$1.5 million grant to fight human trafficking awarded to Brazos County Sheriff’s Office

The Brazos County Sheriff's Office and Unbound Now BCS recently received a grant worth $1.5 million to create a multidisciplinary regional task force to fight human trafficking in the Brazos Valley.

The Sheriff's Office and Unbound Now BCS will each receive $750,000 distributed over the next three years. The task force will serve a 10-county area, including: Brazos, Burleson, Grimes, Lee, Leon, Madison, Robertson, Walker and Washington counties.

“Not only will we be able to partner with surrounding counties to get investigations done and to take a look at all of the areas we can improve upon investigating human trafficking, but also it gives that resource to survivors and let them know, ‘Hey, we are going to be able to provide you with resources. We are going to support you and help you work through this traumatic experience,'” said Deputy David Wilcox of the Brazos County Sheriff's Department.

Human trafficking is estimated to affect over 40 million people worldwide. The Brazos Valley is susceptible to human trafficking since it is located in the “Texas Triangle,” a region that connects Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, according to a release from the Brazos County Sheriff's Department. The Texas Triangle is considered one of the United States' highest human trafficking areas, the release stated.

“Because we are so interconnected in those highway systems, traffickers do use those to traffic people through our area to get to those other big areas,” said Katie Humphreys, director of development and communications at Unbound Now BCS. “Some of them camp out right here in the Brazos Valley, so this does make us particularly vulnerable for human trafficking in this area.”

Unbound Now BCS was founded in 2017 and is part of a network of chapters that serves to prevent trafficking, identify victims and serve survivors. The organization operates the Brazos Valley's only 24/7 crisis referral line for all human trafficking survivors.

With the grant, Humphreys said Unbound Now BCS officials plan to expand their victim services by hiring more advocates to run the referral line.

“If it's not us, it's nobody, so it's really important for us to be able to serve a wide range of human trafficking victims,” Humphreys said. “There's a lot of funding available for sex trafficking, but very little available for labor trafficking. Similarly, there's more funding available for minors than there are for adults. But for this grant, we were able to do both — minors and adults; labor and sex trafficking — and that's really important for us because we never want to turn a victim of human trafficking away from our services because of a funding limitation.”

At the Sheriff's Office, Wilcox noted they will be able to hire full-time investigators who can be proactive and specialized in human trafficking. The Sheriff's Office also will seek to create partnerships with all law enforcement jurisdictions during the grant's duration.

“Being able to have investigators that are going to be able to be dedicated to just working on human trafficking and getting the resources that we need and the training that we need to be able to really focus on this and take the time look into this is going to be very great for our community,” Wilcox said.

With an increase in resources, Humphreys noted they anticipate a spike in the identification of human trafficking survivors.

“That's not to say that we think human trafficking is all of the sudden going to be happening at exponentially increased levels, we actually just think we're going to be discovering it at exponentially increased levels,” Humphreys said.

Having a multidisciplinary task force is what Humphreys said excites her most about receiving the grant.

“It's going to bring in the partners that really do affect if a human trafficking survivor gets justice or if they're protected or if they receive services,” Humphreys said. “This task force is going to put everyone in the same place to work collectively together for the betterment of the survivors that are recovered.”

Unbound Now BCS' 24/7 survivor advocacy hotline is 979-985-2430.