Resolve differences to pass bill helping prostitution victims

Advocates of a sex-trafficking bill vetoed by Gov. David Ige must persevere next legislative session to ensure that criminal prosecution of prostitution and related crimes receives the comprehensive overhaul it deserves.

Although lawmakers were well persuaded and unanimously approved Senate Bill 265, Ige vetoed the measure, bolstered by the objections of prosecutors and defense lawyers who said that confusing language fatally flawed the measure.

Central to that effort will be persuading the governor that prostitutes forced into the sex trade are victims and only victims — not perpetrators to be charged with crimes and offered plea deals by prosecutors seeking to “flip” them for testimony against even worse offenders, including pimps.

Robbery victims are not offered immunity from prosecution if they testify against the alleged robbers; shooting victims are not offered immunity if they testify against the accused gunmen.

Victims of crimes are not funneled into the criminal justice system as offenders. The very thought of that is absurd. It should be no different for prostitutes who are coerced, exploited and controlled by pimps, sometimes violently so, and then treated as pawns of the criminal justice system, rather than as victims who need help and support.

This is a central controversy of SB 265, make no mistake. Not sloppy language, or overlaps in the penal code. The issue at hand is whether Honolulu’s prosecutor, in particular, will shift his mindset about how to best help sex workers who have been trafficked, and protect them from future harm.

Ideal assistance won’t come from police or prosecutors as one element of a criminal case, but from a robust system of social services for marginalized victims, including safe and sober housing, education and work training.

Not every sex worker is a victim of trafficking; some are merely making a living, as some social-service advocates who also opposed the bill made clear. These advocates seek decriminalization of all sex work, rather than sweeping policy changes that would treat one class of prostitutes better than another. While they rightly point out the dire need for fact-based research on the type and scope of prostitution in Hawaii — research they predict would show that current claims of violent sex trafficking is exaggerated — these critics also acknowledge that such trafficking does occur here, to an unknown degree. The human beings confined to such an existence are not criminals. Senate Bill 265 would have helped them. It was not a perfect bill, but neither is the criminal justice system we have now.

Given the effective prosecutorial opposition to SB 265, it seems even less likely that decriminalization will be treated as a feasible option in the near term. Therefore, we hope that social-service advocates on both sides of this bill can come together before the next legislative session to help draft a comprehensive measure that succeeds in assisting the most vulnerable members of a dangerous trade: sex workers who are trafficked. They may never win over all the prosecutors, but they should be able to collaborate among themselves.

Gov. Ige has indicated that his mind is open, and this issue is too important to languish amid a philosophical divide.