End Human Trafficking in Austin

11/2/15

By Katerina Biancardi

Allies Against Slavery, will ask the Austin City Council Thursday to proclaim Austin a city committed to ending human trafficking,

The resolution will require training of all city staff on ways to identify human trafficking, reevaluate public policy that could affect the business of trafficking, and instruct the city manager to serve as a bridge between the city council and the different local anti-trafficking organizations.

Jordan Ring, community engagement coordinator of the nonprofit organization, said the resolution will “send a message to city council that the people of Austin believe we as a city have that potential where traffickers can’t exploit the vulnerable and survivors can truly heal,” Ring said.

Allies in May began asking the community to sign the petition in support of the resolution, and will take signatures until Oct. 14.

If passed, the resolution will raise awareness about human trafficking around Austin, and that “is an opportunity we will take,” said Detective Deek Moore of the Human Trafficking and Vice unit at the Austin Police Department.

Modern day slavery affects over 20 million people in the world and in Texas alone, there are 737 human trafficking related incidents and 638 victims were reported between 2004 and 2017, according to the Human Trafficking Reporting System.

Those numbers earned Texas the rank of second in the nation in total calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline.

Sergeant Robert Miljenovic of the Austin Police Department has dealt with an estimated 15 human trafficking cases since Jan. 2015.

Austin’s music scene, sporting events, and festivals are venues that can attract the human trafficking industry, said, Dr. Noël Busch-Armendariz, director of the Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault at the University of Texas.

Busch-Armendariz works at the research institute to help find the economic and social impact human trafficking has on the state and to understand the effects of the victims trauma.

Under Texas law the crime of human trafficking happens when someone profits from recruiting, harboring or transporting another person or people for labor or commercial sex services which resulted from force, fraud, or coercion. Texas DPS divides human trafficking into two forms: sex trafficking and labor trafficking.

Austin police has been trained “to look beneath the surface,” when officers are investigating a location, Moore said. For instance, if officers are sent to a hotel room for a noise disturbance, they knock on the hotel room door, and if they find there is an adult male and multiple young females, we tell them to check it out further, Moore said.

“It’s not normal for a 40-year-old man to be in a hotel room with two 15-year-old looking girls wearing lingerie.” Moore said. “That’s just not normal.”

“Traffickers are masters of manipulation,” said Moore. “They find the vulnerable and exploit them.”  

 Traffickers target and recruit both sex and labor trafficking victims by gaining the trust and showing immediate care. Overtime a coercive relationship develops, Busch-Armendariz said.

“There is a promise of false hope that things are going to be better. Whether you are going to be exploited for the purpose of labor in a restaurant or you are going to be exploited to work in the sex industry,” Busch-Armendariz said. “You think that the connection to this person in going to get you in a better situation.”

“There is a disbelief that in the 21st century that slavery stills goes on. We thought that with the end of historical slavery, you and I wouldn’t live through slavery,” Busch-Armendariz said.  “But it has taken a different form. Our commitment to that as a community and a country is really important.”

“Human trafficking is such a profound assault on human dignity,” said Ring. “That is why we are committed to this fight and to heal those wounds that it has created.”