Last week, a bill was passed through the Iowa House requiring higher penalties to stop human trafficking in the state.

District 47 State Representative Chip Baltimore says they’ve received reports about young boys and girls used in underground human trafficking for sexual services not only around the state but the country with Iowa intersecting between two of the busiest Interstate roads in the nation with Interstate 35 and 80.

In order to help eliminate those practices, Baltimore states that they’ve increased the penalties dramatically for those who conduct trafficking and those who purchase the services.  He also talks about a group of people that they’ve set up to figure out strategies of how to better implement prevention tactics.

“So we’ve got a task force that’s in place that is trying to figure out how we should train law enforcement, how we should educate people to know what to look for in public and really bringing all of that to light.”

Baltimore describes other pieces of the bill that could aid in the elimination of human trafficking.

“We put some measures in there that allows for law enforcement to apply for wiretapping so we can tap into some of the cellphone networks of these human traffickers to make sure that we can track them but again, you’ve got to do that with a warrant, which is the appropriate way to do that.”

He feels confident that there is some Senate support and he believes this bill can be worked out so that it can be signed by the governor and put into law later this session.