Use Your Voice to be an Advocate for Change
Change starts with awareness. When you become aware of an injustice like human trafficking, and you want to do something about it, likely you will not stay silent.
Recently, three teens from our Teens Stand Against Trafficking (TSAT) program received first-hand experience in real, grassroots advocacy. Since TSAT started last fall, the group has been active in telling their friends and classmates about human trafficking, effectively using their voices to spread awareness. A month ago, during Human Trafficking Awareness Month, the group seized an opportunity to meet with our State Representative, Jena Powell, to discuss the issue, and to urge her to support legislation to improve Ohio’s laws on human trafficking.
One of the anti-trafficking organizations that we follow is Shared Hope International. Each year, they put a report called the Protected Innocence Challenge, in which they give a letter grade to each state on the state’s laws and whether or not they have appropriate procedures and programs in place to effectively combat human trafficking. While nearly every state has improved their laws over the last decade, Ohio’s latest grade was a C (view the recent report card). One of the contributing factors to the grade is how 16 and 17 year old minor victims are treated under Ohio law. By definition, for human trafficking to have occurred, there has to be some element of force, fraud or coercion by the trafficker towards the victim. One exception concerns the age of the victim. Federal law and the other 49 states’ laws all treat minors under 18 the same in the sense that force, fraud or coercion need not be proven for a trafficking charge. Two different bills have been proposed in the Ohio legislature to eliminate this gap in the last two years, and one of them is Senate Bill 13. Ohio SB 13 passed the Senate last summer and is currently in committee in the House. It is likely this bill will eventually pass the House and be signed into law by Governor DeWine, but for a bipartisan issue such as human trafficking, this needs to pass sooner rather than later to prevent any 16 or 17 year olds from being charged with a crime instead of their trafficker should force, fraud or coercion be hard to prove.
There are other bills introduced in Ohio in recent months targeting human trafficking. House Bill 431 would create a new Sexual Exploitation Database that would be maintained by the Ohio Attorney General. Convicted johns, pimps and traffickers would have their names, addresses, photographs and crimes published on the registry (Dayton Daily News, 2/2/2020). House Bill 415, whose primary sponsor is Rep. Powell, would create a new criminal offense for receiving proceeds from prostitution.
All three of these bills would be a step in the right direction towards strengthening Ohio’s laws on human trafficking. You can use your voice to tell your state representatives and senators to support these pieces of legislation. You don’t have to have an in person meeting. You can just call or email their office. If you don’t know your representatives, a good website to use is Common Cause. Just enter your address, and you will see all of your elected officials, Federal and state.
On the international front, International Justice Mission currently has an online petition open to send a message to Congress to support the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) office and the Program to End Modern Slavery (PEMS) in the FY21 Appropriations Bill. You can sing the petition here, and then share it with your network by email or social media.
Telling others about human trafficking, and encouraging simple actions like signing online petitions, is one way to use your voice for change. Writing letters to the editor in your local newspaper, or blog posts like this one, can also spread awareness. Finally, telling your elected officials that human trafficking is an issue you care about, and that their constituents want them to take action, will take your advocacy efforts to a higher level, providing further motivation to continue the fight.
Teens Stand Against Trafficking after their meeting with Rep. Jena Powell in January 2020