The National Human Trafficking Hotline receives over 10,000 reports of human trafficking annually, involving over 16,000 victims within the United States. This contradicts a common misconception that human trafficking is primarily a crisis experienced outside of the U.S. or that only immigrant populations are impacted. 

Los Angeles, with its diverse population that includes those most vulnerable to human trafficking, ranks third in the nation for cities generating the most calls to the hotline. To combat this growing crisis, the LA Regional Human Trafficking Task Force was created to bring law enforcement and social services together in the largest co-located partnership in the nation, with a vision to eradicate all forms of human trafficking in Los Angeles County. 

In honor of National Human Trafficking Prevention Month in January, the Trauma Recovery Center at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and Saving Innocence co-hosted the Victim Services and Law Enforcement Appreciation Event. Acknowledging the groundbreaking work of the L.A. Task Force, and the vital contributions its partnerships in helping survivors heal, over 100 attendees heard from a panel of subject matter experts representing USC Social Work, Saving Innocence, Homeland Security Investigations, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and the Thai Community Development Center. 

“It's important that we not be afraid to talk about this topic,” said Associate Professor, Practicum Education Holly Priebe Sotelo, a founding member of the L.A. Task Force and moderator for the panel. “It's not about politics. This is a conversation that impacts families, rich or poor, it impacts privileged and marginalized communities. It impacts everyone.” 

Aligning human trafficking efforts in the same direction

The L.A. Task Force is jointly led by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Saving Innocence, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Department of Justice and Office of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Its mission for Los Angeles County is to increase early identification of victims of all forms of human trafficking, strengthen investigation and prosecution of labor and sex trafficking cases and address the individual needs of trafficking victims through provision of comprehensive services. 

“There are so many anti-trafficking initiatives,” said Sara Elander, assistant director of programs at Saving Innocence. “The question we ask ourselves is what would it look like if all of our arrows were pointing in the same direction? How can we work together as leaders of city, county and state programming to really align against trafficking in our city?” 

Los Angeles County provides a unique challenge in combatting human trafficking, according to Priebe Sotelo, with large populations most vulnerable to the crime making it all the more important to address and coordinate prevention, prosecution and victim services.

“Poverty equals vulnerability and sometimes exploitation,” Priebe Sotelo said. “Supporting communities that are very vulnerable, especially those that are undocumented, requires partnerships, policies and support from a variety of angles.” 

Elander points to the high number of children in foster care in Los Angeles as another example. 

“There are thirty to forty thousand youth and children in foster care in Los Angeles County,” Elander said. “Each of them is two or three times more likely to be targeted for human trafficking than even other vulnerable populations. L.A. County just has a lot of vulnerable people and populations.”

Pioneering law enforcement and social work collaborations

In addition to the panel of experts, attendees of the appreciation event heard a presentation from Rosemary Alamo and Rick Ornelas, associate professors of practicum education who founded the first-of-its-kind Social Work and Public Safety Program at USC, a progressive partnership that merges social work with the legal system. Through this interprofessional collaboration, the program embraces a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to better serve local communities. For over a decade, the emphasis on education, training, and access to mental health services allows USC social work students to work alongside providers across the legal spectrum, addressing social issues and fostering community trust. providing a working partnership and professional development pipeline between social work, local law enforcement agencies, public safety and community-based organizations for over a decade. 

From the outset, human trafficking has been a key focus for the Social Work and Public Safety Program. 

“It’s a population health issue,” Alamo said. “There are parts of Los Angeles where it’s every day, it’s life.” 

As part of the collaborative’s community outreach with partner agencies, it provides training on topics including sexual assault identification with an emphasis on bystander intervention, digital violence and its effect on young adults, and gang and trafficking recruitment. Skill development emphasizes enhanced listening and building trust with a crime victim, linking victims with services, and re-victimization prevention.

Recently, the collaborative partnered with Chaffey College to provide safety and resilience training to Saving Innocence frontline caseworkers. Elander explains that the protocols and best practices for self-care, professional care and community care the caseworkers learn is important for maintaining their own resilience as well as for their clients. 

“The crime of human trafficking is incredibly dangerous,” Elander said. “The people that our clients are both involved with and fleeing from are dangerous people both to their victims and to anyone trying to intervene or interrupt the cycle of trafficking. There's constant threat and danger when we're engaging with survivors of trafficking.” 

Being freed is only the beginning for survivors of human trafficking. Many have significant trauma as a result of their experiences. Law enforcement may see the capture of their perpetrators as the end, but for many there is a long road ahead in putting their lives back together and significant trauma to address. 

“We always want to be victim-centered in what we're doing and work with law enforcement to meet the clients’ immediate needs,” Elander said. “What does the victim need right now? Do they need a ride to get somewhere? When a victim has a good experience with law enforcement, they're more likely to be available to the prosecutorial process, so that we can get more bad guys off the street in partnership with law enforcement.”

A significant number of clients of the Trauma Recovery Center (TRC) at USC Social Work are survivors of human trafficking that have been referred by law enforcement, including Homeland Security Investigations and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department among the L.A. Task Force co-leads. TRC is another essential component of support for victims of human trafficking at USC, providing free trauma-informed care and case management for basic needs, assertive outreach, and evidence-based psychotherapy. 

“Utilizing trauma-based approaches acknowledges the trauma that survivors have endured and provides survivors with the opportunity to heal from their history of trauma while developing skills that will help them move forward in order to realize their dreams,” said Associate Professor of Practicum Education Debra Waters-Roman, the licensed clinical psychologist who provides evaluation and treatment to the most complex human trafficking survivor cases at the TRC and also one of the panelists at the event.

“Law enforcement has their job to do — they're looking for violations of the penal code,” said Priebe Sotelo. “As social work service providers, we're looking to restore mental health. That's why it's important that law enforcement and mental health work together. Because we're not police officers and they're not social workers — but we can complement each other's abilities.”