Trafficking In Ohio: What is really there?

As we read about human trafficking, I was horrified. But I was horrified in the I can't believe this is happening to young girls in far away, underdevloped, strikingly unsimilar to the United States places. Because the issue seems so distant, I was pretty shocked to hear that this form of, let's call it what it is, slavery is not only occuring in the United States, but is present in Ohio. I did a little research and ended up reading pieces of the (very long and very thorough) RAND report on human trafficking in Ohio, meant to raise awareness and discussion of the topic. The very first issue that the report addresses is the difficulty in knowing exactly how much human trafficking is going on. It establishes 15 cases in Ohio as the absolute bare minimum, but noted that dozens are currently under investigation. The report goes on to identify Toledo and Columbus as the most active sites of human trafficking. Columbus is noted to lack awareness, funds and appropriate legal structure to properly address the issue, many are completely unaware that juveniles are at all involved. The Toledo justice system, on the other hand, "has made significant changes to promote awareness, identification, and investigation of
human-trafficking cases." Both cities appear to lack appropriate response mechanisms. The child wellfare system does not work in synch with the justice system effectively and largely the issue itself is so completely under the radar that officials don't even seem to know what they are looking for. The report offers several Ohio specific solutions:

1. Improve awareness and response through training, education,
and outreach.
2. Improve victim programs and resources.
3. Improve law enforcement capacity.
4. Improve practitioner collaboration.
5. Refine departmental policies.
6. Use analyses to develop evidence-based programs and responses.
7. Consider and assess legislative, legal, and regulatory changes.

(quoted directly)

For the most part, I found that this report was missing statistics, hard numbers. I left it wondering what exactly is going on. And that, right there, that is the problem. There seems to be sufficient suspicion; we know that human trafficking is happening. But the lack of awareness of the extent to which it is occuring is preventing significant action. We can't address the problem until we really know how big the problem is. The Ohio community needs thorough and well funded research to just begin to tackle this issue.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG689.pdf