LITTLE ROCK — Poor marks by two national groups have inspired some lawmakers to try and give law enforcement stronger tools in their fight against human trafficking, which includes sexual exploitation of minors.
“Arkansas is really behind when it comes to laws combating human trafficking,” said Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway, who plans to seek an interim study on how other states are combating the problem, and how Arkansas’ laws might be enhanced.
Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, chairwoman of the Senate Children and Youth Committee, said she hopes to hold hearings on the issue this summer in an effort to have legislation ready for consideration during the 2013 session.
The Arlington Va.-based Shared Hope International, a non-profit that tracks human trafficking laws, gave Arkansas and 25 other states an F in a recent report.
The report said Arkansas’ statutes require proof of forced sexual conduct in cases where the victim is a minor.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Arkansas’ human trafficking law “fails to distinguish the commercial sexual exploitation of children as a specific form of trafficking and requires a showing for force, fraud, or coercion for all cases of trafficking, regardless of whether a minor was involved,” the report said.
No state received an A in the report by the group, and just four states — Illinois, Missouri, Texas and Washington – received a B.
In another report on human trafficking laws, the Washington, D.C.-based Polaris Project recently placed Arkansas and eight other states in “the bottom tier of states” because they have two or fewer state statutes addressing human trafficking.
The report said that in 2011, 45 states had sex trafficking statutes, and 48 states had labor trafficking statutes on the books.
In Arkansas, human trafficking comes in several different forms — for sex, drugs and forced labor — and much of it flows through the state on Interstates 30 and 40, law enforcement officials said last week.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Arkansas declined to offer specifics regarding the number of human trafficking cases in the state, but FBI spokesman Steve Frazier, said it is a problem.
“We believe it is an under-reported crime in the state,” he said.
The state Criminal Information Center reports that in 2010, there were 126 arrests for solicitation of children and indecency with a child in Arkansas.
Human trafficking crimes also have been investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s office in both the eastern and western districts of Arkansas.
In the eastern district, which includes Little Rock, two Pulaski County men — Tommy Handy and his nephew, Everett Cooney — were arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2009 . The men were each charged with a number of drug and weapons charges, along with conspiring to commit commercial sex acts by utilizing a minor and adult females as prostitutes.
Handy and Cooney each pleaded guilty to sex trafficking with an underage female in 2010. Handy was sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison. Cooney received a 7 1/2 year sentence.
In the western district, which includes Fort Smith and Fayetteville, 49 people have been arrested since 2007 for harboring illegal aliens, according to spokesman Charlcee Small.
Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay, a retired Little Rock police sergeant, said human trafficking is the third most profitable criminal enterprise in the nation, behind gun and drug trafficking.
Holladay also said a national truckers’ group has created an organization called Truckers Against Human Trafficking in an effort to inform commercial truck drivers and other travelers about the problem.
“A lot of this activity goes on at truck stops,” Holladay said.
Safe Places, a non-profit in Little Rock that provides shelter for abused women and children, assisted 39 victims of human trafficking in 2011, according to the organization’s executive director Kathy Findley.
Louise Allison, executive director of the Little Rock-based Partners Against Trafficking Humans (PATH), said that about 50 percent of all prostitution in Pulaski County “are girls either being actively trafficked, or in prostitution as a direct result of being trafficked at an early age.”
The Washington D.C.-based Human Trafficking Resource Center, a national toll-free hotline, reports that in 2010 there were 22 calls from Arkansas concerning human trafficking in the state.
“Human trafficking impacts Arkansas,” said Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. “It is beneath the dignity of the people of the state of Arkansas to allow this to happen without us drawing attention to it and fighting it with all that we have.”
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is to be in Little Rock in late April to discuss human trafficking, said Nikolai DiPippa, director of public programs for the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. The exact date of Holder’s speech is expected to be finalized this week, DiPippa said.
Meeks said he first learned about the growing problem in Arkansas when he attended a seminar by a group called “Rush Hour Traffic” at his church. The program discusses human trafficking across the nation and the world.
He said he began to do research on his own and found the report by Shared Hope International.
Irvin said she also heard about the Shared Hope report and an online petition created by a Mountain Home man, who wants the state to beef up its human trafficking laws.
Kirk Rhodes, a respiratory therapist in Mountain Home, said he read about the state’s human traffic problem on Shared Hope International’s website. He later read about the issue on a political action site, MoveOn.org, which includes a link for people to create their own petitions.
Rhodes created a petition, he said, in an effort to get people aware of the issue and hopefully to push the Legislature to review the state’s current laws and enact tougher ones, if necessary.
He said he has received more than 100 signatures since he created the petition in January and he has talked with several lawmakers about the issue, including Irvin.
“When I saw this way to start a petition I jumped right on it, because I thought that would be a good way to attract a little bit of attention, and it was,” he said, adding that he e-mailed all 135 state legislators and a number of his friends and business acquaintances to advise them of the petition.
He also sent the lawmakers and others a link to sharedhope.org, which not only has studied Arkansas’ laws, but also has recommendations on how they can be improved.
“Hopefully they will use that as a blueprint to change the laws here in Arkansas,” he said.
Louise Allison, a victim of human trafficking after she ran away from her home in Dallas at 14 more than 20 years ago, spent two years working as a prostitute. Police discovered she was a runaway after an arrest for prostitution when she was 16.
She moved to Little Rock about five years ago and, after receiving counseling, she decided to try and help those who couldn’t help themselves.
“What happened to me, that was a long time ago,” she said, “It wasn’t called human trafficking then. I was just a runaway who got in trouble and men beat and raped (me).”
She said people need to be aware of the issue and her nonprofit plans to open a center where victims of human trafficking can stay and be rehabilitated.
PATH plans to open its first eight beds in May and another 60 in the Little Rock area by the end of the year. The nonprofit also is trying to raise funds to build a larger facility outside Pulaski County.
“That’s the reason we’re establishing housing,” Allison said. “Once the girls have a safe place to go, they will be able to open up … and then they can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society, something I didn’t have.”
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On the Net at:
www:sharedhope.org
www.polarisproject.org
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center: 1-888-3737-888