Los Angeles city and county officials will try to root out sex trafficking along Western Avenue between Olympic and Santa Monica boulevards under a new initiative, it was announced Tuesday.
The Western Avenue initiative came after Larchmont neighbors raised concerns about sex workers, buyers and traffickers in their community-oriented area.
One neighbor told NBC Los Angeles last week that he had to witness people engaging in sex acts in front of his house as used contraceptives were littered along the streets.
LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said the initiative will focus on helping sex workers while holding sex traffickers and buyers who travel to Larchmont and the surrounding areas to purchase sex often from minors, accountable.
“We shift the criminalization from the trafficked victims to the johns, the buyers, the exploiters, the predators and the profiteers,” Feldstein Soto said in a news conference with other officials Tuesday.
Another method of trying to root out sex trafficking along Western Avenue will involve “drying up” demand by going tough on sex buyers and humiliating them publicly.
Typically, the LA city attorney’s office could only charge johns with misdemeanors. But it said it’s now teaming up with the LA County district attorney’s office to send sex buyers to state prison.
“We will be relentless in going after you to make sure that you understand that you are a cause of this problem.,” said LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman. “If the demand did not exist, there would be no incentive for these pimps and predators to go ahead and take advantage of these young girls and make them effectively their slaves, because they would not be getting any money in exchange for that slavery.”
Hochman also said he wants to create a registry that’s similar to the Megan’s Law website to notify the public of those convicted of sex solicitation.
“Your name and your picture will now be broadcast to the entire world, exposing your sickness for going ahead and basically being part of an industry that is preying on young girls and young boys,” the DA told sex buyers.
City officials are also collaborating with a nonprofit called Journey Out to free sex workers from traffickers while rehabilitating them and providing services to start over.
“It is imperative for there to be collaboration amongst different entities within our city to best help serve survivors of human trafficking,” said Nayeli May, Executive Director of Journey Out. “Providing survivors vital resources and different options is crucial, and we need to approach this with compassion and sensitivity.”
Sex trafficking victims and witnesses were urged to call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888 or text at 233733.