Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.LINCOLN — The Rev. Al Riskowski knows from personal experience about the need for Nebraska to pass stronger laws against child sex trafficking.
Last Christmastime he fielded a call from a distraught Lincoln woman who had seen her daughter come home with bruises and found evidence she was being advertised on the Internet for sex.
Riskowski, executive director of the Nebraska Family Council, worked with Lincoln police to help the girl escape. She turned 19 during her ordeal.
But he knows there are other girls — many much younger — who are trapped in the sex trade in Nebraska. Council researchers have found 155 Internet ads promoting girls and women for sex in Nebraska.
"It is a problem here in Nebraska. We know it is here," Riskowski said. "Nobody knows how big it is. This is one of those issues that's under the surface."
Nebraska and Iowa are among 41 states and the District of Columbia that lack strong laws to punish the perpetrators and protect the victims of child sex trafficking, according to a new national report.
The report, released last week by the advocacy group Shared Hope International, gave Nebraska a grade of F and Iowa a D. Ten states received higher grades, including four that received B's: Illinois, Missouri, Texas and Washington. No state received an A.
"Each state's laws show omissions in protective provisions for child victims, and (states) lack strong laws to prosecute the men who rent the bodies of other men's children," said Linda Smith, the group's founder and president.
Advocates say a patchwork of differing state laws makes it difficult for authorities to target the crime.
Experts estimate that at least 100,000 American children are exploited for prostitution, pornography and sexual performance each year. The average age of children when first drawn into the sex trade is 13. State-by-state estimates of the problem weren't available.
Victims are sometimes smuggled in from outside the country, but many started out as young runaways or kids who simply needed money.
Holly Austin Smith said a man at a mall promised her a job after she ran away from home at age 14. She said she was swiftly taken to a New Jersey motel where two adults gave her a dress, put makeup on her face and dyed her hair.
"Within hours I was on the streets of Atlantic City having men forced on me," said Smith, now 33 and an advocate of stricter sex trafficking laws.
Federal authorities can prosecute traffickers under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, enacted in 2000, which carries strong penalties. The law also created a new visa to allow foreign victims of the crime to become temporary U.S. residents.
But prosecutors have limited resources and often have to rely on the states to crack down on the crime.
Efforts are under way in both Nebraska and Iowa to pass new laws dealing with sex trafficking. But people active with the efforts said they will have to study the new report to see what additional areas might need to be addressed.
Shannon Kingery, a spokeswoman for Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, said the office has been looking at the matter for legislative proposals.
"The Nebraska Attorney General's Office always has and will continue to prioritize protecting Nebraska kids," Kingery said.
Eric Tabor, chief of staff for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, said that state recently closed loopholes in a 2006 human trafficking law and strengthened the law on enticing minors for sex over the Internet.
Tabor said the office is trying to increase penalties for possessing child pornography.
"We've been doing a great deal in this area and will continue," he said. "We will look at this report and see what makes sense for Iowa."
An interim study hearing Monday before the Nebraska Legislature's Judiciary Committee will put the spotlight on sex trafficking in the state and on potential legislation.
State Sen. Amanda McGill of Lincoln, who sponsored the study resolution, said she is interested in increasing penalties for those who run sex trafficking rings, providing reparations for the victims of trafficking and allowing victims to enter diversion programs. (Victims are often arrested and charged with prostitution.)
Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial said he will pursue legislation requiring licensing for escort services, which would be a way to go after services that act as fronts for prostitution.
In the report, Nebraska and Iowa received their best scores for their criminal provisions for traffickers and for criminalizing the sex trafficking of minors.
Both states scored low in the areas of criminal provisions targeting those who pay for commercial sex with minors and criminal provisions for facilitators of trafficking.
Neither Nebraska nor Iowa makes it a specific crime to buy sex acts with a minor, the report said. Iowa has no law against using the Internet to sell or recruit sex with a child. Nebraska's Internet enticement law does not include enticement for sex trafficking or commercial sex.
Iowa scored better than Nebraska on laws that protect the child victims of the sex trade. However, in both states, children caught up in it can be charged with sex crimes and jailed rather than be treated as victims.
The report also said more needs to be done in both states so such minors can be handled through the child welfare system rather than juvenile justice.
Some advocates, though, say more aggressive enforcement of the laws, instead of strict new ones, might help crack down on such crimes. State authorities need to implement the laws on the books, better coordinate with federal prosecutors and spend more resources trying to identify victims, said Mary Ellison, a director of policy for the Polaris Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group.
"Traffickers make their money on the backs of the most vulnerable, and there's not as much of a risk," she said.
"Until they see these laws implemented, they're not going to be deterred," Ellison said, "because they're making tons and tons of money exploiting and enslaving people."
This report includes material from the Associated Press.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com
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