Local task force aims to eradicate human trafficking
Jobie Breaux gently grasped the hands of the woman who stood, head bowed, behind the counter at a Katy massage parlor.
Breaux, a volunteer with the nonprofit group Elijah Rising, asked God to allow the woman to “feel your love.”
“Cover her with your presence and your blessing and she would just know the love of Jesus. Amen,” Breaux said in prayer.
Smiling, the woman thanked Breaux and accepted a rose from the Elijah Rising volunteers. But her English is limited, and it was unclear whether she understood the interaction.
“A lot of these women here are being trafficked because they were guaranteed a work visa,” said Abby Stewart, a 21-year-old Elijah Rising volunteer who was leading the intervention. “They came over (from Asia) and they were expecting a job, but the job they were expecting was probably not the job they currently have. But now because of the papers they have, the person who brought them here is kind of in control of that whole situation.”
The woman behind the counter is a new face at the massage parlor and tells the volunteers her name is Lisa. Last month, a different woman at the counter called herself Tina, when the month before she was Lily. The faces and the names change nearly every visit, but the activity that goes on inside the illicit massage parlor stays the same, Stewart said.
Efforts by community groups to bring attention to human trafficking in the region have had some success across Harris and neighboring counties, where the Houston Police Department has established a federally-funded task force aimed at apprehending and prosecuting human traffickers. Yet, not all law enforcement officials believe the problem is as widespread as nonprofits say it is, and some deny its existence altogether.
These attitudes concern HPD’s Sgt. John Wall, who heads the task force. Collaboration among agencies is essential to combat trafficking, he said.
“I don’t know if it’s politics or if they really believe that or not, but I can tell you based on my experience in doing this the last five years that there’s not one area that is immune,” Wall said.
According to Polaris, a nonprofit dedicated to eradicating human trafficking, victims of massage parlor trafficking in the U.S. are mostly mothers in their mid 30s to late 50s, recently ar-
rived from China or South Korea. Most speak little to no English.
The Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance-Southern District of Texas works with community partners, such as Elijah Rising, to offer victims’ services and to identify victims of all forms of human trafficking, including domestic, international, labor and sex trafficking.
The task force’s jurisdiction is Harris County and adjacent counties, which fall into the jurisdiction of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
“We all just kind of come together, work together and that’s the thing,” Wall said. “This is not a problem that can be tackled by one entity. I mean it takes everybody, including the community.”
Federal and state task force officers are in position in Montgomery and Harris counties. One officer is assigned to Fort Bend County out of the district attorney’s office.
The task force started with about six agencies in 2016, Wall said, and has grown to 22. It’s considering potential partners in Galveston, Brazoria, Liberty and Chambers counties.
The task force is behind the arrest of nearly two dozen Houston men and women accused of promoting prostitution or trafficking a person in some way in 2018, including a case in which three people were charged with felony aggravated promotion of prostitution after authorities said they had forced a 20-year-old Fort Worth woman to be a prostitute.
In October 2018, through its work with the the task force, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office arrested 75 suspects and recovered five trafficked individuals after a month-long prostitution sting in the Woodlands. The county joined the multi-jurisdictional task force in 2017, said Montgomery County Sheriff ’s Office Lt. Scott Spencer.
The task force has targeted human trafficking suspects, investigated cases of human trafficking and provided services to victims, he added.
Wall said a $1.5 million grant from the federal government could help the task force expand its capabilities with a dedicated state-ofthe-art facility that will bring together state, federal and local law enforcement, prosecutors, and victims’ service under one roof. ‘Hidden in plain sight’
Elijah Rising, which formed in 2012, is one of many groups in the region dedicated to raising awareness and fighting human trafficking. Using escort service-type websites, volunteers can target Fort Bend County area illicit massage parlors where women offer sexual favors for cash.
Vanessa Forbes, intervention coordinator at Elijah Rising, said touring Asian massage parlors is how she first got involved in the organization.
“Everyone goes out of their way to find the missing 17-year-old suburban white girl, but let’s talk about the women who are here in the middle of our neighborhoods who are being asked to do sexual acts every day,” Forbes said. “They are hidden in plain sight. They are overlooked.”
Through intervention, prayer and bus tours, their goal is to show support to the women working in the parlors with small gifts and kindness in hopes that the women will eventually leave. The women often do not see themselves as victims, Forbes said.
“When we go in, we try to begin the ‘Stages of Change,’ which is the process of getting someone to leave that control situation,” said Sam Hernandez, mobilization director at Elijah Rising. “One way that the (trafficker) maintains that controlled environment is isolation.”
“Different best practices that are recommend (for getting) people out of that situation is trust-based relationships,” she said. “We go and we take gifts. You know, it’s not life-changing in terms that we’re being kind people. It’s life changing in that we’re taking them out of isolation and continuing to be people that they see are trustworthy.”
Elijah Rising Restoration, formerly Kendleton Farms, will open later this year with eight beds in a 5,000square foot “Booth Home” as a place where survivors of human trafficking can receive rehabilitative services, Hernandez said.
“We’ll phase in with three (survivors) at the beginning and then we will expand to more,” she said.
Not all law enforcement in the jurisdiction believe the problem is as big as community groups say it is.
Sgt. David Marcaurele, Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy, said he hears about human trafficking in the area from community groups all the time.
“They are very vocal about it,” Marcaurele said. “I can only tell you that from a professional standpoint of law enforcement, we don’t see evidence of that to support a widespread issue. Not withstanding that … it could happen tomorrow. We haven’t seen a lot of it. We’ve had some cases that I’ve seen with different agencies, but it’s not as widespread.”
Marcaurele said Fort Bend County is “not conducive to that kind of crime, so they don’t do it here.”
Lt. Lowell Neinast with the Richmond Police Department said he doesn’t “recall a case of human trafficking ever crossing my desk, ever.”
“We don’t face a lot of it here,” Neinast said. “It’s not something that we deal with. I’m sure there are trafficking victims here, but how do you identify them? That just goes to show how dark and underground (the practice) is. That’s a scary thought.”
Proactive approach
In contrast, Rosenberg Police Department Assistant Chief Jarret Nethery said human trafficking “definitely” occurs in the area around the town on U.S. 59 South.
“The 59 corridor is a pipeline for the trafficking of illegal narcotics, guns, money and persons,” Nethery said. Nethery, who was once a detective on the Internet Crimes Against Children task force in the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, said human trafficking is often underreported.
“If you don’t have people going and flipping over those rocks, you’re not going to find it,” he said.
Wall said he hopes that the task force’s proactive approach spreads into more of the suburbs. The task force is adding another investigator to the Fort Bend region.
He acknowledges that some Fort Bend authorities downplay the problem in their areas.
“We all know that that’s not true,” Wall said. “I know that for a fact. And all you have to do is really go on to some of these escort sites and see the ads in Stafford, Missouri City, Richmond, places like that.”