APRIL 12, 2021

Atlanta, GA – Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp, in partnership with Attorney General Chris Carr, today released a new anti-human trafficking public service announcement (PSA). The new PSA highlights “The Survivors First Act” and is airing across the state on digital media.

“Brian and I were proud to work with Attorney General Carr and members of the Georgia General Assembly to institute ‘The Survivors First Act’ to help victims heal by removing barriers to employment, housing, and other steps towards rehabilitation,” said First Lady Marty Kemp. “We need to make sure we are getting the word out to survivors as much as possible, and through all means. This PSA provides that clear message, and I hope all survivors know that we will stop at nothing to support them.”

“Unfortunately, some survivors of human trafficking still carry around the weight of a criminal record while trying to heal from the trauma they’ve experienced,” said Attorney General Chris Carr. “We are proud to work with Georgia’s First Lady, Marty Kemp, to ensure all survivors are aware of the opportunity in Georgia to wipe the slate clean and focus on healing.”

Senate Bill 425, known as “The Survivors First Act,” became effective on June 29, 2020. SB 435 creates remedies for individuals to clean up their Georgia criminal history if they are survivors of sex or labor trafficking, as defined in O.C.G.A § 16-5-46. Specifically, SB 435 gives trafficking survivors the opportunity to either vacate their convictions if the conviction was a direct result of the trafficking, or restrict access to their record if the arrest was while they were being trafficked. These new remedies will remove individuals’ barriers to employment, housing, and other opportunities, as well as hopefully help heal the trauma they have experienced.

The PSA launches in addition to a webpage from the Office of the Attorney General that provides survivors with the forms they need to petition for vacatur or record restriction. Their webpage can be found here.

Watch the PSA here.

APRIL 07, 2021

Atlanta, GA – On Thursday, April 8, Executive Order 03.31.21.03 will take effect, rolling back the remaining COVID-19 restrictions on Georgia’s economy.

The Governor’s Executive Orders are available to read here. See below for a video message from Governor Kemp.

More details on the Executive Order is below:

Executive Order 03.31.21.03

▪ Will become effective April 8 through April 30, 2021
▪ Eliminates the Gatherings ban
▪ Eliminates Shelter-in-Place requirements
▪ Removes the critical infrastructure distinction and collapses all organization suggested measures into one main list, with a small number of additional industry-specific requirements remaining
▪ Reduces any remaining distance requirements (i.e. distance between parties at restaurants, bars, and movie theaters, and between patrons of group fitness classes)
▪ Eliminates the ability of law enforcement to close an organization for failure to comply with the Executive Order provisions

The new COVID vaccine dashboard provides a detailed,
transparent picture of vaccination administration in Georgia

The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) is launching a new COVID vaccine dashboard on the DPH website https://dph.georgia.gov/. As part of the transition to the new dashboard, you will see a one-time decrease in the number of vaccines administered. This slight decrease is the result of data cleaning and removal of duplicate vaccination entries, and overall quality control.

Click here for the DPH press release with more information.