COLUMBUS, Ohio -- January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and advocates in Ohio say COVID-19 has made awareness more important than ever.

Amy LaGesse, project coordinator for FOCUS on Runaways, and a board member of Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, has worked for years in the Toledo area on the issue, and said the pandemic has not necessarily increased incidents, but better disguised them more as people spend more time at home.

"Traffickers are not snatching and grabbing," LaGesse explained. "They are making friends with kids online; they're playing games with them. They are absolutely thrilled to see us more online."

Raven Cruz Loaiza, day one advocacy coordinator for Allen County Crime Victim's Services, added fewer victim referrals are coming from juvenile courts and other community partners.

"Mental-health providers, physicians; a lot of them are doing virtual appointments, or over the phone," Loaiza outlined. "Well, you can't always do a complete assessment, so out of sight, out of mind."

In Ohio, youths who are homeless or who run away from home are most at risk for sex trafficking, followed by those who use drugs or alcohol.

Other vulnerable groups include LGBTQ individuals, migrant farmworkers and those with a developmental or intellectual disability.

Loaiza said outreach to immigrant victims of trafficking, who are already in the shadows, is also a challenge.

"Getting them in for appointments, noticing those red flags, then you've got political rhetoric and then you've got language barriers," Loaiza observed. "So those have increased people's vulnerabilities."

LaGesse added engaging with survivors on a personal level is crucial in order to support them. But those connections are difficult now because they're over the phone or online, instead of face-to-face.

"And you're talking about someone who has been traumatized, and through terrible things and now you're going to say, 'Hi, I'm Amy. How can I help you today?' It's very hard to build a relationship," LaGesse stated.

Because it occurs behind closed doors, quantifying the scope of human trafficking is difficult. However, from a legal perspective, a report ranked Ohio 14th in the U.S. in 2019 for federal human trafficking convictions.


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A new Minnesota law has gone into effect this week involving a program that keeps address information confidential for victims of domestic abuse.

Minnesota's Safe at Home initiative assigns participants a post office box to use as their legal address, to help as they escape an abusive situation or a stalker. It also details how state and local agencies have to respond to data requests without disclosing the person's location. Among the changes is clarification of the requirement that a landlord cannot display a person's name who's in the Safe at Home program.

Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, a main sponsor of the bill, said no major issues prompted the updates, but they're still important.

"As technology changes, too," she said, "that we're sort of making sure that what is in statute matches with the reality of what it's like to live as someone who lives in fear for their safety."

Another change expands the definition of "real property records" that are prohibited from disclosure. Becker-Finn said they had long pushed for these updates, but general political gridlock proved to be an obstacle.

In broader efforts to help abuse and assault victims, Becker-Finn said she would like to see agencies be more responsive and sensitive to those reporting an incident. In many communities, she said, the way survivors are treated can make it harder for them to even file a report.

"I think we do have a ways to go when it comes to that side of things and actually holding people accountable," she said.

Advocacy groups have said Minnesota also must take steps such as committing to testing its backlog of rape kits to better support victims. Recent reforms largely addressed future kits.

Last year, the state did remove a statute of limitations on reporting sexual assault, with the goal of giving survivors more time to decide when to pursue charges.

New work is being done in Ohio to help free people who are caught in the complex web of domestic violence, addiction and mental health.

Cheryl Stahl, who is heading the Ohio Domestic Violence Network's new Substance Use Mental Health Project, said most survivors who seek services are facing multiple traumas and concerns.

"You're working with women who - say, from childhood - have had sexual-abuse experiences and then date people who are abusive," she said "Those people perhaps are using drugs. They get introduced to drugs; they may have mental-health concerns that are being masked by the trauma."

Research indicates that between 47% and 90% of women who seek substance-use disorder treatment say they've experienced domestic violence. Stahl said the project is teaching advocates at shelters about addiction and mental health, and how they can better assist people who struggle with these challenges.

Stahl said domestic-violence survivors can be reluctant to leave because of mental-health and substance-use coercion, when an abuser uses tactics to undermine their sanity and sobriety.

"The abusers will often use substance use particularly as a way of threatening to take custody of children," she said. "You may have the abuser as the person who is providing the drugs and sort of in control of when they get them and when they don't."

Stahl said the training will teach shelter staff how to talk about addiction in ways that encourage change and can connect survivors with peer-support services, and provide help for people who are actively using but not ready to enter treatment.

"Survivors aren't going to shelter necessarily to get off of drugs, that's not what they're seeking that service for," she said. "So, introducing some harm-reduction strategies - safety planning with people on how to hopefully prevent overdose."

Stahl said some of the work will focus on identifying brain injury as it pertains to substance use and mental health. The three-year project is starting in seven counties and Stahl said she hopes to expand it to 30 shelters.

Non-profits assisting North Dakota crime victims are trying to maintain services they've been building in recent years. As demand reaches pre-pandemic levels, leaders hope to avoid clients falling off their radar.

Legal Services of North Dakota is in its third year of using a state grant through the federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA). The organization's Interim Executive Director Mikayla Jablonski Jahner said family law stemming from domestic violence is the most common source of requests for help.

Staff attorneys around the state work closely with those seeking protection orders and other court solutions. She said these situations take an emotional and physical toll on the client.

"And sometimes," said Jablonski Jahner, "it is just giving them that advice and giving them resources, so that they know when it's right for them that they have those things available to them and they understand what the next steps would be."

She said helping clients see things through takes dedication because a variety of factors can make it hard for them to leave the situation permanently.

The group has been able to assemble a team for these cases. But it warns that VOCA funding in North Dakota is dwindling, potentially resulting in a smaller grant total ahead of renewal in the coming months.

Amid these concerns, Legal Services is teaming with the North Dakota Council on Abused Women's Services, which has hired its own attorney to assist with cases.

And Jablonski Jahner said training has allowed private lawyers to join the cause, which helps if a person doesn't qualify for legal aid.

"There are some private attorneys out in the western part of the state that are more than willing to help with these cases, do some pro bono work," said Jablonski Jahner. "But again, in the last few years, we've really made a push to make sure there are some other options. "

Meanwhile, the group's project serves between 150 to 200 people a year. Jablonski Jahner said that number took a dip at the start of the pandemic, but applications are back at normal levels.

The potential funding cut would follow a small reduction in the last grant.

But that's not stopping creative approaches. Legal Services has another staff member who focuses on client needs such as housing, allowing that person to focus on their case.