LUBBOCK, Texas -
According to the Jubilee Project, 1.2 million children are sold each year into sex trafficking.
Congress passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act last year to combat sex trafficking. The bill became law May 29, 2015. The state House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committees heard testimony Thursday to help decide on how to best implement the bill in Texas.
"It's a federal anti-trafficking law that -- really -- had widespread support in both the House and the Senate," said Children at Risk staff attorney Todd Latiolais. "The Legislature is not going to be in session until January, but they received charges from the Speaker of the House, on the House side, saying hey, I want you to study these things in the interim and come back ready to take action."
"It's an up-and-coming crime that's spreading rapidly right beneath our noses," LPD Lt. Ray Mendoza said.
The law makes soliciting prostitution from an underage trafficking victim the same crime as underage sex trafficking.
"It's probably going to cut down on a lot of the customers that's keeping the business growing," said an undercover investigator with the Lubbock Sheriff's Office's Special Operations Unit. "I don't see any reason why it would ever be acceptable for someone to participate in that kind of activity with a minor. It's aggravated sexual assault of a child."
Latiolais said demand is part of the trafficking equation and buyers of trafficking victims could be held criminally liable under a federal trafficking statute. He said the statute also created new funding streams for victim services, as well as law enforcement.
"These children don't have a choice in this," Mendoza said. "They get wrapped up in it and eventually brainwashed into believing that what they're doing is actually okay. We need to protect those children, we need to get them out of there and teach them there's a better way of life,"
Law enforcement reports sex trafficking isn't just in the major metropolitan areas -- it's a rapidly growing trend in Lubbock.
"Lubbock is definitely a hot spot," said the undercover investigator. "They'll groom them with expensive purses, jewelry, drive them around in fancy cars just to keep them going in the business. They will basically move them in a circuit from the Midland/Odessa area to Lubbock to Amarillo and back in that sort of circuit, It's absolutely a growing trend in West Texas."
Latiolais said the county makes up less than 1 percent of adults in Texas and around 8 percent of all prosecuted prostitution cases occurred in Lubbock,
Law enforcement advises parents to always know what your children are doing and who they're talking to.
"If you're going to allow your children to have their own phone and social media, you really need to stay on top of it and there needs to be pretty strict rules," the LSO investigator said. "Nobody should be victimized like this and there shouldn't be any reason that a child should be on the streets in a situation where that child thinks that they have to sell their body."
"Get involved," Mendoza said. "Get into your childrens' business."
Lubbock is hosting the 5th annual Running2Rescue race June 4 at Mackenzie park. The event, put on by OneVo!ceHome, puts all proceeds towards building a shelter for underage girls rescued from sex trafficking. The shelter expects to open in early 2017. There is a 5k, 10k and 1-mile race. The event starts at 8 a.m.
For more information on the race and/or to register for the event, visit this website.
