OKLAHOMA CITY – Education and community awareness about human trafficking is paramount to putting a dent in a worldwide crime that places victims in constant danger, the president of a Lawton-based anti-human trafficking nonprofit said.
Ahsha Morin, president of The Red Cord, said all parts of a community, including law enforcement agencies and state lawmakers, need continued training about human trafficking, its victims and how the crime is committed by perpetrators.
The nonprofit holds free training about human trafficking, how to respond to victims’ claims and how not to respond to them.
“I’ve worked in shelters and it’s hard and disheartening,” Morin said. “Fully rehabbed victims are a small percentage of all victims. Most go back to the traffickers because they feel a loyalty to them.”
About 6% of all law enforcement agencies in the United States have the skills to identify human trafficking victims, she said.
“They (lawmen) may think they know about it, but when we started talking (in training), they go ‘ah, I had that one wrong,’” said Morin, whose nonprofit is certified in Oklahoma through the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training.
Some human trafficking victims have likened their post-traumatic stress disorder to soldiers on the battlefield, but “their body is the battlefield. They don’t get to go back to their unit or go home. They’re constantly fighting,” the nonprofit chief said.
The continued tragedy and heartbreak of human trafficking is the impetus for several legislative bills this session at the state Capitol, including a handful from Rep. Daniel Pae, R-Lawton.
House Bill 1786 is one that would increase the punishment for maintaining a house of prostitution. The measure would require a five-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine.
Another proposal, HB 3410, would add sections to the definition of “child or juvenile in need of supervision,” including those identified as a minor victim of human trafficking or commercial sexual exploitation, or those children who are engaging in behaviors that cause the juvenile to be a danger to themselves or others.
Another bill submitted by Pae would require the Oklahoma Attorney General to maintain data related to human trafficking and to assist law enforcement, social service agencies and private victim advocacy programs in identifying and supporting human trafficking victims. The measure would create the Human Trafficking Response Unit within the AG’s office.
“Right now, there is no credible way of getting info on human trafficking,” Morin said. “It’s an underreported crime. Sometimes it’s not turned in. And when it is, it doesn’t always fall under the human trafficking category. It can be attached to so many other crimes that police are investigating like major drug crimes and the human trafficking part becomes secondary.”
The new AG unit would create incentive programs to encourage state agencies to attend training programs and review policies and appropriate targeted funding for victim service programs. The unit would also publish public service announcements on various media platforms to educate the public about human trafficking dangers.
Meanwhile, HB 4224 provides that a minor who has committed prostitution as a human trafficking victim should not be subject to a child-in-need-of-supervision proceedings. The measure clarifies that no child who is the victim of human trafficking would be forced into juvenile delinquency or criminal proceedings for prostitution-related offenses.
The Red Cord attempted to have human trafficking education placed in all middle and high schools with a bill last year, but was unable. Instead, the human trafficking education was changed to begin with college freshmen. That hurt the education effort because the average age of trafficking victims is 13, Morin said.
“They’re already subjected to things that can lead to human trafficking,” she said. “They’re already exposed to pornography by age 8 because of cell phones. If they’re being exposed to pornography, this is as addictive as drugs, especially to our young kids. They need to understand all of this is not a joke.”
Sexting is another concern for Morin, who doesn’t believe middle school students understand the severity of their actions.
“Kids aren’t being told they’re committing a federal crime. That’s why it’s important to get into the middle schools,” she said.
Becoming the hero
Only 2-3% of human trafficking follow the Hollywood script version where a young girl or woman is snatched from their front yard and forced into a life of sexual exploitation.
“In most cases the perpetrators become the victim’s friend and groom them with gifts. It might take a month; it might take a year. They become the victim’s hero and then they flip the switch. The victim believes she’s done this of her own free will,” Morin said. “The trafficker wants to blend in, and he wants his victim to blend in,” Morin said. “The trafficker is going to find the vulnerability of the victim, which might be that the victim is a foster kid who wants the new cell phone or the great new product that’s out there and the trafficker can provide.”
Gaining a victim’s trust is critical to a perpetrator’s success.
“He has to be the go-to guy,” Morin said.
In most cases, the victim usually feels he or she must repay the trafficker. Morin uses the example of the trafficker who tells the victim he is short on rent for the month and needs her to have sex with a few men so they can still live at their residence. The victim becomes desensitized to the sex and believes she is helping her hero, Morin said.
Unfortunately, victims are not a specific age, gender, or have a certain appearance.
“I wish there was a black-and-white formula, but there isn’t,” Morin said. “The victims can be male or female, any race, any education level or look. We have victims who have a Ph.D., and we have blonde, blue-eyed cheerleaders.”
Much to her dismay, Morin knows the tragic truth that most human traffickers “remain victims until they’re dead or found.”
That why she and others in the human trafficking are fighting for new legislative measures that will disrupt traffickers and their exploitation plans.
Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, said lawmen have rescued 160 people and provided shelter for 15 minors since 2011. The agency also has arrested hundreds of johns.
One of the biggest busts occurred in 2020 when a man identified as Joel French was indicted by a multi-county grand jury on 10 counts of human sex trafficking in Oklahoma County. He remains in the Oklahoma County Detention Center in lieu of a $1 million bond.
“Some of the victims are making $2,000 to $3,000 a night and if we take them to a shelter, they end up leaving. They don’t want to go home. They say the trafficker will beat them if they go home,” Woodward said. “Eventually, when they want out and have lost their freedom of movement, then we can provide them help.”
In 2013 and 2014 the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women studied human trafficking issues and held a summit. Since the summit, there has been an increase in services, awareness of reporting and collective data from Oklahoma. Statistics from the National Human Trafficking Hotline shows as of Dec. 31, 2019, there were 328 trafficking contacts with 109 cases reported involving 207 victims in Oklahoma.
Information from the Polaris Project, an organization created in 2002 to address human trafficking in the U.S., showed 77 sex trafficking cases in Oklahoma during 2019, 12 that were unspecified, five sex and labor trafficking and 15 labor trafficking.