Ensuring a Better Response for Victims of Child Sex Trafficking

Ensuring a Better Response for Victims of Child Sex Trafficking

This bill amends the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to require a state plan for its child protective services system to include a certified assurance that the state has in effect and is enforcing a law requiring: (1) identification and assessment of all reports involving children known or suspected to be victims of sex trafficking; and (2) training child protective services workers about identifying, assessing, and providing comprehensive services for children who are sex trafficking victims.

Each state receiving a grant must work with the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make an annual data report that includes the number of children determined to be victims of sex trafficking.

A child is considered to be a victim of "child abuse and neglect" and of "sexual abuse" if the child is identified by a state or local agency employee as being a victim of sex trafficking or a victim of severe forms of trafficking in persons.

A state is given the option to define "child" under such Act as a person who has not attained age 24.