Human trafficking: defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as a form of modern day slavery, in which victims are forced to engage in commercial sex acts or labor services against their will through coercion, force or fraud.
And it’s on the rise. According to statistics provided by the National Human Trafficking Hotline – powered by DHHS – incidents of reported human trafficking have increased exponentially in recent years. Nationwide, the National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH) in 2012 received 13,325 calls and tip reports and 3,279 actual cases of human trafficking. Those numbers doubled in 2016, with 26,727 calls and 7,572 cases.
The trend has kept to form in Kentucky. Of the thousands of cases reported last year in the U.S., 89 of those originated in Kentucky, up from the 33 cases reported in 2012. It’s a problem closer to home than some might think, too. Kentucky State Police in September arrested three Oak Grove residents – one a police officer – following allegations that the suspects were running a prostitution ring out of a local hotel. According to Associated Press reports, KSP found that three adult women were being held against their will and forced to have sex with men at the hotel.
The investigation remains ongoing.
Though close to home, Marshall County Sheriff Kevin Byars said thus far the county has not seen incidents of human trafficking, however it remained an issue in which some of his officers trained and at least touched on within training. Most incidents in the state, he said, originated in large population centers such as Louisville and nearby Cincinnati, Ohio. More often than not, he said victims were transients or members of minority communities.
“Most of your human trafficking is dealing with minorities and people who do not speak the language,” Byars said. “… It isn’t anything we see commonly here. If they’re on the interstate or something passing through, we might come across something like that. A flag will go up … then we’ll start digging into it a little deeper.”
According to NHTH, foreign nationals are faced with challenges that leave them more vulnerable to potential traffickers. In particular, recruiters in their home countries may prey on the need to relocate.
“… Recruiters located in home countries frequently require such large recruitment and travel fees that victims become highly indebted to the recruiters and traffickers,” says the NHTH. “These fees are inflated far beyond cost in order to create economic instability and dependency on the new employer or trafficker. Traffickers leverage the non-portability of many work visas as well as the lack of familiarity with surroundings, laws and rights, language fluency and cultural understanding in order to control and manipulate victims.”
Still, the crime spans virtually all demographics, though some are more susceptible than others. Homeless and runaway youths, and previous victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, war and conflict or social discrimination were often targeted, as well.
Byars also said that while victims were sometimes youths, offenders typically did not focus on young children.
“It’s not going to be a small child that you see out in public,” Byars said. “It’s going to be the teen years, early 20s, that type of thing.”
Though the county has thus far not been a hotbed for trafficking incidents, Byars said interstate travel likely brought offenders and victims through the area at some point, and deputies were trained on warning signs. Those signs were important for residents to watch, as well.
“Most of the time, it’s females,” Byars said. “There are males that are involved in it as far as victims, but it’s not very often. Most of the time the females are very submissive. They will be shy, they will follow behind, they will hang very closely to the male counterpart. … Most of the time, they’re wanting to get out of a third world country, and this is their only venue out.”
And victims are not always so willing to escape their situation. According to the NHTH, victims often do not seek help or even realize they are victims of a crime, “due to a variety of factors, including lack of trust, self-blame, or specific instructions by the traffickers regarding how to behave when talking to law enforcement or social services.”
Byars said the dynamic between victims and offenders could almost be described as “mind control.”
“It’s kind of like what we see with domestic violence,” Byars said. “The battered female who’s been told for so long, ‘you have no worth unless I am there to take care of you,’ and that’s why they continue to stay. That’s one of those things that I can’t understand that, but I know that concept exists. I don’t discount that because it’s real, and this is more or less the same way. There may not be physical abuse, it’s mental. Could be sex involved in it as well.”
While kidnapping for the purposes of human trafficking was exceedingly rare, Byars also cautioned residents to remember that predators were still a very real threat.
“Social media is a good thing in some instances, and sometimes it can be a detriment because things do get blown out of proportion,” he said. “… Now … there are predators out there that prey on children. That’s real. Don’t think for a minute that’s not real, because it is. But for the purposes of taking a small child for trafficking, that’s not really the case.”
For more information on what human trafficking entails, how to spot warning signs, those at risk, statistics or how to get involved, visit humantraffickinghotline.org or www.dhs.gov.