Page 29
report.57 Massachusetts provides that photographs of the child’s injuries may be taken without permission of the child’s parents or guardians.58 Massachusetts also provides that if hospital personnel collect physical evidence of abuse or neglect, then law enforcement, the local district attorney, and the Department of Children and Families are to be notified immediately.59 Where reports are sent Most commonly, reports are made to the Department of Children and Family Services or the Department of Human Services. The department or agency receiving the report must usually, in turn, report the suspected abuse to local law enforcement and/or the district attorney.60 Some states allow for reports to be made directly to law enforcement61 (see Table 3). State-mandated data collection The collection of uniform and high-quality data is essential for assessing whether new laws aimed at health care providers and other professionals are achieving their goals of identifying more victims of trafficking and securing effective services to aid in their rehabilitation. Most, but not all, of the 17 states with education and/or reporting laws related to human trafficking provide for some form of data collection. Six states are silent on the topic (MD, MA, MO, NJ, NC, WA).62 Of the remaining 11, eight states tie data collection to their education laws63 and three to their reporting laws64 (see Table 5). All of the 11 states that legislate data collection assign responsibility to either a humantrafficking council or commission (CO, MI, MN, TX)65 or a state agency (CA, KS, TN, VT, LA, IL, FL).66 There is no consensus on what gets collected, how to collect the data, where to keep it, or what to do with it.67 Illinois calls for a “central register” of all child abuse and neglect cases, kept in such a way as to enable the Department of Children and Family Services (a) to “immediately identify and locate prior reports,” (b) to “continuously monitor” all reports where services were provided, and (c) to “regularly evaluate the effectiveness of existing laws and programs.” 68 Texas, emphasizing law enforcement and prosecution of traffickers, is particularly detailed in describing the data that should be collected, including the following: (a) number of convictions, arrests, and prosecutions, and even investigations of traffickers and forgery offenses as part of trafficking; (b) demographics of convicted traffickers and the victims; (c) geographic routes of trafficking; (d) means of transportation and methods for trafficking; and (e) social and economic factors creating a demand for trafficking.69 While lacking the detail of Texas, Florida specifies that record collection is only for law-enforcement and prosecutorial purposes.70 As far as to whom these collectors of data then report, the most common audience is the state judiciary committee.71 Reports, usually on an annual basis, may also be directed to the governor, the legislature, an appointed committee (such as committees on health and welfare, criminal justice, or human services), or some combination thereof.72 Annual reporting is typically directed to cover victim identification, location and types of services offered, number of persons served, education provided, and costs of implementation. Minnesota’s education law uniquely guides the Director of Child Sex Trafficking Prevention to collect data not for the legislature or government but rather to promote a system for sharing data among regional and community advocates.73 Michigan has grappled specifically with the issue of data collection regarding human trafficking. Mandated by law, the human-trafficking commission must file an annual report with the governor, the secretary of the Senate, and the clerk of the House of Representatives regarding trafficking in the 126 H. G. ATKINSON ET AL. state. In the Michigan Commission on Human Trafficking’s 2013 Report on Human Trafficking, the Data Collection Subcommittee (DCS)74 noted that there are four primary obstacles to data collection: “underreporting [of the crime]; lack of uniform data reporting; lack of data sharing; and lack of quality data” (Michigan Commission on Human Trafficking, 2013, p. 20). In its recommendations to the governor and legislature, the human-trafficking commission and DCS called for, among other initiatives, the