Human Trafficking in America: Now Florida's Biggest 'Invisible' Crime

Human Trafficking is something Americans associate with a few European or third world countries. But the U.S. State Department's 2009 "Trafficking in Humans" Report has documented problems in 175 nations, including interstate trafficking within and between the 50 United States.

Sex trafficking, sexual slavery and child slavery within the U.S. could be happening right now from your neighborhood mini-market to the ranks of the rich and famous, like the shocking news about football player Lawrence Taylor.

Estimated FBI numbers in various reports range from 100,000-300,000 teens and children under the age of 18 have been trafficked within the states per year. It's harder to obtain statistics for adult victims, because of a finer line between "voluntary" and forced prostitution and sexual slavery.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has stated that human trafficking is the biggest "invisible" crime in Florida.

On April 22, 2010, the Florida House unanimously passed House Bill 633. Senate Bill 966 awaits its turn on the Senate floor. The bills are aimed at helping law enforcement push back against the human trafficking, sex slavery and sex-related businesses that are rampant here-particularly in Tampa.

Tampa's notorious top honors:
Tampa and its Hillsborough County outskirts have now taken notorious top honors for having the most sex-related businesses in the state, and the highest rate of human trafficking.

Exotic dance parlors, adult theatres, video stores and "massage" parlors that serve as covers for escort services or prostitution rings all gravitated here after other Florida cities and counties began either outlawing them or laying down too many regulations for these businesses to make their money.

This in turn has led to an influx of criminals indulging in sex trafficking and child trafficking for sexual slavery, prostitution, forced labor and making pornographic movies against the victims' will.

Human trafficking a new low even for "the mob":
Also in April, the U.S. Attorney's office brought sex trafficking charges against the Gambino family, notoriously reputed to be part of the elusive "mob" in America. The arrests of 14 people brought charges including trapping girls to sell for sex at high stakes poker games in the middle of busy Manhattan.

Engaging in human trafficking is a new low even for the mob, U.S. Attorney's office representatives stated in a press conference covered by MSNBC.

How can this happen in America?
The massive amounts of money to be made through human trafficking is a powerful aphrodisiac that has enticed more people, even women, to deal in such crimes. Both Americans and immigrants are being victimized.

The process of obtaining victims for human trafficking:
For most teen girls and women, if they are not outright kidnapped, they're being enticed by the possibility of modeling or acting jobs. The Hollywood dream of obtaining fame and fortune at a young age through television and movies has become an obsession.

When they get to their destination, they are thrown into vehicles or locked in back bedrooms and sold to countless customers for sex acts, sexual abuse, and to appear in pornographic movies against their will.

They may be starved, drugged, verbally abused to the point of having no self-esteem, and threatened with death if they attempt to escape.

For girls and boys who do run away from home, criminals recognize their vulnerability, hunger and brokenness and are able to entice them into prostitution and porn films with the promise of money. The victim may receive tiny payments to keep them involved.

For children, it often starts with simple nabbing from neighborhoods. In 2008, an organization called Shared Hope International (SHI) applied for and received a U.S. Government grant to study the suspected nationwide crisis of child trafficking between states. Their resulting survey revealed that many of the children were often being misidentified as delinquents, and punished for crimes when they were actually victims.

Since then, the FBI and agencies such as the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children & Families have started training personnel to recognize when a person is a human trafficking victim instead of a runaway or criminal themselves (see HHS Fact Sheet here).

Awareness of this issue, not only as an international but as a national crisis, must be heightened among Americans. It's becoming as pervasive as the war on drugs, which we've unsuccessfully fought for decades.

(Portions of this report, with varying details, were originally published at The Underground Online Magazine.)

Sources:
-Florida Department of Law EnforcementHuman Trafficking Report.
-FBI Statistics: "Teen Girls Stories of Sex Trafficking in the U.S.,"ABC News Primetime, 2/9/06; and "Sexual Slavery on Main Street," Elissa Cooper, Christianity Today, 4/30/10.
-"Sex Trafficking charges in Gambino case," MSNBC staff report, 4/29/10.
-FBI Sex/Human Trafficking page.
-Shared Hope International (SHI).
-Health & Human Services Child Victims Fact Sheet: hcf.hhs.gov.