Nevada Bill Aims to Stop Arrests of Sex Trafficking Victims

CARSON CITY, Nev.—Nevada legislators are considering a bill, SB164, which would empower police to stop arresting, imprisoning and deporting sex trafficking victims. The legislation would enable law enforcement to refer survivors to services. And it would likely decrease sex trafficking by making it safe for survivors to cooperate with law enforcement on prosecutions of sex traffickers.  Currently every state, including Nevada, conflates sex trafficking and sex work. Despite the fact that trafficking survivors are victims of a violent crime, police and prosecutors in Nevada frequently arrest, charge, incarcerate and deport trafficking victims for prostitution.  “In my few years of counseling, I have met at least five people who've directly identified [themselves] as trafficking victims who've been arrested for prostitution, even though they were definitely not doing it by choice,” Stephanie, a clinical professional counselor who works with sex trafficking survivors in Nevada said. “I have also met minors who tell me that they've ended up in juvenile detention centers for ‘prostitution’ even though, by definition, these minors are unable to consent and therefore trafficking victims.” This is hardly unusual. By treating them as perpetrators, the criminal justice system not only gravely wrongs victims but creates an unnecessarily adversarial relationship that makes prosecuting traffickers vastly more difficult.  Law enforcement and prosecutors claim that arrests, prosecutions, incarceration and deportations "save" victims.  But Stephanie says police breaking down survivors’ doors with guns drawn to arrest them causes further trauma. The state deports many victims at this point. Others, prosecutors send to jail, causing many to lose custody of their children. When they come out, they’re saddled with criminal records that force them into sex work.  Law enforcement and prosecutors also say victims are collateral damage in the war on traffickers, despite the fact that psychologically scarring, deporting and incarcerating a case's best witness isn’t generally the most effective way to prosecute a perpetrator. Indeed, many sex trafficking victims are so isolated from their support systems that the only person they have to call to bail them out after police arrest them is their trafficker. It’s no wonder then that prosecutors complain about victims being uncooperative.  “I was arrested a few times at age 18,” author and sex worker Ava Green said. In one of those arrests “my trafficker was arrested for pimping. He coerced me not to testify” against him. When it comes to sex trafficking, the media and anti-sex worker organizations promote stories about kidnapping victims chained to radiators. In reality, sex trafficking most closely resembles domestic violence—and its victims should be treated in the same manner. It would be unthinkable to handle the "rescue" of battered wives by way of raiding their homes and hauling them off to jail or deporting them. Quite to the contrary, they are by standard practice offered shelter and resources.  Perhaps the fallacious portrayal of actual trafficking perpetuated by anti-sex worker entities is part of why in the vast majority of “trafficking” cases, prosecutors charge victims with prostitution and never charge anyone with trafficking. One illustrative example is the high-profile massage parlor “sex trafficking” raid that netted billionaire Robert Kraft. Police made zero sex trafficking arrests in that case, but prosecutors charged four women with prostitution and levied thousands of dollars in fines against them.  SB164 addresses these harms by giving police discretion in whether to arrest potential victims and allowing prosecutors to drop charges against any suspected victim of human trafficking. It would also exempt victims from mandatory HIV testing so they could avail themselves of private testing to avoid an automatic felony for testing positive.  Victims would be newly eligible for services and funding set aside by the health department for victims of violent crime.  This would keep victims out of jail and prisons. It would make it possible for victims to enter new lines of work without criminal records. It would reduce the psychological trauma of violent raids and arrests. And it would repair the relationship between the criminal justice system and sex trafficking victims which should lead to more successful prosecutions of sex traffickers and less sex trafficking.  The Sex Worker Alliance of Nevada is asking Nevadans to support the bill by voting in this public opinion poll and/or submitting a letter in support to be included as an exhibit when the meeting to discuss the bill is scheduled. To get an update on when the meeting will happen, to write a letter, or to attend and give testimony, email [email protected]. Image by Jody Davis from Pixabay