Jada Pinkett Smith is a skilled actor and also a woman with a good heart.
When her daughter, Willow, told her that girls her age were being bought and sold, she was surprised.
Now? In the United States? In California?
The answer is, sadly, yes.
Human trafficking is a HUGE problem. The FBI has identified three “high intensity child sex trafficking areas” in California – San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Our laws are not strong enough or specific enough to deal with these horrific crimes.
Jada has been working hard to help victims and to help change the law.
Those of us in California have the opportunity to protect children by voting YES on Prop 35. It will:
- Increase prison terms for human traffickers
- Require sex traffickers to register as sex offenders
- Require sex offenders to disclose their internet accounts
- Increase criminal fines to pay for victims’ services
I would encourage all of you – even those of you who are not in California – to watch the video below to gain understanding into human trafficking and the impact it has on the victims and their families.
In addition to getting tougher laws on the books, we as a society need to change the way we look at human trafficking.
If you see a teen working the streets, what do you think?
Is she a prostitute? A whore? Loose? Immoral? A bad girl?
She is not.
She has been prostituted and abused. She is child and a victim.
The man who controls her and the men who buy her are guilty of sexual crimes against a child.
It’s time that we as a society start to hold these human traffickers accountable for their actions and it’s time that we begin to give victims the support that they need.