Updated: Monday, 19 Dec 2011, 4:19 PM EST
Published : Monday, 19 Dec 2011, 4:19 PM EST
TALLAHASSEE - A form of modern day slavery is happening all across Florida right now and police are trying to figure out the best way to attack it.
Today in Tallahassee, police investigators learned new ways to handle cases of human trafficking.
It's a serious problem in Florida. The state is ranked third in the nation in the number of human trafficking cases.
Terry Coonan of the FSU Center for the Advancement of Human Rights says many young women, including runaway U.S. citizens and immigrants, are forced into prostitution.
"Once they arrive are told, 'You owe a smuggling debt of $5,000 or $20,000 or $40,000 and until you pay that off in forced prostitution, we own you.' Often the 'we" is an organized crime group, Russian, Asian, Latin American," Coonan said.
Coonan says Florida's economy is riddled with human trafficking.
"It's oftentimes in our restaurants, our hotels, our agricultural sector, where someone can come in, often it involves a subcontractor, someone who can go to a major hotel chain and say 'I have maids that can make your beds cheaper than other American subcontractors,' " Coonan explained. "And the reason they're able to do that is that they're exploiting trafficking victims."
But it's not always sex trafficking. The girls are also exploited in labor trafficking for job sectors that rely on cheap labor.
Police are focusing on how to uncover cases of human trafficking and how to help victims put traffickers behind bars.
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