The executive director of the group Rights4Girls was on the “Morning Drive” radio show on Wednesday to talk about bills moving through the Statehouse that aim to decriminalize sex work — but they may make it easier to be a ‘pimp’ in the business, and more difficult to rescue the sex workers.

H.372 and S.125, one House bill and one Senate bill, list the same statement of purpose.

“This bill proposes to repeal the prostitution laws that currently prohibit ‘indiscriminate sexual intercourse’ and consensual engagement in sex work for hire by adults while retaining strict prohibitions and felony criminal penalties for human trafficking of persons who are compelled through force, fraud, or coercion to engage in sex work,” the bills state.

Yasmin Vafa is co-founder and executive director of Rights4Girls.

Yasmin Vafa, of Rights4Girls, explained that even with the best of intentions, the final impact of these bills is that it will be easier for pimps — “the managers” as she called them — to run their operations without fear of arrest. She also said it will become more difficult to rescue women who feel stuck or intimidated into the sex trade.

“What they are essentially doing is repealing all of the lesser penalties for trafficking, which is what most prosecutors use to hold sex traffickers accountable — because the reality is sex trafficking statutes are very difficult prosecutions to bring,” she said.

“They rely on victim testimony, and these victims are often incredibly traumatized, they are very scared, they often do not feel safe confronting their traffickers. And so those prosecutions are often very difficult to bring,” Vafa added.

She also noted that the bills have no measures for the expungement of existing criminal records for sex workers, something that she would endorse as a tangible step to help people get back to other means of income.

An increase in demand

Vafa said the demand in the sex trade industry is growing.

“That’s because even though sex buying is illegal virtually everywhere in the United States, there are enough men who are perfectly content to break the law to buy sex, that the demand for commercial sex already outpaces the supply,” she said.

“That’s why sex trafficking already exists. There’s already not enough willing participants to provide sexual services, so traffickers have to resort to manipulating and coercing vulnerable people to meet the demand that already exists.”

A caller says Vermont is already not prosecuting sex workers

A caller to the show suggested that prosecution of sex trafficking crimes is close to non-existent in the state.

“I would respectfully challenge her to provide the identity or name of anyone who has been charged with either soliciting or prostitution in at least the last 60 years, that is charged and convicted and sentenced — because no one has,” the caller said.

He continued to allege that there are escort services running currently in Vermont, including at least one that has ads in a local newspaper.

Vafa didn’t dispute the notion that prosecutions are rare.

“They [authorities] were asked at a press conference how many prostitution arrests were even occurring and no one was able to answer that,” she said.  “And in addition, they actually haven’t done a lot to prosecute traffickers in Vermont. We have a child sex trafficking problem in Vermont and there has been very little to no prosecution.”

It didn’t work in Rhode Island

According to Vafa, decriminalized prostitution has been tried around the world, and even within the United States, and the results have not been positive. She pointed to Rhode Island, where prostitution was decriminalized for about three decades.

“Rhode Island is the only state to have experimented with full decriminalization of prostitution — for about a 29-year period between 1980 and 2009. And based on their experiences with it they saw increased gender-based violence, increased child sex trafficking, increased organized crime. And as a result, they shifted their laws back,” she said.

Who’s behind the bills?

H.372’s lead sponsor is Rep. Taylor Small, P/D-Winooski. The bill lists 13 additional sponsors.

In the Senate, the lead sponsor of  S.125 is Rep. Becca White, D-Hartford. That bill lists nine additional senators as co-sponsors.

Another caller asked Vafa if any lawmakers have responded to her group’s attempts at informing them about the topic.

“Yes, I won’t name names, but yes, there has been a number who have not wanted to meet with us,” she said.

The host does not endorse these bills

One of the show’s hosts, Kurt Wright, a former Republican lawmaker and Burlington city councilor, was skeptical that the bills would help sex workers.

“This does nothing but promotes the bad folks, I don’t know how else to put it,” he said.

The Morning Drive program can be heard online here.

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.