Human trafficking is a scourge we must stop
Published May 12, 2017
Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, May 8, 2017.
A recent case of child prostitution has forced us to take a look at the larger picture of human trafficking in the state and respond accordingly.
A Winston-Salem woman, Flora Riano Gonzalez, was sentenced to a maximum of 16 years in prison on charges that she forced a 12-year-old girl into prostitution, the Journal’s Michael Hewlett reported. "Gonzalez was convicted Thursday of sexual servitude and two counts of felony child abuse involving prostitution and sexual acts," Hewlett reported. While a Forsyth County jury found her not guilty of human trafficking, a co-defendant in the case awaits trial on that charge and others.
The victim is now 18 and in counseling and, thankfully, may have a bright future ahead of her.
But what makes this bad situation all the worse is that it’s not an isolated incident. North Carolina is among the top 10 states in the nation for human trafficking, WRAL reported recently.
“According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, there were 181 human trafficking cases reported from North Carolina in 2016,” Dean Duncan, a research professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Social Work, told WRAL. “That number includes 130 sex trafficking cases and 41 labor trafficking cases.”
But those are only the cases reported. Many more occur under the radar.
Human trafficking in North Carolina has become so prevalent because of a variety of factors — our location, between Washington, D.C., Charlotte and Atlanta, our major highways and a large number of agricultural and seasonal workers, among others — that make the area ripe for sexual predators who want to exploit vulnerable young people, WRAL reported. Coercion and sweet promises are often used — and sometimes, force. These are crimes that rob childhood and replace it with scars that last a lifetime.
And, of course, it happens because of sick criminals.
A measure currently before the state legislature, House Bill 910, may help curb this scourge. And our leaders must make sure existing law is doing all it can to confront this scourge.
As Patricia Witt, co-founder of Partners Against Trafficking Humans in N.C., told WRAL, “the more reporting we do, the more difficult it becomes for this crime to remain a low risk and hidden ‘beneath the surface.’”
