Fighting the sex trade

Talking to Cindy Rudometkin and Raine Howe of Petaluma’s Polly Klaas Foundation, the anger and sadness in their voices over missing and exploited children is immediately apparent. During this month that has been dedicated by President Obama to raise awareness of human trafficking in the United States, the insidious nature of the crime is brought home for a town haunted by the 1993 abduction and murder of a 12-year-old Polly Klaas.

“Sex traffic is a missing child issue,” said Rudometkin. “This crime has been getting worse, since it is lucrative and safer for the perpetrators. It’s harder to get caught, and unlike drugs or guns, there is little overhead. They don’t have to pay for the product they sell. They just take vulnerable human beings and sell them off.”

During the Jan. 5 Petaluma City Council meeting, Mayor David Glass presented Howe and Rudometkin with a proclamation honoring the Klaas Foundation’s efforts to combat human trafficking and other crimes involving children. In 2014, the Klaas Foundation, which focuses on Petaluma and the surrounding areas, recorded 291 local cases of missing children. Twenty-six were identified as sex trafficking victims.

According to the victim’s advocacy organization Hope For Justice, in addition to the commonly portrayed view of prostitutes walking the streets, sex trafficking takes place frequently through escort services off of internet outlets. It is very common in massage parlors, truck stops, and motels.

“Whether a ‘date’ is acquired on Craigslist.com or Backpage.com or by calling a number on a newspaper ad, escort services are nothing more than thinly-veiled prostitution,” states Hope For Justice.

The group reports that there are over 4,000 brothels disguised as fake massage businesses in the United States, which are updated daily through online lists. Truck stops and welcome centers are also “convenient places” for transient customers to purchase sex “with minimal concerns of detection.”

According to California State Attorney General Kamala Harris, human trafficking is the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise, bringing in an estimated $32 billion a year worldwide.

“After drug trafficking, human trafficking is the world’s second most profitable criminal enterprise, a status it shares with illegal arms trafficking,” said Harris.

The National Human Trafficking Resource Center states that one out of every three runaways will be sexually exploited, while one in five will be recruited for prostitution. According to the California Justice Department, California is currently one of the nation’s top four destination states for trafficking human beings, with transnational and domestic gangs organizing much of the crime.

“Transnational gangs use cross-border tunnels to move not only guns and drugs, but also human beings, from Mexico into California. Domestic street gangs set aside traditional rivalries to set up commercial sex rings and maximize profits from the sale of young women,” said Harris.

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Radovitch said statistics regarding human trafficking are “astounding” and indicate “millions of victims exist.”

“This form of human slavery is not declining,” Radovitch said. “The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that each year 100,000 children are victims of commercial sexual exploitation in the United States.”

A Human Trafficking Task Force, headed by Radovitch’s deputy Bill Brockley, was formed to combat the crime. The task force is comprised of representatives from Sonoma County’s seven cities, law enforcement, women and children advocacy groups, and other Sonoma organizations, including the Polly Klaas Foundation.

“These pimps ­­- they are predators who target the marginalized and the poor of our society,” said Howe. “Ninety-percent of the victims have been abused at home. The majority are female, but this does happen to boys as well.”

Howe noted the average age of the victims is 12 to 13 years old. A major problem for law enforcement and groups such as the Klaas Foundation is the complicity of the children in protecting the people who exploit them. The victims, being young, often lack the maturity to even understand that they are being abused.

“The pimps and dealers are very smart and they know how to target their victims,” said Rudometkin. “They will look for runaways and kids from foster homes, who already are vulnerable. A common situation is the ‘Romeo Pimp’ - who will coerce and brainwash their victims into thinking they love them, but then turn abusive and violent.”

Howe said children from foster homes are especially vulnerable.

“A child might disappear for days and not be missed, especially if this is a habit of theirs,” said Howe. “The attitude might be ‘oh yeah, they’re gone again,’ but they will return before anyone decides to file a police report. The pimps understand how the system works and how to avoid being caught.”

Technological and social changes in recent years have brought changes to the way the crime is fought. Rudometkin said a “paradigm shift occurred” when the Justice Department under President Obama changed the classification of the children caught in a human trafficking web from criminal to victim. She said the change made it easier for children who had engaged in prostitution to come forward and help law enforcement arrest the predators.

“That was critical, since pimps often convince these victims they will get in trouble for breaking the law if they tell anyone what has happened,” said Rudometkin. “Remember, these are kids and they can easily be manipulated.”

In the age of the internet, predators are able to use mass technology to catch and victimize children. But that same technology is often used to catch the criminals.

“One of the things we will do at the Klaas Foundation when a victim’s family contacts us and asks for our help, is we will provide missing persons flyers,” said Howe. “We can send out physical and electronic fliers across the country. We had a recent case in Alabama, where a waitress at a restaurant saw one of our flyers and spotted a victim who’d been kidnapped and taken across state lines. That child was rescued as a result.”

Harris notes that the internet and new technologies have also transformed the landscape of human trafficking.

“Traffickers use social media and other online tools to recruit victims and, in the case of sex trafficking, find and communicate with customers. While technology is being used to perpetrate human trafficking, that same technology can provide a digital trail - a valuable investigative tool for law enforcement to monitor, collect, and analyze online data and activities,” said Harris.

Harris said there were efforts underway “to study and develop innovative technologies” to prevent and disrupt human trafficking online.

“The internet, social media, and mobile devices also provide new avenues for outreach to victims and raising public awareness about this atrocious crime,” said Harris.

On Wednesday, Jan. 28, the Sonoma Human Trafficking Task Force will present a free film produced by Hope For Justice called “In Plain Sight.” The film will be shown at 7 p.m. in the Finley Community Center in Santa Rosa. For more information on the film or the fight to end human trafficking, contact the Polly Klaas Center at pollyklaas.org.

(Contact E. A. Barrera at ernesto.barrera@arguscourier.com)