Douglas County backs federal bill to combat trafficking and child exploitation

Douglas County is lining up behind a federal push that would tighten screening and training requirements for massage wellness spas, a move county leaders say could give investigators a stronger tool against human trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

The county highlighted its support on May 29, 2026, saying Commissioner Abe Laydon and local lawmakers and advocacy groups backed the legislation. The practical effect would be to broaden the kind of background checks and reporting training that local officials have already treated as important in spotting businesses that could be used as fronts for exploitation.

That local approach is not new. In 2024, Rep. Lauren Boebert introduced H.R. 9755, the Human Trafficking Fingerprint Background Check Protection Act of 2024. The bill would have required owners and employees of massage wellness spas to undergo fingerprint-based background checks and complete training to recognize and report signs of human trafficking. Douglas County commissioners Abe Laydon, George Teal and Lora Thomas called that earlier anti-trafficking legislation “vital.”

Colorado Public Radio reported at the time that Boebert said she had been talking with Douglas County commissioners and that the federal proposal was based on a 2023 Douglas County ordinance and a Colorado law passed earlier that year. That makes the county a clear part of the policy pipeline, not just a bystander waiting for Congress to act.

The legal backdrop is broader than Douglas County. The Colorado Division of Criminal Justice says the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, passed in 2000, was the first federal law to address human trafficking. Colorado later moved its own criminal statutes closer to federal law with House Bill 14-1273 in 2014.

Pressure to stiffen the penalties has continued. In January 2026, Colorado lawmakers announced another proposal to increase penalties for trafficking of children, and SB26-015 was discussed in committee in February as part of that effort. Taken together, the county’s backing of the federal bill fits a growing state and national pattern: tougher screening, heavier penalties and more coordinated enforcement against trafficking networks that often exploit gaps between local and federal law.