Suburban prostitution case should shed more light on victims of human trafficking

Earlier this month, 46 men were arrested in Southlake and Frisco during a covert prostitution operation by local and federal authorities. Some of the details released after the incident made headlines in attractive headlines.

Not only was the operation taking place in a couple of affluent suburbs, but the occupations of some of those arrested fit into an area that is understandably troubling. On Monday, when the arrests were announced, it was noted that one of the arrested works as the Minister of Youth Affairs. The next day, it was revealed that the other was a high school football coach who had retired after being arrested.

The sting is the latest proof that illegal prostitution operations are not limited to urban areas, and a reminder that prostitution is not a one-sided problem that affects only “John” who was handcuffed. The bites of Southlake and Frisco did not involve prostitutes.

Prostitution operations often involve workers being held against their will, in what the National Trafficking Hotline calls “modern-day slavery”. The hotline is contacted thousands of times each year from Texas to report cases of sex trafficking.

“That there is a demand for sex in higher income communities is very shocking,” says Sarah Phillips, director of Rescue Her, a Ulesse-based nonprofit that supports victims of sex trafficking. “Many people often associate victimization with low-income communities where vulnerability is high.”

Vulnerability is perhaps the key way a trafficker stalks someone. Triza Brown, director of human trafficking advocacy group Unbound Now North Texas, says traffickers can find many ways to control their victims. “Trafficking can affect anyone, but we know that vulnerabilities increase someone’s risk of experiencing it,” she wrote in an email to Observer. “Running away from home, a history of childhood abuse and neglect, and homelessness are some of the most important correlates for youth.”

Phillips says that traffickers also coerce their victims by satisfying the “desire to belong” in the victim’s life, which may have resulted from a broken relationship with a romantic partner, family members, or former friends.

“Trafficking can affect anyone, but we know that vulnerabilities increase someone’s risk of experiencing it.” – Triza Brown, Unbound Now, North Texas

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On January 18, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas announced that Dallas resident Anthony Johnson, 45, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison because the statement referred to “violent criminal conspiracy to commit sexual exploitation.”

The press release went on to detail how horrific his actions were, noting that Johnson “admitted to forcing many women into commercial sex and giving him the proceeds. He set ‘norms’, forced women to work for hours on end, and brutally beat them with extension cords when they failed, ‘didn’t respect’ him, or didn’t follow his rules.

According to the latest figures, the National Anti-Trafficking Hotline received almost as much advice about prostitution in hotels and motels as it did about illegal spas and massage parlors in 2021. The number of advice received in connection with sex trafficking is more than four times that of non-sex trafficking advice.

Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas and Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota recently filed a bill to reauthorize the Human Trafficking Repeal Act. The law, in force since 2018, provides millions of dollars to law enforcement at various levels, as well as social service agencies, to fight human trafficking.

Less than a year ago, Dallas demonstrated how frighteningly easy someone can be sold for the purpose of sex when a 15-year-old North Richland Hills girl was kidnapped from a Dallas Mavericks game after heading to the restroom. A week and a half later, she was found in Oklahoma City after being sold for sex; Nude photos of her have appeared on the Internet as advertisements. Eight people were arrested in connection with human trafficking.

The case brought attention to the issue of human trafficking, which Brown said could be useful in the future.

“In general, awareness of human trafficking can be a protective factor for people who may otherwise be affected,” Brown writes. “However, an accurate portrayal of the problem is critical. Language matters, so we generally try to follow the lead of the survivors in how we talk about the problem and in the words we choose. It is not possible to obtain an exact number of victims of human trafficking, but we can infer from the data we have, as well as from the number of confirmed survivors that Unbound Now serves each year, that this is a concern in our community and that we, as communities, must provide ongoing support for survivors as well as those who are vulnerable to human trafficking.”

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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