Presentation Transcript

1. International Megan’s Law H.R. 5138

   What is the real impact and why are sex offenders lumped all together yet again?
2. History of Megan’s Law Megan Nicole Kanka, who was 7 years old, was abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered in 1994, in the State of NJ by a violent predator living across the street from her home. Allegedly, unbeknownst to Megan Kanka & her family, he had been convicted previously of a sex offense against a child. However, it is believed that the Kanka’s were aware of yet another sex offender named Joe who lived in the house with Jessie. According to the media, 60 neighbors were interviewed and admitted to knowing about Joe. In 1996, Congress adopted Megan's Law (Public Law 104-145) as a means to encourage States to protect children by identifying the whereabouts of violent, repeat sex offenders and providing the means to monitor their activities. It took NJ 89 days and over 400,000 signatures to pass Megan’s Law on pure emotion.
3. What do the policymakers tell you the International Megan’s Law bill is about? To protect children from sexual exploitation by mandating reporting requirements for convicted sex traffickers and other registered sex offenders against minors intending to engage in international travel, Providing 21 days advance notice of intended travel by high interest registered sex offenders outside the United States to the government of the country of destination, Requesting foreign governments to notify the United States when a known child sex offender is seeking to enter the United States, and for other purposes.
4. Top Reasons for International Megan’s Law ‘International Megan’s Law’ proposed to complement human trafficking laws According to End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT International), all children are adversely affected by being commercially sexually exploited. Commercial sexual exploitation can result in serious, lifelong, even life-threatening consequences for the physical, psychological, spiritual, emotional and social development and well-being of a child. But where is the data on how many sex offenders are involved in Child/Sex trafficking? According to ECPAT International, child sex tourism is a specific form of child prostitution and is a developing phenomenon. Child sex tourism is defined as the commercial sexual exploitation of children by people who travel from one place to another and there engage in sexual acts with minors. This type of exploitation can occur anywhere in the world and no country or tourism destination is immune.
5. The Honorable Chris Smith…..  Congressman Chris Smith’s proposed “International Megan’s Law” to protect kids worldwide from child molestersa this became one step closer to becoming law Wednesday, when the U.S. House’s Foreign Affairs Committee blessed his bill with unanimous support.“I’ve been working on it for four years,” Smith said of his bill, H.R. 5138, that seeks to prevent sex assaults on children by “strongly encouraging and assisting foreign governments to establish a sex offender travel notification system.
6. Opposing The American Civil Liberties Union opposes the plan, saying it would be wrong to impose new restrictions on people who already have served their sentences. However, Michael Macleod-Ball, the ACLU's chief legislative and policy counsel, said he fears the bill will pass because no one in Congress will want to cast a vote that could be interpreted as supporting sex offenders. “Absolutely, we're worried about something like this passing because it's very easy to get a yes vote,” he said. “Maybe we should say the converse: If you vote against something like this, you sort of stick out like a sore thumb.” Lungren said this bill is an attempt to get tough with U.S. sex offenders who leave the country and then commit similar crimes overseas. The bill also aims to prohibit foreign nationals who are sex offenders from entering the U.S.
7. Hurdles If Lungren's plan is passed, Sensley said, the most significant hurdle would be trying to gain the cooperation of other countries, many of which have different laws and different cultural norms. “What we define in the United States as a sex offender may not necessarily be defined as such in other countries,” Sensley said. Macleod-Ball, of the ACLU, said that there are always concerns about accuracy in a large database and that there would be lasting repercussions if anyone were mistakenly included. He said countries would have to work closely to make sure there's consistency about who's included, particularly since local laws can differ widely.