May 19—LEWISTON — Whether urban or rural, human trafficking continues to plague police, prosecutors and defense attorneys, with an estimated 27.6 million victims in 2021.
Although forced labor presents many complexities, the issue of sex trafficking remains somewhat ambiguous in the public eye.
Jaime Ricker and Meg Hatch of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Services explained in an email exchange that many of the misconceptions about sex trafficking are due to Hollywood and media sensationalism, or misrepresentations about the adverse impact on society. SAPARS is one of many organizations in Maine that helps victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and sex trafficking.
The most common misconception, Ricker and Hatch wrote, is that people who experience human trafficking or exploitation are complicit in their participation. People often fall prey to exploitation or trafficking while trying to meet their needs, they said.
“People should also understand that human trafficking or exploitation often results in complex trauma,” they wrote. “It can take a survivor many times over to get out of a situation and once it does, we need to have the right resources in place to provide the services they need.”
The US Department of State estimated in a 2023 report that approximately 27.6 million people worldwide were involved in forced labor in 2021 alone. The National Human Trafficking Hotline reported 175 signals – hotline, email, text message or web chat – of human trafficking from Maine in the same year. About 47 of these signals came directly from Maine victims or survivors.
The hotline identified 31 of these signals, 22 of which confirmed sex trafficking. Six cases involved children or minors and 23 cases involved women or girls. Not every case involves just one person; of the 31 cases in Maine, 83 involved victims. Basic calculations show that the number of victims of human trafficking could rise to 469 in 2021 and almost 1,400 in the past five years.
Beyond the limited data the hotline and other organizations can provide, human trafficking is difficult to quantify, said Nathan Walsh, assistant district attorney in Maine District 3. Walsh said Maine’s sex trafficking problem is as bad as its drug problem .
Although youth and other at-risk groups are victims of human trafficking, most victims suffer from substance abuse and are coerced into providing paid sex with the promise of drugs or drug money, he said. Many victims do not see themselves as victims because for them selling their bodies is a means to reach the next high, just as it is for the necessities of life as Ricker and Hatch said. Convincing a victim to testify against their trafficker becomes even more difficult if you first have to show him or her that he or she is a victim, he said.
Maine is now leading the U.S. in the way the country handles human trafficking prosecutions, Walsh said. In 2023, the Maine Legislature passed LD 1435 “An Act to Reduce Commercial Sexual Exploitation,” which was sponsored and championed by the late Representative Lois Galgay-Reckitt of South Portland.
The new law adopts the ‘equality model’ or the ‘Nordic model’, which decriminalizes selling sex while keeping buying sex criminal. The change will allow victims of human trafficking to cooperate with police and prosecutors without damaging their criminal record and risking jail time.
The model, which Maine is now in the spotlight for its response to sex trafficking, helps push law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to engage in victim-centered and trauma-informed investigations. The era of vice police from the 1980s is over, at least outside the big cities.
The one detail that muddies the waters for human trafficking victims who also suffer from substance abuse is that police are still allowed to investigate violations of Maine’s drug laws, Walsh said.
“Some (victims) have spoken to me about drug trafficking convictions that were the result of human trafficking, such as a sex trafficker who also traffics drugs, thereby convicting his victim,” Walsh said. “However, police and prosecutors always have discretion and can take the history of human trafficking into account when deciding what to do with a case.”
In addition to reconsidering the former vice beat, Walsh said police and prosecutors, especially in the Lewiston area, have been carrying out “John Stings” by releasing online ads for paid sex. The responses are shocking, as is the general demand for paid sex in local communities, he said.
“When the johns call, they never say ‘are you being trafficked’ or ‘are you underage.’ They say, ‘Are you a cop?'” Walsh said. “The concern isn’t for the person on the other end of the line… By doing these john jabs, we’ve made potential sex buyers a little more hesitant. are.”
The interactions also led to an accountability model program that the courts are now using that, for the first time, educates sex buyers about what sex trafficking is and how it affects people and the community. Walsh said the 10-week diversion program was developed in Seattle in 2012 by the national nonprofit World Without Exploitation. Walsh attended a training event in 2019 where he connected with a survivor who recommended connecting with the nonprofit.
Now Maine’s version is being tailor-made by Westbrook nonprofit Just Love Worldwide. Like its Seattle counterpart, it addresses the root cause of why people feel it’s okay to buy sex or what brought them to the point of paying for sex, Walsh said. It also gives new subordinates the opportunity to avoid a conviction if they successfully navigate the program.
And it’s working, Walsh said, “to the point where guys who have done the program have actually, unsolicited, approached the district attorney and said, ‘This is a good program that people should know about.'”
Walsh said he and many in the justice system, law enforcement and advocacy communities hope the program will have a significant long-term impact on the exploitation and sex trafficking market.
2023 also saw the Legislature pass: LD 1436 “An Act to Provide 10 Remedies to Survivors of Commercial Sexual Exploitation,” also sponsored by Galgay-Reckitt. The bill gives victims the opportunity to seal convictions for prostitution, which often wreaks havoc on the survivor’s social and professional life.
It does not delete any data, but ensures that background checks and criminal record checks do not flag a person’s conviction. Walsh said the sealing of the conviction must be initiated by the convicted person, as is the case with most sealed convictions. This means that the convicted person must find a lawyer or legal aid service to help them assess their eligibility and file a petition.
“There has been some discussion about who could help these people, but (we) don’t have a conclusive answer,” Walsh said.
“We can better engage the voices of survivors and collaborate with each other, and there is more we can do,” Ricker and Hatch wrote. “As we do this work, it is so clear that no single agency or individual can provide a survivor with the support and resources he or she needs.”
What can we all do better to tackle the problem?
“I believe that people should absolutely always report suspected human trafficking to the police,” Walsh said.
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