barriers to evidence based policy – Sex Trafficking in Alaska

House Bill 66 will make sex workers and sex trafficking survivors charged with working or traveling together register as sex offenders. It will be on the Senate Floor May 14th! We need your help!

House Bill 66 was just a bad homicide/overdose bill, but just over a week ago the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Senator Matt Claman, turned it into a 40 page criminal justice omnibus bill that does everything from allowing hearsay at grand jury to making people convicted of first and second degree sex trafficking register as sex offenders.

It makes sense for people convicted of sex trafficking in the first degree – most of that statute is what we traditionally think of as sex trafficking. Sex trafficking in the second degree is just things like sex workers traveling together or sharing clients – things that are done even more often by sex trafficking survivors than sex workers.

Here is a story about our member Amber being convicted of sex trafficking in the second degree under the travel part of the statute. More recently, a mother who was a victim of horrifically violent sex trafficking was charged in a similar way.

We need your help!

Email your opposition to all of our Alaska Senators! Ask them to vote no on HB 66 as long as Section 30 (page 24, line 9) includes Sex Trafficking in the Second Degree.

Senator.Bill.Wielechowski@akleg.gov;

Senator.Kelly.Merrick@akleg.gov;

Senator.Shelley.Hughes@akleg.gov;

Senator.David.Wilson@akleg.gov;

Senator.Bert.Stedman@akleg.gov;

Senator.Jesse.Kiehl@akleg.gov;

Senator.Gary.Stevens@akleg.gov;

Senator.Jesse.Bjorkman@akleg.gov;

Senator.Cathy.Giessel@akleg.gov;

Senator.James.Kaufman@akleg.gov;

Senator.Elvi.Gray-Jackson@akleg.gov;

Senator.matt.claman@akleg.gov;