Missouri lawmakers are considering a package of bills they hope will curb child sex trafficking, train first responders to recognize signs of sex trafficking and shift punishment away from survivors.
The bills would also establish the crime of “grooming a minor,” defined in the legislation as a pattern of behavior by an adult intended to prime a child to be sexually exploited. That behavior would not have to include a sexual act and could consist entirely of verbal or digital communication.
State Rep. Holly Jones, a Republican from Eureka and chair of the House Children and Families Committee, told The Independent the bills resulted from collaboration between the various sponsors that date back several years.
“Child abuse, familial abuse, trafficking, all of that is bipartisan,” Jones said.
Lawmakers expressed broad support for the bills during a hearing of the committee Tuesday but signaled they would further discuss how the legislation defines “grooming” and the possibility of adding training to help parents and educators identify predatory behavior toward young people.
The package consists of two pairs of identical bills. Two anti-trafficking bills, sponsored by Republican state Reps. Ed Lewis of Moberly and Jeff Myers ofWarren, are similar to legislation that passed in the House last year and advanced out of committee in the Senate.
Bills that would criminalize predatory behavior toward children that stops short of sex are sponsored by Republican state Reps. Burt Whaley of Clever and Christopher Warwick of Bolivar.
Human trafficking
Under the bills sponsored by Lewis and Myers, trafficking of a child by their parent or guardian would carry a penalty of life imprisonment. Survivors of child sex trafficking would have up to 20 years after turning 21 to claim damages for their abuse rather than 10.
That legislation would also allow any Missourian convicted of prostitution to apply to a court to clear their records. Currently, only those who were under 18 at the time of the sexual conduct can apply for expungement.
Christine McDonald testified last week to the House committee that she was trafficked in Kansas and Oklahoma before being “bought and sold for 17 years,” from the age of 17, in Missouri. The first person who trafficked her was her mother.
McDonald, who was convicted of felony prostitution, asked lawmakers to confirm that the legislation would allow trafficking survivors to apply for expungement.
“Am I correct that’s part of this piece of legislation?” she asked, initially to silence, each refrain more insistent. “Am I correct? Am I correct?”
McDonald said that after she escaped her trafficker, the felony on her record followed her as she worked to build a new life.
“Do you understand how hard it was to find services, to find any place to give me a job?” she asked. “I had never had a job in my life. Do you know how hard it was for me to find a place to live? Nobody would rent to me. Do you know how hard it was to face anybody in the community and in church because I was a felony prostitute?”
Lawmakers said proposed legislation would move away from blaming people who are coerced into sexual encounters.
All 58 mentions of “child pornography” in current law would change to “child sexual abuse material.”
“Child sexual abuse material’ indicates what it is,” Lewis said. “If a person is under the age of 18, if they’re 17 and under, they cannot provide consent.”
The law would seek to quash demand by making it a felony to pay for sex. The maximum penalty for buying sex with a teen aged 15 to 18 would increase from four to seven years in prison. Buying sex with someone under 15 carries a sentence of five to 15 years.
Myers highlighted the importance of the training his bill would mandate for first responders. He said anti-trafficking training he took as a state trooper made him realize cases he might have missed.
“I realized I had cases like these before,” Myers said. “I just didn’t realize what I was looking at.”
Under the bill, emergency medical technicians, peace officers, social workers, prosecuting attorneys and juvenile officers would have to complete annual training on sex and human trafficking.
Protecting young people
More than one lawmaker teared up as survivors and family members testified about how adults they had trusted manipulated and abused them or their loved ones.
Jeff Dixon carried a thick binder to the witness table containing “a third of the 17,000 text messages” he said were sent to his two teen daughters by their Taekwondo instructor. The messages included photographs showing the results of a “bruising game” the man used to engage in with the young women, Dixon said.
Evelyn Dixon spoke about how the instructor cultivated her trust, complimenting her martial arts technique and confiding about his personal life before pressuring her to run away with him to Florida.
“I wasn’t able to process anything, and the things that would usually send me running didn’t seem to matter anymore,” she said.
Her father said state law should punish adults whose exploitation of minors doesn’t include sex.
“That’s why this bill is important, is because everything he did, because there was no rape, there’s no dirty pictures, there’s no sex, everything he did was legal,” Dixon said.
Missouri law already includes the crime of “enticement of a child” through words, actions or communication “for the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct.”
Warwick said the intent of the proposed legislation is to more explicitly lay out what constitutes a predatory pattern of behavior. While current law “takes care of once a sexual act is actually committed against a minor,” he said, “what’s not being done is content that is being introduced.”
The proposed legislation would make it a felony to engage in “grooming,” with a minimum sentence of five years in prison.
State Rep. Raychel Proudie, a Democrat from Ferguson, expressed lawmakers’ support for survivors who testified.
“We have your back on this committee,” she said. “We don’t play at all.”
This story was originally published in The Missouri Independent.
