Trafficking: It can happen here

For the first time, the U.S. government's annual worldwide human trafficking report included trafficking data from home, of a sort.

The State Department calls human trafficking one of the world's most profitable criminal industries, estimating that more than 12 million adults worldwide were forced into work or prostitution last year.

The report called the U.S. “a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor, debt bondage and forced prostitution.” Exact numbers still are sketchy, but the fact that the Department of State included the U.S. - after publishing data about trafficking in other countries for a decade - is a win in the developing fight against human trafficking.

For 10 years, State Department has monitored the explosion of trafficking victims and the slow uptick in prosecutions but never included U.S. data. That fed the myth that trafficking is a foreign problem. It's not, of course. Trafficking for labor or sex does happen here, and by that I mean here - in Iowa.

Traffickers can be punished under state or federal law, but in Iowa, as around the country, those prosecutions still are few and far between - despite the steps by investigators and advocates to combat the rising concern.

Since an Eastern Iowa investigation into sex trafficking brought the issue to their attention in 2005, law enforcement agencies have gotten serious about training officers to recognize the signs of trafficking. U.S. Attorneys in Iowa's Northern and Southern districts have started task forces to help agencies work together and investigate these slippery, often multi-jurisdictional crimes. Advocates have formed coalitions to support victims and make people aware that trafficking isn't just a global problem, it's local.

“It's not as uncommon as you'd think,” Johnson County Det. Sgt. Kevin Kinney told me on Tuesday. Kinney spearheaded that 2005 sex trafficking investigation - a case involving a 13-year-old kidnap victim who was prostituted for months throughout Eastern Iowa.

Kinney told me he's investigated several suspected cases since then, but hasn't been able to file a single charge.

“They're scared of the police, they've been in trouble maybe with the police,” Kinney said. “It's a different kind of case.”

Even when they do talk to investigators, often they're too embarrassed, worried about their safety or what might happen to their families if they cooperate with investigations.

It's difficult to see, difficult to punish, but trafficking does happen here.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@gazcomm.com