State Law

LEGISLATIVE INTENT OF ASSEMBLY BILL 22
AB 22 is a comprehensive anti-trafficking bill designed to protect and compensate
victims, prosecute traffickers, and prevent human trafficking in California.
Given the reality of California’s current fiscal crisis, the intent must include mandates
that use existing state and federal social service programs for trafficking victims to
minimize the fiscal impact on the state while maximizing the services available for victims.
HIGHLIGHTS OF AB 22
I. Criminal Provisions
The Department of Justice has promulgated a Model State Law that seeks to provide a
tool for drafting modern anti-trafficking criminal provisions at the state level.
Using the Model Law as the start point in California anti-trafficking legislation, it should
be modified in the following ways:
• Define a “victim of severe forms of trafficking” as a person subjected to involuntary
servitude or the sexual servitude of a minor, or recruited, enticed, harbored,
transported, provided, or obtained by any means for subjection to forced labor or involuntary servitude.
San Francisco South Bay, Responding to Trafficking in Persons Protocol 13
• Prohibit all forms of coercion of victims. Prohibited forms of coercion involved in
involuntary servitude should include: the use of “any scheme, plan, or pattern
intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in
serious harm to or physical restraint against any person.”
• All crimes involving minors should be punished in the same manner, without
distinction to the type of labor or services minors are forced to perform.
• Include a mandatory reporting provision requiring law enforcement officers to
report all trafficking crimes to the Attorney General.
II. Social Service Provisions Victims of a severe form of trafficking are first and foremost victims of crime.
Trafficking victims must also be provided with immediate and longer-term basic needs
in order to increase the likelihood that the victim will cooperate effectively with a state
criminal investigation and/or prosecution of traffickers.
The State should address these individuals with compassion and services to meet
their basic needs. State law also should promote partnership with the federal
government to extend immigration benefits and protection to victims who have been
trafficked into California from abroad. This partnership between state and federal
governments benefits the state of California in that federal benefits’ eligibility for
victims can result in removing the burden and cost of benefits provision from the state.
• Expand access of domestic violence shelters to trafficking victims as a short-term
solution to address the pervasive need for shelter that trafficked victims face.
• Amend the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act of California explicitly to include
trafficking victims as recipients of the statutory services. Additionally, amend
California Government Code to provide interpretation at judicial and administrative
hearings explicitly for trafficking victims.
• Include trafficking victims in the Victim and Witness Protection programs of the
State, and include trafficking as a crime that mandates high priority for the
protection of witnesses. Like other priority crimes, trafficking is an organized crime that is often perpetrated
by the use of systematic violence and intimidation;

such
services are necessary to make victims and witnesses safe again.
• Include case managers of trafficking victims in the privileged relationship provisions
of state law to guarantee the safety of victims and case managers as well as the
confidentiality of communications made between these two parties.
• Require law enforcement to issue a Law Enforcement Authority Endorsement
(LEA) for all trafficking victims within fifteen business days of initial contact with
the victim. This LEA is necessary for victims to access the services that the federal
government provides, including immigration relief. Further, these social services
will remove much of the burden of service provision from the State, instead
accessing federal funds to support victims.
14 III. California Anti-Trafficking Task Force
Create an anti-trafficking advisory committee or task force similar to that provided by
the Comprehensive Statewide Domestic Violence Program. This advisory group can
assist Legislators with guiding and coordinating the State’s anti-trafficking efforts. This
advisory group should be comprised only of those individuals or agencies that have
first-hand experience with trafficking and its victims in order to insure that its efforts are
informed by expertise that is of practical use by the State.
The advisory group could focus its efforts on the following:
• Raise the public’s awareness and understanding of the problem of trafficking in the State of California.
• Implement an independent, comprehensive study on the prevalence of trafficking
in the State of California.
• Conduct public hearing(s) on the issue of trafficking that results in findings and
recommendations for Legislators regarding possible State legislation to bolster antitrafficking
efforts.
• Evaluate proposed future anti-trafficking legislation for the State and make
recommendations for legislators.
• Create working protocols for collaborative work between non-governmental and
governmental organizations.
• Review state-wide implementation of state and federal anti-trafficking laws; identify strengths and
weaknesses; and make recommendations for improvement

(i.e.,
“quality control recommendations” - uniform law enforcement training
curriculum/a for various law enforcement agencies).
Information provided by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber's Office
Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 ("TVPA"), passed on October 28, 2000, marks
the most comprehensive U.S. law to address the various

aspects of trafficking in
persons both internationally and domestically. The TVPA aims to combat trafficking by
establishing measures to prevent trafficking, protect its victims, and prosecute those
accountable for trafficking.
The TVPA defines "severe forms of trafficking in persons" as:
a. Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion,
or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained
18 years of age;
b. The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for
labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of
subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
The TVPA recognizes only sex trafficking and labor trafficking that involves force, fraud
or coercion with exceptions for minors.
Prevention The TVPA addresses the prevention of trafficking through international initiatives that
reduce the vulnerability of individuals by increased education, economic opportunities,
and the protection and promotion of human rights. Initiatives may include micro-credit
lending programs, training in business development, skills training, and job counseling;
programs to promote women's participation in economic decision making; programs
to keep children, especially girls, in elementary and secondary schools, and to educate
persons who have been victims of trafficking; the development of educational
curricula regarding the dangers of trafficking; and grants to non-governmental
organizations to advance the political, economic, social, and educational roles and capacities
of women in their countries.
The TVPA also calls for the implementation of programs to increase public awareness,
particularly among potential victims of trafficking, about the dangers of trafficking and
the protections that are available for victims of trafficking.
Protection & Assistance
Services & Benefits
Victims of trafficking certified (or deemed eligible, if minors) by the Department of
Health and Human Service/Office of Refugee Resettlement can access benefits and
services to the same extent as refugees with the exception of Reception & Placement services.
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Federal & State Mainstream Public Benefits
• Medicaid
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
• Food Stamps
Refugee Programs & Trafficking Victim Services
• Refugee Cash & Medical Assistance
• Matching Grant Program
• Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program
• Services for Victims of Trafficking