Map of Ohio

A few weeks ago, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray released a report demonstrating that there was human trafficking in the state, and he even had numbers to prove the point.

There were, the report said, 3,437 foreign born persons in Ohio who may be at-risk for both labor and/or sex trafficking, 783 of which are estimated to be trafficked into the labor or sex trade in Ohio.

Furthermore, Cordray’s report added, of American born youth in Ohio, 2,879 are at-risk for sex trafficking, and another 1,078 youth have been trafficked into the sex trade over the course of a year.

These are shocking numbers, even in a state with a population of 11 million.  The news media and bloggers soon were repeating these numbers all over the Internet as proof positive that Ohio — staid, old, Midwestern backbone of American values Ohio — was the epicenter of human trafficking in the United States.

Is that a fair description?  Is it even accurate?

The answer is,  no one really knows.  And therein lies the problem.  Without additional and much more comprehensive data from other states, the nature and extent of human trafficking remains an elusive, difficult-to-pin-down crime not just in Ohio, but nationally.

Attorney General Cordray and the impressive team of academics and legal and law enforcement advisers who compiled the report deserve a great deal of credit for even attempting to gain a handle on trafficking in the state.  Ohio broke new ground in authorizing the study, which follows two prior, privately directed studies.  If nothing else, these efforts justify calling the Buckeye State the epicenter of human trafficking studies!

But for the media and the blogosphere to label Ohio as the nexus of domestic trafficking is a gross over-simplification.  Yes, trafficking happens in Ohio.  Toledo, Ohio has gained the dubious distinction of being among the national leaders of cities where trafficking is present.  But there’s simply no way to justify — because no other state has conducted a similar investigation — the claim that Ohio’s experience is any better or worse than any other state.

If Ohio is a focal point for trafficking, the research report asserts, it may be because of geography, the state’s agricultural and industrial economy, and the presence of massage parlors and strip clubs.  Pointing to the extensive network of interstate highways that criss-cross the state, the report concluded that Ohio is a major transit area for trafficking victims.

That sounds persuasive, until you realize that the same characteristics that describe Ohio — highways, agriculture, strip clubs, etc. — also describe Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois . . . in fact, almost any state in the Union.  Thus, it’s only an assertion, not backed up with comparable data, to claim that Ohio’s location, economic base and other factors mentioned in the report make it more susceptible to trafficking.

The Cordray researchers elsewhere in the report claim that trafficking is likely to be a significant presence because Ohio doesn’t have a strong anti-trafficking statute.  Yet there is no data to back up that claim, just as there is scant evidence from other states (like neighboring Indiana and Kentucky) that strong anti-trafficking laws on the books have deterred criminals in the trafficking business.  The Ohio study accurately observes that law enforcement in the state is woefully under-trained to identify trafficking situations, a factor which may be causing the crime to undetected.  But Ohio is hardly alone in this regard. Inadequate police training is in fact a global issue that is preventing progress on combating trafficking.

To be clear, these observations are not meant as criticisms of the Attorney General or the team that put together the report. In fact, they deserve praise for raising awareness of the trafficking issue at the state level.  Additionally, it’s worth emphasizing that the report concedes that real data is difficult to come by; in fact, another, more detailed analysis of Ohio trafficking is supposed to be undertaken this year.

What does need to be stated — and underlined for emphasis — is that it is inaccurate and unfair to label Ohio as ground zero for human trafficking in the United States.  For the fact of the matter is, when it comes to understanding the nature and extent of trafficking, we’re still groping in the dark — in Ohio and in the rest of the world.