Defending Dignity Weekly Newsletter

Highlights: key legislative victories engineered by the NCOSE Law Center

At the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), we believe the law is one of the greatest tools for defending human dignity against sex trafficking, pornography, child sexual abuse, and more. It sets social norms, punishes exploiters, and gives justice to survivors.

The NCOSE Law Center is an advocate to intervene in key, precedent-setting cases and speaks up in our state and federal legislatures to impact policy for those who have no voice.

The NCOSE Law Center empowers citizens to improve their states and communities through model legislation on issues like pornography, illicit massage parlors, combating the demand for sex trafficking and prostitution, and more.

The NCOSE Law Center also mentors and trains future lawyers and trains prosecutors to ensure a future generation of legal advocates who know how to best help victims and shape legislation that respects human safety and flourishing.

What follows here are several of the victories in the fight against sexual exploitation that our law center has already helped spearhead over the last several years.

A Proven Track Record of Success

UT Governor Gary Herbert signs the first resolution

Resolutions Declaring Pornography a Public Health Crisis

Well over a dozen states have passed resolutions that recognize the public health harms of pornography. As of the Spring 2019, these states include, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia.

These states now have greater public awareness of the harms of pornography and have a groundwork laid for later policies to help curb the growing public health harms of pornography.

NCOSE team members with U.S. Representative Anne Wagner

Federal Anti-Sex Trafficking Legislation

The NCOSE Law Center played an instrumental role in helping to pass groundbreaking anti-sex trafficking legislation known as FOSTA-SESTA.

Against ferocious opposition mostly from the extremely well-funded technology industry, this legislation amended the Communications Decency Act to enable victims of sex trafficking to bring civil suits against the operators of online platforms that facilitate their exploitation, and empower state attorneys general to bring criminal cases against such websites.

This landmark legislation is now under legal threat in federal court, and NCOSE’s Law Center is already working to develop its legal strategy to ensure that the vital gains of the hard-fought passage FOSTA-SESTA are preserved.

The GA Supreme Court agreed with NCOSE and upheld an important law for child safety!

Victory Against Grooming Tactics of Child Abusers

The NCOSE Law Center authored a key amicus brief for the Georgia Supreme Court in a case involving a child predator who claimed a constitutional right to find children online and talk to them about sex in an arousing and exploitive manner.

Our legal brief helped convince the Georgia Supreme Court to rule against the child predator (the TX courts had already ruled the opposite). The GA court upheld that obscene Internet contact with a minor is not “free speech”—it is child abuse.

Critical laws regulating the sex industry still stand thanks to the help of the NCOSE Law Center

Stopping Pro-Sexual Exploitation Lobbyists

The NCOSE Law Center filed an amicus brief at the Ninth Circuit to combat a lawsuit that claimed prostitution is protected under the right to privacy and so should be fully decriminalized—meaning there should be no laws or regulation of it at all.

We knew that the undergirding legal arguments in the case jeopardized all existing state laws against prostitution, obscenity, and even sexually oriented business, and had the potential to decimate the ability for law enforcement to investigate sex trafficking cases across nearly 20% of our nation. We are proud to have provided key legal arguments in the appeal helping the court to rule favorably.

The tide is changing and the industries that fuel sexual exploitation are feeling the pressure increasing!

Already in 2019, the NCOSE Law Center has hired additional staff, grown an incredible coalition network, and started a national education effort for young, budding attorneys which is enabling us to tackle many more of these issues.

Even so, those who thrive on sexual exploitation are ramping up their efforts and pouring money and resources in an attempt to keep their exploitative industries afloat. We need you to help us put them out of business and put a stop to sexual exploitation in all its forms!

NCOSE Project Spotlight:

With gratitude,

Dawn Hawkins

Sr. Vice President & Executive Director

National Center on Sexual Exploitation

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