WATCH: Bill designed to curb prostitution, human trafficking

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – In the wake of new laws protecting sex workers in California, one Golden State lawmaker wants to give law enforcement agencies the tools they need to understand and combat prostitution and human trafficking.

Senate Bill 1027, authored by Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, would establish a task force with the primary aims of collecting data related to prostitution, sex work and human trafficking and making recommendations for law enforcement throughout the state to adequately respond to prostitution.

“Prostitution has spiraled out of control through the state of California” Strickland told The Center Square. “It damages communities dramatically. What we want to do is put together a task force to study the data, collect hard data and get input from different fields.”

That input would come from law enforcement agencies and victims’ rights groups, Strickland said.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the state, including the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, voiced support on Monday for the bill, which most recently passed during a hearing in the Senate Public Safety Committee.

“We’re encouraged to see a focus on better understanding the scope of prostitution and its connection to human trafficking,” San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto told The Center Square through a spokesperson. “Any policy response needs to be grounded in data and reflect both public safety concerns and the need to support individuals who may be victims of exploitation.”

According to numbers from the Public Policy Institute of California, 12,000 people were trafficked nationwide in 2015, going up to 22,200 in 2019. That fell slightly in 2021, to 16,700. Eighteen percent of human trafficking cases occurred in California, which fell to 13% of cases in 2021.

Other law enforcement organizations in California are concerned about the connection between prostitution and human trafficking, which the bill also aims to combat.

“The goal of the legislation is to strengthen efforts against human trafficking and better support victims statewide,” Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said, answering The Center Square's questions Monday by email. “Human trafficking is closely tied to prostitution, and both research and law enforcement experience show many individuals involved are victims.”

Barnes said changes to state law in recent years made enforcing public safety and identifying victims much more challenging.

“SB 1027 addresses this by bringing together policymakers, law enforcement, service providers, and community stakeholders to evaluate current laws and develop informed evidence-based recommendations,” Barnes wrote.

However, some sex worker advocates said they’re concerned that the bill, in its current form, conflates human trafficking and sex work, which they said are not the same thing.

“It seems to reinforce stigma that individuals in prostitution are inherently helpless and are always victims,” Ariela Moscowitz, director of communications for pro-sex worker organization Decriminalize Sex Work, told The Center Square on Monday afternoon.

Any regressive laws regarding consensual adult sex work makes it more dangerous, Moscowitz added.

“Sex work is not inherently dangerous or exploitative, but it’s the criminalization of it that makes people more vulnerable to abuse or exploitation,” Moscowitz said. “Any attempts to further criminalize it put people in additional harm. People are pushed into the shadows, and it makes it harder for survivors of trafficking to come forward, as well.”

Other sex worker advocacy groups, as well as anti-human trafficking groups, did not respond on Monday to The Center Square.

Senate Bill 1027 now goes to the Senate Government Oversight Committee for another hearing.