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Senate bill bans state trafficking
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by Julia Bair
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The state Senate will vote today on a bill that would make human trafficking for labor, services or a commercial sex acts a felony offense with a sentence of up to 25 years.
The bill defines human trafficking as “recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining an individual without the consent of the individual.”
“We believe that human trafficking is a form of slavery, and we should do everything in our power to stop it,” said Rep. Fred Kessler, D-Milwaukee, in an e-mail. “Victims are sexually exploited or conscripted as laborers through force, fraud, or coercion.”
Today’s vote coincides with the publication of a report on human trafficking by the Office of Justice Assistance. According to the report, as many as 200 cases of human trafficking have been brought before officials in Wisconsin.
“When you think about this crime, you see it is truly heinous; people are being exploited,” said Ryan Sugden, Public Affairs Officer at the Office of Justice Assistance.
According to the report, of the 200 reported cases, the majority of victims were adults, and 75 percent of cases involved a sex-related crime.
“The report doesn’t really shock me,” said Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend. “As long as there’s people making money and benefiting off of human trafficking, it will continue to be a problem.”
Grothman and Kessler said they hope this bill will be an effective tool for fighting trafficking at the state level.
According to Kessler, in 2006, there was a case of human trafficking in Brookfield where a husband and wife “confined a woman from the Philippines and forced her to be their domestic servant for 19 years.”
The victim was required to remain in the basement when non-family members were present, and she was not allowed to socialize or speak freely to the outside world.
A federal jury returned a guilty verdict for three members of the family for “using threats of serious harm and physical restraint,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation.
President George W. Bush passed legislation in 2006 to renew the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a comprehensive federal law for the prosecution of traffickers. But according to Sugden, awareness of human trafficking remains low.
Wisconsin’s bill would be one of many state bills intended to deal with the problem on more localized level.
“Most law enforcement officers are local, and therefore it is best to deal with the problem locally,” Grothman said.
Kessler said he believes the bill will pass because of its bipartisan support, support from district attorneys and support from the community.
“There has been a grassroots effort to push for tougher laws that deal with this issue,” Rep. Suzanne Jeskewitz, R-Menomonee Falls, said in a statement. “Local sexual assault service providers and domestic violence shelters have noticed an increase in the number of human trafficking victims they serve.”
If the bill passes today, it would likely move to the Joint Review Committee on Criminal Penalties for a financial review.
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