Kathryn Xian is determined to get a sex trafficking law in Hawaii, despite opposition from the governor and the Honolulu prosecutor.
"We’re not about to give up," said Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, an anti-human-trafficking nonprofit organization in Hawaii. "We’ve been working on this legislation for 10 years."
Xian co-drafted Senate Bill 265, which cleared the Legislature in the spring but was included last week in Gov. David Ige’s list of bills that he plans to veto.
One reason Ige cited for opposing the sex trafficking bill was that it would make it more difficult to prosecute lesser related offenses. He said he will continue working to strengthen laws against sex trafficking in Hawaii.
State Sen. Will Espero, who co-introduced the sex trafficking bill, said he will meet with interested parties to get to the bottom of why some don’t support a sex trafficking law.
"You would think that an issue like this is something that we could all agree on," he said.
Espero said the bill is about clarifying "sex trafficking" as forcing someone into prostitution as opposed to someone voluntarily engaging in prostitution.
Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro opposes the bill, saying it would complicate current law, which he said is already sufficient. He disputed the claim that Hawaii is the only state without a sex trafficking law, citing Polaris, a nonprofit organization that tracks human trafficking legislation.
"Polaris recognizes (Hawaii’s promoting-prostitution law) as a sex trafficking law," he said last week.
In a 2014 report Polaris credited Hawaii with having a sex trafficking law but faulted the state in related areas, such as not having laws to train law enforcement, to establish a human trafficking task force and to provide safe harbor for minors.
Polaris ranked Hawaii in the top tier (out of four) with 38 other states for its human trafficking laws and in the top tier with 11 other states for laws supporting human trafficking victims.
Kaneshiro said his office has been handling and winning prostitution cases against pimps, including seven who were sent to prison since tougher laws were enacted in 2011. Hawaii, he added, doesn’t need to include the term "sex trafficking" in its laws to be effective.
Under current law, first-degree promoting prostitution is defined as advancing prostitution by compelling a person "by force, threat, fraud, or intimidation to engage in prostitution." Those who advance or profit from prostitution without force can be prosecuted for second-degree promoting prostitution. Prostitution is a petty misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail.
First-degree promoting prostitution is a Class A felony, punishable by 20 years in prison, while second-degree promoting prostitution is a Class B felony, punishable by 10 years.
Kaneshiro said the bill would make it more difficult to prosecute a pimp if the pimp doesn’t know the victim is a minor. Currently, a pimp only has to profit from prostitution to be charged with a felony — whether or not the victim is a minor.
Xian claimed prosecutors dislike the bill because it would take away their ability to criminalize victims of forced prostitution.
Xian said prosecutors use an archaic, abusive approach in dealing with sex trafficking, by threatening victims with jail time if they don’t testify against their pimps.
She said the bill would make state prostitution laws more victim-centered. The bill would allow victims to seek compensation and file lawsuits, authorize wiretapping for sex trafficking investigations and reduce prostitution offenses by children from a petty misdemeanor to the equivalent of a traffic violation.
The bill also would add an itemized list of other means used by pimps to commit sex trafficking, such as kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, sexual assault, force, deception and fraud. Xian said the change would allow prosecutors to prove other criminal acts by traffickers as a part of sex trafficking, bringing more clarity to the ways victims are forced into prostitution and removing the blame from victims.
She said changing the name of the law from "first-degree promoting prostitution" to "sex trafficking" would also remove the stigma and reduce the psychological impact of calling victims of sex trafficking prostitutes.
But some sex worker advocates opposed the bill, saying it didn’t go far enough to decriminalize prostitution.
Tracy Ryan, chairwoman of the Libertarian Party of Hawaii, said she is opposed to laws that criminalize prostitution when no force is involved — such as when two adults make an agreement in a conversation on the street.
She said laws banning prostitution make sex workers reluctant to approach police when they become victims of crimes that happen while they are working as prostitutes.
Furthermore, she said, a majority of prostitutes in Hawaii don’t have pimps, such as the transgender women in Chinatown, those working online and those who do sex work occasionally with old customers.
She said that creates two tiers for sex workers under the current law: those who can claim to be a trafficking victim and receive immunity if they testify against their pimp, and those who have to do time because they don’t have a pimp.
Ryan described the sex trafficking bill as a "confused attempt" to place the term "sex trafficking" into state law to receive funding from mainland groups.
Xian, however, said the bill would do more than just change the name of "promoting prostitution" and would help Hawaii gather data about sex trafficking that it currently doesn’t have because it is not defined in state law.
Despite the lack of data, Xian said sex trafficking is a problem in Hawaii and that her organization has helped more than 100 women — mostly from the mainland — and about two dozen mostly local children who were victims of sex trafficking since 2009. The victims ranged in age from 11 to 35.
Xian disputed the claim that most prostitutes don’t have pimps, saying that every prostitute working on the street in Waikiki has one.
"They can never sit down," she said. "They have to keep walking, and they have to fulfill a quota."
She said runaway children in Hawaii are also at risk, and said recent studies from the mainland show a quarter of runaway or homeless children are sex-trafficked.
According to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, Hawaii has had 55 sex trafficking cases reported from 2012 through March.
Kaneshiro said his office has been going after pimps since tougher prostitution laws were enacted in 2011. He said prostitutes who cooperate with prosecutors are treated as victims of sex trafficking, offered services and given immunity.
"We’re going after the people who profit from prostitution," he said. "We are not targeting the prostitutes. We are targeting the pimps and the johns."
Since tougher laws were enacted, he said, he could recall only a couple of sex trafficking victims: minors who were beaten to stay with their pimps. He said prosecutors ask the prostitutes whether they are victims, and most say they were not forced into prostitution.
But Xian accused prosecutors of not placing victims into a safe house to establish trust and encourage them to testify. She said the cases against pimps are often dropped, leaving the victim exposed and unprotected from retaliation.
Kaneshiro said the prosecutor’s office is working on a $6 million family justice center in Makiki to help sex trafficking victims. The secured location will be a transitional home for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking, and will provide victims with services and assistance in finding work, giving victims the financial security needed to escape their abusers.
The house is expected to open by the end of this year.
