‘WORSE THAN IT ONCE WAS’
beyond convictions; prevention and substance abuse help needed
ecutors have charged 30 people with human trafficking violations in the last two years, scoring 13 convictions.
But both lawmen and advocates warned that the problem goes well beyond convicting would-be traffickers — to investing in prevention efforts and ensuring trafficking victims get help for the substance abuse scourge that’s helping drive the trade.
“We’re facing the biggest complex issue, so we have to be complex in how we tackle it,” said Stephanie Clark, executive director of Amirah, a nonprofit that seeks to provide a home for trafficking victims. She said it costs $45,000 on average and up to two years to put a victim through the program, with more challenges — such as finding work with a potential criminal record — still looming.
“You cannot put a Band-Aid on this issue,” Clark said.
The pimps and traffickers, officials say, are often the ones plying the survivors with drugs and using their addiction to keep them under their thumb. Conley said some have even turned to “lurking” outside methadone clinics and other treatment centers to find potential victims.
“When I’m using in the life, it went hand-in-hand,” Audrey Morrissey, an associate director of My Life My Choice, who was first pushed into the sex trade as a teenager.
“A lot of women and girls, they might have went in without a substance abuse problem,” Morrissey said. “But to me, I found that drugs was the very thing that made it possible for me to have sex with a bunch of strange men. It helped me to leave the building.
“So for a lot of women who came out of the life,” she continued, “all were drug addicts. ... We had to find a way to cope in order to do something that is so degrading.”
Boston police Lt. Donna Gavin said in 2015 alone 32 of the 55 victims police worked with alongside the EVA Center were battling heroin addiction. Three, she said, died from overdoses. Ensuring they have services, while addressing the pervasive demand, remains a huge challenge.
“We can never arrest our way of it,” Gavin said, adding that even as authorities have sought to rein in Backpage.com as a forum for human trafficking, others fill the vacuum. “Every day there’s another website.”
Dhakir Warren, director of Network Learning and Engagement at Swanee Hunt Alternatives, said one way to address the problem is to ensure that those convicted of buying sex are ordered to pay the potential penalties under state statute.
That could go toward providing more resources for police and advocates, he said.
“We need resources,” he said, “that come from increasing buyer accountability.”