COLUMN: The criminal industry before us all | Columnists | swoknews.com

The practice of human trafficking involves one person controlling another by means of force, fraud, or coercion for profit, and the two most common categories of exploitation are commercial sex work and labor in both legal and illegal industries. Non-sex work trafficking can occur in almost any type of labor but is most frequently detected in a wide array of service sectors that include domestic service, fairs and carnivals, salon services, massage parlors, landscaping, restaurants, factories, janitorial services, construction, agriculture, and many others. Commercial sex exploitation can be found almost anywhere, particularly in the age of smart phones, but remains associated with traditional locations like truck stops, communities adjacent to military installations, casinos, and Native American reservations.

The perpetrators, those who control the victims of human trafficking, may run the gamut from friends and family members to employers, and from street gangs to organized crime cartels operated by regional or trans-national groups associated with Mexico, Russia, or various Asian countries. They traffic in human beings for the profit, and because it is often easier and entails less risk than trafficking drugs or other illegal materials.

Young girls forced into commercial sex work, for example, represent on average $200,000 in potential income. They are far easier to transport than drugs, require no manufacture or distribution, and can be controlled through violence, threats of violence, drugs, or threats against their families. Many are moved from one brothel to another, often in rural areas, and if the police intervene, the girls are far more likely to be arrested than the pimps. Those who are forced into various forms of exploitive labor are equally easy to transport and intimidate and difficult to spot because it appears to the rest of us that they are just working. Victims are usually so fearful of their traffickers they refuse to disclose the names of their abusers, and too many are treated like criminals and given prison sentences rather than treated compassionately as the victims of a horrifying ordeal.

And while strangers sometimes take victims of human trafficking, it is far more common for them to come from broken homes where there was a history of abuse, poverty, homelessness, or severe dysfunction. Those victims are almost always groomed by their predators, who find their vulnerabilities and exploit them by providing whatever is necessary, be it a sense of trust and dependency, fear, or drugs and alcohol, and by normalizing exploitation so that victims come to feel they do not deserve any better treatment or that they cannot expect better from anyone else.

Much of this grooming, and most of the predation, takes place online, and almost always goes undetected by family and friends even when they are paying attention. Many, of course, pay no attention at all, and one-third of high school age students have admitted in surveys to meeting people online and going to meet them without telling their parents.

In the face of such daunting evidence of our inhumanity toward one another, we must make a dedicated effort not to abandon hope or turn away. Instead, we must find ways to begin to address the evil of human trafficking as a society and as individuals.

One way is to contact your elected representatives and ask what they are doing to combat human trafficking. Ask if they provide sufficient funding for law enforcement to deal more forcefully with the problem. The answer will be no, as most states have more detectives specifically dedicated to investigating cattle theft than they do investigate human trafficking, but from that starting point you can demand they do more.

Another way is to be aware when you are in public. Each of us has probably encountered a victim of human trafficking in a restaurant, gas station, or retail store without even realizing it. First responders and health care professionals do it all the time, and they often miss the signs too. Look for signs of physical abuse, fear, or control by a third party. Is someone else carrying a young person's identification or phone? That can be a sign. If you see activity that makes you suspicious, then notify law enforcement officials immediately.

And pay attention at home. Monitor within reason what the young people in your life are doing online and look for signs of emotional distress. Talk with them about the dangers that lurk online, about the threat that can be posed by strangers, about what it means to be groomed or for inappropriate behavior to become normal, and about the importance of talking about their problems. Your loved ones are also likely to have friends who face some of the risk factors for exploitation, so ask about them too. Look for unusual tattoos, signs that someone is missing, or indicators that a young person is in a dysfunctional situation at home. Ask question and show that you care, then notify the authorities if you must.

Finally, for more information about how you can help fight back against human trafficking in Southwest Oklahoma contact The Red Cord. They are the leading anti-human trafficking organization in our area, and they can be found online at theredcord.org