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Atlanta Morning Edition
Atlanta Morning Edition
Faith Based Group Opposes Senate Bill Change on Age & Prostitution Arrest
(2010-02-03)
(WABE) - The local chapter of a national women's public policy group wants State Senator Renee Unterman to redo a bill she's introduced in the state legislature.
The bill currently in the Senate Judiciary committee would raise the minimum age a minor would be charged with prostitution.
As WABE's Rose Scott reports the group says the bill decriminalizes prostitution:

Tanya Ditty is Georgia's director for Concerned Women for America.
She says Senate Bill 304 would remove what she calls an important barrier that can save children from being prostituted:
Ditty ((you take the police out of the picture, the pimps and the johns they would go after the younger because they know there isn't going to be any prosecution any pickup of these girls they're going to make more vunerable))

Supporters of the bill say the minors are not consenting and therefore no arrest should be
made for those under 16.
Ditty says without the arrest there's no way to properly identify which kids need help:

((are they reoccurring off the street into safe houses))

Ditty says her organization is fully behind any legislation that would increase stiffer sentences for those trafficking or pimping children.
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