Browsing by Author "Butler, C. N."
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Item Bridge Over Troubled Water: Safe Harbor Laws for Sexually Exploited Minors(North Carolina Law Review, 2014) Butler, C. N.This Article contributes to the emerging legal scholarship on child sex trafficking by exploring the impact and the potential of recently enacted safe harbor laws. Scholars have already begun to explore the need for new legal responses to domestic child sex trafficking. But, few scholars have explored whether state safe harbor laws are consistent with emerging best practices and model legislation such as the Uniform Act on Prevention of and Remedies for Human Trafficking. Thus, several key questions remain ripe for scholarly debate. For example, do safe harbor laws effectively shift the paradigm from punishment to protection of sexually exploited minors? Do state safe harbor laws represent a new and improved legal approach to child prostitution? Do these safe harbor laws adequately protect sexually exploited children from further exploitation? This Article argues that, while safe harbor laws for prostituted minors have great potential to protect sexually exploited minors in the United States, “prosecution-based models,” such as the New York Safe Harbour for Sexually Exploited Minors Act (“NYSHA”), fail to address some of the key public policy goals behind safe harbor laws. First, because these laws still threaten all minors with prosecution or adjudication as delinquents, they fail to end the age old practice of treating prostituted minors as the main or sole agents of their own commercial sexual exploitation. Safe harbor laws still allow for prosecution or punishment of prostituted minors if the minors fail to meet certain conditions. Second, safe harbor laws that condition rehabilitative services on criminal or juvenile justice adjudication undermine efforts to shift the paradigm. In order to protect minors from commercial sexual exploitation, safe harbor laws must adopt a protective, victim-centered approach. (Author Abstract)Item Kids for Sale: Does America Recognize its Own Sexually Exploited Minors as Victims of Human Trafficking?(Seton Hall Law Review, 2014) Butler, C. N.Item The Racial Roots of Human Trafficking(UCLA Law Revuew,, 2015) Butler, C. N.This Article explores the role of race in the prostitution and sex trafficking of people of color, particularly minority youth, and the evolving legal and social responses in the United States. Child sex trafficking has become a vital topic of discussion among scholars and advocates, and public outcry has led to safe harbor legislation aimed at shifting the legal paradigm away punishing prostituted minors and toward greater protections for this vulnerable population. Yet, policymakers have ignored the connection between race and other root factors that push people of color into America’s commercial sex trade. This Article argues that race and racism have played a role in creating the epidemic of sex trafficking in the United States and have undermined effective legal and policy responses. Race intersects with other forms of subordination including gender, class, and age to push people of color disproportionately into prostitution and keep them trapped in the commercial sex industry. This intersectional oppression is fueled by the persistence of myths about minority teen sexuality, which in turn encourages risky sexual behavior. Moreover, today’s antitrafficking movement has failed to understand and address the racial contours of domestic sex trafficking in the United States and even perpetuates the racial myths that undermine the proper identification of minority youth as sex trafficking victims. Yet, the Obama administration has adopted new policies that raise awareness about the links between race and sex trafficking. These policies also facilitate the increased role of minority youth as leaders and spokespersons in the antitrafficking movement. Their voices defy stereotypes about Black sexuality and call upon legislators and advocates to address some of the unique vulnerabilities that kids of color face with respect to sex trafficking. (Author Abstract)