Strengthening Child Exploitation Enforcement Act

This section would allow the Act to be referred to by the short title 'Strengthening Child Exploitation Enforcement Act.'

This section would make several changes to federal kidnapping and sexual-abuse laws in title 18 of the United States Code. In the kidnapping law, section 1201, it would add 'obtains by defrauding or deceiving any person' to the list of prohibited acts in subsection (a), so that obtaining a person through fraud or deception would count as kidnapping under federal law, alongside the acts already listed there. It would add the same wording to the parallel list of acts in subsection (b). It would also add a new provision to subsection (g) stating that, for an offense described in that subsection involving a victim who has not turned 16, the victim's consent to the offender's conduct is not a defense unless the offender proves, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the offender reasonably believed the victim was at least 16 years old. In the sexual-abuse chapter of title 18 (chapter 109A), it would broaden the jurisdictional requirement in section 2241(c) from requiring that the offender 'crosses a State line' to requiring only that the offender 'travels in interstate or foreign commerce,' which would also reach travel abroad and not just travel across a state line. It would change section 2242(3) by replacing the phrase ', to include doing so' with 'or'; the full practical effect of this specific wording change depends on the surrounding text of that paragraph, which is not reproduced in the bill. It would add a new offense to section 2243: knowingly causing a person who has not turned 16 to intentionally touch, other than through clothing, the genitals of any person, with intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify anyone's sexual desire, or attempting to do so, when the conduct happens in the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of the United States, in a federal prison, or in any prison, institution, or facility where people are held in custody by direction of, or under a contract or agreement with, the head of a federal department or agency, and only if the conduct would have violated subsection (a), (b), or (c) of section 2243, section 2241, or section 2242 had the touching been a 'sexual act' as those sections use that term. A person who violates this new offense would be fined under title 18 of the United States Code, or imprisoned for the term set by whichever of those other provisions applies, or both. This section would also restructure section 2244, the abusive-sexual-contact law. The six existing grounds in subsection (a), currently paragraphs (1) through (6), would become lettered items (A) through (F) under a new paragraph (1) labeled 'In general,' with several wording and number-format fixes: correcting 'if so to do' to 'if to do so,' changing the written-out numbers 'ten,' 'three,' and 'two' in the relevant items to the digits '10,' '3,' and '2,' and changing the closing punctuation of the last item from a semicolon to a period. A new paragraph (2) would be added making an attempt to commit any of these abusive-sexual-contact offenses punishable by the same penalty as a completed offense. Subsection (b) would be broadened to also cover a person who causes the prohibited sexual contact, not only one who personally engages in it, to cover contact by another person as well as contact with another person, and to cover attempts to do either, in addition to completed conduct. Subsection (c) would be rewritten to apply to attempted sexual contact as well as completed sexual contact, to contact a person causes as well as contact the person personally engages in, and to contact by an individual as well as with an individual, and its cross-reference would be updated from the old numbering '(a)(5)' to the new numbering '(a)(1)(E)' to match the restructuring described above. For section 2423(g)(1), this section would broaden the language from being limited to 'a sexual act (as defined in section 2246)' with the other person to instead covering 'any conduct involving' that person, and would change a related reference from 'sexual act occurred' to 'conduct occurred.' Finally, this section provides that only the amendment to section 2241(c), changing 'crosses a State line' to 'travels in interstate or foreign commerce,' would apply to conduct that occurred before, on, or after the date this Act is enacted, and not only to conduct occurring afterward.

This section would make conforming updates to two other provisions so their cross-references and coverage match the restructuring of section 2244 made by section 2 of this Act. Section 250(b), which sets penalties for certain civil rights offenses involving sexual misconduct, would be updated in four places. Paragraph (2) would refer to new section 2244(a)(1)(E) instead of old section 2244(a)(5), and would also cover an attempt to engage in or cause that type of contact as newly prohibited by section 2244(a)(2). Paragraph (4) would refer to new section 2244(a)(1)(A) and to abusive sexual contact of the type prohibited by section 2244(b), instead of the old reference to 'subsection (a)(1) or (b)' of section 2244, and would also cover an attempt to engage in or cause such contact under new section 2244(a)(2); the paragraph would continue to exclude abusive sexual contact through the clothing, and would now also exclude an attempt to engage in or cause that through-the-clothing contact. Paragraph (5) would refer to new section 2244(a)(1)(B) instead of old section 2244(a)(2), and would also cover an attempt to engage in or cause such contact under new section 2244(a)(2). Paragraph (6) would refer to new subparagraphs (C) and (D) of section 2244(a)(1) and to abusive sexual contact of the type prohibited by section 2244(b), instead of the old reference to 'subsection (a)(3), (a)(4), or (b)' of section 2244, and would also cover an attempt to engage in or cause such contact under new section 2244(a)(2). Section 3559, which classifies offenses for sentencing purposes, would also be updated to match the new numbering: subsection (c)(2)(F)(i) would refer to subparagraphs (A) and (B) of section 2244(a)(1) instead of old sections 2244(a)(1) and (a)(2), and subsection (e)(2)(A) would refer to section 2244(a)(1)(A) instead of old section 2244(a)(1). Both of these changes update cross-references to match the renumbering made in section 2 without changing which underlying conduct is covered.