Today, men who buy 16- and 17-year-old girls and boys still can receive a misdemeanor and as little as two days in jail. After some very intense back and forth (removing this provision from the bill, refusing to add it back in and stripping the original author from the bill, much media attention and negotiation), protections for 16- and 17-year-olds are back in this bill! The bill would now make it a felony to solicit a child of any age if the buyer is more than three years older than the victim. This ensures that the exploiters who purchase children are criminalized for their actions that devastate lives.
Please keep the pressure on – it is your emails and phone calls that have brought attention to this bill and the need to protect youth from human trafficking.
AB 379 also makes it a misdemeanor for the men who loiter to buy sex, punishable with a $1000 fine. Those funds will go into the Survivor Support Fund to help survivors rebuild their lives. The bill enforces the requirement for businesses to post trafficking awareness posters with the human trafficking hotline and supports vertical prosecution, a trauma-informed approach where the prosecutor on a trafficking case is the same person throughout the process. Finally, rather than arresting the vulnerable people caught up in prostitution, this bill provides diversion and resources to help them leave the life. No one should have to trade the most personal and intimate of acts that is sex for basic human rights like food, water, shelter, or clothing. Penalizing and fining men who loiter to buy sex, providing support funds and legal assistance to survivors, and diversion to help women leave prostitution will help break this cycle for the most vulnerable in our society.

Yes on AB 379 - Protect All Children from Trafficking and Support Survivors

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