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To Help Victims of Sex Trafficking in Idaho, it Takes an Army
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Idaho COBS and law enforcement work to tackle a complex problem
BY JODIE NICOTRA
If you’re like most Americans, you’ve likely heard the term “sex trafficking.” You may know that it is often called a form of modern slavery, involving the use of force or deception with the aim of exploiting people for profit. But you probably think of it as something that happens somewhere else: overseas, or maybe only in big cities.
Sadly, the ugly business of trafficking is everywhere, including right here in the Gem State. It happens at highway truck stops and rest stops, in campgrounds, hotel rooms, and “trap houses,” where illegal drugs are sold. It happens to a surprising extent within families. It affects men, women, and children of all ages and backgrounds. But some Idaho nonprofit organizations and members of law enforcement have been working hard to combat this entrenched, complex problem and secure justice for trafficking victims and survivors.
Local Support for Trafficking Victims
Paula Barthelmess was working as a trauma therapist and director of a community mental health agency in Boise. At the time, she said, she wasn’t tuned into human trafficking as an issue until she and other therapists in the agency started seeing evidence of what she called “a maladaptive sexual behavior” among some of her clients. After some investigation and training, she began focusing on supporting sex trafficking victims.
In 2014, seeing an unmet need, Barthelmess founded Idaho Community Outreach and Behavioral Services (COBS). COBS provides food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and other basic safety needs for victims of trafficking. The organization also offers trauma therapy and addiction treatment for clients, and runs three safe houses that have served 76 women and children. At any given time, COBS has contact with 40-60 victims and survivors, and Barthelmess meets three to six new clients in a typical week.
Many COBS clients find their way to Barthelmess via referrals from law enforcement officers who have been trained to recognize victims of trafficking.
One trafficking survivor, “Grace,” ended up in the hospital after complications from giving birth in a trap house caused her to hemorrhage. A sympathetic officer, recognizing her as a victim of trafficking, called Barthelmess. The combination of medical attention and intensive therapy at COBS helped get Grace back on her feet. Now, she’s graduated from the COBS safe house system and is living in an apartment with her toddler.
Barthelmess meets most of her clients in prison, after they’ve been arrested for prostitution, drugs, or other offenses. She met one survivor, “Billie,” when a fellow inmate and trafficking victim who already had contact with COBS recognized similarities in their stories. Billie’s mother had sold her when she was 16 to a drug dealer, who got Billie hooked on methamphetamines. She lived with the drug dealer until she was, as she said, “saved” temporarily by getting arrested and sent to juvenile corrections.
“And then it became a cycle, where the only safe place I had was prison,” Billie said. “So I kept reoffending and reoffending. I had no resources, no support, no nothing.”
Billie contacted Barthelmess, who became a “lifeline,” supporting her through the rest of her prison sentence. After she got out, Billie moved into one of the COBS safe houses and began undergoing intensive therapy to address her decades-long trauma. Now she is transitioning out of the safe house, working in the community, and planning to move into her own place.
Sex Trafficking and the Idaho Justice System
Prison may seem like insult added to injury for victims of trafficking. But so far, shortcomings in Idaho state law have given law enforcement officers little choice.
Nampa Police Detective Chad Benson, who first began working on sex trafficking cases in 2014, has been an advocate for changing Idaho law to recognize and support victims of trafficking.
“In law enforcement we’re trying to work on a paradigm shift in the way we look at human trafficking,” Benson said. “Right now, the laws say ‘prostitute,’ not ‘victim of sex trafficking’. So, in a trap house, if you are harboring multiple girls or boys to use for commercial sexual activity, then according to the law you’re harboring them for the purposes of prostitution. So as law enforcement you need to label and identify them as prostitutes, which doesn’t account for the fact that they’re victims.”
Some basic training and awareness of human trafficking helps law enforcement officers recognize that the victims typically suffer from a host of issues, including addiction, complex trauma, medical issues, and more.
“Typically, as law enforcement we arrest people and put them in jail. And we’re realizing with human trafficking that a lot of these girls and boys are needing not to go to jail—they need these wraparound victim-centered services that law enforcement can’t offer,” Benson said.
That’s why Benson and other members of law enforcement started working with groups like COBS. Transferring victims first to COBS and similar groups allows time for rehab, medical care, and therapy. Later, officers will revisit victims to interview them about criminal matters.
The Idaho legislature has just begun to address some of the issues with current law. In April, they approved revisions to Idaho House Bill 341. The revised bill makes it a felony to profit from someone else’s engagement in prostitution, what in other states is known as a “pimping law.” It allows law enforcement to arrest human traffickers and gives courts the ability to prosecute those who profit from trafficking.
...it became a cycle, where the only safe place I had was prison. So I kept reoffending and reoffending. I had no resources, no support, no nothing.
Benson called HB 341 “a big step forward” in recognizing and taking steps to resolve the problem and put the emphasis on the real criminals.
“It’s easy to charge someone with sexual battery, lewd and lascivious conduct, or rape,” Benson said. “It’s tougher to work the human trafficking angle because the cases are so complex. The problem is when we only charge traffickers with lesser offenses, victims don’t feel they’re getting the justice they deserve. We needed this newer code to allow a quicker response at a trap house or hotel, so we can arrest the right person.”
Mobilizing an Army of Survivors
Barthelmess joked that her clients call her the “Trauma Mama.”
“I’m a mother figure over at the homes,” Barthelmess said. “Even though we laugh a lot, I can call them on their bad behavior. We’re working on getting them to that healthy mindset they’ve never had before. They’ve been beaten, starved, burned, locked in cages. So sometimes they don’t know how to recognize what’s not appropriate.”
All indications show that the COBS system is working. While statistically victims of trafficking will go back to their old life five to seven times, the combination of medical care, therapy, and secure housing at COBS has helped reduce that number.
Idaho COBS is connected to a national network of organizations aiming to combat trafficking. And more locally,
Barthelmess and Benson offer regular workshops about trafficking around the state to law enforcement officers, schools, churches, and hospitals.
But most of all, Barthelmess said, it’s the trafficking survivors who can advocate for themselves and for those still trapped in the trafficking system.
“I tell the girls in the house, ‘Save a bed,’” she said. “I’m teaching them to be strong and resilient because we’re creating an army to go save the rest. And they know they’re out there by the hundreds. Our jails are full of them, our streets are full of them. Our hotels are full of them. And we’re going to go get them.”
