Dayton Daily News...
State plans to stop human trafficking 
March 5, 2012 

State officials and lawmakers vow to crack down on human trafficking in Ohio by devoting more law-enforcement resources to uncovering the criminal activity and enlisting the help of commercial truckers to report suspicious behaviors. 

During his State of the State address on Feb. 7, Gov. John Kasich called human trafficking a “scourge” and said it is hard to believe that 1,000 children in the state are victims of the “slave trade business.” 

“You know we got a war on drugs? We’ve got to have a war on the slave trade business in Ohio,” Kasich said during the address in Steubenville, recounting a conversation he had with the state’s Public Safety Director Thomas Charles. “We’ve got to snuff this out in our state.” 

With Kasich’s goal in mind, the Ohio State Highway Patrol plans to coordinate a program this year that will teach commercial truck drivers how to recognize signs of human trafficking and how to report suspicious incidents. 

Sex trafficking occurs at truck stops in the form of pimp-controlled prostitution and through massage parlors, according to the Polaris Project, a nonprofit organization based in Washington devoted to combating human trafficking. 

Sex traffickers often move their victims from city to city and they routinely visit truck stops to find customers. The Polaris Project said the presence of young people, especially young women, at truck stops can signal trafficking is taking place. 

The state patrol said it will also combat human trafficking by using “The Hub,” a 24-hour intelligence center that assists troopers on the road while making traffic stops. 

By phoning or contacting the hub using their vehicle’s computers, troopers will be able to call upon the expertise of trained analysts who will use open-source and law-enforcement databases to search for useful information about suspects they have stopped, said Col. John Born, superintendent of the highway patrol. 

“The analyst in the Hub has access to resources that the trooper on the road doesn’t,” he said. 

Officials said Ohio’s highways are integral to the movement and sale of human sex slaves by criminals, and troopers and law enforcement officers who patrol the state’s roads are the first line of defense against trafficking. 

Last year, a Michigan woman who was held captive and forced into prostitution by a Toledo man was rescued by police in Tipp City following a routine traffic stop. A Tipp City officer sensed something was wrong, and once he separated the driver and passenger, he learned she was being held against her will. 

The Toledo area is one of the most active regions for human trafficking in the country, and Ohio has had a string of recent cases involving the sexual enslavement of minors. 

Starting in August, Attorney General Mike DeWine will convene several meetings of the Ohio Human Trafficking Commission, which is looking at ways to better educate members of the public and train law enforcement about the crime and how to distinguish it from prostitution. The commission is exploring better methods to track the crime and promote victim-centered approaches to prosecuting it.

Recognizing the signs of trafficking is key to fighting modern-day human slavery, but Rep. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo, said another necessity is enlisting the help of the victims by shielding them from prosecution. 

Fedor, who Kasich praised in his speech for her devotion to the cause, is the sponsor of House Bill 262, which seeks to prevent minor victims of trafficking from being charged with prostitution crimes and provides them with any mental health and medical services they need. 

“We need to rescue victims and not incarcerate them,” she said. “The more we do that, and the more attention we put on the issue, the more those victims will come forward because they will know we are waiting for them and we will have an appropriate response to help them.” 

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