Hawaii fights to close safe havens for sex traffickers

Hawaii, noted by advocacy groups as possessing the nation’s most outdated laws on sex trafficking, will once again seek to pass comprehensive legislation that punishes abusers while protecting victims.

Last year, Gov. David Ige vetoed a similar bill, at the urging of Honolulu prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, who warned it would put additional burdens on law enforcement. The current bill faces opposition from the Hawaiian Libertarian party, which questions whether prostitution should be called sex trafficking and considered a crime.

“This legislation … continues the process of handing out penalties for persons who cannot be shown to have harmed anyone,” said Tracy Ryan, the party’s chair.

Kaneshiro agrees with Ryan concerning terms.

“There is no crime called sex trafficking,” Kaneshiro told the Hawaiian Independent. “The crime is prostitution.”

Whatever you call it, pressure to pass a bill has increased as advocacy groups in the state warn Hawaii’s illegal sex problem has worsened.

“Each year, pimps post roughly 110,000 ads for Hawaii-based prostitution online, using websites like Backpage.com,”said Kris Coffield, director of the IMUAlliance, an anti-trafficking political action group in Hawaii. Coffield dubbed Hawaii, home to more than 150 illegal brothels on Oahu alone, a “haven for sexual slavery.”

In 2014, the IMUAlliance interviewed more than 200 current and former trafficking victims in Hawaii and concluded 54 percent of the trafficked population was underage. Based on victim interviews, the group estimates about 2.6 million exchanges of sex for money in Hawaii each year, contributing to a $625 million industry in the state.

But outdated laws make human trafficking stats problematic to obtain and verify.

“A sex trafficking law would not only allow us to see more accurate statistics and studies on human trafficking in Hawaii, but also would identify victims appropriately as unwilling participants in their own exploitation. These victims are not criminals,” Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, told the Hawaiian Independent.

Lawmakers also heard testimony from teenagers who said many of their peers are recruited into sex trafficking at school. Advocacy groups testified to seeing johns purchasing sex from victims who were beaten and raped “in plain view” and “in conjunction with money being given to the assailant.”

Coffield said current laws in Hawaii create “a mind-boggling legal mess in which sex trafficking victims are penalized with the men who finance their subjugation.”

The proposed bill would convert Hawaii’s promoting prostitution charges into sex trafficking charges, qualifying them for felony penalties. It also would eliminate the statute of limitations on such cases and enable johns to be prosecuted as traffickers. But the bill’s decriminalization of minors engaged in such activity remains a sticking point. Though the current bill addresses concerns about burdening law enforcement, Kaneshiro remains opposed to the new legislation.

“This bill legalizes prostitution,” Kaneshiro said. “If the minors are not charged with prostitution, there’s no way they’re going to cooperate.”

Typically, pimps gain their victims’ trust by feigning romantic interest, genuine concern, or by providing basic needs such as food or shelter. Then a trafficker maintains his hold through force and coercion.

“They don’t fear law enforcement. They fear their traffickers, who have sometimes controlled them for years,” Xian told Aljazeera news. She said in states where minors do not face prosecution, victims encounter greater protections.

Opponents of the bill claim current laws sufficiently address the problem. But victims, caught between their abusers and the Hawaiian legal system, don’t see it that way. In 2013, officers arrested Brittany Duncan and charged her with solicitation at a Waikiki hotel after an undercover policeman offered her money for sex. Police used existing laws to coerce her into testifying against her pimp, but waited more than a month to arrest him. Police had to drop charges against his co-defendant because too much time elapsed between his arrest and trial date.

“They delayed the case a lot,” Duncan told the Honolulu Star Advertiser. “I remember wanting so badly for it to be over. They were using me to put someone else away. I was scared.”