Shadowed by prostitution convictions that pop up on background checks, victims struggle to find jobs, receive loans and get their lives on track. But now in Nevada – the only state with a legal brothel industry – lawmakers have a chance to change that with several bills aimed to combat trafficking and help remove some of the barriers that victims encounter.
One of them pending in the state Legislature, AB6, would allow sex trafficking victims to expunge prostitution convictions from their records. No action has been taken on the bill, but such legislation is long-overdue.
During a hearing on the bill Wednesday, one witness reportedly called Nevada a “haven” for sex traffickers, where criminals hide under the radar of the state’s legal prostitution. Sex trafficking is a $32 billion criminal business worldwide, and victims can be U.S. citizens or foreigners as young as 12, who get abused by traffickers and pimps if they don’t meet a daily sex quota, according to the Polaris Project, a national group combating human trafficking. From the website: “Experts estimate that there are a minimum of approximately 5,100 to 60,500 people trafficked into and within the U.S. each year and an estimated 100,000 American children who are prostituted within the U.S. each year -- a brutal form of human trafficking.”
Under AB6, victims would have to petition the court to clear prostitution convictions, which serves as a tool for rehabilitation. According to the Associated Press, the bill is similar to laws under consideration in Illinois and Maryland as well as to one New York enacted last year. In the current system, victims are called criminals, and this legislation would negate that idea, Jill Morris, director of Advocacy for the Not for Sale Campaign told the AP. In addition to AB6, the Legislature has three other pieces of pending legislation:
· AB4 expands the definition of involuntary servitude to include commercial sex acts.
· AB106 increases penalties for living off of the earnings of a prostituted person and enhances those penalties if the person prostituted is a minor.
