From labor exploitation on farms to grooming children online, it’s ‘in every layer of our community’

Part two of two parts.

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news

There are plenty of misconceptions about labor trafficking: Trafficking involves movement. Trafficking only happens in developing countries. Trafficking victims are immigrants.

That’s how Alhena Herrera Martin of the Oregon Department of Justice began the second day of  the Southern Oregon Human Trafficking Disruptors Summit at Ashland Hills Hotel & Suites last Friday and Saturday, March 22-23.

Anyone can be trafficked, Martin said, but some groups are at a larger risk, including immigrants, women, tribal communities, members of the LGBTQIA community, and children, she said. (LGBTQIA stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex and asexual.) Traffickers use deception, manipulation, threats, withholding important documents, pay or sometimes food to gain control of their victims. They can criminalize their victims, forcing them to buy illegal drugs to gain further control. Labor trafficking can happen in any industry. 

“Who served your food yesterday? … The person checking you out at the store, they may not be being paid for their work,” she said. 

In some cases, a victim is compelled to do innocuous work, such as in a store, during the day, but by night is sexually trafficked as well. Martin shared several cases, including one from Southern Oregon. 

“Paty” was 34 years old when she moved from Texas to Southern Oregon and accepted a job on a cannabis farm. Her employers threatened her with violence or deportation, did not allow her to leave the job site, restricted communications with her family, forced her to work 16 hour days and housed her in a room with 20 other workers, Martin said. 

Escaping trafficking can be a challenge as victims can become dependent on their trafficker or leave their situations with substance abuse problems, a criminal record or in complete isolation from support systems. Martin pressed the audience to consider how they might better identify trafficking and be compassionate to any victims who may approach them for help. Shame, fear and a lack of trust for others are often side effects of surviving trafficking. 

“I challenge you to think about the actions you can do. … You are all pieces of the puzzle,” she said.

Detective Steven Bohn with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office Child Exploitation Team (SOCET) leaned back with his hands in his pockets while footage of arrests and raids on homes around Jackson County played behind him. People from all walks of life have been represented in his caseload, he said, from police officers and teachers to public figures. 

“We do not know who these people are, they are intermixed in every layer of our community,” he said. 

The team has seized over 300 devices and intercepted over 4,000 images of child porn in the last three years throughout Jackson County. One out of four caught sharing child porn had a live victim as well, he said. 

Oregon also has an abnormally high ratio of sex offenders to the general population — 772 offenders for every 100,000 residents, according to the 2023 national sex offender registry statistics, said Sarah Jagger, also from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. These statistics helped motivate the creation of the team at the sheriff’s office, she said. 

If the threat of local offenders wasn’t enough, Bohn said he regularly goes undercover online.

“Five to 10 minutes, maybe even 20 minutes, I’m talking to 40 individuals that believe I’m a minor female or a minor male and they’re immediately trying to groom me. … We worry about locking our doors, we worry about making sure the house is secure before we go to bed at night, but I’m telling you our devices are gateways. We never lock the devices and they’re in there,” he said. 

Online sexploitation of minors is a form of abuse akin to and can become trafficking. Predators use deception, manipulation and threats to coerce minors to share nude photos of themselves, he said. Once the predators have photos, they use them as blackmail to compel the minor to continue sending explicit content that they may sell or trade with other predators. Predators sometimes follow through on threats to share the photo with the victim’s classmates or family leading to bullying and psychological harm. 

Online and in-person cases of child exploitation are overwhelming the SOCET team, 

Bohn said it may soon be time to hire additional staff or begin prioritizing cases. 

“I can tell you that in Jackson County we work every case. And we work it until it’s done. … We are getting more and more inundated,” he said. 

Jagger encouraged parents not to panic and repossess all their children’s devices, but to instead  learn how to detect and avoid grooming and risk online. 

Predators often go to gaming platforms and other corners of the internet where children are present, engage a potential victim in conversation, build sufficient rapport, then invite them to move to a more anonymous app or platform. Parents can monitor which apps their children are using, verify that those they are speaking to are not strangers, and teach children how to spot grooming. 

Some parents resist this advice, Jagger said, in an interest in preserving their children’s innocence. 

“I’m seeing it happen more and more and at younger and younger ages,” she said. 

Parents can also turn off location data on their child’s devices and learn as a family to carefully consider what to post online. Photos of the front of the family home for back-to-school pictures, information about a child’s preferences and life experiences can provide predators with the information they need to use threats of harm to family as leverage or simply build false rapport through shared interests. If any inappropriate contact or relationship is discovered, parents should preserve all possible evidence, block the offender and contact law enforcement, she said. 

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a website to help understand the digital frontier of stranger danger, she said. 

Single parents working long hours, parents with mental health or substance abuse problems and other absences from a child’s life frequently coincide with exploitation, Bohn said. Parents can protect their children simply by being involved in their lives.

“Almost every single one of my cases, they basically had no parent,” he said. 

To close the day, Southern Oregon native Lauren Trantham of Ride my Road took the stage to share her own story and encourage others to help without hurting themselves. 

“My story begins with a broken heart. … Can you heal a broken heart by helping others?” she asked the audience. 

When she learned her husband was having an affair, Trantham took her broken heart to a therapist who told her she had been experiencing emotional abuse. Trantham wanted to heal herself through a journey focused on others. She planned to ride her motorcycle across the United States photographing survivors of abuse. With the help of Rebecca Bender, Trantham created the Ride My Road organization, traveled over 10,000 miles, photographed 40 survivors, and raised $60,000 for survivor support.

“This is all really great stuff but it’s also very hard,” she said. 

Trantham returned home to the Rogue Valley weighing only 109 pounds and with back pain from riding and camping for months. She suffered panic attacks, nightmares and some memory loss. Muscles in her arms were painful from relentless riding. When doctors injected cortisone shots, an unexpected allergic reaction left her with atrophied muscle and fat in her elbows. 

“I couldn’t wear sweaters, I had to sleep like a vampire, and I couldn’t ride my motorcycle,” she said. 

Trantham urged the audience to consider three pieces of advice before they step into helping others: to face one’s fears with courage, to remain “coachable” and pursue knowledgeable help and to build community. 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at morganr@ashland.news. 

Trafficking summit part one: Human trafficking ‘hidden in plain sight’ in Rogue Valley and beyond

Video of the summit

To view the full two-day summit, go to anpconference.com/disruptors-summit-2024-ashland-or/

Resources & opportunities to get involved

Click on the organization name to go to its website

Epik Project — A nonprofit seeking to raise a generation of men who are not going to buy sex. Rehabilitates buyers and supports survivors. 

My Friends are Not for Sale — A facet of the Epik project, helping students learn about exploitation, working with staff, teachers and high school students. 

EmpowerHer Network — Advocate and crisis support systems for the “middle phase” of recovering after trafficking, primarily supporting education, employment and housing for recovering victims. 

Sex Trade Survivor Caucus — A group of survivors addressing policies surrounding the sex trade from a lived experience lens. 

CASA — The organization supplies children with mandatory court appointed advocates to help children through the legal system. The organization currently has a wait list of 100 children waiting for an advocate. 

Jackson County Sexual Assault Response Team — Advocates for sexual assault survivors, education, support and raising local awareness. 

Safe Families for Children at Hearts with Mission — Providing shelter and transitional living for youth in different stages of development. 

Community Works — Advocacy for domestic violence, sexual violence or trafficking. 

Youth 71:5 — Ministries to create confidence and hope in Jesus and freedom from poverty for youth. 

Family Solutions — A mental health nonprofit working with youth, especially those experiencing trauma and abuse.

Keeping all Women Safe — Global initiative to create  world where there is no tolerance for violence against women and girls. 

Youth Era — Serving youth and assisting them in working with the systems that serve them.