By Nikole Hannah-Jones, The Oregonian
January 09, 2010, 7:11PM
Six posters of missing children from the metro area -- five girls and one boy -- were tacked to the wall of the Jantzen Beach hotel banquet room, a silent reminder of why more than 500 participants from 10 states had gathered Saturday.
One of three missing teens who ends up on the streets will be lured or forced into prostitution within 48 hours, according to national estimates. The annual Northwest Conference Against Human Trafficking hoped to bring a sense of urgency to the problem and capitalize on a recent local and national push to fight domestic human trafficking.
Oregon, advocates and law enforcement officials say, is a growing hub for forced prostitution and servitude. Just last week, a Portland man was arraigned in Multnomah County Circuit Court on suspicion of prostituting a 14-year-old relative.
Still, many Americans believe human trafficking to be an international phenomenon.
"I, like so many others, thought that trafficking was a problem that plagued other countries like Thailand and India, but was oblivious to what was happening right here in our backyard," said Multnomah County Commissioner Diane McKeel, who is spearheading the county's efforts to combat human trafficking and open a shelter for sexual trafficking victims.
Portland has become a center for human trafficking for several reasons, said Keith Bickford, a Multnomah County sheriff's detective who heads the Oregon Human Trafficking Task Force.
The city's proximity to Interstates 5 and 84 as well as two rivers is attractive to traffickers, as is lax sexual trafficking enforcement laws, a legal sex industry, a large population of street kids and Oregon's dependence on seasonal farmworkers, Bickford said.
Yet, the state keeps no data on victims of sexual trafficking, Bickford said, making it difficult to accurately assess the depth of the problem and get adequate resources.
About 300,000 American youths are trafficked for sexual exploitation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. During a one-night national sting involving 29 cities last February, law enforcement officers picked up seven underage girls involved in prostitution in Portland -- more than any other city besides Seattle. They also picked up six adult pimps in Portland and cited 14 adult prostitutes.
Still, many at the conference said a collective national denial of the issue remains.
"What we're about in the U.S., we're willing to jump out there and save the world but we won't look under our own rocks because it's embarrassing," Bickford said after giving a presentation on the work he's doing with the task force.
Multnomah County has hundreds of human trafficking cases involving both people born in the United States and immigrants often brought or coerced here from other countries. His caseload is divided equally between those trafficked for sexual exploitation (mostly people from the U.S.) and those trafficked for labor (mostly immigrants), he said.
Other speakers at the conference said public officials are starting to take notice of the long-hidden crime.
Last month, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a bill along with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to help victims of sexual trafficking and provide more enforcement power against traffickers. The bill would fund pilot projects in six states to establish shelters for victims and provide counseling, legal aid, education and job training, as well as fund additional police officers and prosecutors.
"I want to see us start a national mobilization," Wyden said after giving a brief speech about his bill. "It's fair to say that in the past there's been the sense that Oregon is not the kind of place you would see this. There's no denial now and people are ready to go."
A shelter to help victims escape exploitation is the greatest need in Portland, said Esther Nelson of the Sexual Assault Resource Center. The lack of a safe place makes it difficult to help people, she said, and impedes law enforcement efforts because victims often disappear.
Multnomah County and Portland officials have committed to finding money to open a shelter here, though they have no time line.
"We can't do much more without a shelter," Nelson said.
Original Article by The Oregonian
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