USA TODAY International Edition
In policing of spas, women pay the price
Ga. raids to curb trafficking leave victims vulnerable
The board that oversees massage therapists in Georgia voted in February to educate its members about human trafficking, publicizing a national report that exposed links between corporate secrecy and sex spas.
“Historically, victims of massage parlor trafficking have been the main target of law enforcement activity, while the owners of the businesses – the traffickers – fly under the radar,” reads the 2018 report from Polaris, the nonprofit behind the National Trafficking Hotline.
“Raids focusing on employees are antithetical to efforts to shut down human trafficking.”
Yet in many cities and counties in Georgia, massage business employees are the ones targeted by law enforcement, based on a USA TODAY review of more than two dozen raids over the past 15 years. Collectively, those raids resulted in 35 charges of prostitution and masturbation for hire – a charged aimed specifically at massage therapists.
Experts say following an antiquated playbook does little to protect women often exploited by a billion- dollar industry propelled by a toxic mix of
racism, misogyny and fetishization. Arresting low- level female workers, they say, further stigmatizes a population at risk of violence and trafficking.
Issues around the vulnerability of spa workers caught national attention in March when eight people were killed in three Georgia spas. Six of the victims were Asian women who worked at the spas. The suspect told law enforcement officials he had frequented two of the spas, describing them as temptations for his “sex addiction” that he needed to “eliminate.”
Police have given no indication if any of the victims were sex workers or faced force, fraud or coercion – the definition of trafficking in the U. S. Some of the women’s family members have strongly refuted such insinuations.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has said the two spas across the street from each other – Aromatherapy Spa and Gold Spa – were not on police’s radar.
Still, the Atlanta Police Department conducted nine undercover operations at the two locations between 2011 and 2014. Those stings led to 12 arrests, nine of them for prostitution. USA TODAY found no record of police activity at the third shooting location, Young’s Asian Massage, about 30 miles north of Atlanta.
The raids at Gold and Aromatherapy spas followed a law enforcement technique common at spas around the state: An undercover officer pays a house fee to enter a room, where he strips down for a massage. A woman rubs his back or neck before agreeing to sex acts, a conversation often initiated by the officer. She reminds him that the money he paid is only for the room. They make a deal. Within minutes, other officers show up at the door and arrest the woman for prostitution.
Sometimes the undercover officers let the women touch their genitals before giving the call for backup – a practice criticized by both anti- trafficking advocates and supporters of sex worker rights.
“These places continue to operate with complete impunity and you’re arresting the victims,” said Vanessa Bouche, an associate professor at Texas Christian University and author of several reports on the illicit massage industry. “You’re arresting the people with no power whatsoever to change anything.”
In an emailed statement to USA TODAY, the Atlanta Police Department said it no longer engages in these types of operations after changes were made to its vice unit in 2015.
“We share the concerns for anyone working in the sex industry and take any and all reports or accusations of such activity very seriously,” the statement said. “Were there evidence of that in these cases or evidence our victims were engaged in illegal activity, we would have acted appropriately.”
Amid such signs that the country’s views on trafficking and the illicit massage industry are evolving, advocates fear the recent shooting could lead law enforcement to fall back on old habits.
“What we don’t want to see coming out of the tragedy of Atlanta is more raids and sweeps that simply arrest Asian massage workers,” said Catherine Chen, chief executive officer of Polaris.
“Vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation so often starts with economic need, and arresting individuals in the sex trade does not solve the underlying problem of poverty.”
Georgia is a hub for commercial sex; tools to address it are limited
Georgia is a known hub for commercial sex and sex trafficking. The National Trafficking Hotline ranked Georgia sixth in the country for trafficking reports in 2019. A report co- authored by Bouche and Street Grace, a faith- based organization combating trafficking, estimated that more than 1,000 people visited illicit massage businesses daily in Georgia in 2019, making it a $ 40 million industry.
Loopholes in regulations, however, have left Georgia’s law enforcement and regulators with fewer tools than their neighbors to tackle the problem.
The state requires licenses only for massage therapists, not massage businesses. Local governments are permitted to pass their own regulations on massage businesses but not all do so.
Atlanta requires operators of massage businesses to be licensed through the city, unless they are a sole proprietor with a state massage license. But 30 miles away in Peachtree City – the site of a series of recent law enforcement stings – no local laws regulate massage parlors. Officials there said that’s why, when they do receive complaints from the community about spas, they turn to sting operations.
The investigative ability of the state Massage License Board and other governmental agencies also is limited. The licensing board may inspect massage businesses only if they give advance notice. According to the executive director of Street Grace, Camila Zolfaghari, the Georgia licensing board does not have a single full- time investigator. In comparison, Alabama’s Board of Massage Therapy has two.
Shortly after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp took office in 2019, he and his wife launched Georgians for Refuge, Action, Compassion, and Education Commission ( GRACE) to combat trafficking. They’ve partnered with public officials, law enforcement and organizations like Street Grace, as well as celebrities like Tyler Perry.
Last year, GRACE debuted a trafficking hotline, an awareness course for state employees, and legislation that allows victims to seek restitution, change their names and dismiss convictions for crimes committed while being trafficked.
As part of the initiative, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation last July assigned four agents to a Human Exploitation and Trafficking unit, with a priority on investigating adult sex and labor trafficking.
“Four for the whole state is not a whole lot, but it’s better than one or two,” said Jeff Roesler, the special agent in charge of the new trafficking unit.
The unit has yet to tackle an illicit spa case, but Roesler said it is working to help everyone from law enforcement to Uber drivers spot human trafficking so they can report it to the state’s hotline. Signs include a lack of legal documentation, fear of law enforcement, working long hours, untreated health conditions and homelessness.
Prostitution charges don’t reach core businesses or kingpins
The victim- centered approach described by Roesler has yet to reach all local agencies.
Police often fall back on enforcement of sex offenses that can seem arcane. The majority result in prostitution charges.
In USA TODAY’s review of raids on 25 spas in 11 Georgia counties, police response was consistent: An undercover officer recorded a female spa worker agreeing to sex acts and she was arrested.
Several years ago, this pattern played out at Gold and Aromatherapy spas. Police reports detail undercover sting operations at Gold Spa between 2011 and 2014 that resulted in 11 arrests for prostitution and masturbation for hire. Several of the women arrested at Gold Spa listed their home address as the address of the spa, which advocates warn can signal trafficking.
A report from 2011 details a similar sting at Aromatherapy Spa, with one prostitution arrest. St Jame Spa, located in Suite B at the same address as Aromatherapy, also was targeted, with two stings documented that resulted in two more prostitution charges.
Atlanta Police said when the department decided to move away from raids and stings in 2015, it decentralized its vice unit, putting officers closer to communities so they are more familiar with the neighborhoods they patrol.
“This also allowed the Department to provide a more victim centered approach, ensuring resources were available to anyone wishing to leave this type of industry,” Atlanta Police said in its statement to USA TODAY.
The department receives several hundred calls for service annually for solicitation and prostitution, which are listed under the same designation, according to records provided to USA TODAY. Most, spokesman Sgt. John Chafee said, relate to “street level activity.”
Asked how those calls are handled, and if they result in prostitution charges, Chafee said they were too numerous to review.
Between 2011 and 2019, Atlanta Police received 21 prostitution complaints citing the two Atlanta addresses where shootings occurred, three of them in 2018- 19.
Gold and Aromatherapy spas also are listed on Rubmaps, an erotic review site where buyers who call themselves “hobbyists” or “mongers” looking for sex go to find and share information.
A review for Gold Spa on March 9 indicated that it was “full service,” meaning sexual intercourse, as did a similar review five days earlier. USA TODAY also found advertisements and reviews of sexual services for Gold Spa on a halfdozen other illicit sites.
“Vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation so often starts with economic need, and arresting individuals in the sex trade does not solve the underlying problem of poverty.” Catherine Chen Polaris CEO
Undercover operations continue around the state
In south metro Atlanta, Peachtree City police conducted a series of undercover stings last year. And in Gainesville, about an hour north of Atlanta, the Gainesville/ Hall County Multi- Agency Narcotics Squad conducted undercover stings on two massage parlors in January, resulting in three arrests.
According to advocates and defense attorneys, targeting women working at the spas instead of going after the larger organized- crime network behind it does little to stymie the illicit activity.
“This piecemeal approach is not at all effective,” said Zolfaghari, the Street Grace executive director.
USA TODAY confirmed that 15 of the massage parlors it examined closed after they were raided. Eight others, including Gold and Aromatherapy spas, stayed open.
Women arrested often move to different parlors. One of the shooting victims at Gold Spa, for instance, had previously been charged with prostitution at two spas outside of Atlanta, according to records obtained by USA TODAY.
In almost all the Georgia prostitution charges USA TODAY examined, the accused women accepted plea agreements – 17 women in all. A rare exception happened in Forsythe County.
In May 2017, several women there were arrested in a series of stings. One of them opted to go to trial. The bulk of the allegations against her relied on poor quality audio the officer recorded at the scene. A jury found her not guilty.
One of the woman’s defense attorneys, Evan Watson, said that throughout the trial process, his client was “absolutely petrified.”
Law enforcement officials specifically target women like the one in Forsythe County hoping that, in exchange for plea deals, the women will provide insights into the larger organized crime network behind some spas.
At John Jay College of Criminal Justice, professor Meredith Dank said that play almost never works. The victims fear retribution from those higher up in the crime ring as well as the shame associated with the profession.
“Culturally, there’s a lot of shame when it comes to being involved in these sorts of businesses,” said Dank, who researches sex and labor trafficking. “And so, admitting involvement is ... just incredibly complicated.”