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ByTamiAbdollah TheAssociatedPress LOS ANGELES Officials in Los Angeles County are adopting a get-tough tac- tic to deter men from solic- iting sex from girls who are forced into prostitution — charging them with crimes that could mean prison time and registration as a sex offender. Targeting "johns," or commercial sex buyers, is not a new concept, but hit- ting them with felonies such as rape, child abuse or endangerment and con- spiracy is a step beyond the misdemeanor citations and fines customers typically receive in California and many other states. "What are johns? They're pedophiles, they're child molesters," LA County Sher- iff Jim McDonnell told The Associated Press. "If we can take away the demand and very clearly let people know this is going to ruin their life ... We're hoping that's going to be a disincentive." The county is the nation's most populous, with more than 10 million residents. A taskforce that's expected to be in place this fall will pursue the stiffer charges, a push that puts Los Ange- les at the national forefront of "appropriately going af- ter the buyers" of child sex workers, according to Ma- lika Saada Saar, head of the Washington D.C.-based Human Rights Project for Girls. For about a decade, Scan- dinavian countries have pi- oneered the so-called Nor- dic model, which aims to attack sex trafficking by targeting customers to de- crease demand. The con- cept has gained traction in the United States in recent years with states including Massachusetts, New York and Colorado increasing fines and penalties. And law enforcement has started to move away from arresting women for prostitution and treating them like crimi- nals. California is one of the na- tion's top four destinations for trafficking human be- ings, according to the state attorney general's office, and transnational gangs are in- creasingly trafficking hu- mans because it's low risk and highly profitable. Five girls working for a trafficker seven days a week brings in an estimated $600,000 to $800,000 an- nually. The average age in California for a girl who is sex trafficked is 12 years old and some are as young as 9 years old, McDonnell said. The average age of entry into sex work nationally is 15 years old, said Ziba Cran- mer, executive director of Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Demand Aboli- tion. California doesn't have a specific law treating johns as traffickers, so jurisdic- tions such as Los Angeles and Alameda counties are trying to use existing sex laws against buyers. Nearly two dozen other states have trafficking laws that target buyers, but hav- ing them on the books doesn't necessarily mean they're employed. "They're just not really being used as a tool for combating demand, even though they're technically available in a lot of states," said Christine Raino, di- rector of public policy for Shared Hope International, a nonprofit working to erad- icate sex trafficking. Seattle has one of the most stringent sex traffick- ing laws. Passed in 2007, it allows customers to be charged with the commer- cial sexual abuse of a mi- nor. The penalty is manda- tory sex offender registra- tion and 21 to 27 months in prison. But the law was not really used until a little over two years ago. That's because, even more difficult than al- tering the perception that prostitution is a victimless crime, is making people understand that buyers are the ones driving the mar- ket, said Valiant Richey, a prosecutor at King County district attorney's office in Seattle. "The problem is every- body gets really nervous about that because buyers are middle-to-upper-class white men, who are often professional," Richey said. King County has con- victed roughly 85 people charged with the crime so far. In California soliciting an underage sex worker carries a penalty two days to one year in jail and a $10,000 fine. FORCED PROSTITUTION LA looks at harsher penalties for child sex buyers DAMIANDOVARGANES—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who as a prosecutor once specialized in child sexual assault cases, addresses the Domestic Human Trafficking symposium in LA. JoinOur"HydrateOurHeroes"WaterDrive Let'sgetlocalareafirefightersthewatertheyneedforwhentheybattletheblaze. FromnowuntiltheendofSeptember,BrookdaleRedBluffwillbecollectingcasesofbottledwater from local businesses, veterans groups, civic organizations and not-for-profits in effort to keep local firefighters hydrated as they keep us safe. 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