With a little help from the sex workers lobby an effort to toughen penalties for child sex trafficking got benched. “Sex workers” is a fancy term for prostitution, which is illegal in New Hampshire. And a lobbyist for an unlawful activity helped put a bill on hold that would increase the penalty for sex trafficking children.
Adult ‘sex worker’ is not typically a volunteer profession. Child sex worker is never voluntary. These are abusive, exploitative practices. They are perpetrated by people with ties to drugs and gangs. Criminals are drugging kids and selling child rape.
Despite that reality, the self-proclaimed Party of Women and Children™ frequently pursue the loosening of penalties for sex trafficking and prostitution. Validating sex work in the culture.
Colleges like UNH legitimize the practice by holding educational conferences on women in the sex industry.
New Hampshire’s first choice to lead it’s Human Trafficking Task Force was a national advocate for legalized prostitution.
There is a concerted effort, mostly from the left, to make it all sound consensual and empowering. A new frontier for women’s liberation. But it’s an old frontier and not a happy one. Most people in “the business” are not there by choice. It does not elevate women it entraps them.
At least one person I know, who was sex trafficked, suggest that legalization is a greater danger.
Decriminalizing pimping and the sex trade would tie the hands of investigators. The buyers and the sellers would be able to continue their devastating business, while victims would have no clear way out.
This bill was about protecting children.
No, HB201 isn’t dead. It’s just resting. Set aside so that the committee will have a chance to (perhaps) form another committee whose job it will be to examine whether the current penalty for sex-trafficking minors is doing the job or not.
“The real thing we want to determine is whether the present Class B penalty is really working. Is it slowing the johns down from dealing with underage prostitutes?” said committee member Rep. Linn Opderbecke (D-Dover). “We really wanted to get that data before we make it a Class A felony.”
You need more data before you ramp up the punishment on people who want to rape children?
Got it.
Why Doesn’t That Apply to Gun Laws?
Why don’t Democrats do that when it comes to Gun control? New Hampshire consistently has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. We have open carry without a license. A few years ago we passed concealed carry without a permit. New Hampshire is still one of the safest states in the nation. While every place that has the more restrictive laws Democrats propose for us have the highest crime rates.
Which brave Democrat is willing to stand up at every gun-control hearing of a bill sponsored by fellow Democrats and say, we’ve got the data. These “common sense” gun laws make no sense. They’ll do the opposite of what the sponsors claim to want.
And who among the Democrats on those committees will vote in their majority to set those bills aside for even more study, or spike them outright?
None?
Eleven Democrats and one Republican on the committee hearing HB201, a bill to protect children from being raped for money wanted more data?
Voting in favor of retaining the bill were Reps. Renny Cushing, Linda Harriott-Gathright, Laura Pantelakos, Andrew O’Hare, Linn Opderbecke, John Bordenet, David Meuse, Nancy Murphy, Ray Newman, Julie Radhakrishnan, Sandy Swinburne and Scott Wallace. All but Wallace are Democrats.
I hope you are taking notes at home.
