Greenleaf's bill goes from Montco to the governor's desk

WILLOW GROVE The State Senate on Monday night passed legislation sponsored by Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf that significantly toughens Pennsylvania's human trafficking laws, including by criminalizing sex trafficking.

Passed in the House last year, the bill heads to Gov. Corbett for his signature, said Greenleaf, a Republican whose district covers Montgomery and Bucks Counties.

Under current law, labor trafficking is the only form of human trafficking that is specifically illegal.

"That's why police always had a hard time dealing with it," Greenleaf said. "We in society have not treated it as it really is. It's our children, our teenagers, being entrapped in this."

Pennsylvania is the last state to pass a law criminalizing sex trafficking, according to the Polaris Project, a nonprofit group based in Washington.

- Carolyn Davis