D. State and Tribal Laws
All fifty states prohibit the prostitution of children and pimping under state and local laws passed prior to the TVPA. Most of the anti-pimping laws have a lower burden of proof than the TVPA. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have enacted specific statutes making trafficking a state felony offense. These statutes follow the same basic format of the federal law, with slight variations in the definition of sex trafficking and penalties. Unlike the TVPA, however, which presumes coercion of minors, some states require that minors prove that at least one of the elements of force, fraud, or coercion induced the commercial sex act. As of August 2011, only twenty states had included victim protection provisions in their trafficking legislation, and only nine of those offered state public benefits to trafficking victims.
No Indian tribe has a statute criminalizing sex trafficking. Not all tribes have statutes criminalizing prostitution, and of those that do criminalize prostitution, most criminalize the act of both the prostitute and the patron.
