Title
A MOTION requesting the executive to implement a Stop Human Trafficking public awareness campaign in partnership with the city of Seattle and the Port of Seattle.
Body
WHEREAS, human trafficking is a form of exploitation in which people and groups profit from the control of others, and
WHEREAS, as defined under state and federal law, victims of human trafficking include children involved in commercial sex trade, adults age eighteen or over who are forced, coerced or deceived into commercial sex acts and anyone forced into different forms of "labor or services," such as domestic workers held in a home or farm workers forced to labor against their will, and
WHEREAS, human trafficking is considered to be one of the fastest growing criminal industries worldwide, and an ongoing problem in the Puget Sound region, and
WHEREAS, King County has long been a hotspot in the international trafficking of persons, due to our region's proximity to ports, major agricultural industry, shared international border with Canada, Sea-Tac International Airport and access to Interstate 5 along the Pacific coast states from Mexico, and
WHEREAS, Washington has been a national leader since 2002 in enacting state laws to combat human trafficking in all its forms. Washington was the first state to criminalize human trafficking, in 2003 and has since passed over forty laws addressing aspects of trafficking, such as labor trafficking, bride trafficking, stiffer penalties for commercial sexual abuse of minors and required training for teachers on how to recognize and prevent sexual abuse and exploitation of minors, and
WHEREAS, in 2013 the Washington state Legislature established both the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Statewide Coordinating Committee to recommend ways to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children and the Statewide Coordinating Committee on Sex Trafficking to oversee the distribution of funds collected from trafficking crimes to services for vi...
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