Juvenile sex trafficking summit focus

Concerned groups gather to discuss problem in NWA

SPRINGDALE — Opening an interstate connection to Northwest Arkansas in 1999 brought the region into a nationwide network of sex trafficking of juveniles, while other factors made the region a rich resource for those who profit from the illicit trade, a gathering of concerned groups was told Friday.

“A drug you can only sell one time a day, but a human being you can sell 20 times,” said Gretchen Smeltzer, founder and director of Into the Light. The nonprofit group advocates for youth caught up in sex trafficking.

Smeltzer and Benton County Juvenile Court Judge Tom Smith were among the speakers at a four-hour summit at the Center for Nonprofits in Springdale. Into the Light and Youth Bridge, a behavioral health nonprofit group based in Fayetteville, sponsored the summit attended by at least 40 people representing local charities and advocacy groups.

The Interstate 49 corridor makes it easier for runaways to leave home and find a place to stay elsewhere — often with the encouragement of predators who are savvy in using social media and contacting youth over the internet, Smith and others told the gathering.

“Facebook is the best tool pimps have to recruit,” said Brenan Despain, the FBI’s senior agent in the region. Such solicitors have become “very skilled in flattery” and encouraging teens to leave home.

Smith told the group the problem will only get worse as I-49 is extended and eventually reaches from the Canadian border to New Orleans.

About 2,000 juveniles in the region are considered at risk for exploitation, according to estimates by summit

organizers. That includes a large number of an estimated 1,800 juveniles in the region who are “couch surfing,” looking to friends and relatives for a safe place to stay, on any given night.

Runaways and the homeless aren’t the only ones vulnerable, Smeltzer said. She cited one case where the girl involved “went to school every day and went to bed at home every night.”

Still, the homeless are the most vulnerable, according to speakers. Northwest Arkansas is one of the most prosperous regions of the state but the poor and homeless population of the region is growing faster than people realize, speakers said. The homeless population is growing faster than the population as a whole, said Solomon Burchfield, director of the 7 Hills homeless center. The exact number of homeless in Northwest Arkansas is in dispute. Another count is

expected later this month in the annual report submitted to Congress.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definition used in the annual survey is strict, advocates say. It counts only people living in transitional housing, an emergency shelter or places not meant for human habitation, such as the woods. Those considered homeless enough to be vulnerable by organizers of the summit are those whose need for shelter provided by others leave them vulnerable to exploitation. Even by the stricter definition, though, homelessness in the region increased from 330 to 474 between the 2017 count and 2018’s.

Juveniles are particularly vulnerable to violent coercion or having to trade sex for basic necessities, speakers said.

“It has gotten to the point that when a juvenile shows up in my court you immediately have to assume some trauma has happened,” Smith said, referring to either violence, abuse or sexual exploitation. Trauma of any sort makes youth more susceptible to sexual exploitation, he said.

Juveniles who grant sexual favors in return for basic necessities such as a place to sleep at night, food or gasoline quickly become desensitized to such exchanges, Smeltzer said. They are then commercialized and sent to other markets through the interstate system, she said. “Law enforcement agencies in Dallas have told us that youths from here are showing up in their city,” she said.

The most important thing these juveniles can be given is evidence someone can care about them without expecting anything in return, that concern isn’t always based on a transaction, said Michael C. Flowers, director of clinical services at Youth Bridge.

Besides interstate highway access and the Internet, other contributing factors particular to Northwest Arkansas include the low level of social services in Arkansas compared to other states, Smeltzer and others said. On the plus side, coordination between nonprofits and other

concerned parties in the region who are trying to address the problem is improving steadily, Burchfield said.

Despain told the group his office would meet soon with Northwest Arkansas law enforcement agencies to gauge

if there is any interest in setting up an inter-agency child exploitation task force similar to one operating in Fort Smith, he said at the meeting.