Legislative Framework for Combating Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
![handle is hein.journals/regulr23 and id is 271 raw text is: REGENT UNIVERSITY
LAW REVIEW
Volume 23 2010-2011 Number 2
A LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR COMBATING
DOMESTIC MINOR SEX TRAFFICKING
Linda Smith*
Samantha Healy Vardaman*
I. BACKGROUND
Domestic minor sex trafficking is the commercial sexual
exploitation of America's children through prostitution, pornography,
and sexual performance within U.S. borders.' It is the 'recruitment,
harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the
purpose of a commercial sex act' whe[n] the person is . . . under the age
. Linda Smith has been both a state and federal representative. In 1983 she was
elected as a state legislator in Washington, where she served until she was elected in a
write-in campaign for Congress in 1994. During her time in Congress, she traveled to India
and witnessed women and children in the brothels. Her experience motivated her to found
Shared Hope International in 1998 to restore victims of sex trafficking. She also founded
the War Against Trafficking Alliance in 2001 to coordinate anti-trafficking efforts across
the globe and the Protected Innocence Initiative to use legislation to fight child sex
trafficking in the United States. She currently serves as the President of Shared Hope
International.
.. Samantha Healy Vardaman, Esq. is a policy counsel for Shared Hope
International directing the Protected Innocence Initiative. She directed Shared Hope
International's Trafficking Markets projects in researching sex trafficking markets in
Jamaica, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States, funded by the Office to Monitor
and Combat Trafficking in Persons of the U.S. Department of State. Before joining Shared
Hope, she was the Director of the Moldova office for the American Bar Association's
Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI), implementing a rule of law
program that included anti-trafficking legislation development, anti-corruption initiatives,
legal and judicial training, economic empowerment initiatives, and facilitating the
provision of pro bono legal services. She is a graduate of Boston College and the University
of Miami School of Law.
1 LINDA A. SMITH ET AL., SHARED HOPE INT'L, THE NATIONAL REPORT ON DOMESTIC
MINOR SEX TRAFFICKING: AMERICA'S PROSTITUTED CHILDREN iv (2009) [hereinafter
NATIONAL REPORT], available at http://www.sharedhope.org/Portals/O/Documents/SHI
NationalReport onDMST_2009.pdf.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/regulr23&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Legislative Framework for Combating Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
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