Debunking myths key to understanding and preventing human trafficking

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The topic of human trafficking becomes a common headline during Super Bowl week and a recent social media post in South Lake Tahoe has unveiled the need for a better understanding of the topic.

The Polaris Project is a non-profit dedicated to the support of human trafficking victims, accurate data, and research, and eliminating modern slavery. They work to dismantle the systems that allowed trafficking to happen in the first place.

To better understand this worldwide issue, definitions, and facts are important.

Human trafficking: The business of stealing freedom for profit. In some cases, traffickers trick, defraud or physically force victims into selling sex. In others, victims are lied to, assaulted, threatened, or manipulated into working under inhumane, illegal, or otherwise unacceptable conditions. It is a multi-billion dollar criminal industry that denies freedom to 24.9 million people around the world.

Sex trafficking: When someone recruits, harbors, transports, provides, solicits, patronizes, or obtains a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act, where the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or the person being induced to perform such acts is under 18 years of age; or

Labor trafficking: When someone recruits, harbors, transports, provides or obtains a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

Polaris Project says there are three myths to be debunked with reality:

Myth: Human trafficking is always or is usually a violent crime. Reality: The most pervasive myth about human trafficking is that it often involves kidnapping or physically forcing someone into a situation. In reality, most traffickers use psychological means such as tricking, defrauding, manipulating, or threatening victims into providing commercial sex or exploitative labor.

Myth: All human trafficking involves commercial sex. Reality: Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to get another person to provide labor or commercial sex. Worldwide, experts believe there are more situations of labor trafficking than of sex trafficking, but there is a much wider awareness of sex trafficking in the U.S. than of labor trafficking.

Myth: Traffickers target victims they don’t know. Reality: Many survivors have been trafficked by romantic partners, including spouses, and by family members, including parents.

Erika Gonzalez is an anti-trafficking attorney with the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, and a South Tahoe High graduate. She also serves on the South Lake Tahoe Police Advisory Commission.

Erika said one of the most informative introductions to the topic is offered on the podcast "You're Wrong About: Human Trafficking" It can be seen below or on YouTube HERE. She said the information provided is well-vetted and researched.

"It is true human trafficking is happening everywhere, but it usually happens more discreetly than news stories suggest," said Erika. She said headline grabbers about trafficking hubs, and the biggest area of misinformation is when it comes to the numbers.

"There are no good numbers on human trafficking and we don't really know where the hubs are," said Erika. Some reports state It is estimated that between 15,000 to 50,000 women and children are forced into sexual slavery in the United States every year, and the total number varies wildly as it is very difficult to research.

Survivors are identified everywhere, and they can be in any city.

The fear-mongering focus on trafficking seen on billboards and campaign materials about the subjects mentioned in the myths pulls away from the real problem. Erika said it will "Miss the forest for the trees," meaning, one cannot see the big picture because the focus is too much on the details.

Sex trafficking and labor trafficking are close to even in the number of victims. Erika said the line sits between human trafficking and labor exploitation.

There are no current cases of any type of trafficking in South Lake Tahoe according to Police Chief David Stevenson.

The Tahoe area gets a large number of workers on J-1 visas which are for nonimmigrants wanting to study or work for a short time in the United States. There have been no recorded trafficking issues with local visiting workers, but it has happened in the U.S. There have been cases where people from another country will be brought in by agencies to work, but they are entered into slave-like conditions. Employers will tell them they'll call immigration or law enforcement, withhold pay, or threaten them if they quit or say anything about their situation.

From 2018-2020, Polaris identified some 15,886 victims of labor trafficking who held temporary visas at the time of their abuse.

Unscrupulous labor contractors have been prosecuted for forced labor of migrant farmworkers and motel workers, among other jobs. In December 2022, a Florida labor contractor was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a U.S. Department of Labor and multi-agency investigation into his part in a conspiracy to subject migrant farmworkers to forced labor. He was also found guilty of obstructing investigators and intimidating witnesses and housing workers in unsafe and unhealthy living conditions.

Victims in the country on an H-2B Visa to work fall victim as well and are sometimes in debt for a few thousand dollars for the airplane ride and visa, then the company will tack on interest and the employee will not receive the wages they were guaranteed.

Traffickers look for people who are vulnerable and therefore easier to exploit. Major factors that cause or contribute to people being vulnerable to trafficking were outlined in a report by the British Columbia government and include political instability and forced migration, poverty, racism, gender inequality and LGBTQ populations, addictions, mental health, and gang involvement. The vulnerable face both despair and desperation., and desperate people are more likely to believe stories of other people who have found their fortunes in another city or country.

"Anybody with a lack of stable immigration status is vulnerable," said Ericka. Though, not everyone with vulnerabilities is being trafficked.

Traffickers take advantage of vulnerable people by, for example, promising: A father that his child will go to a good school; A teenager that they will have a great acting, modeling, or singing career; An individual who is substance dependent or addicted they will be provided a steady supply of their primary substance of choice; An unemployed worker that they will have a well-paid job.

If anyone suspects someone is being trafficked, they need to contact a hotline or local law enforcement. The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 888-373-7888.

In South Lake Tahoe, Live Violence Free is a resource for all survivors, including survivors of human trafficking. Their mission is to empower survivors and provide them with resources to address any barriers that are in their way of creating a path toward safety, including legal services.

The South Lake Tahoe Police Department could do a "wellness check" on someone suspected of being trafficked. One tactic traffickers use is to tell their victims the police will never believe them, and a vulnerable population could believe that more than others.