Where and why human trafficking is in Ohio

By Kathryn Monsewicz

Ohio is ranked the fourth state with the highest number of calls to the human trafficking hotline, but whether that number accurately represents the crime’s existence in the state is up for debate.

There are two types of human trafficking: sex and labor. Sex trafficking victims are often easier to identify than those in forced labor, said Michelle Gillcrist of the Ohio Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Commission.

“There are several misconceptions including that human trafficking only happens overseas,” she said. “Some people don’t think that it happens in the United States, in Ohio, or in their own community.”

Human trafficking is happening worldwide, particularly through the worldwide web.

“The majority of human trafficking takes place on the Internet,” Canton Police Detective Joe Mongold said. “Recruitment occurs on the Internet and sales occur on the Internet through different websites.”

The Human Trafficking Commission requested that the University of Toledo Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute conduct a study on human trafficking and technology. Finished in 2018, the study reveals how traffickers quickly target and connect with potential victims via social media.

“The most common way for a trafficker to groom a victim through social media or in person is by presenting themselves as an individual who cares about the victim when that person is the most vulnerable,” Gillcrist said.

Traffickers are drawn to social media posts with expressions of fear, emptiness, and disappointment, the study reports. They will educate themselves about a potential victim by studying their Facebook and Instagram profiles and connect with them through dating apps like Tinder in order to build trust.

“People, especially children and young adults, need to learn not to be so trusting on social media and not to post everything about their lives. On social media, you have no idea who is reading your posts and with whom you are really communicating,” Gillcrist said.

Traffickers are making use of the Internet to recruit victims because it allows them to remain anonymous, Mongold said.

“There is a barrier of protection they feel against law enforcement,” he said. “It’s safer to the traffickers moreso than them standing out on a street corner with the young lady or young man.”

Sites like seekingarrangment.com and sugar-babies.com allow traffickers to advertise and sell multiple victims at one time.

As of June 2018, the National Human Trafficking Hotline took 500 calls in Ohio reporting incidents of suspected human trafficking. Of those, 219 evolved into full-fledged cases. There may be more incidences than that, because victims don’t always report nor do they feel they are being victimized.

 

 

“They don’t even feel like they’re victims. They’ve been manipulated to the point where they feel like they have made a conscious decision to do this on their own,” Mongold said. “It’s very common for us to make contact with a victim and, during the course of the interview, them state that this is all their fault.”

Often, victims come from broken homes. They feel like they have brought this upon themselves because of prior sexual abuse, mental illness, substance abuse issues, having run away or been thrown out of their homes, both Mongold and Gillcrist said.

Victims don’t feel like they can seek help from anyone because of their abusive homelife, feelings of worthlessness, or hopelessness derived from fear.

Ohio’s place in the frequency of human trafficking calls does not mean the state has more human trafficking than other states, Gillcrist said. “It means that Ohioans continue to be educated about the warning signs of human trafficking and therefore are doing a better job in identifying it and alerting authorities.”

California has the greatest number of calls reporting human trafficking incidents this year at 760. Texas follows with 455 calls, and then Florida with 367 calls.

“I think it’s a problem everywhere. I don’t think it’s necessarily more of a problem here. I think it’s just our statistics showing that it is,” Mongold said. “It has to do with training and the way we report it.”

The best approach is the task force approach, involving more than just law enforcement.

“We have very aggressive task forces here,”  FBI Special Agent Vicki Anderson said, “so our numbers are often a little higher because we are pretty aggressive in looking for it.”

Above, FBI Special Agent Vicki Anderson addresses Ohio’s task force approach to stop human trafficking.

Catching human traffickers and rescuing victims is a very complex task. It is multi-jurisdictional, working with state, county, local, and federal law enforcement agencies because so often the cases cross jurisdictional lines, Mongold said.

“As law enforcement, we do not rescue victims. We identify victims. The rescue takes place in all the aftercare: changing the victim’s worldview, helping them to realize that they’ve been victimized, and giving them the rehabilitation they need,” Mongold said.

Anderson also said that cases of suspected human trafficking do not always end up being human trafficking charges. For example, a suspect may instead end up being charged with soliciting a child for sex. The charges may also involve other crimes, often drug-related.

Human trafficking in Ohio is second only to drug trafficking, Gillcrist said. The two crimes often take similar routes when it comes to Ohio’s Interstate Highway System.

“We have some major avenues that run through our state and those are huge pass-throughs for narcotics trade and wherever there are narcotics, you’re going to have illegal sex activity follow,” Mongold said.

Above, Canton Police Detective Joe Mongold explains how Ohio’s Interstate Highway System is linked to the state’s influx of human trafficking.

 

Above is a map of Interstate Highways that run through Ohio from all over the nation. Other Interstate Highways not included in the map are I-275, I-675, and I-270.

These avenues include east and west major routes, such as Route 80 that runs through Toledo, and north and south routes, such as Route 71 and Route 77 that run through Columbus and Cleveland.

Another reason human trafficking is like drug trafficking, Gillcrist said, has to do with supply.

“A human trafficking detective explained that when you sell drugs, you have to secure a supply and once you sell that supply, you have to secure more drugs.  However, a victim of human trafficking can be sold to multiple buyers in one night. The human trafficker never runs out of his supply,” Gillcrist said.

Supply and demand run the human trafficking market in Ohio.

“The reason why it is a problem – period – is because of demand. If we didn’t have people out purchasing, there wouldn’t be such a problem. People are willing to utilize that service,” Mongold said. “We just have a high demand.”

 

Human Trafficking in Ohio: Where and why is it here? Read more https://t.co/ymTtdrEqWU

— Kathryn Monsewicz (@kathryniskatie) November 28, 2018