(A) The Attorney General shall establish an interagency task force to develop and implement a State Plan for the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons. The task force shall meet at least quarterly and should include all aspects of trafficking in persons, including sex trafficking and labor trafficking of both United States citizens and foreign nationals, as defined in Section 16-3-2010. The Attorney General also shall collect and publish relevant data to this section on their website.
(B) The task force shall consist of, at a minimum, representatives from:
(1) the Office of the Attorney General, who must be chair;
(2) the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation;
(3) the South Carolina Police Chiefs Association;
(4) the South Carolina Sheriffs' Association;
(5) the State Law Enforcement Division;
(6) the Department of Health and Environmental Control Board;
(7) the Office of the Attorney General, South Carolina Crime Victim Services Division;
(8) the South Carolina Commission on Prosecution Coordination;
(9) the Department of Social Services;
(10) a representative from the Office of the Governor;
(11) a representative from the Department of Employment and Workforce; and
(12) two persons appointed by the Attorney General from nongovernmental organizations, especially those specializing in trafficking in persons, those representing diverse communities disproportionately affected by trafficking, agencies devoted to child services and runaway services, and academic researchers dedicated to the subject of trafficking in persons.
(C) The Attorney General shall invite representatives of the United States Department of Labor, the United States Attorneys' offices, and federal law enforcement agencies' offices within the State, including the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, to be members of the task force.
(D) The task force shall carry out the following activities either directly or through one or more of its constituent agencies:
(1) develop the state plan within eighteen months of the effective date of this act;
(2) coordinate the implementation of the state plan; and
(3) starting one year after the formation of the task force, submit an annual report of its findings and recommendations to the Governor, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the President of the Senate on or before December thirty-first of each calendar year.
(E) The task force shall consider carrying out the following activities either directly or through one or more of its constituent agencies:
(1) coordinate the collection and sharing of trafficking data among government agencies, which data collection must respect the privacy of victims of trafficking in persons;
(2) coordinate the sharing of information between agencies for the purposes of detecting criminal groups engaged in trafficking in persons;
(3) explore the establishment of state policies for time limits for the issuance of Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) endorsements as described in C.F.R. Chapter 8, Section 214.11(f)(1);
(4) establish policies to enable state government to work with nongovernmental organizations and other elements of civil society to prevent trafficking in persons and provide assistance to United States citizens and foreign national victims;
(5) review the existing services and facilities to meet trafficking victims' needs and recommend a system to coordinate services including, but not limited to, health services, including mental health, housing, education and job training, English as a second language classes, interpreting services, legal and immigration services, and victim compensation;
(6) evaluate various approaches used by state and local governments to increase public awareness of the trafficking in persons, including United States citizens and foreign national victims of trafficking in persons;
(7) mandatory training for law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and other relevant officials in addressing trafficking in persons;
(8) collect and periodically publish statistical data on trafficking, that must be posted on the Attorney General's website;
(9) prepare public awareness programs designed to educate potential victims of trafficking in persons and their families on the risks of victimization. These public awareness programs must include, but are not limited to:
(a) information about the risks of becoming a victim, including information about common recruitment techniques, use of debt bondage, and other coercive tactics, risk of maltreatment, rape, exposure to HIV or AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and psychological harm related to victimization in trafficking cases;
(b) information about the risks of engaging in commercial sex and possible punishment;
(c) information about victims' rights in the State;
(d) methods for reporting suspected recruitment activities; and
(e) information on hotlines and available victims' services;
(10) preparation and dissemination of awareness materials to the general public to educate the public on the extent of trafficking in persons, both United States citizens and foreign nationals, within the United States and to discourage the demand that fosters the exploitation of persons that leads to trafficking in persons.
(a) The general public awareness materials may include information on the impact of trafficking on individual victims, whether United States citizens or foreign nationals, aggregate information on trafficking in persons worldwide and domestically, and warnings of the criminal consequences of engaging in trafficking in persons. These materials may include pamphlets, brochures, posters, advertisements in mass media, and other appropriate media. All materials must be designed to communicate to the target population.
(b) Materials described in this section may include information on the impact of trafficking in persons on individual victims. However, information on the experiences of individual victims must preserve the privacy of the victim and the victim's family.
(c) All public awareness programs must be evaluated periodically by the task force to ensure their effectiveness.
(F) To the extent that funds are appropriated, the task force may make grants to or contract with a state agency, local government, or private victim's service organization to develop or expand service programs for victims. A recipient of a grant or contract shall report annually to the task force the number and demographic information of all victims receiving services pursuant to the grant or contract.
HISTORY: 2012 Act No. 258, Section 1, eff December 15, 2012; 2015 Act No. 7 (S.196), Section 5, eff April 2, 2015; 2015 Act No. 74 (S.183), Section 4, eff June 8, 2015.
Code Commissioner's Note
Pursuant to 2017 Act No. 96, Section 14, the reference to "State Office of Victim Assistance" in (B)(7) was changed to "Office of the Attorney General, South Carolina Crime Victim Services Division".
Effect of Amendment
2015 Act No. 7, Section 5, in (B)(2), inserted "Department of"; deleted former (B)(7), relating to the U.S. Dept. of Labor; and redesignated the remaining paragraphs accordingly; and in (C), inserted "Department of Labor, the United States" and inserted a comma following "Attorneys' offices".
2015 Act No. 74, Section 4, added (F).