Fighting exploitation of the vulnerable
Panel looks at trafficking tie to drugs
Recently, a mother reached out to Boston police to report her missing daughter.
Somebody had taken the girl to Florida, said Boston police Lt. Detective Donna Gavin, who heads the department’s Human Trafficking Unit.
The woman had waited a couple weeks before contacting the cops about her missing daughter because she’s living here illegally.
“The mother wrestled with reporting her missing right away because the mom was undocumented,” Gavin said. “We did get her back.”
The girl was brought back here, Gavin said, by the Department of Homeland Security.
“The case is being investigated and we’re not looking to do anything to the family,” said Gavin. “It’s important to get that message out.”
Gavin spoke last night at the Boston Public Health Commission’s meeting as part of a panel on the city’s sex trafficking and opioid epidemic.
Gavin wants to see the fines increased against the men buying sex.
“If we increase the fines, we could dissuade more people,” Gavin said. “A lot of people buy into the myth of ‘The Happy Hooker’ or ‘Pretty Woman.’ That’s not who we see. We don’t see people who are empowered. What we see is vulnerable populations being exploited and really harmed and incredible violence.”
When Boston cops post an online ad selling sex at 10 a.m., they get up to 70 responses by 2 p.m., Gavin said.
“When sex buyers respond to our stings, whether it’s on the street or at a hotel or an apartment, they’re not checking IDs to see how old somebody is. They’re not checking to see if somebody has substance use disorder,” Gavin said.
In nearly all of the cases they’ve prosecuted over the past few years, Gavin said, the women being sold for sex are addicted to heroin and opiates, with many of them turning to drugs to cope with the nightmare.
Many of the women being sold for sex are intimately involved with their pimps, Gavin said, and police are now seeing mandated reports on 2- and 3-year-old children whose mothers are being exploited.
Last week, Gavin was in court as prosecutors wrapped up their case against Delacy Morris, 46, who was sentenced to life in prison for raping a teenage relative and selling her for sex.
“I never expected in September of 2016 when I got a call for a runaway of the horror and abuse that would come,” said Gavin, who praised detectives, prosecutors and victim advocates. If it weren’t for them, Gavin added, “that young woman never would have stayed on board.”
Dr. Sophia Dyer, medical director of Boston EMS and an emergency room doctor at Boston Medical Center, trains first responders to identify people being sold for sex. “All of this really starts with an ambulance call at 2 in the morning,” Dyer said. “Some of the most vulnerable things happen in the middle of the night.”
Dyer became interested in training first responders after she herself almost missed a case of sex trafficking.
“EMS,” she said, “is usually at the beginning of many of these calls.”
First responders are taught to keep an eye out for someone hovering over a woman, someone getting involved in her care and for multiple cellphones.
They talk a lot about what makes people vulnerable, Dyer said, and that includes substance abuse, homelessness, being a kid and not speaking English as a primary language.
Then, first responders are trained to pass on the information to hospital workers. “If people at some point can get some help,” Dyer said, “there might be some hope.”