Florida's Human Trafficking Bills Stir Hope and Fear | News-Press

By Patricia Borns - April 26, 2019
Click here to read the article on News-Press.

Savannah Parvu remembers her parents’ warning not to talk about what went on at home, or she would be taken to a bad place – as though accompanying her mother to score drugs was a good place for an 11-year-old to be.“My mother’s dealer offered her a $10 dollar piece of crack for me,” said the Central Florida native who went to school by day and serviced johns by night.“He sold me at a Days Inn,” Parvu said. “Sometimes it was three or four men, sometimes 10. That’s why this bill is so important to me.”The bill she worked on with state Rep. Heather Fitzenhagen, R-Fort Myers, is one of several this session taking aim at an activity as old as time: the enslavement of people for labor or sex. But while the political will is there to do something about it, Parvu has had to adjust her sights lower as efforts to regulate, or even define, trafficking stir controversy.

Holding hotels accountable
Fitzenhagen's bill originally funded a support organization for trafficking victims and mandated training for workers in law enforcement, health care and massage parlors and hotels. But the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association has made immunity from prosecution a bargaining chip for its participation. “They want something in the bill saying as long as their staff is trained, even if the staff knew or assisted in trafficking, they would be immune,” Parvu said. Hotel industry jitters about liability killed last year’s efforts, too.Column:When human trafficking victims live right under our noses, how can we stop it?“We were working on human trafficking until the last night, the last hour, and it failed," Fitzenhagen said.

The reason was a cause of action that would have allowed survivors to sue hotels if they knowingly turned a blind eye,  Now that part’s gone, but Fitzenhagen and her Senate counterpart Lauren Book, D-Plantation, still have to negotiate whether or not to trade off victims’ rights for the industry's participation. And they have less than a week -- the legislative session ends May 3.  Conservatively, hotels are the venue for 20 percent of sex trafficking cases in Southwest Florida, according to the Human Trafficking Data Project.

But anecdotally, “Motels are huge," said Ramona Miller, an outreach worker on the streets of Lee County. “If human trafficking was to discontinue, in the area where I work, those people (motel owners) would be out of business.” That’s because Miller sees trafficking not only in organized rings, but also in a pimp’s use of drugs or emotional manipulation to exploit a few sex workers. 
 
“I believe human trafficking is still undefined in so many ways,” Miller said. “Because it is so broad and so hidden, you have two kinds of data: from those hitting the ground, and from hearsay, after the fact.”While resisting legislation, the industry is taking voluntary steps to combat trafficking:"We have a moral obligation to do all we can to prevent this atrocious crime," the Florida association wrote as a preface to its new, free online awareness course.Marriott International recently announced 500,000 of its staff have taken human trafficking awareness training.

“It’s a little hard to tell if someone is forced, said Shailendra Patel, owner of Fort Myers' Golfview Motell, who took the online course offered by the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. "We’re just trying to learn.”Naming namesLegislators must also resolve their differences over what’s informally being called the ‘john’s registry': a  database of people found guilty of  “soliciting, inducing, enticing, or procuring” another to commit “prostitution, lewdness, or assignation.” The loose definition has sex workers alarmed they’ll be caught in the net, but that’s not why Fitzenhagen struck it from her version. She wants to make sure the registry doesn’t violate a right to privacy.“I think it’s a disgrace that sex workers are coming before the House and Senate, saying  you are going to make me scared of the police, reduce my income and hurt my family if I get arrested,” she said. Well, guess what, prostitution is illegal.”

Not so fast, say others like Jennifer Murphy, a Fort Myers counselor whose clients are sex crime victims.“If people are just talking about sex trafficking, that is not the entire conversation," Murphy said. "No one grows up healthy and says, 'I'm  going to sell my body.' The problem is rampant sexual abuse.”Instead of a ‘name and shame’ approach, the therapist, who also produces training programs, would like to see education aimed at reducing the demand for commercial sex, including pornography, and empowering people to recognize and avoid abusers. 

Can we talk?
As a junior high student Christy Ivie wanted someone to ask the question that would allow her to spill the secret of her father’s sexual abuse.“I knew my teachers knew,” said the founder of Christy’s Cause dedicated to helping victims of child trafficking. “I was begging internally for someone to say something, but no one did.”That’s why she supports a bill that would teach trafficking awareness in public schools. Although she was never trafficked, Ivie sees abuse and trafficking as cousins. “Statistics show trafficking victims are vulnerable because they’ve been abused as children," she said; and "less than one percent are ever identified in part because no one’s talking. In Ivie’s case, she said her father alternately beat her to enforce secrecy and assured her that father-daughter sex was normal.The bill would help Florida students avoid dating violence and abuse and understand what makes a healthy relationship, as well as  recognize signs of human trafficking.

Protection or victim blaming?
A minimum penalty bill for sex traffickers raised a concern by Brent Woody, the lead attorney for the Justice Restoration Center, that victims could be traumatized in the sentencing process, which relies on proving they weren’t acting voluntarily."I have sat through numerous human trafficking cases where a trafficker's defense attorney dragged a survivor through the dirt, called her a ‘whore," Woody wrote in an email. “It’s an awful and traumatizing experience that  the State could, as far as we know, compel a victim to go through.  Ultimately, the questions of who is a victim and who a criminal will have to be defined in order to be legislated and funded.  For some like Miller and Murphy, who work in the trenches, the definitions are too simplistic and likely to create winners and losers."

Human trafficking is a buzz word with funding attached to it," Miller said.In the rush to count numbers of victims in order to qualify for grant funds, she urges caution when vetting survivor stories to make sure they can recount a clear narrative of events.  For other Tallahassee watchers, something is better than nothing.

Speaking of the Fitzenhagen bill, which dropped the training requirement for hotels, "It's not what I want," Parvu said, "but it's better than losing the whole bill."

Follow this reporter on Twitter @PatriciaBorns.