Midstate activists raise awareness of law to help sex traffic victims

Mayor Robert Reichert is scheduled to sign a proclamation Saturday that designates the day as Human Trafficking Awareness Day in Macon-Bibb County.

After the proclamation signing at the Government Center on Poplar Street, volunteers with the Middle Georgia Alliance to End Regional Trafficking and the Crisis Line & Safe House of Central Georgia will distribute notices to area businesses informing them of a recently passed state law meant to help human trafficking victims.

Human trafficking involves the use of force or fraud to keep someone against their will for their labor, services or commercial sex acts.

Anyone induced into performing commercial sex acts as a minor also is a victim of trafficking.

Georgia House Bill 141, signed into law last May, requires certain businesses to post notices alerting people to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline. Under the law, businesses that fail to post the notice after being asked to comply are subject to a misdemeanor criminal charge and a fine of $500.

Businesses must display the hotline information in public restrooms and at least one other conspicuous location.

Adult entertainment establishments, bars, airports, bus and train stations, hospitals, hotels and businesses that offer massage services but do not employ massage therapists are all subject to the law.

Dozens of massage parlors operated in Macon in the last decade, which law enforcement agencies often targeted in anti-prostitution efforts. Activists against human trafficking suggested some women at those places were being held against their will.

In 2010, the Macon City Council passed an ordinance that made it harder for massage parlors to operate, and as a result there are fewer of them today, but that doesnt mean human trafficking in the area has stopped.

The model for trafficking in Middle Georgia has shifted from one involving primarily massage parlors to one involving Internet-based trafficking where the orders are placed online, and the victims are trafficked at local hotels, said District Attorney David Cooke.

Go here to see the original:
Midstate activists raise awareness of law to help sex traffic victims