HB 10: Legislative Reforms To Help Curb And Eradicate Human Trafficking
Since the 84th Texas Legislative Session has come to a close, I want to take this opportunity to look at an important bill that I had the privilege to work on for our area. Each legislative session, there are a number of priorities facing the state and it is important that we examine some of these pieces of legislation that will be impacting the Coastal Bend. House Bill 10 is an important bill that we passed this session dealing with human trafficking prevention in the state of Texas.
I want to highlight some of the central themes and background information about HB 10. A few years ago, the Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force was created to have a statewide partnership between law enforcement agencies, social service providers, nongovernmental organizations, legal representatives, and state agencies that are fighting on the front line against human trafficking. The task force works to develop policies and procedures to fulfill that purpose, and proposes legislative recommendations to better protect adult and child victims of human trafficking. In the months leading up to the 84th Legislative Session, I had the privilege of serving on a joint House and Senate Interim Committee to work with the task force and develop legislation to address human trafficking in our state.
The resulting legislation, HB 10, seeks to prevent and ultimately eliminate human trafficking by enacting the recommendations made by the task force in the 2014 Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force Report. The bill amends current law relating to certain criminal and civil consequences of trafficking of persons, compelling prostitution, and certain other related criminal offenses, to the prevention, prosecution, and punishment of those offenses, and to compensation paid to victims of those offenses. It is important to know that human trafficking is not exclusive to one segment of society. Human trafficking involves victims of all races, age groups, both males and females, and United States citizens, as well as non-citizens. Individuals seeking to force people into human trafficking do not discriminate amongst their victims and often prey upon those who are most vulnerable.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, human trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for one of three purposes:
• Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age.
• The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
The national hotline for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center is (888) 373-7888 and it is available in over 200 languages and is operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you would like to learn more about what is being done to combat human trafficking, please visit HumanTrafficking.org, a web resource. Also, the United States Department of Justice’s website regarding human trafficking can be found at DOJ Human Trafficking.
If you would like to follow the Texas House and learn more information on news, committees or other aspects of the legislative body, you can access its website at Texas House of Representatives. The site features live streaming from committee hearings as well as access to a number of other resources. You can also follow the Texas Senate at Texas Senate. For important information regarding transportation in the state, feel free to visit the Texas Department of Transportation. Other references are the Texas General Land Office, or visit the Texas Railroad Commission.
If you have questions regarding any of the information mentioned in this week’s article, please do not hesitate to call my Capitol or District Office. Please always feel free to contact my office if you have any questions or issues regarding a Texas state agency, or if you would like to contact my office regarding constituent services. As always, my offices are available at any time to assist with questions, concerns or comments (Capitol Office, 512-463-0672; District Office, 361-949-4603).
– State Representative Todd Hunter, District 32
Rep. Hunter represents Nueces (Part) County. He can be contacted at todd.hunter@house.state.tx.us or at 512-463-0672.
