"Ohio doesn't immediately come to mind to most people when the issue of modern-day slavery is raised, but as other parts of the country clamp down on the human traffickers, the Buckeye State has been in danger of becoming a safe haven for them," the Youngstown Vindicator said last Tuesday.
"While 1,000 young people between the ages of 12 and 17 forced into the sex trade in one year may pale in comparison to the 20,000 victims in the United States, the number is still significant for a state in middle America," the Vindicator's article said. "Another 800 immigrants are sexually exploited and pushed in sweatshop-type jobs."
As recently as last summer, Ohio was on the Polaris Project’s “Dirty Dozen” list – "states that failed to enact basic human trafficking provisions or have provisions that fail to adequately address the growing crime." ( Here )
That presumably ends with the passage of Ohio's new law, Senate Bill 235, introduced in March and shadowed by House Bill 493, introduced in April, which reached concurrence and was sent to Governor Strickland last Tuesday.
Included in the bill is a final amendment made by Bill Seitz designed to codify a recent holding of the Ohio Supreme Court in State v. Cabrales, 2008-Ohio-1625, regarding allied offenses of similar import with respect to the offense of trafficking in persons and the definition of corrupt activity, which Attorney General Richard Cordray specifically supported in a letter to the Senate back in April. Seitz said it would "avoided needless stacking of charges and unintended results of [aggravating] prison overcrowding."
The General Assembly had directed the Attorney General's Office to establish a Trafficking in Persons Study Commission in Jan. 2009. That Commission’s Report, the Attorney General's press release, and other related information is posted on the Attorney General's website.
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