Friday, February 12, 2010
Linda Velez, 54, reads the human trafficking flier posted on the wall while she dries her hands in a rest area off of Interstate 5 on Feb. 11. Velez said she was surprised to hear human trafficking occurs in Washington. — Photo by Renee Davies
While the eyes of the world are on Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics, an invisible industry may attempt to move in undetected.
It is the specter of human trafficking: a form of enslavement.
During major events like the Olympics, studies have shown the demand for illicit sex rises, and activists say traffickers and their victims will be making the trip north in droves.
But some Washington groups are trying to cut them off before they get there.
On Feb. 10, the Washington Senate passed a bill allowing the National Human Trafficking Resource Center to hang posters in rest stop bathrooms along Interstate 5 and Interstate 90 asking people to call if they notice any suspicious behavior.
“Sometimes people see something very suspicious and think something is going on, and they didn’t know there was a number they could call,” said Sarah Sweeney, founder of Western
Washington Coalition Against Human Trafficking. “[Traffickers] have to stop sometimes to get gas and these victims have to get to the bathroom once in a while.”
Bruises, averted eyes and someone showing control over others are telltale signs to look for, Sweeney said.
Sweeney’s organization and others are pushing for legislation in Olympia to make signs like theirs permanent fixtures in rest stops.
“Many people don’t understand and recognize that we are a destination country for people being trafficked,” Washington Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles said at a Jan. 19 hearing on the bill. “Victims go through our state to be trafficked elsewhere.”
Sexual exploitation makes up about 79 percent of the world’s estimated 800,000 human trafficking victims.
Twenty percent of human trafficking victims are children, according to reports by the U.N. and the U.S. Department of State.
In 2007, Calgary, Alberta-based activists The Future Group released a study detailing how the Olympics could be a magnet for human trafficking.
“Traffickers could view the 2010 Olympics as a short and long-term business opportunity,” the study says. “Traffickers may attempt to bring trafficked persons posing as ‘visitors’ into
Canada for the Olympics, only to exploit them in other cities or transit them into the U.S.”
Sweeney’s organization has already posted the signs in gas station bathrooms around the state.
“We really feel that if any victims see this [phone] number and manage to get to a phone, it will lead to some being rescued,” Sweeney said. “We’ve told the workers at the gas stations that they’re the eyes of the world, they see things that most people wouldn’t see.”
Activist groups were given the go-ahead by the Department of Transportation to place the signs in January, but with specific dates to put them up and take them down, so it would coincide with the Olympics. The signs must come down March 2.
At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the number of known human trafficking victims jumped from 93 the previous year to 181 in 2004, according to the Future Group’s report.
Kohl-Welles said legislation would have been very difficult to set in place before the Olympics. But the issue is sufficiently important to pass a law allowing the posters to be placed around Washington.
“We have been the leader in all states for many, many years, and we keep having to address this terrible, terrible issue,” Kohl-Welles said. “It’s very difficult to address this situation because those involved in trafficking do not want to be recognized.”
The Western Front - Activists fight human trafficking
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