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License ban for people convicted of human trafficking now law.

Delaware Public Media
There’s a new law on the books in Delaware creating a lifetime disqualification for a commercial driver’s license if the individual engages in human trafficking while using a motor vehicle.";s:

A new law recently signed by Gov. John Carney bans those convicted of human trafficking from having a commercial driver’s license.

Senate Bill 223 was signed by Gov. Carney on July 16, bringing Delaware into compliance with the federal “No Human Trafficking on Our Roads Act.”

It creates a lifetime disqualification for a commercial driver's license if an individual engages in human trafficking while using a motor vehicle.

State Senator Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown) sponsored the bill.

 

“This particular bill was actually brought to me from the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT)," said Hansen. "There was a federal bill passed regarding human trafficking in 2018. So what we wanted to do was really take the provisions in that federal law and bring them into Delaware law.”

 

She explains how the Delaware bill differs from the federal bill, passed in 2018.

 

“It differs in that - I believe - it makes much broader the area of what is considered a prohibited activity," said Hansen."For instance in the Delaware bill, trafficking of an individual, a person is guilty of trafficking an individual, if they do any one of a whole laundry list of things.”

 

Hansen notes that if a person knowingly recruits, transports, harbors, receives, provides, obtains, isolates, maintains, advertises, solicits or entices an individual for sexual services, they could be charged with human trafficking.

She says if a person is charged and then found guilty of human trafficking in the First State and they go to apply for a driver’s license, they would be prohibited under this bill from obtaining that license.

Hansen says she has been interested in this issue since she saw a presentation by local human trafficking advocate Zoe Ministries several years ago.

More than 11,000 cases of human trafficking were reported in the United States in 2019.

 

Earlier this year, DelDOT also joined the U.S. Department of Transportation's Transportation Leaders Against Human Trafficking (TLAHT), an initiative comprised of nearly 500 transportation and travel industry stakeholders working jointly to maximize their collective impact in combating human trafficking. To date, TLAHT has engaged with hundreds of organizations from across the transportation industry.

If you believe you may have information about a human trafficking situation, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free at 1-888-373-7888, text "BeFree" to 233733 or click on "live chat" at humantraffickinghotline.org.

 

Kelli Steele has over 30 years of experience covering news in Delaware, Baltimore, Winchester, Virginia, Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California.