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Author Topic: CA: Alameda County Authorities Target Human Trafficking  (Read 1357 times)
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« on: February 01, 2010, 07:29:56 PM »

Alameda Authorities Target Human Trafficking
Posted: 11:50 am PST February 1, 2010

OAKLAND -- Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley announced Monday a stepped effort to end the sexual exploitation of children for profit, calling it an epidemic and a modern form of slavery.

O'Malley said a new program called Human Exploitation and Trafficking, or HEAT, Watch is an innovative blueprint for fighting the sale and purchase of children for sex, which she said is the second-largest industry in the country, surpassed only by the illicit trade in guns and drugs.

Speaking at a news conference at the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse, O'Malley said HEAT Watch brings together under one umbrella five strategies to combat human trafficking at a local, regional and national level.

Those strategies are engaging local businesses and communities, training law enforcement officials, vigorously prosecuting offenders, pursuing legislation through policymakers and providing services for children who have been sexually exploited.

Deputy District Attorney Sharmin Bock, who heads a unit that has been prosecuting sexual exploitation crimes since 2005, said the new program has a tip line that has already helped an Alameda County mother find her daughter, who had been forced into the sex trade.

The mother, whose first name is Joanne but who declined to disclose her last name, said, "I'm so relieved that there's this number and I had immediate results when I called it."

"Kids need to be with their parents," she said. "They don't need to sell their bodies to be somebody."

O'Malley was joined at the news conference by Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda, who authored legislation last year that enhances penalties for those convicted of the human trafficking of minors. The law also allows authorities to seize the assets of human traffickers.

Swanson said fighting human exploitation and trafficking "is clearly a rescue mission of young women from those would profiteer."

He said his bill calls for the funds that are seized from sex traffickers to be used to provide services, such as housing and education, for their victims.

Bock said traffickers recruit victims by kidnapping them or by using others, including other women or girls, to solicit them on behalf of pimps.

She said traffickers also use the "boyfriend" approach by acting interested in a romantic relationship while gradually coercing victims to work for them.

Bock said traffickers recruit and exploit victims in a variety of settings, including at hotels and motels, bus stops, train stations and BART stops, schools, city streets, bars, restaurants, social networking Web sites, chat lines and shopping malls.

Bock said the unit that was formed in 2005 has charged 164 people with various sex trafficking charges and has won 122 convictions so far.

The number for the tip line is (510) 208-4959.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/22402360/detail.html
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