Arizona combats child trafficking with new lifetime sentencing laws

PHOENIX — With paintings, plants and an endless supply of Takis, it isn’t your normal courtroom.

Maricopa County STRENGTH Court was created for kids and teens who are survivors of sex trafficking.

“I love that the courts are recognizing that our system itself can be traumatic to someone,” said Juvenile Court Judge Melody Harmon. “I’ve actually never had a young person say that they didn’t want to participate.”

Judge Harmon explains that kids can opt into this specialized court program.  Kids and teens may go to this court for dependency or delinquency issues, like if they’re a ward of the state in DCS care or if they’ve been charged with a crime.

The court hearings are filled with resources for the child or teen, including service providers and a survivor mentor.

“The things that most of my young people are charged with might have been an assault or something that happened in their group home,” Judge Harmon said. “We are looking at everything through the lens of the trauma they’ve been through, and making sure that any consequence that’s imposed is appropriate.”

When people think of trafficking, a lot of people think it’s like the movies, people getting snatched off the streets.  But that’s not always what it looks like.

A study released last year by Mercy Care and ASU’s Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research identified more than 300 child sex trafficking victims in Arizona from January 2021 to May 2023, with a big spike in victims from 2021 to 2022.

The study found that the majority of victims were teenagers 14 and older and that there was an increase in instances of running away and substance use among the victims.

The report said an average of 60 percent of the child trafficking victims were put in DCS care.

“Children are forced into situations by their own family members, and so I think that that’s one of the most shocking things that we see,” said Judge Harmon.

She also noted that homelessness is an issue.

“Because trafficking can be any exchange of a sexual favor for housing,” she added.

In November, Arizona voters passed Prop 313, which mandates life in prison for anyone convicted of sex trafficking a child.  The law went into effect this month.

“I think they should have life in prison,” said Sheri Lopez.  “Because what I experience stays with me for the rest of my life, the amount of damage that I’ve had to repair to my body and emotionally and mentally.”

Lopez runs Pearl at the Mailbox, a non-profit to help trafficking survivors.  She’s motivated by her own story.

“I am a sex trafficking survivor,” Lopez told a legislative committee in February 2024, in support of what would become Prop 313.  

“I was trafficked for seven years starting at the age of 15 by my high school boyfriend’s father,” she continued.

Lopez stresses that child trafficking can happen to anyone, any family.  She also spoke about the difficulties children may have to talk about what’s happening to them.

“In hindsight, talking to my parents,” Lopez said in an interview with 12News. “I lived at home for three of those years that I was being trafficked and they never knew what was happening to me.”

She’s been working with lawmakers to further address what she sees as gaps, like education on grooming and harsher punishments for trafficking children older than age 14.

“The Internet has just made it a playground for predators,” Lopez said. “And they can groom multiple kids at one time just online.”

Back at STRENGTH Court, those traumas are top of mind.

“We know what they’ve been through, they know that we care about them and that we’re supporting them,” said Judge Harmon.

And when a teen turns 18, Judge Harmon said they have the right to ask for their records to be destroyed.

“So that they can have a fresh start when they age out of the system,” she explained. “Because we don’t want any of this to color their future.”

Judge Harmon said about 25 cases of her 100-200 caseload are dedicated to STRENGTH Court. 

STRENGTH Court started in 2018 and operates in Maricopa County juvenile courts in downtown Phoenix and the East Valley.