Activists have launched an awareness-building campaign to shed light on the hidden world of human trafficking in Texas, where Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio account for the most cases.
Human trafficking is the practice of recruiting, harboring, transporting, and exploiting individuals for labor or sex through coercive means.
A third of the calls fielded by the National Human Trafficking Hotline originate in the Lone Star State — the highest call rate in the country behind California.
In 2021, the vast majority of victims identified in Texas through these calls to the hotline were foreign women being exploited sexually. Venues like illicit spas and hotels were most common alongside private residences.
DFW — which accounts for 26% of the state’s population — accounts for 35% of cases involving commercial sex exploitation, according to the group Human Trafficking Courts.
While foreign women tend to typify the victims of this modern form of slavery, the reality is much more complex.
“Some of the common victims are women and children, but also homeless individuals,” explained Lontage Woods, the CEO and founder of the consultancy FOCUS, according to ABC 8 WFAA. “People who have mental illness, struggling with drug abuse…”
The ways in which victims are coerced into slavery also differ. Sometimes traffickers made contact with their targets online while others will kidnap them.
Recently, the surge in migrants at the southern border has raised alarm over its potential to facilitate the trafficking of children, as The Dallas Express reported.
Last fiscal year, a record-breaking 130,000 migrant children crossed into the U.S., accompanied by individuals claiming to be a parent or a relative. Between fiscal years 2020 and 2021, human trafficking arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement increased by 35%.
Woods stressed the importance of knowing what to look for in order to identify potential victims of human trafficking, according to WFAA. Not all victims live in the shadows, with many actually seen frequently within the community.
She noted that victims may often display fearfulness, submissiveness, or paranoia. They may be inappropriately or provocatively dressed, no matter their age.
A victim might even make a discreet attempt to draw attention to themselves by trying to make eye contact or tugging at their hair, according to Woods.
“It’s really up to the general public to help with human trafficking, to be aware of the signs, to be aware that it is a problem that can happen to anyone, anywhere, at anytime,” Woods said.
Recently, a Hungarian woman presumed to be the victim of human trafficking was found hiding in the terminals at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Monica Phillips, a security and information employee, spotted the woman struggling to communicate with a police officer and immediately drew the connection to a strange call she had received five days earlier.
“Friday, June 2, I took a call from a man who claimed he was looking for his 52-year-old mother,” Phillips told WFAA. “He said that his mother had boarded a flight in Lubbock, Texas, bound for Houston on Sunday, May 28. And that he hadn’t heard from her.”
“I knew something wasn’t right about his story,” Phillips added. “I had this gut feeling that this was a case of human trafficking.”
After a translator was found, the woman explained that she had been hiding at the airport for 10 days after slipping away from two men who were taking her to Europe. Law enforcement is investigating the incident, categorized as a human trafficking case, according to Phillips.
While explaining that she had been trained to spot and report human trafficking, Phillips also stressed the importance of following her instincts.
“I sometimes have a gut feeling about things, and it turns out to be correct. I just knew this lady needed help,” she said.