The South Carolina Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Task Force released new figures for 2020 showing that the scourge is not going away and COVID-19 has only made things worse as traffickers attack the most vulnerable.
Traffickers look for vulnerabilities and exploit them. Recent data from the report on how victims are ensnared by traffickers most often shows that it starts with a job advertisement. Other times, the dealer is familiar with the victim – an intimate partner or the victim is in debt when receiving a loan. Soon the victim is coerced, manipulated and arrested.
“This represents a public health and safety issue that violates basic human rights,” Attorney General Alan Wilson said at a Statehouse press conference on Jan. 11.
The AG office said in South Carolina, victims are forced to become escorts, engage in pornography or work in illicit massage spas. Less frequently, some victims are overwhelmed in sectors such as hospitality, food services, agriculture and construction. The report shows that the majority of victims are female in their early to late teens.
The SC Human Trafficking Task Force consists of several state and state law enforcement agencies. Other agencies include DSS, the Department of Mental Health, as well as other outside consultants in the hospitality, transportation and construction industries.
“The State Task Force continues its efforts, in collaboration with regional task forces across the state, to raise awareness of the number of the National Human Trafficking Hotline so that victims can ask for help and members community members can report suspicious incidents, ”said Wilson.
There were 139 cases of trafficking in persons reported in the 2020 report. AG Wilson also reported 179 cases of victims through the Trafficking in Persons Hotline alone. The 2020 report showed a shift in the top five counties that report the crime.
Number one in human trafficking reports in South Carolina is Horry County, for the second year. The remaining counties, in order, included Charleston, Greenville, Richland and Anderson County. Dorchester came out of the top five in this year’s report.
The AG reported being in the top five does not necessarily mean that these counties have more human trafficking, counties with active task forces have raised awareness of crime and how to report it, therefore, being a major county, he said, could be because it is more reported, not because it is happening more there.
At the January 11 press conference, Wilson called human trafficking a complex crime. And recent figures in the report show that prosecuting suspected suspects is complicated. The report showed that in 2020, ten different defendants were charged with human trafficking, some with more than one charge, totaling 13 counts of human trafficking in state courts.
The AG office said three defendants pleaded guilty in 2020 to trafficking-related charges. Five charges were dismissed, one because the defendant made a different charge for a total of eight cases closed.
The report currently shows that there are 75 counts of trafficking in persons pending in South Carolina State Courts with 22 different defendants. All pending charges involve allegations of sex trafficking.
If you or someone you know may be involved in human trafficking, call the Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.