Throughout her service of 22 years as a public servant on the local and state government level, she has focused on health and social law, consumer issues, and has given special attention to the young and vulnerable, as well as the elderly citizens of Georgia. With each legislative session, Sen. Unterman has championed legislation that has sought to end the sexual exploitation of minors. She continues to fight for a change in Georgia law that will view those children forced into prostitution as the victim and not a criminal.“The Commercial Exploitation of Children”
Young girls, 10, 11, 12 years old, are being inducted into the sex trade, not in Thailand or New York or Miami, but in Atlanta and in Gwinnett County. Senator Renee Unterman of the 45th District has taken on the personal mission of educating the public about this reality. She spoke at the noon meeting of the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville on Monday, Oct. 1, and shared the information she has gleaned about the growth of this problem in our area.
The issue was brought to her attention several years ago by a downtown Atlanta pastor who found children soliciting on the corner in front of his cathedral, and she has pushed to have actions taken by lawmakers in the legislature to deal with this reality.
She reported that runaways come to the bus station or to the airport from all over the southeast, where pimps gather them in to service men wanting to have sex with young girls. Orders can be placed on the internet, and pimps deliver the girls to the men.
Unterman was instrumental in getting a Study Committee appointed in the Legislature and the issue brought before her party’s caucus. She said that it was tough to talk to her male colleagues about men having sex with children, but she has felt driven to get this issue out into the open so that something can be done about it. The Study Committee gathered data and research which demonstrated that 400 children a month are prostituted and that boys as well as girls are targeted.
She has had some success with legislation. Mandatory Reporting laws have become stricter. It is illegal for anyone not to report on a situation where a child is suspected of being used in the sex trade. House Bill 200 imposed more stringent punishments on pimps. They now can have all their goods confiscated and even get life imprisonment. Unterman was happy to say Georgia was leading the nation in addressing this problem, but it is still very serious.
Rehabilitation for these children is a slow process, often taking over a year. Through the Governor’s Office, a rehabilitation program has been developed which provides trained professionals to care for the rescued children. Also, a consortium of over 80 churches have organized Street Grace, an interfaith, non-profit group designed to help.
A video of Senator’s Unterman’s talk can be accessed on the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville’s website, www.lawrencevillerotary.org.
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