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 take a look at some of the bills that I had a 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 here in the state of Texas.
I want to feature some of the themes of this bill. Here is a summary of some of the important things to know 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.
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:
• Labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purposes of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
• A commercial sex act through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.
• Any commercial sex act, if the person is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether any form of coercion is involved.
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 Resource for Combating Human Trafficking Also,visit United States Department of Justice on Human Trafficking.
The 84th Legislative session has come to a close but I invite you to review what was accomplished during the recent session. To view the governor’s actions, please visit Office of the Governor Gregg Abbot or to see the bills that have already been signed, please visit Office of the Governor bills . If you would like to see more about the legislature, please visit the Texas Legislature Online .
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.
