A California bill authored by Senator Shannon Grove that sought to tackle child trafficking by imposing harsher penalties for people who buy sex from children or engage in sexual activity with an underage got watered down by Democrats on the public safety committee.
The original bill sought to make meeting/soliciting a minor for sex, agreeing to engage or engaging in any form of commercial sex with an underage/child a felony offense.
The bill on Tuesday was weakened by Democrats on the public safety committee, who amended it to exclude 16- and 17-year-olds from the penalties (reduced consent age). It also reduced the punishment which ranged from 2 to 4 years in prison, a fine not exceeding $25,000, and ordering repeat offenders to register as a sex offender, to a misdemeanor punishable by 1 day up to a maximum of 1 year in county jail or up to a $10,000 fine.
According to them, the bill if approved, could be used wrongly to target people in consensual relationships with minors.
“You have a committee forcing amendments in front of survivors that are advocating for this bill,” Senator Grove said. “I’m incredibly disappointed that not only did my colleagues reject my proposal to make the buying of children for sex a prison felony, but that I was blindsided when they amended my bill without my consent.”
“Part of the reason that I’m supporting the bill and what, and have been supporting it, is because 60% of trafficked victims are actually fostered youth, or have been in foster care,” Shane Harris, a former foster child and now President of the People’s Association of Justice Advocates said, in support of Grove.
“I think it is just completely delirious that these senators who sit on this committee, some of them decided to go the way of amending the bill without the author’s consent. It explains where we are in this state when it comes to how we view our children and our most vulnerable children”.
“It does not roll the clock back on criminal justice reform. If you think that it does, you cannot tell time and it’s time to hold these perpetrators of child sex trafficking accountable in this state,” he added.
