Latest news with #AB379
The Herald Scotland
27-06-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Men who buy sex don't deserve California's protection
These buyers, the ones who made the demand for human flesh profitable, have operated with near impunity, shielded by stigma that falls harder on victims than perpetrators. AB 379, originally authored by Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, and now authored by Assemblymember Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, is a historic opportunity to change that. Don't shield men who buy sex Standing in the way are opponents attempting to weaponize the federal government's cruel deportation sweeps and legitimate public fear to weaken this vital legislation. They claim that AB 379's loitering provision should be removed because it would create a new deportable offense. That argument is legally doubtful. Following its recommendation would shield sex buyers statewide at the expense of victims of the sex trade. It also would deprive California of an important tool for getting a handle on the sex trafficking industry. That is not safety nor is it justice. That would be an abdication of lawmakers' responsibility totheir constituents. Opinion: I work with sex trafficking victims. Here's how Diddy's trial could help them. Let us be clear: AB 379 does not target undocumented people or victims in the sex trade. It purposefully targets those who knowingly and willfully seek out vulnerable human beings, some of whom are immigrants themselves, for exploitation through paid rape. It is unconscionable to use the trauma of immigrant families as a political shield for sex buyers - many of whom are affluent White men. And yet, that's what's happening. We were badly abused as victims of sex trafficking This is the truth that the public and our elected officials must face: The sex trade is not "empowerment." On the street, it is almost all the result of trafficking. It is violence, and the buyers are not harmless "johns" - they are predators who rely on the silence of society and the shame of survivors to keep operating freely. Buyers call us names like "meat," "holes," "property," "whore," "slut," "worthless," "slave" and much worse than can be comfortably described here for the everyday reader. We've been choked and strangled, degraded, urinated on, burned, beaten and stabbed. We've been robbed, raped with physical body parts and objects, spit on and laughed at. We've been thrown out of moving vehicles naked and scared, and we've been left for dead on multiple occasions of severe assault. Opinion: A sex trafficking survivor nearly died trying to get out. How she turned her life around. We've been told we were "lucky" anyone would pay for us. We've been told that they could do anything to us and no one would care, that they could kill us and no one would come looking. We were children. Or barely adults. And every name we were called sank into our skin like a scar we still carry. Failing to hold buyers accountable only worsens these harms and creates more demand and need for supply. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. AB379's reinstatement of the loitering piece for the buyer is not radical. It is justice for everyone being trafficked and abandoned on our streets. To every state senator still on the fence: We are not asking for pity. We are demanding protection, accountability and truth. We're asking you not to forget us just because the politics are complicated. We survived the buyers who raped and abused us, insulted us, filmed us, and discarded us like garbage. Now we are surviving a political process that threatens to discard us yet again. Please don't let that happen. We've come too far. Stay strong, stand with survivors and pass AB 379 intact, and with the survivor-led accountability it was built to deliver. Marjorie Saylor, Ashley Faison-Maddox and Christina Rangel are survivor leaders with lived experience of sex trafficking in California.
USA Today
26-06-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
We survived sex trafficking. Don't protect men who exploit women like us.
California must crack down on predatory sex buyers to stop trafficking. Survivors like us have fought for accountability that reaches not just our traffickers but also men who used us like objects. In May, the California Capitol erupted in acrimonious debate over Assembly Bill 379, a proposal to make purchasing a 16- or 17-year-old for sex punishable as a felony. Now, opponents are trying to weaken a separate, equally important piece of that bill, to make it a misdemeanor to loiter with the intent to purchase commercial sex. California must crack down on predatory sex buyers to stop sex trafficking. For decades, survivors like us have fought for accountability that reaches not just our traffickers, but also the men who bought and used us like objects. These buyers, the ones who made the demand for human flesh profitable, have operated with near impunity, shielded by stigma that falls harder on victims than perpetrators. AB 379, originally authored by Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, and now authored by Assemblymember Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, is a historic opportunity to change that. Don't shield men who buy sex Standing in the way are opponents attempting to weaponize the federal government's cruel deportation sweeps and legitimate public fear to weaken this vital legislation. They claim that AB 379's loitering provision should be removed because it would create a new deportable offense. That argument is legally doubtful. Following its recommendation would shield sex buyers statewide at the expense of victims of the sex trade. It also would deprive California of an important tool for getting a handle on the sex trafficking industry. That is not safety nor is it justice. That would be an abdication of lawmakers' responsibility totheir constituents. Opinion: I work with sex trafficking victims. Here's how Diddy's trial could help them. Let us be clear: AB 379 does not target undocumented people or victims in the sex trade. It purposefully targets those who knowingly and willfully seek out vulnerable human beings, some of whom are immigrants themselves, for exploitation through paid rape. It is unconscionable to use the trauma of immigrant families as a political shield for sex buyers − many of whom are affluent White men. And yet, that's what's happening. We were badly abused as victims of sex trafficking This is the truth that the public and our elected officials must face: The sex trade is not 'empowerment.' On the street, it is almost all the result of trafficking. It is violence, and the buyers are not harmless 'johns' ‒ they are predators who rely on the silence of society and the shame of survivors to keep operating freely. Buyers call us names like 'meat,' 'holes,' 'property,' 'whore,' 'slut,' 'worthless,' 'slave" and much worse than can be comfortably described here for the everyday reader. We've been choked and strangled, degraded, urinated on, burned, beaten and stabbed. We've been robbed, raped with physical body parts and objects, spit on and laughed at. We've been thrown out of moving vehicles naked and scared, and we've been left for dead on multiple occasions of severe assault. Opinion: A sex trafficking survivor nearly died trying to get out. How she turned her life around. We've been told we were 'lucky' anyone would pay for us. We've been told that they could do anything to us and no one would care, that they could kill us and no one would come looking. We were children. Or barely adults. And every name we were called sank into our skin like a scar we still carry. Failing to hold buyers accountable only worsens these harms and creates more demand and need for supply. AB379's reinstatement of the loitering piece for the buyer is not radical. It is justice for everyone being trafficked and abandoned on our streets. To every state senator still on the fence: We are not asking for pity. We are demanding protection, accountability and truth. We're asking you not to forget us just because the politics are complicated. We survived the buyers who raped and abused us, insulted us, filmed us, and discarded us like garbage. Now we are surviving a political process that threatens to discard us yet again. Please don't let that happen. We've come too far. Stay strong, stand with survivors and pass AB 379 intact, and with the survivor-led accountability it was built to deliver. Marjorie Saylor, Ashley Faison-Maddox and Christina Rangel are survivor leaders with lived experience of sex trafficking in California.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Yahoo
Man arrested for child abuse in Oroville, endangering toddler in roadway
( — A 31-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday for child abuse after he was witnessed endangering his child in the roadway and admitted to being under the influence of cocaine, according to the Oroville Police Department. Video Above: Controversial child sex trafficking bill AB379 amended Police said officers responded to reports of a man creating a traffic hazard around 1:30 p.m. on Meyers Street and Greenville Street. Callers said the man, later identified as Oscar Bonilla, was playing with an infant in the roadway, refusing to move for cars, walking in traffic while carrying the child and even dropping the toddler on the pavement. More witnesses said that Bonilla put the child on the street, walked in and out of traffic, and described him to be 'flinging the child around like a rag doll.' It was also reported that the suspect was armed with a knife and made motions as if he were trying to hurt the baby, OPD said. A witness was eventually able to take the toddler away when Bonilla dropped them. OPD said Bonilla was exhibiting erratic behavior when they made contact and admitted to being under the influence of a large quantity of cocaine. Police discovered that the suspect had removed the toddler from their home. Police investigate fatal, solo-vehicle crash in Rocklin According to OPD, the baby was taken to the hospital after they were left with road rash, scrapes and bruises. The suspect was taken into custody after being treated for his injuries at the hospital. Bonilla was arrested on felony child abuse and felony assault with a deadly weapon. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
California bill advances with new protections for minors in sex cases
( — California State Assemblyman Juan Alanis issued a statement on May 7 on the restoration of protections for 16 and 17-year-olds to Assembly 379. AB 379 was originally authored by Sacramento Democratic Assemblymember Maggie Krell. The bill's idea was to make it an automatic felony to purchase and solicit and minor under the age of 18 for sex. After the change in Assembly democratic leadership, the bill raised some concerns, arguing it could lead to unintended consequences, specifically jail time for 16 and 17-year-old trafficking victims and punishment for other young adults taking part in consensual sexual activity with them. Alanis said, 'Every child deserves to be shielded from the horrors of sexual exploitation. The overwhelming majority of Californians understand that 16 and 17-year-olds are minors and not adults.' Homeless woman suffers severe burns in alleged attack by suspect Democrats forced amendments onto the bill to exclude cases specifically when 16 and 17-year-olds are either purchased or solicited for sex. 'Making the purchase of 16- and 17-year-olds for sex a felony is both just and common sense. I commend my colleagues in the majority for reversing their previous actions, stripping protections for these kids,' Alanis said. 'I am still dismayed that we even had to have the threat of 16 and 17-year-olds not being covered by this law. The voice of the people matters, protecting our kids matters, and anyone selling children should face the highest penalties of the law.' The Assembly democratic leadership has reversed course, promising to once again allow the proposed felony in cases involving the mentioned age, but the only difference this time it would be that the felony will not apply when the perpetrator is within a three-year age range of the minor victim. At this time, the bill must receive approval from the assembly floor, which, if it does, it can advance to the State Senate. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
San Francisco Chronicle
10-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
California Dems keep using the same plan for political failure. Are they done being embarrassed?
Over the past several years, Democrats in the California Legislature seem to have developed a bizarre, five-point political playbook that goes something like this: Take a highly unpopular stance that's almost impossible to defend or coherently explain to average voters and residents. Face severe public pushback. Double down on that stance. Face even more severe public pushback. Battered and humiliated, reverse course and adopt the very same policy they'd argued so fiercely against. The latest about-face happened Tuesday, when Democratic leaders of the California Assembly backtracked on their opposition to a proposal to strengthen penalties for offenders who purchase 16- and 17-year-olds for sex. Last week, Assembly Democrats overwhelmingly voted to strip AB379, by Assembly Member Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, of its key provision: strengthening punishments to match those for offenders convicted of purchasing kids 15 and younger for sex. Democrats then inserted amendments that vaguely promised to 'adopt the strongest laws to protect 16- and 17-year-old victims.' Of course, the strongest law would have been passing Krell's original bill. Legislative leaders not only didn't do that, but they also ignored strong pressure from Gov. Gavin Newsom to do so. Predictably, severe public backlash ensued. Also predictably, Democrats backed down. They now plan to amend AB379 to impose felony penalties for adult offenders convicted of soliciting sex from 16- and 17-year-olds — as long as they're at least three years older than the minor, according to an outline of the deal Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas' office shared with me. (If the adult offender is less than three years older than the minor, the crime would still be classified as a misdemeanor.) The bill also creates a state grant program to help district attorneys streamline the prosecution of human trafficking. Krell is also being reinstated as a bill co-author after Assembly Democrats stripped her name from its original version. This bill recognizes what should long have been obvious: that buying minors for sex is an egregious and horrific crime, regardless of whether the kids are 15 or 17. And it takes a far more common-sense approach to resolving some Democrats' concerns that young adults in romantic relationships with minors (i.e., in a high-school relationship) could inadvertently be targeted. So why did legislators expend so much political capital dying on a hill they couldn't defend for more than a week — when a far more rational alternative was readily available? That remains to be seen. It's also unclear if they've learned anything. The state Senate still has to sign off on the bill if it clears the Assembly, where it's scheduled for a hearing Wednesday. Are Democrats ready to get to the serious business of improving outcomes in California? Or will they continue to give Republicans and other critics easy political ammunition to portray them as out-of-touch ideologues? After all, Democrats have been here before. In 2023, the Assembly Public Safety Committee killed a bill authored by state Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, to classify human trafficking of minors as a 'serious' felony. The committee's reasoning? Such crimes could already be considered 'serious' if additional offenses had been committed — such as inflicting great bodily injury on the child victim. That absurd rationale sparked immediate backlash and left Democrats in damage control mode. Newsom and Rivas raced to intervene, and Grove's bill was revived and signed into law. Then, in 2024, Democrats embarked on a series of convoluted maneuvers — each more nonsensical than the last — in a failed attempt to head off a proposed November ballot measure to overhaul portions of Proposition 47, the controversial 2014 measure that lightened penalties for some drug and theft crimes. First, Rivas and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, floated a mob-like proposal to kill their own public-safety legislative package if voters approved the proposed ballot measure, later dubbed Prop 36. But their nakedly transparent effort to force the measure's proponents to withdraw it from the ballot alienated both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, and Rivas and McGuire ultimately sacked the plan. This prompted Newsom to introduce his own last-ditch proposal for a competing ballot measure to reform Prop 47, even though Newsom, Rivas and McGuire had repeatedly said Prop 47 didn't need any changes. Knowing the proposal faced an uphill battle in the Legislature, Newsom proposed manipulating an arcane election procedure to circumvent the two-thirds super majority required to place it on the ballot and instead allow it to be passed with a simple majority. Less than 48 hours later, however, Newsom scrapped the proposal, stating that lawmakers couldn't reach a consensus on proposed amendments by the ballot deadline. To the surprise of absolutely no one who had set foot in California in recent years and had sensed voters' mounting frustrations with crime, Prop 36 passed with more than 68% of the vote. In all of these examples, Democrats have spent significant time, energy and resources fighting against what most Californians clearly view as common sense. In all of these cases, they've been forced to retreat with their tail between their legs. Does anyone know what kind of political strategy this is? Because it sure doesn't make any sense to me. Emily Hoeven is a columnist and editorial writer for the Opinion section.
