Montana Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force receives national FBI award

Regional FBI officials presented the Yellowstone County Area Human Trafficking Task Force with a Director's Community Leadership Award on behalf of FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Members of the task force's steering committee accepted the award, including co-chairs Stephanie Baucus and Penny Ronning; board members Scott Koch, Melanie Tripp, and Erin Walker; and steering committee members Georgia Cady, Dr. Cynthia Brewer, and Zeno Baucus. The Task Force hosted a small reception after the presentation, where Billings Mayor Bill Cole served as the emcee.

Every year since 1990, the FBI director has selected individuals or organizations to receive these awards in recognition of their “outstanding contributions to their communities through service” in fighting crime, terrorism, drug, and violence in America.

“Trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery,” The FBI said. “The FBI takes a victim-centered approach, ensuring victims have access to resources while also building a case against traffickers. The FBI can't do our job combating this issue without partners like this Task Force.”

Globally, human trafficking is equal to arms trafficking as the second-largest international criminal industry – behind only drug trafficking. It is estimated to be a $150 billion a year industry with as many as 40 million people around the world living in slavery.

In Montana, sex trafficking is more prevalent than labor trafficking, and it comes in various forms: escort services, illicit massage businesses, missing and murdered indigenous persons, outdoor solicitation, personal sexual servitude, services performed in strip clubs or other night clubs, and survival sex, among other forms. Some recent reports have ranked Montana fourth per capita in terms of the size of its human trafficking problem.

On any given night in Billings, law enforcement officials have reported that there are anywhere between 5 and 10 women who are being actively advertised for commercial sex by their pimps.

Volunteer co-founders and co-chairs Penny Ronning and Stephanie Baucus created the Task Force in 2016 to improve coordination between law enforcement and members of the public, to help close gaps in services for victims and survivors, to increase collaboration and resource sharing, to increase awareness of sex trafficking and forced labor in the area, and to prevent human trafficking. Since its founding, the Task Force has grown to include over 800 peoples and Task force leaders have distributed over 50,000 signs of trafficking cards with hotline and law enforcement phone numbers, provided over 1,000 hours of training on human trafficking and related issues and helped to launch similar task forces in other communities in Montana and in other states.