Here is a partial recap and reflection on the 2023 legislative session and human trafficking laws that are going into effect. Thanks to the local journalists and the SunSentinel who did a great series on child sex trafficking in hotels and their other strong, investigative work also linked here.
“It’s a rare day when Gov. Ron DeSantis visits Broward.
But there he was Tuesday in Lighthouse Point, signing into law a long-overdue legislative package of bills designed to reduce the horrific and worsening problem of human trafficking of children and adults for sex, forced labor and other crimes.
For years in Florida, the scourge of trafficking has received more tough talk from politicians than aggressive action. The momentum for a better strategy received much-needed attention from a Sun Sentinel investigative series, Innocence Sold, and an accompanying podcast published in November.
The reports laid bare a failed system in which a deadly and illicit child sex trade flourishes, in part by allowing hotels to escape responsibility for thousands of violations of a weak state anti-trafficking law. The series showed how a privatized foster care system sometimes lures adolescent kids into an evil world of trafficking, rather than rescuing them from troubled or dangerous homes.”