Human trafficking can assume various forms
ADRIAN — Human trafficking is not what you think it is.
That’s the message legislators and law enforcement want to get across to the people of Lenawee County and beyond.
The crime has been the subject of growing concern in recent years, with President Barack Obama first naming January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month in 2012 and presidential proclamations following annually from then on. While people might be more aware of the term, that doesn’t mean they know what to look for or even what modern human trafficking is.
“Human trafficking today is different than what it was years ago,” said State Sen. Dale Zorn, R-Ida, who was on the Michigan Commission on Human Trafficking when he was in the state House.
When most people think human trafficking, they think exclusively of sex workers or of people kidnapped off the street and taken away to be enslaved. The reality of this insidious crime, however, can look very different.
Trafficking is the forced labor of a person, an adult or a child. It’s also not limited to sex work. Human trafficking also extends to everything from street beggars to maids to door-to-door magazine salesmen. Trafficking, Michigan State Police Community Service Trooper Tressa Duffin said, often happens to people we, as a society, don’t see as victims. Instead, we use words like prostitute or indigent, which can help keep the problem hidden in plain sight.
“To be a human trafficking victim,” said Duffin, who works at the Monroe post, “there actually does not need to be any movement of the person, anywhere.”
Statistics for human trafficking are tricky. It’s a vastly underreported crime, both by victims and by people who witness it but may not know what they’re seeing. As such, getting a comprehensive look at how much is happening where is hard. But, according to the Human Trafficking Hotline and the Polaris Project, Ohio was the fourth-highest state for human trafficking in the U.S. in 2017. Michigan was number seven.
Officials have a few ideas as to why this is. The Detroit-Toledo region has airports, freeways and an international border, which is useful for both transporting victims or for bringing in possible buyers. There also are numerous large universities that can provide cover for human trafficking rings.
Compounding the problem is the fact that some victims may not even be aware they are victims. Duffin equates many aspects of human trafficking with domestic violence. Victims may think they’re in a relationship with a person who has problems and they may make excuses for them. The Polaris Project lists the number one method of force, fraud or coercion of human trafficking victims in the U.S. as emotional abuse. Much as in cases of domestic violence, a victim may need to try several times to leave the person prostituting them or forcing them to work.
This dynamic can create challenges for those trying to help victims. They often are dependent on the one trafficking them for everything from food and shelter to drugs. Many trafficking victims were in vulnerable situations before they were trafficked.
“They’re most likely a runaway,” Zorn said. “A bad guy caught up to them and got them into prostitution.”
Prostitution, he said, is an easy way for traffickers to make money off the people they enslave. As a result, Michigan has worked to adjust laws to both help victims and better prosecute the people actually doing the trafficking. Now, instead of looking at a prostitute like a criminal, the law can see them as a victim. Michigan now charges people caught buying sex from prostitutes instead of focusing only on the person selling sex.
It’s a change that former Rep. Nancy Jenkins-Arno supports. Jenkins-Arno was on the Michigan Commission on Human Trafficking with Zorn when it was first introduced in 2013. It has since become something that is close to her heart. She wants to see more victims find hope. In her time in the Legislature, she supported legislation that allowed victims to petition the court to expunge their records and strengthened punishments for those convicted of human trafficking.
“If they’re a victim, it’s not their decision,” Jenkins-Arno said, “especially if they’re under 18. If their record becomes clear, they can live a normal life. They can leave all of that behind them.”
Rep. Bronna Kahle, R-Adrian, built upon the legislative history of Jenkins-Arno and Zorn when introducing her first bill, signed into law last year. The safe harbor law expanded protections for victims who could or have faced criminal charges relating to their being trafficked.
While there is still more work to be done to help victims legislatively — Duffin noted that, while getting your record expunged in one state can be great, it doesn’t do much if your convictions still stand in others — there is plenty to do to help prevent trafficking in the first place.
“The next step to address human trafficking moving forward is to reduce the demand for the services that these victims provide,” Kahle said.
The Michigan State Police and the Commission on Human Trafficking have been working on a “buyer beware” program that focuses on internet advertising. They also have partnered with Truckers Against Trafficking to help spread the word about what people can do to aid trafficking victims.
Another way to help prevent trafficking is to prevent people from becoming victims. Duffin encourages parents to be aware of what their kids are seeing online and who is interacting with them. The internet is a powerful tool in a trafficker’s arsenal, one they easily can exploit to recruit both potential victims and buyers of their services. Being involved in your children’s lives can be protection of its own, especially as an encouraging force. Duffin said traffickers often target kids and teenagers with low self esteem.
Even with prevention, however, trafficking likely always will be a problem. But the public still can help.
People always can be on the lookout for things that are unusual, especially when it involves a boy or girl acting strangely when they are with an adult who doesn’t look like a family member. If you see someone begging on the street, especially if they’re young and reject offerings of food or other help, it could be because they are being trafficked and could face consequences from their trafficker if they don’t make enough money. When you see something, it’s best to say something, even if it seems awkward.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Jenkins-Arno said. “Risking offense is better if something is out of the ordinary.”
Other things to watch for could be in your neighborhood. If there’s a house that sees a lot of traffic, people can watch to see who is coming and going from the house. If it’s often different people but all of the same gender, it could be that someone is being prostituted inside and they don’t have a way out. Reaching those victims and giving them a safe place is the first step to helping them recover.
“It really does start at home,” Zorn said. “Part of society's problem today is how do we get to our kids and our population to help them recognize the dangers of human trafficking? ... We need to help our kids. A big part of it is changing the ideas of human trafficking through our kids.”