It’s been a momentous week for awareness of human sex trafficking. We saw the release of the film Sound of Freedom and the debate in the California legislature over a bill that would make child sex trafficking a serious felony.
The fact that a bill aimed at deterring the sex trafficking of minors received any opposition at all is an utter embarrassment for my state, and the people who have defended the pushback are shameful.
Luckily, some of the California political class came to their senses and intervened. According to the Sacramento Bee, “. . . lawmakers revived a bill to enact harsher punishments for child sex traffickers after Democrats blocked it earlier in the week, prompting intervention by Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leadership.”
The bill makes sex trafficking a serious felony, and would count as a strike under California’s three strikes law. The concern from some of our elected officials is that this would negatively impact minorities in the state.
Minority or not, there should be zero tolerance for sex trafficking another human being. Period. My vote on this issue is for harsher penalties on only one “strike.” If there is an inordinate number of minorities effected by this, it’s not obvious to me how minimizing penalties or rolling back deterrents solves the problem. If the argument is that some in minority communities engage in trafficking because they lack legitimate economic opportunity, then let’s work on that issue.
My wife has worked in advocacy since before we were married twenty years ago. The last few years, she worked with victims of human sex trafficking. I’m not sure what our politicians are smoking, but if you ask my wife about the justice system here, it certainly seems there is more attention paid to the rights of perpetrators than there is for the victims of such crimes. It’s a curious thing when you consider that most victims of sex trafficking are also from minority communities.
The release of Sound of Freedom has stirred controversy as well. Some critics of the film point to actor Jim Caviezel’s supposed support of Qanon theories as a strike against it. I don’t know much about his political opinions, but even if he was totally on board with Qanon, Passion of the Christ and Count of Monte Christo are still awesome movies. And so is Sound of Freedom.
Mr. Cavieziel is a great actor. Maybe he’s not the best political commentator. I don’t know. But he didn’t write the script or direct the film, and it’s obviously something he is rightly passionate about. And anyone who says human sex trafficking is not a real issue has their head in the sand.
Thanks be to God that this week turned out the way it has. While there are some critics of the film, they seem to be in the minority, and it has received a crazy amount of attention. The human trafficking bill in California also had its detractors, and they lost their fight. Chalk this week up as a win for awareness and action against modern slavery.