Personal View: Human trafficking is a community problem

Since 2015, the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking has run ads and billboards with the message “It Happens Here, Too.”

Recent local arrests as part of a human trafficking sting — including a former school superintendent — have really awakened people to the notion that human trafficking is not someone else's problem.

Since news of the arrests became public, we have filtered countless phone calls from people who asked how this could happen right under our noses and how they can be better equipped to identify and respond to it. People think it's the “creepy guy” in the neighborhood who is a buyer (or “john”) or that kids are snatched at highway rest stops. Those are really myths.

Today, we know that human trafficking is not an isolated issue on the fringes of our understanding of global human rights. Labor and sex trafficking is a community problem. Ohio has one of the largest call volumes to the national human trafficking helpline. It happens in every corner of Cuyahoga County. We all have a role to play in eradicating it.

The first step is to recognize certain vulnerabilities that make individuals more susceptible to being trafficked. Anywhere from 50% to 80% of victims of commercial sexual exploitation, including child sex trafficking, are or were formerly involved with the child welfare system. Addiction, homelessness, poverty, a history of being neglected or abused, or being an LGBTQIA youth all make people more susceptible to being trafficked.

The markets and venues for victimization run the spectrum from familial trafficking to exploitation in online and offline commercial sex markets, from criminal enterprises to integration into the global supply chains that produce the goods and services impacting our daily lives.

Awareness, education and collaboration are essential, but more needs to be done.

We are grateful for our law enforcement, especially the Northeast Ohio Human Trafficking Taskforce and North Olmsted police, and members of Greater Cleveland's Coordinated Response to Human Trafficking, who continue to assist the survivors. There are more than 70 entities in Greater Cleveland's Coordinated Response including law enforcement, health care institutions, governmental entities and community organizations working together to assist victims and bring cases to justice in Cuyahoga County. They do valuable work, despite a lack of systems locally and statewide to support them.

A real system to address human trafficking in our county and state does not exist. This is supported by the Report Card on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking, published by Shared Hope International. Ohio has repeatedly received an F.

We lack a unified data system on local, state and national levels to understand the prevalence of trafficking. We also lack a system of identification and response protocols, a seamless continuum of trauma-responsive care to make it easier for survivors to get the help they need after recovery, tools for victim-centered criminal justice response, and a system for training and prevention.

All of these things are necessary if we want to eradicate human trafficking.

If you, too, were shocked by the local headlines about the recent trafficking arrests, I urge you to do three things:

1. Advocate for policy changes. Engage in advocacy efforts aimed at addressing the root causes of sex trafficking and exploitation. Support policies that prioritize survivor-centered approaches and provide exit strategies for those involved.
2. Become educated and raise awareness. Our organization offers free education, training and technical assistance to challenge societal misconceptions and stigma surrounding survivors of sex trafficking and exploitation.
3. Listen to survivors. Their stories of what they've endured will break you. Their resilience will inspire you. Their recovery will move you to action.

As one of our Survivor Advisory Council members reflected in a poem she wrote about her recovery, “I learned that I was not alone. That loving myself was enough. That safety is possible.”

Safety is possible when we work together to end human trafficking in Cuyahoga County once and for all.

Mouncey is president and CEO of the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking.