Austin News

When Texas officials called on Noël Busch-Armendariz to help with the first known human trafficking case in Central Texas, she felt proud to be invited to the table. 

“There were three minor victims smuggled across the Mexican border,” said Busch-Armendariz, a human trafficking expert, university presidential professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and director of the Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (IDVSA) located at the University of Texas at Austin. “Together, we created a task force to look at existing laws and services to determine their adequacy in meeting human trafficking survivors' needs. The fact that the community understood the importance of having a tier-one research institute participate from the beginning to help solve the problem from the ground up was innovative. It legitimized our role as researchers.”

Busch-Armendariz’s breakthrough case is among millions statewide that make up the $150 billion human trafficking industry enslaving 25 million people worldwide, according to a Texas Public Policy Foundation study. 

Texas has the second-highest human trafficking rate in the United States, with the number of identified cases rising each year. 

“One of our biggest hurdles is to move away from treating the symptoms that cause vulnerability to eradicate those issues that create environments where people are continuously vulnerable to being exploited,” Busch-Armendariz told Austin News. “How do we recognize and reduce risk factors and vulnerabilities? Poverty, misogyny and equal access to education push on those risk factors. We need to get to the roots of the problem. I want people to know that modern-day slavery and exploitation – both in labor and sex – are societal problems. It is not an individual issue.”

IDVSA experts participate in a Clemency Project, in partnership with the Lone Star Justice Alliance and the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, through which incarcerated sex trafficking and domestic violence survivors can be pardoned by Gov. Greg Abbott in concert with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP).

“IDVSA is working to educate and provide technical assistance on these clemency applications,” said Busch-Armendariz in an interview. “IDVSA experts are creating a mock written report used as a tool for preparing cases for pardon and the parole board.”

Attorneys, community advocates, law enforcement, mental health professionals, medical personnel and judicial representatives are among IDVSA experts.

“We help build a depth of professional development in specialists involved and working on issues of modern-day slavery. Lawyers, law enforcement, and advocates will be more aware of human trafficking and better screen and respond,” said Busch-Armendariz. “Secondly, we raise community awareness. To eradicate human trafficking, you must first understand and build an awareness that it exists. Our work builds general awareness among the public that modern-day slavery exists in the form of sex and labor trafficking today.  We help create an “eyes wide open” awareness around labor and sexual exploitation.”