Lawmakers Finally Agree On Anti-Prostitution Bill
It’s not a sex trafficking bill — but it sure comes close.
, which makes prostitutes eligible for witness protection and toughens Hawaii’s prostitution laws, cleared a major hurdle Thursday and could well be headed to the governor’s desk.
On Wednesday, the bill, which proposes doubling jail time for pimps and upping a repeat offense by johns from a misdemeanor to a felony, appeared to have stalled with lawmakers unable to agree on some wording.
But on Thursday afternoon, House Judiciary Chair Gilbert Keith-Agaran announced that the House and Senate agreed on a new version that includes a more succinct definition of “fraud”:
“A person commits the offense of promoting prostitution in the first degree if the person knowingly: Advances prostitution by compelling or inducing a person by force, threat, fraud, or intimidation to engage in prostitution or profits from such conduct by another.
‘Fraud’ means making material false statements, misstatements or omissions.”
Human trafficking victims’ advocates cheered the bill’s passage.
“This is a major step forward,” said Kathy Xian, with the Pacific Alliance To Stop Slavery. “It reverses the tendency in law enforcement to blame the victims.”
The bill makes prostitutes eligible for a state witness protection program — a direct attempt to help law enforcement prosecute pimps, and traffickers.
Civil Beat reported that Honolulu police arrested just one pimp in nine months. So few are arrested, police say, because prostitutes are often afraid to testify against their pimps.
The witness protection clause will help prostitutes “feel they can trust law enforcement,” Xian said. “What usually happens is law enforcement has to arrest the girls (for prostitution), which confirms what their pimps have been telling them: ‘Don’t trust police, they’ll just arrest you.'”
Trafficking victims could still be arrested for prostitution, but the protection element will make a big difference, she said.
“The only difference between this bill and a sex trafficking bill is statistics,” she said. “You won’t be able to glean sex trafficking cases from this, because they’ll be recorded as felony promoting prostitution cases instead.”
The bill came out of Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro‘s office, who says that although he doesn’t agree that Hawaii needs a separate human trafficking statute, he recognizes that many prostitutes are victims.
Hawaii remains one of four states without a human trafficking statute. The others are West Virginia, Wyoming and Massachusetts. But earlier this week, a labor trafficking bill moved to final reading.
