Human trafficking victims can get help

By Timothy Pratt

Sunday, Sept. 10, 2006 | 7:35 a.m.

Kept inside different apartments for four years, the woman spoke little English.

Food was dropped off once a month. Her only possessions were a Bible and a toothbrush, some clothes.

She had become so ill that she no longer was of any use as a prostitute to the man who had brought her to the United States from the Caribbean. Still, she didn't escape - another sign, says Marlene Richter, of the trauma borne by victims of what is called human trafficking.

Richter, who works in Las Vegas at a nonprofit organization called WestCare, found the woman halfway through an 18-month federal grant aimed at helping women forced into prostitution or other work, whether brought here from another country or state.

The victim, whose safety depends on anonymity, was among what experts say may be hundreds brought from countries such as Mexico, Haiti and Russia. They are promised legitimate jobs in the U.S. and then made to work against their will in other jobs - often in prostitution, where they are sometimes referred to as sex slaves.

Metro vice officers run across the situation en route to nearly 4,000 prostitution-related arrests a year. But officers have no way of separating out victims of trafficking. The women are usually charged with a misdemeanor and fined or put on probation, only to be released back to whoever is forcing them to work.

"People say, 'That actually happens? That's going on out there?' They don't see the ugly side of Vegas," says Joanna Anderson, Richter's colleague, who has spent many nights walking the streets looking to help women in the same situation.

Metro Police Capt. Terry Lesney is chairwoman of a task force formed to face the issue.

In the last 18 months, she says, "We've learned we have a human trafficking problem - but to an extent we're still not aware of, due to a lack of reporting (by victims)."

As WestCare's $150,000 Justice Department grant runs out, Richter and Anderson are looking back at what else has been learned.

WestCare's role in the task force is to locate victims of human trafficking, gain their confidence and get them to seek help with services such as housing and counseling. If they're foreigners, the victims can take advantage of obtaining citizenship through a federal law passed to help them.

The law, part of the Violence Against Women Act passed in 2000, allows for 5,000 special visas a year for victims of trafficking. Only about 600 have been issued to date, according to Sheila Neville, of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

Neville says more funding is needed nationwide for outreach programs such as WestCare, but that different ethnic organizations also need to be involved in gaining the trust of victims to help overcome language and other cultural barriers.

In the last 18 months, WestCare has helped 105 victims, most brought from other states, not other countries.

Young U.S.-born women are often easier to help as there are no language barriers or immigration laws to deal with .

"In eight, nine months you see a 16-year-old girl who's ready to go back to high school," Richter says, recalling the cases of girls who were brought to Las Vegas from elsewhere in the United States and are now starting a new life, usually in a foster home.

Anderson and another colleague, Rachel Petersen, have walked the streets at 3 a.m. in search of women - or girls - to help. Their beat has included parts of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard between Sahara Avenue and Russell Road.

Their approach may be as simple as offering small talk: "How's it going? Like Vegas?"

Then, Petersen says, "It's about building up a rapport."

Richter says there's been a lot of trial and error in the process.

She tells of getting a tip about bordellos run out of apartments that were advertised by graffiti in different Asian languages. Richter received help from a Japanese exchange student in finding graffiti telling all who could understand that there were "girls available."

But when the outreach workers tried to move closer to the building, they were met by men at every turn, giving the sort of stare, Richter says, "that lets you know you're not supposed to be there."

Safety, she says, is their first priority.

All the foreigners they've been able to help, Richter says, are still going through the process outlined by federal law.

"We don't have (foreign) victims like Los Angeles or San Diego that are on the other side of success yet," she says.

When it comes to human trafficking, she says, Nevada is at the point it was 20 years ago in dealing with domestic violence.

Katy Hanson, education and outreach manager at the Nevada Network Against Domestic Violence, says there's something to that comparison.

The group's 13th annual conference will feature a speaker on human trafficking for the first time. The general consensus is that while there is a problem, little else is known.

Richter says that the public can help : "Instead of thinking, 'Gee, my neighbors are really quiet and there's something strange about them,' they should call for help."