The Bay Area prides itself on its progressive politics, forward-looking culture and concern for human rights around the globe. So why is this one of America’s top markets for human trafficking?
In a 2009 report, the FBI identified 13 areas with the largest incidence of child sex trafficking in the nation – and one of them was San Francisco.
In July 2013, Bay Area law enforcement worked with the FBI on an operation to rescue a dozen children here and charge 17 adults with exploiting them. While very little research has been done to determine the extent of human trafficking on a state-by-state basis, the U.S. attorney general’s office reported that California identified 1,277 victims between mid-2010 and mid-2012, and that those numbers are assumed to be very low.
Human trafficking earns an estimated $32 billion worldwide per year, and that number is growing. While other industries have pulled back during a tough economy, the sale of the world’s most vulnerable human beings – overwhelmingly women and children – shows no sign of flagging.
The Bay Area has become a magnet for such exploitation. It’s a diverse, affluent area that has been an early adopter when it comes to technology and globalization. It’s a global hub for travel – both business and leisure – and well-connected to communities all over the world, thanks to the large number of immigrants who live here.
Our freewheeling culture may be one of the factors in why such exploitation goes undetected. There is general laissez-faire attitude toward the activities in massage parlors and other adult-oriented establishments that human traffickers can use to their advantage. And it’s not just about sex. Cheap labor for everything from construction to pedicures to landscaping is sought and received with few questions asked.
The Internet and the evolution of easy plane travel have facilitated the exchange of people for money in ways their inventors could have never fathomed.
“The Internet and technology has made all of this much worse,” said Nola Brantley, executive director of the Oakland nonprofit organization MISSSEY (Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting, and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth). “Digital photography, cell phones and text messaging have all made it far easier for traffickers to find and organize customers and to keep tabs on their victims.”
The technology may be new, but human trafficking is as old as recorded history. The United Nations defines it as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”
In today’s world, that usually looks like forced prostitution, forced labor, forced servitude, or even – as horrific as it is – the forced removal of organs.
Most cases of human trafficking are not so dramatic. “The imagery of handcuffs and chains is not really happening for most victims,” said Jadma Noronha, the Human Trafficking Program coordinator at the SAGE Project, a survivor-led antitrafficking organization in San Francisco. “The exploitation is usually far more subtle, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”
Sexual trafficking happens in homes, airport hotel rooms and the massage parlors that have mushroomed all over Bay Area downtowns. Labor trafficking happens in restaurants, nail salons, child care facilities, in the construction industry and in rackets for drug sales. In both instances, you’ve probably seen a victim and just didn’t know it.
“Getting the tools to fight this is not our challenge,” said U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Melinda Haag, who is based in San Francisco. “Awareness is our challenge. We have to get people to understand how this works and what it looks like.”
Many of the best-publicized cases in this country concern international victims: girls or young women who were tricked into applying for a job in this country, only to find themselves stripped of their identification and forced to become sex workers or in-home labor.
But an enormous number of victims were born and raised in the United States. Most of them fell victim to traffickers because of poverty, previous experiences with abuse, and a lack of stability in their lives. The vast majority of these domestic victims had previous experiences with the child welfare system.
“Average” cases, though underreported, can have catastrophic consequences. For example, Nancy O’Malley, Alameda County’s district attorney, shared one of the typical cases prosecuted by her office: that of a local pimp named Andre Moncrease. Moncrease, already a convicted felon, had exploited a 19-year-old woman as a sex worker for many months when she said that she wanted to find a way to leave him and to return to her family. On July 12, 2012, Moncrease shot the woman in the face and fled, leaving her body. He was convicted of second-degree murder on Jan. 23 of this year.
“When someone says – and we see this in domestic violence cases, too – I’m going to leave, I’m going to get out of here, that’s when violence can start to escalate,” O’Malley said. “And we see a lot of violence around sex trafficking, because it’s commercial. It’s a way for (pimps) to make a lot of money.”
It’s maddening – though not unusual – that Moncrease was convicted on the charges of murder and illegal firearm possession instead of being successfully put behind bars earlier for having exploited the victim.
“We’ve worked really hard to improve our processes around prosecuting this,” O’Malley said, and indeed her office is considered to be a national leader for its success against human traffickers. “But it’s a difficult crime to prosecute. Our laws around demand are terrible. It’s looked at like a nuisance crime. And on the other side of it, the psychological hold traffickers have over victims is incredible.”
That goes for domestic as well as international survivors.
“Initially we had more international survivors, but as we got better known in the community we started getting referrals – and now 90 percent of our survivors are domestic,” said Jaida Im, executive director of Freedom House, a nonprofit that runs the first safe house in Northern California for adult survivors of human trafficking. That safe house has been open on the Peninsula since August 2010.
“I was definitely one of the people who had no idea that this was going on in my community,” Im said.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
With all of the skills, energy, resources, and innovation in this area, there’s no reason why the Bay Area can’t be a global leader in the fight against human trafficking.
There are plenty of concrete things that need to be changed. On a state level, we need to get rid of the legislation that has allowed massage parlors to operate with impunity in our communities. We need mandated medical reporting, so that people who are on the front lines know how to recognize trafficking victims and can urge them to get help.
On a local level, we need better data, transitional housing, 24-hour hotlines, better regional coordination, and vigilant, educated communities.
Even though human trafficking is an old practice, there’s room for optimism. Just as the Bay Area has emerged as a leader in the market for human trafficking, it’s also emerged as a leader in the fight against it. There are dedicated people who are making impressive efforts to educate the public and help survivors overcome unbelievable trauma.
“We were the first to talk about domestic trafficking, as far as we know, in the country, in 2002,” O’Malley said. “In 2003, I sponsored antitrafficking legislation in the state Legislature, and no one paid attention to it. In 2004, we launched a statewide conference about trafficking, and I started pushing for specialists to prosecute these cases, because they’re incredibly complicated.”
Part of the reason why they’re so complicated is that it’s historically been easy for the public to be blind to a crime that happens in plain sight. We need to shed the delusion that human exploitation is something that only happens far, far away.
Human trafficking
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Combatting exploitation in sex trade will take multiple tactics
1. Regulate massage parlors
A law passed in 2008 restricts local officials from regulating council-certified massage establishments – including critical regulation like zoning – unless all of the locals’ rules apply to all other professional service providers. The result has been a spike in the number of massage parlors all over the state – increases of up to 600 percent over the past three years in some communities. Many of the parlors are fronts for prostitution and human trafficking.
Local jurisdictions are fighting back. It’s inexcusable that massage parlors, of all places, have been granted a special exemption from community pressure and local regulations. Legitimate massage therapists have nothing to fear from this, and in fact can only benefit from the shutdown of the illegal places with which their profession is currently being linked.
Fortunately, there’s a movement afoot in the Legislature to amend the 2008 law, SB731, which is up for sunset review. Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles, wants to change it so that localities have more control over their own zoning and regulations for these establishments. But we see no reason why the law needs to continue in any form.
2. Require medical reporting
One of the biggest challenges to helping victims is identifying them in the first place: Human trafficking, by its nature, is a crime that exists outside of the public eye. With education and training, medical professionals could help identify victims when they come into hospitals and clinics for help – as so many of them must do. It would be easy to have a question on a medical form about whether or not someone is forcing a patient into sex work or labor, and a medical facility would be a good place for professionals to intervene with victims.
3. Invest in training
While some local law enforcement agencies have identified and adopted best practices in handling human trafficking cases, others have not.
San Mateo County law enforcement officials have paved a path for other agencies around the state. They’re using a new protocol that was designed to help police and community members identify victims, detect potential instances of trafficking-in-progress, spur prosecutions and provide better service for victims. The protocol, which was developed over two years with the help of Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, is already showing success – a tip from a hotel clerk last year led to three arrests and the recovery of five victims.
Child welfare staff and foster caregivers also need training to recognize and respond to signs of commercial sex trafficking, since so many victims are children who have contact with the state welfare system. A coalition of agencies and organizations is currently lobbying the Legislature to provide $20.3 million to provide training for welfare staff and foster caregivers, along with enhanced services for victims.
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