CASE Act, California

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley speaks during the Victory Outreach Church’s candlelight vigil with a song at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif., Friday April 6, 2012. The Victory Outreach Church of Oakland held the “Hear The Cry II Candlelight Vigil” to speak out against human sex trafficking. (Anda Chu/Staff)

In 2010, a 13-year-old girl from San Francisco came across the Bay Bridge to Oakland. She thought that she was visiting friends, but one of these so-called friends put her in the clutches of a human trafficker. She was taken to a house where her clothes were taken away, all contact with her family cut off, and she was put out on the streets for sex trafficking.

At all times, a man with a gun followed her, and she was abused physically, mentally and sexually. She was forced to have sex with strangers for money collected by the trafficker.

This girl represents just one of the many women and children caught in the web of human trafficking throughout California and the Bay Area. I’ve seen the faces of children who have suffered at the hands of traffickers and heard their halting stories of abuses and traumas.

For these children, we must pass the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act this November. The CASE Act is a ballot initiative that will fight back against human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and children.

Source: Contra Costa Times