Missouri Group to Examine Human Trafficking Policies

Advocates for human trafficking survivors, law enforcement, state officials and lawmakers will be meeting over the next 18 months to evaluate Missouri's policies to combat human trafficking.

Deborah Hume is a founding member of the Central Missouri Stop Human Trafficking Coalition. She says she hopes the group can provide more comprehensive, informed services to victims of trafficking.

The measure's sponsor, Republican Rep. Elijah Haahr, of Springfield, says he wants Missouri to be a top state in fighting trafficking.

Haahr also wanted to include advertising sex with a trafficking victim to the state's human trafficking law, but the measure did not advance.

Haahr says he's not ruling out reintroducing the bill, adding that the provision was approved at the national level by Congress earlier this month.