Delegate Barbara Fleischauer Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Fight Against Human Trafficking Continues Throughout W.Va.

The Human Trafficking hotline reports there were 19 cases of trafficking throughout West Virginia in 2016, but what about the undiscovered cases? The U.S. State Department defines human sex or labor trafficking as forceful or fraudulent recruitment, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person for labor or commercial sex.

It can and does happen everywhere. The Department of Homeland Security said watching out for signs can save someone’s life. Signs like noticing someone is being denied food, water, sleep, or medical care; or if someone appears to be coached on what to say.

New laws in West Virginia aim to prevent and penalize human trafficking as well as provide protection and coordinate services for victims. According to this new law, trafficking is potentially a 300,000 offense that could land you in prison for up to 20 years.

West Virginia Delegate Barbara Fleischauer sponsored the bill that became law.

“So these people maybe have committed crimes that they shouldn’t necessarily be judged for they may need to clean their criminal record if they are ever gonna get a job. They may want to move someplace else… there gonna need housing they don’t have any many money.. They are gonna need a whole lot of services.” Fleschauer said

Fleischauer says services need to be developed for victims of all ages, so West Virginians can distinguish the line between prostitution and human trafficking.She added that existing services today are largely the result of the Congregation of Saint Joseph in Wheeling.

Fleischauer said,“What they did was they provided funding for a half-time position to figure out what we have and what we don’t have.”

The congregation of St. Joseph works to spread community awareness buying, informational billboard ads about human trafficking, and picking outside of various events. They also create little bars of soap with the human trafficking hotline number on it and place them in various hotels and truck stops to allow victims to reach out for help.

Barbara Fleischauer said it’s been complicated to figure out how to help victims of all ages, but according to the new law, those who are deemed human trafficking victims can receive criminal immunity.

“Maybe they wanna go home, maybe they wanna go near home, or maybe they need to make a new home.. So we need to have people that can help them to figure out what services are available so they can do what they wanna do.”- Fleischauer

The state Attorney General’s office is taking on initiatives as well, encouraging officers throughout the state to participate in special training programs.

Officer Les Clifton a patrolman in Fairmont, said he’s been trained to look for details instead of the overall circumstances.

“ You know everything from nationality to maybe things they said they were doing, their lifestyle while they’re here doing the certain things they’re doing whether it’s panhandling or odd jobs.” Clifton said

Clifton’s police department was the first to take part in this training. He and other officers learned how to gather data that will help track state arrests and prosecutions, which will in turn hopefully raise awareness and reduce demand of trafficking.

Clifton adds,“You can’t just look at it and think it is just what it is. You really have to dig in and really have to find the root of why someone’s there and what they are doing.”

Officer training to better detect, report and respond to human trafficking is planned for north central West Virginia in the fall.

Human Trafficking Hotline Number: 1-888-373-7888

House Judiciary Passes Dismemberment-Abortion Ban

A Senate bill that would ban elective dismemberment abortions in the state is now making its way through the House. The bill was the subject of a public hearing Monday and passed through the House Health Committee before being taken up by the Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

Senate Bill 10, as approved in the Senate last week, would ban what are commonly referred to as dismemberment abortions or dilation and evacuation abortions, D&E. The ban would not apply in cases of medical emergencies.

Physicians have testified before lawmakers that the method is the safest option, but Delegate Joe Ellington, the House Health Committee Chair and a practicing OBGYN, says there are other procedures that can ensure the death of the fetus before D&E takes place, like injections to stop the heart. Under this bill, those procedures would still be allowed.

Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer is a Democrat from Monongalia County. She spoke against the bill.

“This is an emotional topic, and I understand we have differing views, but there’s one thing we all took an oath to uphold and that is the constitution, and I don’t think we have the right to pick and choose which parts of the constitution we’re going to obey,” she said.

The House Judiciary Committee passed Senate Bill 10. It now goes to the House floor for consideration.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

Equal Pay Day Prompts Bake Sales and "Fix-It" Parties in W.Va.

Equal Pay Day fell this year on April 14. It’s the day that women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from last year, according to national rates. Of course, if it were a state holiday, we would have to celebrate in May or June. Women in West Virginia face some of the largest gender wage gaps in the country.

Unequal Bake Sales

Equal Pay Day brought bake sales throughout Morgantown. To highlight the national wage gap statistics, men paid a dollar and women only 78 cents per baked good. Danielle Conaway, a member of the WVU Council for Women’s Concerns, organized the sale and said she considers the event a success.

“We just basically wanted to create a dialogue about this issue,” Conaway said.

In West Virginia, the gender pay-gap is second-worst in the country. Women get paid 67 cents to a man’s dollar for equal work. A 2015 study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates that by current trends, women in West Virginia will not reach income equality for another two to four generations.

The sale raised a couple hundred dollars and some concerns over wage inequity in West Virginia especially. Organizers said they received some heckles, but mostly experienced positive feedback throughout Unequal Pay Day. Proceeds will go to the WVU Council for Women’s Concerns.

UnHappy Hour “Fix-It” Party

Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer hosted an Unhappy Hour at a Morgantown wine bar to mark Equal Pay Day. She said it’s especially important to focus on the issue in West Virginia where such disparities exist.

“It’s probably the rural nature of West Virginia, women just don’t get paid as much. And it’s hard to make it.”

Folks joined Fleischauer for half-priced wine by the glass and $5 pizzas, and to discuss how to close the gender wage gap. Among them: Jesse Kalvitis, an adjunct professor in WVU’s English Department. She says it’s been an eye-opening experience to teach young women at WVU in recent years, many of whom are engineering students.

“As much as my English friends would shake their heads and cry, the push to get more women in STEM fields is really, really helping,” Kalvitis said.

Men and (mostly) women from all walks of life met at Wine Bar at Vintner Valley in Morgantown, W.Va., to talk about how gender roles are changing, workforce participation is shifting, and what community members can do to help affect positive change for men and women today in the workplace.

The Gap Persists

While the wage gap has narrowed during the past 30 years, many experts speculate that the reason the gap persists is because of the extremely under-valued business of bringing babies into the world and raising them. The Pew Research Center reports women were more likely to say they had taken career interruptions to care for their family. And Fleischauer points out that 40 percent of working mothers in the U.S. are the sole providers for their families. She said wage inequity leads to poorer living conditions, inadequate nutrition, and significantly fewer opportunities for the children of almost half of the families in the United States.

Liability, Non-Partisan Elections, & Labor Cause an Uproar in the House

For years, Republicans have called for nonpartisan election of Supreme Court Justices. But the Democrats never put the issue on the agenda. Now having taken control of the House, Republicans finally got their wish.

Before confronting that issue, the house took up Senate Bill 13, which protects a landowner from liability if someone is injured on his or her property. The bill re-instates the open and obvious doctrine. It means a property owner won’t be responsible for injuries that a person sustains if it’s clear what the conditions are.

Delegate John Shott, chairman of the Judiciary committee, stood to explain that this bill would be worthwhile.

“What we’re doing here is, today if we vote in favor of this bill is saying that regardless of a few remote horror stories, we think its legitimate policy of this state to protect those people who have premises. In those situations where the injuries caused by something as well known and obvious to the person who’s injured as it would be to the person who occupies those premises,” Shott explained.

Senate Bill 13 passed 81 to 18.

Then it was on to House Bill 2010, the non-partisan election bill.

Again, Judiciary Chairman Shott explained why this is good for the state.

“This removes the taint of a partisan election from the operation of our judiciary,” Shott said, “and it extends not only to our state’s Supreme Court of Appeals, but to our circuit judges, our family court judges, and our magistrates, and this is intended to remove any perception that those individuals might be beholding to a particular party organization or a particular group of people with whom that party is perceived as being affiliated.”

Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer stood to oppose the bill, saying voters want to know which party their candidate is affiliated with.

“Well in our state, we’ve had some pretty bad experiences with money in judicial elections, and there have been accusations that judicial seats have been purchased by individuals. By not knowing what party a person’s in, you are deprived of information, and that you otherwise would have in any other election,” Fleischauer said.

But the bill passed overwhelmingly 90 to 9.

But there was uproar about House Bill 2217, relating to the qualifications of the commissioner of labor. This bill changes the current definition of the labor commissioner by taking out the words “labor interests of the state” and inserts “with experience in employee issues and employee-employer relations.”

Delegate Mike Caputo, a labor representative, clearly did not like the bill.

“This is nothing, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, with all due respect but a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to the working men and women in West Virginia,” Caputo explained, “I just cannot believe that we’re about to vote on a bill that could allow a Don Blankenship to become the commissioner of labor in the state of West Virginia. I can’t believe we’re about the vote on a bill that someone who had nothing but the interest of the corporation at heart their entire adult life can now become the commissioner of labor. Now nothing against corporate executives, we need them, and they need to tend to the business of that corporation, so we can have jobs in West Virginia, but when it comes down to the grassroots level of that working mom, somebody needs to look out for her, and nobody’s going to look out for her other than someone who worked their entire adult life for a paycheck and took the interest of workers at heart.”

Delegate Michael Ihle spoke to try and reason with the word change, using an example from his own experience.

“I deal with both union and nonunion employees, and one of the accomplishments that we, and I do say we, have is a month into my term, we negotiated a labor agreement that was passed unanimously, and I say that not to brag on myself but to brag on our employees. But more relevantly, I say that to illustrate that the interest of management and the interest of labor are not always mutually exclusive,” Ihle said, “And I feel some of the rhetoric that I’ve heard from those who oppose the legislation reflects that belief that those interests must naturally conflict with each other, and I don’t believe that to be the case at all. I think if we’re to move our state forward, if we are to create an environment that is friendly to more jobs for both union and nonunion employees, all interest of labor, if we’re to do that, then we have to move beyond the mentality that labor and management are mutually exclusive.”

House Bill 2117 passed 64 to 35.