Activists against human trafficking urge legislature to explore the problem

Human trafficking reaches into Nebraska, even Lincoln.

That was the message yesterday afternoon, when several dozen Nebraskan officials, professors and ordinary citizens testified to the State Legislature's Judiciary Committee to explore the movement, trade and exploitation of human beings for profit within Nebraska's borders, as well as the state's options for fighting it.

The hearing was meant as a kind of crash-course on human trafficking and a time to gather ideas to address it, said Sen. Amanda McGill of Lincoln, who's taken a particular interest in the issue. It wasn't the committee's first encounter with the subject, as the senators had heard testimony on a related, ultimately doomed bill earlier this year introduced by Sen. Mark Christensen.

"I think most of us had our eyes widely opened through that hearing," McGill said. "This is a very worthy cause for us to investigate."

And as law enforcement officers and nonprofit advocates often lament when discussing human trafficking, the first task remained convincing people that such trafficking actually happens in the Midwest.

"It is always kind of a constant thing that's going on," Omaha Police Chief Alex Hayes told the several state senators before him. "It occurs. It continues to occur."

Human trafficking is an umbrella term for a multibillion-dollar international industry, a vast network that feeds the global demand for people for agriculture, construction or sex. Several nonprofit organizations, including the Washington, D.C.-based Polaris Project, refer to human trafficking as modern-day slavery, and estimate its victims number about 27 million worldwide.

The U.S., Midwest and state of Nebraska are all pieces of that network as well, several testifiers said Monday. Interstate 80, for example, passes through Omaha and Lincoln on its way from San Francisco to New York City and is an ideal conduit for traffickers.

"Overall, there has been a rise in human trafficking victims in the United States," said Joy Panigabutra-Roberts, an assistant professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Panigabutra-Roberts works with several other professors for UNL's annual Human Trafficking Conference.

Panigabutra-Roberts listed locations of recently reported cases: Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, D.C., and Omaha.

"Human trafficking is one of the biggest money-making schemes in the world," said Al Riskowski, executive director of the Lincoln-based Nebraska Family Council, a Christian organization that counts human trafficking among the issues it works to address. "Sen. McGill, thank you so much for doing this."

Hayes and several other law enforcement officials described how often human trafficking had appeared in the line of duty. The connection can be difficult to prove because of uncooperative witnesses, they said, but prostitution, escort services and strip clubs often function as channels of exploitation and human trafficking.

As an example of exploitation of vulnerable people, prostitution bears the hallmarks of trafficking, said Tom Casady, Lincoln's public safety director and former police chief. The women often have extensive histories of sexual assault, rape and running away from home, he said, often ending up addicted to drugs and the perfect target for exploitation.

The average age of entry into sex work is about 13, which automatically qualifies as human trafficking and is usually coerced, other officials pointed out.

"None have said they intentionally and willingly sought a life of prostitution," said Weysan Dun, special agent in charge of the FBI's Omaha field office who also works in the Innocence Lost Task Force, which focuses on sexual exploitation of children. "They saw no other alternatives."

Other forms of trafficking also leave their mark on Nebraska, said Leticia Bonifas from the Nebraska Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Coalition. "The sex trafficking of women and children is huge, but we have to look at labor trafficking," she said. Bonifas pointed to meatpacking plants and farms as common destinations for laborers and immigrants who can be promised a good job and instead get exploitation, extortion or otherwise illegal working conditions.