GRIFFIN, Ga. — A Georgia Senator is introducing a bill to take down child traffickers as Griffin police investigate what they call a trafficking operation at a home right near police headquarters.
Georgia is a hotspot for trafficking. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s bill would strengthen coordination between agencies that could stop it from happening.
Four suspects are facing several charges including statutory rape, sodomy and drug charges after Griffin police said they trafficked at least two teenage girls in January and held them against their will at this home on north 5th Street.
“Once we realized the severity of what was going on, it became all hands-on deck, and we knew we had to get her out,” Inv. Anadia Ruiz with the Griffin Police Department said.
The house where the trafficking was happening its one block away from police headquarters.
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Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes spoke with a woman who said she owns the home right next to the house where the trafficking operation was taking place.
“I don’t know what was going on. What police said is not totally true,” the woman said.
She said one of the suspects, William White, is her son and she said he didn’t do what police are accusing him of.
“There was no trafficking operation going on there. Those girls could leave anytime they got ready,” the woman said.
Ossoff has done his own investigation on the trafficking crisis in Georgia and found that hundreds of children had been trafficked out of Georgia’s state foster care system.
That prompted him to team up with Republican US Sen. Chuck Grassley to introduce a bill called the Preventing Child Trafficking Act of 2025.
“Republicans and Democrats working together to make sure that prosecutors and law enforcement are working effectively with those who provide supportive services to survivors of child trafficking,” Ossoff said. “The failure of the Department of Justice to work effectively with the Department of Health and Human Services is leaving survivors of child trafficking at risk.”
If the bill passes, it will allow the Department of Justice, which investigates and prosecutes these cases, to share information with the Department of Health and Human Services, which provides survivor support.
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