Safe Harbor Act Would Help Girls Escape Exploitation
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- When Lucilia was 13, she was raped by her brother and her cousin while living with parents who regularly abused drugs and alcohol, she said.
She left home and became a prostitute in New York City. Again, she became a victim of sexual and physical violence and spent time in adult and juvenile jails. Most of the money she earned was taken by her pimp.
Now 16, Lucilia testified Monday in front of a state panel in favor of a bill to help girls escape similar lives of exploitation and abuse.
``I think the pimps need to be locked up instead,'' said Lucilia, who gave only her first name and age during testimony in front of a state panel. ``I feel the law is doing something wrong.''
The Safe Harbor Act would require localities to provide a short-term safe house to child victims of sexual exploitation, provide counseling and outreach programs and boost training for the police officers that regularly handle such cases.
Often, girls arrested for prostitution will lie about their age to secure almost immediate release on bail, said Mishi Faruqee of the New York Juvenile Justice Coalition. Hundreds of girls under the age of 16 are arrested for prostitution in New York City alone each year, advocates claim.
Part of the bill would remove prostitution from the list of crimes a teenager could be charged with as a juvenile. That would make it less likely for a girl to lie about her age to avoid months in detention.
``The pimps tell them to lie about their age,'' Faruqee said. ``If they are over 16, they'll be charged as adults and their pimp can bail them out. There is no bail in the family court system.''
Part of the training for police would include teaching them about verifying the girls' ages before processing them, Faruqee said.
An estimated 293,000 U.S. teenagers are at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation, according to a 2001 University of Pennsylvania study cited on the U.S. Justice Department's Web site. The majority of them tend to be runaways from abusive homes who turn to the sex trade as a way of supporting themselves.
``We have a group of vulnerable young women who get caught up in a situation oftentimes through no fault of their own,'' said Assemblyman William Scarborough, a Queens Democrat and sponsor of the bill. ``They are looking for love and security and end up being shuttled into a nightmarish existence. We in the state are doing far too little to correct the situation.''
Republican Dale Volker is sponsoring the measure in the Republican-led state Senate.
A companion human trafficking bill would increase the penalties for pimps and other ``enablers'' who push girls to become strippers, phone sex workers or appear in pornography, Scarborough said.
The two bills ``will change the way we view these children and give them the opportunity to change their lives and reclaim their youth,'' Scarborough said.
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