Austin News

Austin-area human trafficking victims advocates have found new ways to help and reach victims in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to recent news report.

Providing assistance to the human trafficking population already required a certain level of creativity before the COVID-19 and the requisite stay-at-home order, Allison Franklin, senior director of  the SAFE Alliance Collaboration, Advocacy, Response and Engagement for Survivors (CARES), told Austin360.

Now even more is required.

"Our whole program has transformed overnight in response to the COVID," Franklin was quoted in Austin360's April 24 news report.

Human and sex trafficking calls, texts and inquiries to SAFE's helpline related shot up by almost 40% between March 1 and April 15, compared to the same period last year.

CARES is a member organization of Texas Network for Youth Services.

Texas ranks first in the nation for human trafficking

About 313,000 are victimized by human traffickers in Texas, according to a study by the University of Texas at Austin Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Of that number, about 79,000 are minors and 234,000 are trafficked for labor, according to the study.

Minor and youth sex trafficking costs the state about $6.6 billion a year and traffickers exploit approximately $600 million from victims of labor trafficking in Texas, according to the study.

There are about 234,000 victims of labor trafficking in Texas at any given time, according to the study.

While no one is safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, those being trafficked and abused are especially unsafe, Franklin said.

“We were at capacity, and it’s even worse now,” she said.

Franklin said many victims are feeling the brunt of isolation and are not in a safe situation.

To cope amid the pandemic, CARES staff converted the program's drop-in center into a virtual drop-in center, and now do all case management and group therapy virtually, and provide twice-weekly discrete, drive-by deliveries to clients, according to the news reports.

CARES staff also are getting victims into shelters when they can but it is now, of course, all the more difficult.