Lawmakers Target Forced Sex Trade

88.5 WFDD - Public Radio For The Piedmont | By Paul Garber

Published June 27, 2017 at 9:37 AM EDT

The state legislature is looking at a set of new laws to cut down on human trafficking.

Last week, the House approved a measure to require licensing for massage and bodywork therapy places. Sponsors say the businesses are sometimes used as a front for illegal sexual activities.

A similar Senate bill would make it a higher level felony for violating human trafficking laws.

There's also funding in the state budget for more than 21,000 human trafficking awareness signs to be displayed at adult establishments, hospitals, rest stops and other places.

All of those measures are designed to crack down on the forced sex trade across the state. Data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline shows North Carolina ranked among the top ten states for the number of cases reported.

Crime

Paul Garber

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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Lawmakers Target Forced Sex Trade

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