Georgia lawmakers push federal agencies to focus on fighting child trafficking
ATLANTA - Some of Georgia's national lawmakers are pushing for a bill that makes federal agencies focus more on fighting child trafficking.
Advocacy groups say the legislation is critical to save and protect more children.
"All the things that make us great as a city make us a great hub to traffic people," said Jeff Shaw, the national expansion officer for Frontline Response, an organization against child trafficking in Georgia and across the country.
Shaw says Atlanta’s great transportation and other infrastructure make it a crossroads for human trafficking.
"We've been addressing uniquely sex trafficking for about 13 years," Shaw said.
He says with the myriad of ways kids communicate online, the need to combat child trafficking at the highest levels of government has never been greater.
"If the average age of a child trafficking victim in Georgia is 14 and a half, then we're getting to them too late," Shaw said.
Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson is well aware of this reality.
"Of course, Atlanta has been a center of human trafficking and child trafficking in particular," Johnson said.
That's why he says he sponsored the Preventing Child Trafficking Act of 2024 in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The bill was originally introduced in the Senate by Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff.
The legislation is based on a 2023 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which directs the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services to collaborate specifically on child trafficking.
Right now, the two agencies don't specifically focus on child trafficking in their collaboration. Johnson says this bill will change that.
"As both of those agencies dedicate time and attention and resources and manpower to combating child trafficking," he said.
Johnson says state and local agencies already collaborate heavily on child trafficking, so he wants the federal government to as well.
Shaw says more federal collaboration is needed to save more children.
"To increase collaboration between agencies, it's all critical," Shaw said.
Shaw says only time will tell how great the impact of the legislation will be, but he says any greater focus on child trafficking at the federal level is a win.
