Lawmakers meet with advocates for new solutions on human trafficking – New Jersey Monitor

In a 90-minute meeting with lawmakers this week, advocates for victims of human trafficking told stories of child brides as young as 13, undocumented immigrants sleeping on mattresses behind gas stations, and survivors who have trouble accessing counseling services after fleeing their abusers.

The half-dozen women who testified in front of the Assembly Homeland Security and State Preparedness Committee Monday spoke of barriers in social services for survivors of human trafficking, discussed how people prey on children and women from vulnerable communities, and stressed the need for expanded education to prevent further upticks in trafficking.

The committee’s hearing was called to lay out the foundation for some bills its members hope to introduce in the new legislative session, with advocates calling for increased data tracking and expanded prevention and education. Assemblywoman Shanique Speight (D-Essex), the committee’s chair, said combating human trafficking and raising awareness will be top priorities for the committee.

Roughly 100 human trafficking cases have been prosecuted in New Jersey in the last five years, said Annmarie Taggart, who works with a human trafficking task force out of the state Attorney General’s Office. She stressed that could be a low number because of how hard the crime is to track.

“There’s an incredible important effort that we’re all discussing to increase awareness of human trafficking, which is a great first step in intervention. It’s also critically important for us to build on that work and try to prevent it,” said Gina Hernandez of Prevent Child Abuse NJ.

Because human trafficking is a crime that often goes undetected, there’s a huge hole in the data, making it difficult to know how often it is happening, how many cases there are, and where in New Jersey authorities should be focused.

Essex and Atlantic counties are two of the largest areas that receive tips and leads, Taggart said, pointing to information from the New Jersey Human Trafficking Task Force hotline and the Covenant House, which is parsing through national data.

Advocates noted the difference between sex trafficking and labor trafficking, saying the latter is the most difficult to identify.

Kate Lee of the New Jersey Coalition Against Human Trafficking gave the example of nail salon workers who all travel to work together with group transportation, don’t share much about their backgrounds, and seem overworked, all red flags.

“We really need to be asking the right questions and notice what’s going on,” Lee said, calling it a “huge issue in our state.”

Seasonal work along the Jersey Shore is responsible for an uptick in labor trafficking cases, she said.

Trafficking survivors visit New Jersey schools to give age-appropriate discussions on their experiences and provide a basic understanding of human trafficking for students and teachers and administrators. During the pandemic, Lee said, they highlighted warning signs that point to potential online grooming, and discussed how parents should raise the issue when speaking to their children.

“Sometimes it’s uncomfortable, right? But you have to have those conversations to reduce the demand. It’s not easy, but it’s worth us taking a look at,” said Hernandez.

Women are the most likely to be sex trafficked, accounting for 94% of cases, said Cierra Hart of the New Jersey Coalition to End Domestic Violence. Of those, 40% were Black and 24% were Latina.

Black women are often not treated as victims of crime by law enforcement, and instead arrested for prostitution-related offenses, she said. This leaves traffickers facing little to no consequences for their role in exploiting vulnerable women, she added.

“We need to do more education because human trafficking touches all of us. It should not matter the color of your skin. If you’re being trafficked, you’re being trafficked,” Speight said. “You need to have the same access to health care and support as well as any other human beings.”

Lee commended Assemblywoman Angela McKnight (D-Hudson) for championing several human trafficking bills, including laws that require hotline numbers to be posted, expunge some criminal records of human trafficking victims, and require the state Department of Education to develop guidelines for school districts to discuss trafficking with students.

“We’re trying to raise awareness of the fact that trafficking can happen to children and adults and boys and girls,” she said.