As a Boston-area theater hosts a film forum on human rights and sex trafficking, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley called for legislation to protect the child victims of sexual exploitation and bring Massachusetts in line with other states that treat those children as victims rather than offenders.

Conley said his office was drafting legislation to mandate the same protections statewide that his office voluntarily provides for youth exploited through prostitution in Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop. A final version could be ready within weeks, he said.

“Massachusetts stands to become a leader in human trafficking prevention with legislation like this,” Conley said. “Public safety and child protection specialists agree that the policies we’ve adopted in Suffolk County should be implemented statewide and nationally.”

Under Conley’s leadership, law enforcement agencies in Suffolk County six years ago adopted a series of protocols to terminate the prosecution of juvenile defendants in prostitution cases and instead divert them toward social service organizations.

The multidisciplinary partnership overseeing those efforts is Support to End Exploitation Now, or SEEN, a collaboration that has twice been recognized as a Top 50 Innovative Government Program by a Harvard University think tank. By training doctors, teachers, social workers, and others to see the problem as one of exploitation rather than criminal conduct, Conley said, authorities have seen the number of referrals to SEEN skyrocket.

“This isn’t a new phenomenon,” he said. “It’s a new way of looking at an issue that’s been hidden for too long.”

Conley said Massachusetts’ delinquency statutes should be adjusted to ensure that juveniles identified in sex-for-fee cases are treated as victims, rather than offenders, in the eyes of the law statewide – and not just in Suffolk County.

“Minors exploited by the sex trade need protection, not prosecution,” Conley said. “We’ve had great success taking those young victims out of the criminal justice system and providing them with the services they need to escape pimps and predators.”

The safe harbor bill Conley proposed for Massachusetts would complement a pending federal bill that provides block grants to law enforcement and social service agencies in states with human trafficking statutes. Without it, Massachusetts would not be eligible for those grants.

“There’s no reason a bill can’t be filed by year’s end,” Conley said. “And there’s no reason it shouldn’t be passed immediately.”

Human Rights and Sex Trafficking: A Film Forum runs through Dec. 5 at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge.