US: Anti-Trafficking Laws Are Hurting

Three years ago, Kristen DiAngelo met a mother in a desperate situation. The mother was being coerced into sex work by the father of her baby. He had threatened her and her family’s lives and had recently kicked in the door to her mother’s house.
“I can’t leave you out there,” DiAngelo, the co-founder and executive director of SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach Program) Sacramento, remembered thinking.
She paid for the mother to stay in a hotel room for a night. Later, the mother stayed on her couch. DiAngelo also took her to the local domestic violence shelter, which required her to file a police report. From her own experiences with local law enforcement, DiAngelo knew that local police would do little to protect the mother, who had numerous arrests for sex work. In contrast, the man trafficking her had no arrest record and a college education.
The women approached the FBI about pressing trafficking charges against the woman’s exploiter. They shared emails and voice mails in which he threatened her. But, while the agents they spoke with were sympathetic, DiAngelo recounted, they said that, because the woman was over 18, the FBI would not investigate her claims.
That was the start of SWOP Sacramento’s safe house, a six-bed house where sex workers could live and find support services. Since then, the safe house has provided safe housing for dozens of sex workers. Some are fleeing exploitative and abusive situations. Others needed a safe and supportive environment to address drug addictions or mental health issues. Sex workers learned about the safe house through the organization’s website.
Then, in April 2018, Congress passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act  (SESTA). These laws amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, now making it a federal crime to operate a website “with the intent to promote and facilitate the prostitution of another person.” The laws also allow state attorneys general to bring civil actions against website operators. Though FOSTA targets website operators, not sex workers, they have still resulted in a chilling effect on sex workers’ safety and survival options.
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