By Brian Trompeter
Even in Fairfax County, which local officials routinely trumpet as the safest jurisdiction of its size in the nation, police must wield a wide array of resources to combat human trafficking.
County police investigated 25 human-trafficking cases each year in 2021 and 2022 and pursued criminal charges seven times in both of those years, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said at the March 28 meeting of the Board of Supervisors’ Safety and Security Committee.
Persuading victims to testify in such cases can be difficult. Human traffickers depend more on technology than brute force, Davis said.
“Contrary to what is portrayed in Hollywood, human traffickers often utilize very subtle and strategic methods to identify and groom victims,” he said. “Human trafficking is often a hidden crime, and our priority is to identify the victims so they can be rescued. From there, we work diligently to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Human trafficking – defined as using force, fraud or coercion to compel someone to work, provide services or engage in a commercial sex act – is often unreported, under-reported or unidentified, said Maj. Thea Pirnot, commander of the police department’s Organized Crime and Intelligence Bureau.
County police divide the crime into two categories, sex and labor trafficking:
• Labor-trafficking victims in the United States tend to do agricultural, housekeeping, childcare or factory work, Pirnot said. Common risk factors for them include poverty, immigration status, low educational levels and unpaid debt, she said. Victims of labor trafficking often are brought into jobs under false pretenses and kept there via threats and violence.
• Sex-trafficking victims often have a history of poverty, substance abuse, homelessness, mental illness, involvement in the commercial-sex industry or being exploited or abused, Pirnot said.
These victims differ from prostitutes, who take up their work freely, may leave at any time, decide on the circumstances for engaging in sex, control their own money and do not depend on another person to further their activities, Pirnot said. But prostitutes sometimes become trapped in sex-trafficking schemes and are reluctant to admit their situation to police, she said.
Child victims of sex trafficking frequently have run away from home or been homeless; suffered chronic abuse and neglect, emotional distress, family dysfunction or a lack of social support; identified as LGBTQ; had learning disabilities, developmental or cognitive delays and mental illness; engaged in substance abuse; or lived in poverty, she said.
Human traffickers sometimes kidnap, physically or sexually assault, or drug their victims. Traffickers also may use fraud, such as tricking victims into believing the traffickers love them, telling victims they are going to be models or providing basic needs without explaining why. Human traffickers also may resort to blackmail, debt bondage or threats against the victims or their families, Pirnot said.
Traffickers often use a combination of the above methods to secure their victims, she said. They frequently meet victims through social media and online gaming, making it especially important for parent to stress online safety with their children, she added.
“The person on the other side of that screen name or that avatar can be anyone they want to be to gain the trust of a potential victim,” Pirnot said.
Sexting – sending sexual images via texting – can lead to victims’ being blackmailed, she said.
County police take a “trauma-informed and collaborative approach” to investigating human trafficking and have a specially trained detective who looks into each suspected sex-trafficking case, Pirnot said. The team also has multiple other members with specialized experience.
Fairfax County police receive information on human trafficking during basic training, and the department provides in-service training on the subject several times each year at the academy.
The police department collaborates with a host of other public and private organizations – ranging from Fairfax County Public Schools and the county’s Fire and Rescue Department to Shelter House, Virginia State Police and the FBI – to care for human-trafficking victims and hold perpetrators responsible.
After Pirnot outlined several cases in which young people had been sexually exploited, Supervisor Rodney Lusk (D-Franconia), who chairs the Safety and Security Committee, said it was “kind of painful to imagine that this is happening, unfortunately, in our community and that we’ve got to do something to prevent and stop it.”
