New York State Assembly Member Amy Paulin, who has represented District 88 since 2001 and chairs the Assembly Committee on Health, has long recognized that sexually exploited individuals are victims to whom special services should be provided rather than criminals deserving prosecution, and has thus sponsored groundbreaking anti-human trafficking laws criminalizing sex trafficking and holding buyers and exploiters accountable.  She has authored more than 400 bills signed into law, including the 2015 Trafficking Victims Protection and Justice Act, which increased accountability of sex buyers and traffickers fueling this massive underground industry and expanded protections for trafficking victims, the 2018 legislation establishing the crime of sex trafficking of a child without requiring proof of force, fraud, or coercion, and the 2026 Victims Protection and Child Sex Buyer Accountability Act, which makes buying sex from a child aged 15 to 18 years old a felony, as had been the case for children younger than 15 years of age.