The Tarrant County 5 Stones Task Force convened over the summer to discuss ending sex trafficking in the metroplex.
The task force is a community network of organizations and resources that has been working to end sex trafficking and support survivors in Tarrant County since 2014. It prioritizes five “stones of focus”: awareness, training, legislative advocacy, restoration, and demand.
The spotlight agency at the meeting was the Poeima Foundation. The Poeima Foundation focuses on three E’s: “Educate our Communities, Engage in the Fight, [and] Empower Survivors,” per the organization’s website.
The foundation teaches educational classes to vulnerable youth in hopes of preventing them from becoming victims of sex trafficking. It also distributes flyers of missing children across Dallas and provides sex trafficking survivors with a Safe House to use during their recovery.
Lindy Borchardt, a human trafficking prosecutor from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, spoke at the meeting and shared news of a local case in which Borchardt and her team were able to locate many sex trafficking victims. The team located the perpetrator and prosecuted him with three felony first-degree drug cases.
“That was a good start,” said Borchardt at the meeting.
Det. Jonathan Austin of the Fort Worth Police Department’s human trafficking unit also spoke at the meeting. Austin told the audience about a local massage parlor that was busted for allegedly being a front for sex trafficking. Austin and his team worked undercover to end the operation run by the business owner and his wife.
Investigator Hayward, a detective from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office human trafficking unit, briefed the crowd on an operation in Arlington in late May that resulted in a total of 16 arrests. Three of the suspects were charged with solicitation of prostitution under the age of 18. During the week of June 10, the unit assisted the Department of Public Safety in an operation that resulted in six total arrests; two of those suspects were also charged with solicitation of prostitution under the age of 18.
The meeting’s keynote speaker was Katia Gonzalez, the director of training and team relations at Alliance for Children. The organization is a children’s advocacy center that serves child abuse victims, many of whom are victims of human trafficking.
In her presentation, Gonzalez detailed the work of the Alliance for Children in Tarrant County. The agency partners with law enforcement, prosecutors, juvenile services, and medical centers. The staff provides forensic interviewers who specialize in gathering information from children about the abuse that they endured, which is used in court and for other legal matters.
In 2023, in Tarrant County, 5,332 children were confirmed victims of abuse, the organization reported. The perpetrators of the abuse came from various spheres of influence in the children’s lives: 30% were known non-relatives of the child, 23% were relatives, 15% were biological parents, 13% were siblings, 12% were strangers, and 7% were step-parents.
5 Stones Task Force hosts public meetings on the last Tuesday of every month at 11 a.m. at 1000 Calvert Street in Fort Worth.
In Dallas, sex trafficking has been rampant, especially in Council Member Omar Narvaez’s District 6, which regularly logs the most documented cases of prostitution-related offenses, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The Dallas Police Department has been dealing with staffing issues for years, resulting in lengthy response times and a strain on resources.
Only around 3,000 officers are currently in the field, despite a prior City analysis advising that a force of roughly 4,000 is needed to properly police a jurisdiction the size of Dallas.
For its part, the Dallas City Council approved a budget of only $654 million for DPD this fiscal year, considerably less taxpayer money than what is being spent on public safety in other high-crime cities, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.