Pro-Prostitution Bills Might Worsen Human Trafficking, Advocates Say, But One Argues It May Be Part Of The Solution

• California’s recent pro-prostitution bills from state Sen. Scott Wiener have raised concerns among some anti-human trafficking groups that growing tolerance of prostitution will worsen sexual slavery, while others argue it is the solution to the rampant sexual abuse. 
• California ranked seventh in the nation for human trafficking in 2021 with 1,507 reported cases, averaging around 3.8 victims for every 100,000 California citizens, while the national average is 2.8 per 100,000, according to Etactics. 
• “Our goal is to end modern-day slavery, laws like this help to perpetuate activities like this, so it actually leaves children in a worse position … 89% of women in prostitution do not want to be in prostitution and typically they were recruited as minors,” Stephanie Brown, vice president at Saved In America, told the DCNF.

The California legislature has made headlines for passing several pro-prostitution bills over the last couple of years, many from Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener and some anti-human trafficking advocates have raised concerns that the state’s growing tolerance of prostitution will worsen sexual slavery, but one says it might be the solution.

In 2019, California Senator Scott Wiener introduced a bill, that eventually passed, prohibiting police from using condoms as evidence when investigating crimes involving prostitution, in 2020, Wiener got another bill passed that allowed minors to consent to sodomy with other minors, and in 2022 California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Wiener’s Senate Bill 357, that decriminalized loitering for the purpose of prostitution. Several anti-human trafficking and sex worker advocates that spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation had strong feelings about the bills and some worried that the consistent push by legislators like Wiener to legalize prostitution would actually result in a dangerous increase in human trafficking.

Anti-human trafficking groups have witnessed prostitution — and subsequently, human trafficking – skyrocket in California, after Wiener’s latest bill, according to City Journal. Los Angeles police officer Stephanie Powell explained that since Senate Bill 357 the number of prostitutes in some areas of the city has doubled from 30 girls on a street to 60-65.

“The minute the governor signed it, you started seeing an uptick on the streets,” Powell told City Journal. “And on social media, the pimps were saying: ‘You better get out there and work because the streets are ours.’”…