This morning, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, and Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland, and introduced legislation that would improve law enforcement investigations of human trafficking and improve services for human trafficking victims.

An estimated 15,000 people are trafficked into the country each year and forced into prostitution or manual labor, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Senate Bill 5545, introduced by Sen. Delvin, would allow law enforcement officers to conduct surveillance operations on suspected human-trafficking and child-prostitution activities with the consent of the victim. It would also authorize prosecutors to request assistance from juveniles in the undercover surveillance of telephone communications in trafficking investigations, without putting them in danger.

Sen. Kohl-Welles introduced bills aimed at amending the crime of human trafficking and improving services to victims. Senate Bill 5482 would authorize local governments to use affordable housing funds to provide housing assistance to victims of human trafficking and their families. The bill would amend the criminal definition of human trafficking, which was first added to the books in 2003 through legislation sponsored by former Rep. Velma Veloria, and that was the first such criminal definition in the country.

Under the bill, the statutory definition is expanded to include the illegal harvesting or sale of human organs, and the scope of the crime is broadened to hold accountable criminals caught transporting a person despite knowing that the person will eventually be forced into prostitution or manual labor.

“It breaks my heart to think that the average age of a child forced into prostitution is only thirteen,” said Delvin, who retired in 2006 from the Richland Police Department after more than 30 years in law enforcement.

“We must give police the tools they need to rid our state of these networks that want to exploit and abuse our children. And it is equally important that we support the victims of these crimes and help these women and children rebuild their lives.”

Kohl-Welles echoed this sense of urgency, saying that, while human trafficking is a global problem, it is also a domestic issue because of its impact on women, men and children in Washington.

“We now know that Washington is one of the top human-trafficking destinations in the U.S., with our easily-accessed public ports, long international border, and close proximity to Asia,” Kohl-Welles said.

“We’ve made significant progress in the past fifteen years to bring this modern-day slavery to an end, but it’s critical that we use all necessary tools to continue cracking down on traffickers and providing services to victims.”

Public-policy efforts to combat child prostitution and human trafficking have been under way in Washington for years. A task force on human-trafficking operations was created in 2002 by legislation of Rep. Veloria, and the following year Washington was the first state to criminalize trafficking . Every year since then laws have been added to the books and/or funding provided to strengthen penalties against trafficking criminals and to improve support services to victims.