A bill that would impose tougher penalties on child sex traffickers and customers of child prostitutes and help their young victims rebuild their lives has passed the Legislature and is headed to the governor’s desk.

Former Congresswoman Linda Smith of Vancouver, who founded Shared Hope International to fight global child sex trafficking, traveled to Olympia repeatedly during the legislative session to push for the bill.

Smith, also a former Republican state legislator, said Senate Bill 6476 will be one of the strongest of its kind in the nation. It passed both chambers unanimously.

“I commend the members of the Senate and House, my old colleagues,” she said. “They really stood up, and they did it. There wasn’t the breakdown, the selling of the bill. This was some of the best legislative work that we’ve ever seen. It did not melt down, even though we had philosophical differences.”

State Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlington, the bill’s prime sponsor, said the bill “sends a strong message that Washington will actively prosecute anyone who forces a minor child into sex slavery or who buys their services.”

“Law enforcement will no longer focus on arresting the child prostitute,” Stevens said in a statement. “It will concentrate the arrests and severest penalties exactly where they belong — on the buyers and sellers of our children.”

Stevens noted that the Interstate 5 corridor between Portland and Vancouver, B.C., is one of the nation’s most heavily trafficked areas for child prostitution.

SB 6476 reclassifies the crime of promotion of commercial sex abuse of a minor, or pimping, to a Class A felony. It increases the sentencing range from the current 21-to-144 months to 93-to-318 months and raises the fine from $550 to $5,000.

It elevates the crime of commercial sex abuse of a minor, or buying sex, to a Class B felony, with a sentencing range of 21-to-144 months, up from 1-to-68 months under current sentencing guidelines.

The bill also requires police to impound vehicles used by their owners to engage in paid sex with a minor and raises the fee to release the cars to $2,500.

Fines collected under the law will be deposited into a new Prostitution Prevention and Intervention Account, which will pay to train intervention specialists to work with young prostitutes.

Not knowing that a person hired for sex is a minor will no longer be a defense against criminal charges under the measure.

“Anyone who is buying sex should realize they are very likely to get a minor,” Smith said. “If we pick up that you’ve bought a kid in Washington state, you don’t have a defense now. You’ve got a prosecutable crime.”

Most importantly, Smith said, the new law will put teeth in the goal of diverting minors from a life of prostitution.

Beginning July 1, 2011, the state Department of Social and Health Services will have the power to file a petition to divert a sexually exploited minor from prosecution to mandatory diversion in a secure facility for up to 15 days. Those diverted will not be charged with prostitution, regardless of their prior criminal history.

“It provides a diversion path where they can be immediately taken to a safe shelter instead of being prosecuted,” Smith said.

That’s important, she said, because a criminal record can make it hard for former prostitutes to enroll in college or enter a professional field. “You are actually harming them for the rest of their lives.”

Over the next year, law enforcement officials will work with DSHS and Shared Hope International to train specialists to work with sexually exploited youth.

Smith credited police and prosecutors who testified on the bill with introducing lawmakers to the reality of abducted children who are sold at truck stops and Seattle night clubs for sex.

“They want to move toward keeping the kids safe and not letting the pimps have them again,” she said. “It’s the Legislature’s gift to children.”

Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.

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