By Kurt Jensen
OSV News
WASHINGTON — Two Catholic service organizations have joined forces to back three new pieces of legislation designed to both help victims of human trafficking and enhance safety for children online.
Representatives of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking and the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd spoke at a Capitol Hill press conference on July 16.
One bill, the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act (H.R. 2961), is a reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act first adopted in 2000. It must be reauthorized every three to five years, but that last occurred in 2018, with funding drawn from various sources since then.
The legislation calls for funding to “create a scalable, repeatable program or model, to be publicly available for distribution online, that can be adapted to address the needs of any school to prevent child labor trafficking, child sex trafficking, and child sexual exploitation and abuse including grooming, child sexual abuse materials, and trafficking transmitted through technology,” and additional funding to find housing for trafficked men and women.
The Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (H.R. 1379), meanwhile, would vacate and expunge convictions of trafficked persons who committed nonviolent crimes, such as participating in identity fraud or selling drugs.
Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, a supporter of the legislation, introduced in February by Rep. Fray Russell, R-S.C., said its purpose is “very, very simple — to clear criminal records for those forced to perform illegal acts while being trafficked.”
Criminal records are an obstacle to finding employment outside of low-wage unstable jobs, as well as renting apartments.
Finally, the Kids Online Safety Act (S.1748), introduced in the Senate by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., specifies a “duty of care” for online platforms, saying they “shall exercise reasonable care in the creation and implementation of any design feature to prevent and mitigate” harms to minors “where a reasonable and prudent person would agree that such harms were reasonably foreseeable by the covered platform and would agree that the design feature is a contributing factor.”