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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > February > 11 > Entry
Martin Gottlieb: Underage sex slavery is very real in Ohio
“I was walking down the street and this guy … he just picked me up and started beating me … and he told me I was going to be his ho.… He said if I didn’t do what he said, he was going to hurt my little brothers and sisters and my mom. And I didn’t want that to happen. So I did what he said.” — “Katie,” quoted in “Report on Prevalence of Human Trafficking in Ohio.”
That study estimates how many underage girls are forced into prostitution statewide in a year.
Perhaps, however, what’s most interesting from a Dayton perspective is a look at Toledo, where some numbers aren’t estimates.
That similar-size city ranks a shocking fourth in the country in arrests, investigations and rescues involving these girls. It’s behind Miami, Portland and Las Vegas.
Now, those other three are also not the biggest cities in the country. Nevertheless, one is not shocked to find Miami and Las Vegas on the list. But Toledo?
The reason is clear: arrests, investigations and rescues aren’t measures of what’s going on. They are measures of what is discovered. And what is discovered depends, in part, on what is looked for, on just how intensely a community is focused on a problem. Toledo has been one of the national leaders in focusing on human trafficking. As a result, Toledo “has been involved in almost every national investigation into domestic minor sex trafficking” since 2000, says the study.
One such investigation in 2005, Operation Precious Cargo, resulted in guilty pleas or convictions for 18 traffickers, 17 of whom were from Toledo. Sentences were up to 25 years for the guilty pleas; higher for the two who went to trial.
Precious Cargo found 151 “victims of prostitution,” 78 being from Toledo. Of the 151, at least 45 were children, ranging in age down to 12.
According to the study, “at least six other Toledo-based traffickers have been prosecuted.”
The study comes from a group put together by Attorney General Richard Cordray last year in response to rising alarms about human trafficking, in large measure spurred by Toledo and by federal probes. Cordray appointed people from law enforcement, academia and organizations that come into contact with the victims of traffickers.
One of the first orders of business was to get a handle on the size of the problem. That’s not easy, and the reason is not simply that human traffickers don’t register with the state. It’s that traditionally, people in law enforcement and social work have not focused on trafficking as an American problem. To many ears, it sounds like something that happens in a Third World hellhole.
Even when dealing with foreign prostitutes in Ohio, American officials don’t necessarily ask whether they were forced into it.
When confronted by a case like one in Dayton not long ago of a mother prostituting her child to pay her rent, authorities don’t fit it into a category that has statistics connected.
So a task force subcommittee researching trafficking (with Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly as a member) had to make estimates. It knew, for example, that a certain percentage of runaways who are gone from home for a couple of weeks end up in forced prostitution. It went from there.
The group eventually concluded that about a thousand Ohio children a year get trafficked for sex.
Besides those cases, there are immigrants — a slightly smaller number — who are forced into prostitution or other forced labor, not to mention the adult Americans in forced prostitution (not estimated). The study says its estimates are conservative, and that more research is needed (and ongoing).
How does trafficking happen? The report (available online at ohioattorneygeneral.gov/) offers examples like Katie’s. Another:
Julie was 12, daughter of drunken, poverty-stricken, physically abusive father. One day, a car pulled up alongside her. After a long talk, the driver convinced her to get in. Physical force wasn’t a big part of the story, but manipulation was. She ended up offering herself at a truck stop.
Often when governments and newspapers start paying more attention to a subject, it’s because something has changed to make the subject more pertinent. In the case of human trafficking, however, few people are saying that much has changed recently.
It’s just that the phenomenon is real and, until recently, not much understood.
When Toledo is ranking fourth in the country, it’s not a time for Toledo jokes. It’s time to recognize just how unfocused and clueless we have been.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio government, Social Services
Comments
By fortressdayton
February 11, 2010 7:21 PM | Link to this
Perhaps I missed it… Where is the equivalent outrage at the parents and relative selling their children? Poverty is no excuse for selling your child, nor are common rules of decency suspended simply because painfully ignorant people can’t make good judgement calls? Children generally do not offer themselves as victims; parents or guardians would be the perpetrators here. The main problem is that we, as a society, condone half-wits bearing children in the first place. We then feed and house them at the common expense so that they, in turn, may continue the cycle. The problem is complex, but the solution is appropriately painful and simple.
By Quentin
February 16, 2010 6:57 PM | Link to this
Interesting those worried about thigs are more worried about gays in the military than these abusive parents or issues like women molesting boys get a misdomeanor, probation and child support from the victim but a male taking a leak on a dumpster in an ally are hammered with being a registered sex offender for life and males having sex with girls are felons with jail and more. It seems equality, protecting children and the rest depend more on their political beliefs than actually dealing with facts, issues and true problems.
By Quentin
February 18, 2010 1:49 PM | Link to this
Interesting that today the news shows the UN found most perpetrators of child trafficing are FEMALE and not male. Too bad that they are actually sympathetic to the women though saying they are addicted to the money, to drugs and etc.
By account money
February 27, 2010 3:38 AM | Link to this
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