“In Georgia in 2000, while children were being arrested, put in jail, and chained like the worst of criminals, the men selling them and having sex with them were rarely arrested.” (Hansen 2015).

Girls as young as 10 years old are surviving on the streets of Atlanta under the supervision of older men who provide housing, food, and clothing to them and, in exchange, sell them to other men for sex. A Fulton County Juvenile Court probation officer explained that an increasing amount of young girls were being charged with shoplifting and running away -- an offense that only applies to minors.

When most people think of sex trafficking, they think of international trade where women from overseas are brought into the US and required to pay back their transportation fees through sex slavery. What people do not realize is sex slavery is a homegrown problem.

From the years 1972 to 1999, 401 adults in Georgia -- almost all women -- were arrested for prostitution, but not one had been arrested for the crime of pimping. Atlanta explain this phenomenon by saying that it was a lot harder to arrest pimps than prostitutes, seeing as the undercover officers could “pluck the prostitutes off the streets as the girls or women worked the ‘track’”(Hansen). The pimps are more likely to hide and not be seen in public places.

Even if police were to make an arrest, it would be difficult to build a case against the pimps since there would rarely be any witnesses. Prostitutes don't testify against them out of fear.

Since 1999, the Georgia legislature changed the state law so that pimping minors was no longer a misdemeanor, but a felony, with prison sentences of up to 20 years, depending on the child’s age.

In 2011, the House Bill 200: Georgia’s Human Trafficking Law, was passed. The law increased penalties for trafficking, required proper response training for law enforcement and emphasized the need to treat the exploited as victims rather than criminals. Just this year, Governor Nathan Deal signed two new measures: Senate Resolution 7, and Senate Bill 8.

Senate Resolution 7 would permit an annual $5,000 fee paid by strip clubs to go toward housing, counseling and other services for victims of child prostitution, should voters approve. This will set up a statewide referendum that will be on the ballot in November 2016

Senate Bill 8 specifically states that children who have been sexually exploited may no longer be charged with prostitution.

Awareness of human trafficking has increased, but the problem still goes on everywhere -- not just in Georgia -- despite the passage of numerous laws.