By Bryhonda Lyons, CalMatters

CalMatters is an independent public interest journalism venture covering California state politics and government.

Photo:  Sara Kruzan, 43, who spent 17 years in prison for killing her trafficker, now helps other victims obtain new sentences for their crimes so they can be released. Photo by Shae Hammond for CalMatters

January 28, 2021 (San Diego's East County) - Sara Kruzan was in her cell when she received a fax that changed her life. After spending some of her teenage years, all of her 20s and much of her 30s in prison for killing her trafficker, Kruzan learned that California’s attorney general had acknowledged that she was a victim of domestic violence. That was 2012. A year later, she was released from prison. 

East County News Service

September 15, 2019 (San Diego) – The California State Legislature today passed on a 61-9 vote Assembly Bill 589 authored by state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) to make it illegal for an employer to confiscate a worker’s immigration documents as a way to force them into labor.

Source: FBI

October 19, 2017 (San Diego) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), along with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), announced today that 84 minors were recovered and 120 traffickers were arrested as part of Operation Cross Country XI, a nationwide effort focusing on underage human trafficking that ran from October 12-15, 2017. 

Five Wishes, by Mollie Moon (Suka Press LLC, Carlsbad, California, 2017, 346 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

When you enter into freedom, possibility comes to meet you.

• John O’Donohue

March 20, 2017 (San Diego) - Mollie Moon has escaped the cold European winters for a life in Southern California, where she lives with a bossy feline and occasional sand in her shoes, to write this fictional account of a young Latina breaking with family and cultural traditions; Five Wishes.

AB 1708 would implement statutory reforms and increase penalties for purchasers of sex

East County News Service

September 1, 2016 (Sacramento) - Human trafficking legislation by California State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) that would create minimum penalties for those attempting to purchase sex was approved by the Assembly today on a unanimous 63-0 vote. It will now be submitted to the Governor.

November 12, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) – A woman who ran a Border Patrol checkpoint in Pine Valley, after agents found a person hidden in her trunk, led authorities on a chase at speeds up to 120 miles per hour last night. 

The chase began shortly before 5 p.m. and continued for 30 miles, despite tack strips laid down to try and half the driver, who was in a Ford Mustang. Border Patrol and California Highway Patrol officers were involved in the pursuit. The driver exited the freeway in El Cajon, where she crashed into the back of a Jeep s at Madison and Second Street, Customs and Border Patrol reports.  The CHP site and several media outlets reported that the suspect struck more than one vehicle.

Lemon Grove Filmmaker Jim Ellis Creates 33-Minute Documentary for Children, Parents to Watch Together

By Mark Gabrish Conlan

February 18, 2013 (Lemon Grove)--Nikki’s story is all too typical of the ones told in Lemon Grove filmmaker Jim Ellis’s new 33-minute documentary, Indoctrinated: The Grooming of Children Into Prostitution. At age 18, to raise the money to go to college, she took a job in a strip club. There she met an older man who helped her out financially, bought her nice clothes and accessories, and got her to fall in love with him and ultimately move in with him. Then he put the hammer down and told her that in order to keep her lifestyle — and his affections — she’d have to have sex with other men, for which he, not she, would be paid. Nikki’s story ends more happily than most such tales; she got out of “the life,” as prostitutes call it, and in her 20’s is trying to piece her life back together. She’s sufficiently self-assured that of all the present and former prostitutes Ellis interviewed, she was the only one who agreed to show her face on camera instead of having it electronically blurred.

By Thea Skinner

San Diego has one of the highest rates of child sex trafficking in the U.S.

October 10, 2012 (San Diego's East County)--Proposition 35 would increase prison sentences and fines for anyone convicted of human trafficking — the illegal trade of human beings for sex slavery or forced labor. Prison sentences would be increased to 15-years-to life, with fines up to $1.5 million. Prop 35 would also require anyone convicted of sex trafficking to register as a sex offender and disclose identities they use on the Internet, along with which sites they visit. 

In a rare show of unity, this proposition is supported by both the California Democratic and Republican parties.

April 2, 2012 (San Diego) – San Diego has become a hotbed of human trafficking and it includes more than undocumented immigrants. Law enforcement have identified San Diego as an international gateway for sex trafficking and one of the 13 cities in the nation with the highest incidence of child prostitution, including local teens. Forced marriages and modern slavery are also critical issues. Worldwide, trafficking is an estimated $40 billion industry affecting every country. 

April 13, 2011 (Sacramento) – Legislation authored by Assemblymember Marty Block (D-AD78) to provide law enforcement with better tools to fight the growing epidemic of gang-related criminal sexual exploitation and human trafficking, cleared its first Assembly committee today. AB 918 was approved by the Assembly Public Safety Committee by a vote of 6-0.