Minn. Stat Subd. 7a

“Sex trafficking” means: (1) receiving, recruiting, enticing, harboring, providing, or obtaining by any means an individual to aid in the prostitution of the individual; or (2) receiving profit or anything of value, knowing or having reason to know it is derived from an act described in clause (1).

1) Victims of sexual trafficking are sexually exploited, not prostituted 2) The statute is demeaning to women and a violation of human rights and women’s rights Victims should not be criminalized in order to be able to convict traffickers 3) If the “prostitute” intended to prostitute, the human trafficker didn’t do anything. Calling victims prostitutes places the blame on the victim

4) If a “prostitute” is arrested, they can and have been bailed out and endangered by traffickers. We need to provide more protection for victims 5) If a “prostitute” is arrested, they can refuse and don’t want to testify 6) Our statute needs to be parallel to the Federal TVPA: MN can gain “points” for arresting sex traffickers We can regain federal funding for anti-trafficking police work We can gain federal resources to help victims of sexual trafficking

Since its enactment in 2005, the statute has not used to convict a sex trafficker in MN.

Section 1. Minnesota Statutes, 2010, section , subdivision 7a, should be amended to read: Subd. 7a. Sex trafficking. "Sex trafficking" means: (1) receiving, recruiting, enticing, harboring, providing, or obtaining by any means an individual to aid in the prostitution of the individual engage in a commercial sex act; or (2) receiving profit or anything of value, knowing or having reason to know it is derived from an act described in clause (1); Sec. 2. Minnesota Statutes 2010, section should be amended by adding a subdivision to read: Subd. 15. Commercial sex act. A "commercial sex act" means a sex act on account of which anything of value is given or received by any person.

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