{"id":5652,"date":"2026-07-28T10:37:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5652"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:37:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:37:03","slug":"chabria-newsom-pushes-california-to-crack-down-on-sex-trafficking-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5652","title":{"rendered":"Chabria: Newsom pushes California to crack down on sex trafficking \u2014 fast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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California has spent millions of dollars to combat sex trafficking, and yet it can still be found in every city and town, hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n

Read more Mathews: How California lost to Morocco in high-speed rail<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s online, on places such as Figueroa Street in L.A. or Stockton Boulevard in Sacramento, or even in the hotel rooms where our World Cup guests stayed, there are thousands of women and girls being sexually exploited in California right now, despite all that money and all the resources it has purchased.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that few threats to a woman\u2019s safety are as brutal or as overlooked as sex trafficking,\u201d First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom said Monday, sitting with her husband, the governor, in a tiny second-floor dance studio built for survivors of trafficking.<\/p>\n

Siebel Newsom was there to watch Newsom sign an executive order that was driven by her work as an advocate for survivors of trafficking. On its surface, the order may not sound like much and isn\u2019t likely to make the news. It calls for most of the major state agencies to come up with a plan within 60 days to work together to curb trafficking and help survivors.<\/p>\n

Hardly an earth-shattering demand. But believe it or not, one of the biggest barriers that our state faces, in this great age of technology and always-on connection, is that there is little collaboration between the folks fighting traffickers.<\/p>\n

Fragmented efforts<\/h4>\n

Yes, we have about 35 task forces statewide working on this issue and sometimes they run joint operations. But more often, those fighting trafficking live in their own silos, doing their own work, and often failing or refusing to share even scant details with other jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

The same holds true for the many organizations that work with survivors, most of which have come on the scene only in the last few decades as sex trafficking morphed from a crime in which children were viewed as complicit to one in which we understand that they are victims.<\/p>\n

Those organizations often do great work, but they too often do it alone. A survivor \u2014 or a girl being trafficked and looking for escape \u2014 has no easy way to find someone to help her. It\u2019s largely luck, the right outreach person in the right place at the right time, or a cop who has taken the time and care to know what the resources are.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are so fragmented,\u201d Sharmin Bock told the governor. She\u2019s a former prosecutor in Alameda County who tried the first sex trafficking case in the U.S. Now, she\u2019s advising the first partner on how California can do a better job fighting the predators \u2014 traffickers and buyers alike \u2014 who daily trade cash for the use of a human body, willing or not.<\/p>\n

Organized criminals<\/h4>\n

Bock points out that while those fighting against trafficking lack collaboration, the opposite is true of the criminals. Up and down the state, they are organized. A trafficker might pick up his victim in one city, only to transport her to another city to meet buyers. Victims are moved often, and even sold or traded to other traffickers.<\/p>\n

Once a victim crosses a jurisdictional line, everything that happened on the other side of it too often gets lost in the nowhere land of bureaucracy and red tape. A move from Los Angeles to Riverside, and the girl might as well be in Taiwan, as Bock puts it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to stop asking whose case is this, and rather ask how do we solve this case together? How do we solve the problem together?\u201d Bock said. \u201cCollaboration recovers children sooner, links investigation, dismantles trafficking organizations and holds traffickers accountable. A trafficker should never escape accountability because critical information was sitting in another agency\u2019s database.\u201d<\/p>\n

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So while Newsom\u2019s demand for a 60-day plan might not sound like much, it goes to the heart of what ails the system.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraffickers collaborate every day,\u201d Bock said. \u201cTraffickers have built networks to exploit children. We must build stronger networks to protect them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsom drew a parallel to the plague of retail theft that captivated the state not long ago, and which the state has successfully combated. Though careful to draw the obvious line that stealing a tube of toothpaste is a far cry from sexually exploiting a child, he pointed out similarities \u2014 online platforms that turned a blind eye, a lack of coordination between agencies, criminals that knew how to exploit not just victims, but systems.<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s looking for that kind of \u201cmomentum,\u201d to solve this most stubborn of abuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the last few years, I thought I could buy my way out of this,\u201d Newsom said with a shocking bit of honesty, pointing to all that budget money that has been invested. But, he said, he\u2019s clear now that it\u2019s not a money problem. It\u2019s a people problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is that possible? \u201d the governor wondered. The executive order, he said, is about saying \u201cenough of just good intentions \u2026 we\u2019re not delivering fundamental results.\u201d<\/p>\n

A report at the end of 60 days isn\u2019t results. But it\u2019s an acknowledgment that California needs to do better, and a road map to get there.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s crucial. Like Siebel Newsom and the governor, I\u2019ve got two teenage daughters and I know just how vulnerable girls are, in the best of circumstances.<\/p>\n

With all our resources and good intentions, California can\u2019t continue to let predators win simply because they\u2019re more organized.<\/p>\n

Anita Chabria is a Los Angeles Times columnist. \u00a92026 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Harriette Cole: My boyfriend doesn\u2019t like that I won\u2019t share my location<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throwing money at trafficking has failed; state agencies must stop working in silos and start collaborating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nChabria: Newsom pushes California to crack down on sex trafficking \u2014 fast - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5652\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chabria: Newsom pushes California to crack down on sex trafficking \u2014 fast - Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Throwing money at trafficking has failed; state agencies must stop working in silos and start collaborating\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5652\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-28T10:37:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=5652#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=5652\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13065d40d633843429ac57d4e5c06f9b\"},\"headline\":\"Chabria: Newsom pushes California to crack down on sex trafficking \u2014 fast\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-28T10:37:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=5652\"},\"wordCount\":986,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=5652#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/57e010a11e55fa61d33730124cafbcd0.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Opinion\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=5652#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=5652\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=5652\",\"name\":\"Chabria: Newsom pushes California to crack down on sex trafficking \u2014 fast - 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