To continue to ramp up its efforts to fight human trafficking, Florida is soliciting help from strip clubs and massage parlors.
A new law requires rest areas, airports and emergency rooms to post signs that notify human trafficking victims of resources that could help them escape, the Orlando Sentinel reported. But advocates are hopeful that the legislation will have a measurable impact by raising awareness at strip clubs and massage parlors, prime locations for pimps to exploit their victims.
The law went into effect on New Year's Day, which coincides with Human Trafficking Prevention Month. The signs point victims to the National Human Trafficking Awareness Center and businesses that don’t comply are subject to noncriminal citations and fines up to $500, according to the Sentinel.
Massage parlors are critical to reaching victims since some of these businesses are often just commercial-front brothels where the women can be forced to have sex with men six to 10 times a day.
Strip clubs are key, too. Because while the dancing may be perfectly legal, the sex acts, and the mandates of their pimps, often aren't.
That’s what happened to Rebecca Bender who was trafficked while living in Las Vegas. She’d get sent to dance for a party, and the funds for that “job” would go straight to the strip club. Everything else went to her pimp.
A number of Florida adult businesses say they’re on board with complying with the new law.
“Taping up a sign is not a burden,” Joe Redner, owner of Tampa strip club Mons Venus, told ABC Action News.
The Polaris Project, a group that combats human trafficking, ranked Florida as a "Tier 2" state. That means it has passed numerous laws to support victims, but still needs to take additional steps to improve and implement its laws.
The new awareness law is one of a number of measures that Florida has undertaken to reduce its instances of human trafficking cases.
In an effort to better protect exploited minors, Google, the Human Rights Project for Girls (Rights4Girls) and the McCain Institute launched the “No Such Thing” campaign last January. The goal is to urge authorities to stop criminalizing children who are victims of sex trafficking. According to federal law, anyone under 18 who performs a commercial sex act in exchange for compensation is a victim of trafficking and shouldn’t be able to be charged as a prostitute.
In Florida, sexually exploited minors are deemed victims of sex trafficking, and the law notes that “a minor is unable to consent to such behavior.”
Also on HuffPost:
24 Times Sexism Was Very Very Real In 2015
