HOUSTON – There is no doubt Super Bowl LI will be a financial windfall for the city, as well as elevating Houston’s image. The money and parties that lead up to the big game are, however, also a magnet for sex traffickers.
In addition to police and federal agents watching for traffickers and their victims, several grassroots organizations are also confronting this crime.
“The Super Bowl is going to turn the entire city into a party,” said Sam Hernandez, with Elijah Rising. “Traffickers know, pimps know and they bring women in. It increases prostitution and human trafficking more than any event that we see come through the city.”
VIDEO: A museum to modern day slavery
Elijah Rising is a nonprofit organization battling human trafficking year-round through education and outreach. The outreach comes from members directly contacting women and children being sold at so-called spas and online, letting them know there is help.
“We use the tools that people use to find prostitution in order to find victims of human trafficking,” Hernandez said. “The accessibility to the women involved in the sex industry is our greatest weapon.”
One way Elijah Rising tries to recruit more help is through van tours, taking Houstonians into neighborhoods to show where brothels are operating.
“It opens it up, so it's not like, 'Hmm, that's a shady business.' It's an, 'I understand something really is happening there,'” Hernandez said.
Another tool Elijah Rising uses is explained through how it got its office space off the Southwest Freeway, which also houses a museum of modern-day slavery. During the 2004 Super Bowl, KPRC Channel 2 investigates went undercover inside the building that now houses Elijah Rising.
During that visit, several women were offering sex for money. A KPRC employee at the time also answered an ad for “models” at the business. A man told her to take her clothes off and when she refused, he said she couldn’t work at the business.
“Any citizen can find out who is paying taxes on the land,” Hernandez said.
Officials with Elijah Rising called the landlord in 2013 and let him know exactly who he was renting space to in his building.
“We didn't have to involve law enforcement," Hernandez said. "We didn't have to cut through red tape. We just pressured him to do the right thing. He heard us and he helped us shut this place down.”
From the neighborhoods to the skies above, Super Bowl means out-of-towners, and that's where Airline Ambassadors International confronts this problem.
“We really want people to be aware of some of the warning signs,” Roslyn Parker said.
Parker said Airline Ambassadors trains people from all sides of the travel and hospitality industries to spot the signs of human trafficking -- not to intervene, but so that they can notify police and federal agents. In the run-up the Super Bowl, Airline Ambassadors held training seminars at Hobby Airport and Nassau Bay City Hall.
Parker said some of the warning signs include passengers who are unsure of their destination, not dressed properly for a destination, traveling with someone who is overly controlling, or exhibiting signs of physical abuse.
“The first thing we want to do is take away this veil that it's not happening or it's not happening here in the U.S. It is happening here in the U.S,” Parker said.
A third front in this battle is at the nexus between missing persons and the sex trade.
There's no way to know the number of victims. We have no idea," said Dottie Laster, executive director of the Heidi Search Center in San Antonio. "They won't all be found. They won't all be located. They won't even register.”
Laster said many times, young girls start out missing and end up in the sex trade.
“When I look at their social media I find someone has been grooming, luring, recruiting them and now they are missing,” Laster said.
These are just some of the grass roots warriors confronting human trafficking in a city that has long been a hub for this crime.
“I was always running into Houston, even in California or New York, wherever I was,” Laster said. “Either the victim or the trafficker was connected to Houston or had least traveled here.”