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Connecticut bill would require publishers to verify the age of workers at escort companies that place ads
Published: Monday, March 19, 2012
By Jordan Fenster, Register Staff
jfenster@nhregister.com / Twitter: @jordanfenster
HARTFORD -— Calling the practice a “scourge,” lawmakers Monday announced a bill that would curb child sex trafficking by holding liable the publishers of news organizations and websites that feature advertisements for underage prostitutes.
The proposed legislation would force publishers to verify the age of every employee of an escort company that buys an advertisement, or be charged with a felony carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The purpose, former House Speaker James Amann said, of Milford, is to motivate publishers to voluntarily remove such advertisements from the pages of their websites and other venues.
Those advertisements, Amann said, are thinly veiled as promotions for “escorts,” but as one victim said during a press conference, the truth is a “known fact.”
“Escort is prostitution, bottom line,” she said.
That victim, who chose to remain nameless until testimony on the proposed legislation later today, said she had been coerced by a prostitute into meeting a pimp only to be drugged, beaten and repeatedly sold to men in the Hartford area -- “fathers, sons, brothers, surgeons, engineers, politicians, store owners, everything under the sun.”
“It is happening right now to girls all over Connecticut,” she said.
According to Amann, the problem is widespread and possibly growing.
“Your daughters are the most popular new drug on the street,” Amann said. “Wherever they are, pimps can now advertise on the Internet.”
Amann was joined by state Rep. Jeffrey Berger, D-Waterbury. “These ads are in plain sight,” the victim said.
“We would like to believe things such as sex trafficking only happen in other places, but the fact is this is happening in our own backyards,” Judiciary Committee Co-chairman state Rep. Gerald Fox, D-Stamford, said in a statement. “Government has a responsibility to protect people from to protect people from being abused and exploited, particularly underage victims. This legislation targets the sexual exploitation of minors and is being considered by the Judiciary Committee as a way to help stop this scourge on our society.”
Beyond any state-level legislation that may be passed, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, who took part in Monday’s press conference, said he is working on the issue in Washington.
“I am working and have already begun reaching out to other members of the United States Senate,” he said. “Federal action is very much a part of what needs to be done.”
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