ATLANTA -- Gov. Nathan Deal signed two measures Tuesday aimed at cracking down on the sexual exploitation of children by levying an annual $5,000 fee on strip clubs and fining pimps and other sex traffickers $2,500 to finance a fund to help kids forced into prostitution.
Senate Resolution 7 sets up a proposed constitutional amendment to be on the statewide ballot in November 2016. If approved by voters, the Safe Harbor and Sexually exploited Children Fund would pay for housing, health care and other services for these abused young people.
Senate Bill 8 sets forth details of how money would be collected by the fund and spent.
Both measures were authored by Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, who said Atlanta and Georgia have become among the biggest magnets in the nation for such activity. She said children between 12 and 14, mostly girls, are increasingly being forced into prostitution by men and women alike.
Deal said the new law will allow children who have been victimized by sex trafficking to be treated like victims, not like criminals.
Nathan Deal"This is a remarkable day for our state," Unterman said. "Georgia will be able to better assist the victims of sex trafficking through measures that rehabilitate and heal, and offenders will hear, loud and clear, that we will not allow them to profit off of innocence."
Unterman, a nurse by profession, said "this is by far the best day of my 17 years of legislative service" because she has been working in the General Assembly for six years to create a safe harbor for children.
SB 8, also known as the Safe Harbor/Rachel's law, extends the statute of limitations for child sex trafficking victims from age 23 to 25 for actions committed on or after July 2015. The legislation outlines how fees for criminal activities will be used and requires offenders to register with the State Sexual Offender Registry.
Deal also signed House Bill 17, known as the Hidden Predator Act, which extends the statute of limitations for civil actions for childhood sexual abuse.
Its sponsor, Rep. Jason Spencer, R-Woodbine, said "Georgia will no longer be the worst state in the country in providing justice to victims of childhood sexual abuse.
"For too long our laws protected pedophiles and the institutions that harbored them," he said. "The Hidden Predator Act will reverse this and empower the victims to confront their perpetrators and their accomplices in the courtroom."