving minors unanimously passed the House.

Del. Vivian Watts, D-Fairfax, introduced the bill, HB 2087, which would upgrade crimes currently classified as Class 1 to Class 6 felonies if those crimes include minors. The crimes include using vehicles to promote prostitution and aiding prostitution, as well as visiting, keeping or residing in a bawdy place.

For Watts, the bill represents a step toward targeting not just those who conduct sex trafficking, but those who participate in it. In the last decade, Watts explained, the House has passed “bill after bill” targeting those conductors of trafficking.

“Now we are going after those who are customers,” Watts said.

Del. Michael Webert, R-Rappahannock, and Del. Keith Hodges, R-Essex, both voted in favor of the bill. Northern Virginia delegates David Bulova, D-Fairfax, Kathy Tran, D-Fairfax, and Richard Sullivan, D-Arlington, also provided support.

Human trafficking is an acute issue in Northern Virginia.

According to Teresa Hartnett, coordinator at the Northern Virginia Human Trafficking Task Force, the area is a national hotspot for human trafficking.

“We are a hub for transportation, for all kinds of roads and airports and trains,” Hartnett said, explaining that traffickers can easily transport their victims to the area.

The NVHTTF covers the area north of Dumfries into Loudoun and Fauquier counties.

But Richmond, too, is a hotspot, Hartnett explained, because of transportation infrastructure such as bus and train stations.

According to the Human Trafficking Hotline, as of 2018, Virginia ranks 14th in the nation in state-reported human trafficking cases.

Although the number of signals (“calls”) placed to the hotline that refer to Virginia has dropped off some since 2014, the number of cases reported has increased 52 percent, from 92 cases in 2012 to 156 cases in 2017.

While Hartnett said she felt lawmakers enacting sex trafficking laws were motivated by compassion, she couldn’t offer comment on HB 2087 in particular.

“As a task force, we are prohibited from making comments on legislation, just to reinforce our role as nonpartisan,” Hartnett explained.

For Watts, successful anti-trafficking legislation is all about effective prosecution.

The expansive bill would require violators to be registered in the Sex Crimes and Crimes Against Minors registry. The bill takes a strict stance on these crimes by adding them to categories like the list of predicate crimes that define street gangs and the list of offenses that can be considered racketeering.

Additionally, these crimes would be considered violent felonies for sentencing purposes, and the bill asserts that they will be added to the list of crimes that a multi-jurisdiction grand jury may investigate.

Watts’s bill also changes some terminology that refers exclusively to female victims of prostitution-related crimes, as well as raising the victim’s age from under 16 to under 18 in laws relating to assisting abduction for the purposes of prostitution.

With HB 2087, Watts hopes to create legislation “so that anyone who participates is equally guilty,” from the initial consumers to the people who hold and traffic the victims.

Watts maintains that this strict approach doesn’t apply to those victims of trafficking themselves.

“There’s any number of tragic examples of runaway teenagers who have been caught up in this,” she explained. “There’s a philosophy to express do the crime, do the time,” Watts added, “and that philosophy will not forgive someone for having engaged in criminal activity even though they have been the victim of a network that has used them.”

The bill has been sent to the Senate Courts of Justice committee.

To reach the National Human Trafficking Hotline, call 1-888-373-7888.