A report released Wednesday by the Ohio Human Trafficking Commission is based on interviews with 328 victims of sex trafficking in Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland and Toledo. Here are some of its findings by city:
Percent reporting being forced into the trade before they were 18:
Columbus: 44 percent
Toledo: 40 percent
Cincinnati: 33 percent
Dayton: 26 percent
Cleveland: 15 percent
SOURCE: Ohio Human Trafficking Commission
Three highest risk factors for victims forced into the sex trade before they were 18:
Cleveland: 71 percent reported having been raped, 57 percent said they worried about where to sleep and eat, and 49 percent reported having a much older boyfriend.
Cincinnati: 60 percent reported having a much older boyfriend, 60 percent reported dropping out of school and 40 percent reported having been raped.
Dayton: 60 percent reported having been raped, 40 percent reported having a much older boyfriend and 40 percent said they worried about where to sleep and eat.
Toledo: 58 percent having a much older boyfriend, 53 percent reported having been raped and 53 percent reported having a poor family.
Columbus: 43 percent reported having been raped, 46 percent said they worried about where to sleep and eat, and 44 percent reported having difficulty in school.
SOURCE: Ohio Human Trafficking Commission
Percent reporting that they were currently being forced to participate in the sex trade:
Cleveland: 27 percent
Columbus: 6 percent
Dayton: 3 percent
Toledo: 2 percent
Cincinnati: 2 percent
SOURCE: Ohio Human Trafficking Commission
Current violence suffered by adults who reported still being in the trade at the hands of a customer or pimp:
Cleveland: 52 percent
Dayton: 36 percent
Cincinnati: 30 percent
Toledo: 25 percent
Columbus: 11 percent
SOURCE: Ohio Human Trafficking Commission
Read the report: http://bit.ly/NdNOGS
A report on sex trafficking victims in Ohio released Wednesday calls for more intervention with high-risk youth to prevent them from being entrapped in the shadowy world of pimps, women recruiters and customers.
The report, issued by the Ohio Human Trafficking Commission, found that more than one-third of the 328 victims interviewed in Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Cleveland said they first became involved in the trade as minors. Of those interviewed, 115 reported that they were forced into the trade when they were under 18, with 12 percent of them sold before they were even 12 years old.
Victims also reported sexual and emotional abuse at a much higher rate than children reported for traditional child abuse and none reported receiving assistance from a teacher.
Study author Celia Williamson, a University of Toledo professor and commission member, said Ohio should adopt easily recalled protocols for first responders and teach teachers, counselors and other school employees how to recognize high-risk factors and intervene before the child drops out of school. She found that 63 percent of those interviewed reported having run away from home.
“It’s even better to identify those high-risk behaviors and divert those kids before they’re trafficked,” Williamson said.
The study, conducted over a three-year period, found that more than half of the victims were living in an Ohio city when they were first sold. Researchers interviewed victims with a trained advocate to assist victims who needed immediate help or to be reported to child welfare for protection. An estimated 1,080 children in Ohio become victims of human trafficking each year, and about 3,020 more children are at-risk of becoming victims, according to the task force.
The vast majority of the girls forced into prostitution reported they were recruited by women who were involved in the trade themselves or who at first acted like a friend. Adults who were manipulated into the trade after they turned 18 were more likely to be recruited by a man who acted like a boyfriend before becoming threatening and violent.
The role of adult women in trafficking
In Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus and Toledo, most juvenile victims said they were recruited into the sex trade by a female friend selling herself. The report identified six roles involving sex-trafficking networks and found that so-called “bottoms,” who are always women, are the most valued members.
“As the second in command, she is charged with teaching victims how to make money effectively and efficiently, demanding the quota from victims in the pimp’s stable, and doling out the consequences if someone breaks the rules,” the report said.
One in four of sex trade victims in Dayton said they were first involved under age 18. The highest risk factors for Dayton victims were having been raped, dating a much older boyfriend or girlfriend and being worried about where they would get their next meal or sleep that night.
One in three Cincinnati victims said they first became involved in the sex trade as minors. The highest risk factors for Cincinnati victims were dropping out of school, having an older boyfriend or girlfriend and having been raped.
The task force found that minors who were commercially sexually exploited were more likely to suffer child abuse, have a close family member involved in the sex trade, suffer depression, run away from home or spent time in juvenile detention. Drugs and alcohol use was not determined to be a significant risk factor.
These factors are not solved by arresting victims who continue prostitution as adults, and the report recommends victims be treated for trauma instead of arrested without recovery.
“We need to get to the root of the problem and make sure these kids don’t slip through the cracks,” Attorney General Mike DeWine said in a statement.
The study said the victims reported that customers came from all walks of life. Law enforcement was the No. 1 response, followed by businessmen, drug dealers, lawyers, truckers, athletes and politicians. Rocky Nelson, executive director of the Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission, said those sex trade victims could also have been victims of officer impersonations.
They paid anywhere from $10 to $150, depending on what sexual services they wanted.
Many of the exchanges occurred in the customers’ own homes or offices, but they also frequently occurred in brothels, truck stops, motels, bars, on the street and at strip clubs, the report said.
Williamson said the frequency of reported johns working in law enforcement and dealing drugs makes sense because victims are trained to be sexual and happen to be in the proximity of law enforcement and drug dealers.
In Dayton, nearly half of victims said they sold sex to drug dealers and nearly 40 percent said they sold sex to factory workers, followed by lawyers and teachers.
In Cincinnati, nearly half of victims said they sold sex to drug dealers and 40 percent said they sold sex to factory workers. Construction workers and truckers were the third and fourth most frequent responses.
“We’ve got to talk about the buyer and it’s uncomfortable,” Williamson said. “But if we shy away from that, then we are not really serious about the problem.”
‘Safe Harbor Law’
With more than 1,000 Ohio children trafficked every year, a 2010 report by the commission cited weak human-trafficking laws in Ohio compared with other states and the state’s proximity to the Canadian border as driving factors for the problem.
The problem led state Rep. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo and member of the commission, to introduce a bill in the Legislature known as the “safe harbor law,” which went into effect in June. The law makes human trafficking a first-degree felony with a mandatory prison term of between 10 and 15 years. It allows victims to sue their traffickers for damages and to have their records expunged if they were convicted of prostitution or solicitation charges as a result of being forced into the sex trade.
“It’s a deplorable crime and one that cannot be tolerated on any level,” Fedor said, calling it “a basic human rights issue.”
Fedor made targeting human traffickers a priority after a 2005 FBI sting broke up a sex-trafficking operation in Harrisburg, Pa., that involved 177 women and girls. More than a third of the victims were from Toledo, including a 10-year-old.
“It’s a problem that everyone just kept shoving under a rug to the point where we now have a crisis,” she said. “It’s time to really clean it up.”
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