Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R-Boiling Springs, discusses a bill to combat sex crimes in South Carolina on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Screenshot of SCETV legislative livestream)
COLUMBIA — A sexual predator who nefariously develops a bond with a child to lure the juvenile into prostitution could be sentenced to five years in a South Carolina prison under legislation advancing in the Senate.
Advocates say the bill approved unanimously this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee is part of the state’s continued push to curb human trafficking.
It amends the state’s anti-prostitution law to specifically include “sexual grooming,” defined as illegally establishing an emotional connection to push a child into sexual activities. Existing state law does not explicitly prohibit that.
It also increases penalties for those involved in sex-for-hire schemes: Anyone who recruits, grooms or coerces people into prostitution; anyone who sets up or advertises the location; as well as those paying for sex could be charged with a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
“We’re trying to provide justice for those that are forced into this lifestyle,” said Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R-Boiling Springs, the lead sponsor.
The legislation would align with a law signed last July that prevents trafficking victims from being prosecuted for misdemeanor or minor felony offenses they were forced to do to survive, such as prostitution or drug possession.
Last year, the State Law Enforcement Division investigated 285 human trafficking tips across 40 counties, with 94% of them involving sex trafficking. Of the 392 total victims, at least 80% of them were minors. That’s down from 357 cases opened in 2023 involving 498 total victims, according to the 2023 and 2024 annual reports of the state’s Human Trafficking Task Force, which launched in 2014.
“The numbers are staggering. It’s shockingly high and we’re just trying to get those numbers down,” Kimbrell said. “These folks are victims and shouldn’t have to try to clear their names.”
Over the last 12 months, more than 15,000 people in and around Charlotte, North Carolina, and its suburbs in York and Lancaster counties, have been advertised online as “sex for sale,” according to statistics from Freedom Signal, an online platform designed to help advocates get in touch with victims of sex trafficking.
The platform, which finds victims through automated searches of websites, shows potential victims across South Carolina.
In the Columbia area, there have been online ads for 7,535 people over the last year. The North Charleston area shows 5,633; Greenville and Spartanburg: 3,848, and Myrtle Beach: 1,520, according to the Freedom Signal numbers Kimbrel shared with the SC Daily Gazette.
“This legislation is necessary because of the state of the world we live in,” said Sen. Matt Leber, R-Johns Island, a co-sponsor.
Hundreds of girls in SC are trafficking victims. A Columbia nonprofit offers help for survivors.
People who testified in support of the bill include a trafficking survivor.
Heather Pagán told senators she was first forced into prostitution at 14 years old by someone she thought would love and protect her. She was trafficked for 18 years.
It took an arrest, which resulted in a two-year stint in prison, to escape. Despite being 17 years removed from sex work, Pagan still copes with the trauma constantly.
“The psychological scars don’t just disappear,” Pagán, the survivor support director for the nonprofit Lighthouse for Life, said at a Feb. 26 hearing.
The bill was sent to the Senate floor days after Attorney General Alan Wilson, chairman of the state Human Trafficking Task Force, announced a partnership with the Safe House Project, a national nonprofit that provides certification, survivor support and safe housing options to victims of trafficking.
The partnership will see up to 20 programs in South Carolina receive Safe House Project certifications each year, according to a press release.
Kimbrell pointed to North Carolina as another reason the law is needed. Solicitation of a prostitution increased from a misdemeanor to a felony in that state on Dec. 1.
He said he worries the stronger penalties north of the Palmetto State’s border will bring criminals to South Carolina.
“We have to do this or we’re going to have all these people flooding here,” he said. “The numbers would go way up.”