MIKE TOBIAS: This program
contains graphic images and descriptions of
sex and violence. Viewer discretion is advised. (birds chirping) MIKE TOBIAS: What sort of person
buys and rapes a six-year-old? RACHEL POINTER:
Somebody who just almost isn't human. You get up the next morning
and maybe you don't feel good, and maybe your ribs hurt
and it's hard to walk today. TOBIAS: Was it the same guy selling you the entire time? POINTER: No, it didn't take
long, probably a few months, before somebody else
kinda took that role over. It's really not that
hard to buy and sell a human being in the
state of Nebraska. MIKE TOBIAS: Somewhere
in Nebraska
right now, there's sex for sale. Experts believe a lot of the
time this isn't prostitution. It's someone being
trafficked through what's legally defined as
force, fraud, or coercion. It's an ugly industry whose
victims are often children. Here's how sex trafficking
happens in Nebraska and what's being done about it. ANNA BREWER: We want people
to realize that sex trafficking happens in the
state of Nebraska. I operated the Omaha Child
Exploitation Task Force from 2010 to 2015,
and during my tenure I came across 250 victims. TOBIAS: Victims of all ages,
mostly female, sold for sex. It's a subject Brewer knows well from her years as an FBI agent. Now, she helps educate and
train others about a crime that no longer happens on
dimly lit street corners. BREWER: People aren't
walking on the streets, and men aren't driving
around the city block in circles looking
for someone to buy. Rather, they can just sit in
the privacy of their own home with a laptop computer
or a cell phone and find a human being for sale. (dramatic music) TOBIAS: The
selling and shopping happens on places like Backpage, a classified
advertising website. It requires users to agree to
not post trafficking materials, but on separate
pages for Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island, North
Platte and Scottsbluff, you'll find dozens of ads
for escorts every day. (dramatic music) BREWER: Backpage is one of
the most widely used websites that we came across while
I was working at the FBI. One good thing about
Backpage is they do turn over over 400 suspected
children for sale. A month, a month. Pictures that they think,
this is a child for sale. And they turn that over
to law enforcement. CRYSTA PRICE: Essentially,
the commercial sex market is strong across the state. TOBIAS: Crysta
Price and Terry Clark are showing results
of their research. Computer-aided, deep-dive
analysis of thousands of Backpage listings
over several months led to a detailed
picture of Nebraska's commercial sex industry. The academic term sex workers refers to all who
are part of it, whether it's voluntary
prostitution or trafficking. PRICE: Overall, the state
averages about 130 sex workers a day, and about 800 a month. TOBIAS: That's 800
different people for sale each month in Nebraska. Almost all are female. This heat map shows
where it's happening. Big circles representing
raw numbers of sex workers aren't surprising
for large cities, but look at the circles
on smaller towns like Oshkosh, Geneva, and Wayne. And yellow and red
spots, these indicate high per capita intensity
of sex advertising in places like Valley,
Springfield, and St. Paul. PRICE: Even though there's
just the five Backpage sites in the state, it really
spreads out from there to cover the entire state. TOBIAS: So if some, if a
worker or trafficker, whoever's posting, is
name-checking a town, they're basically
saying, we've had success there before in
our business model. TERRY CLARK:
There has to be a reason
they're singling out the town. There's got to be
a clientele there. And it wouldn't be
one or two people. TOBIAS: A closer
look at the Omaha area shows hot spots around
Council Bluffs casinos and the Old Market, with
hotels and CenturyLink Center. But look at the third
large hot spot, West Omaha. One explanation, there's
money in West Omaha, and that's good for
the sex business. Other findings reinforce
the demand for young girls. The average posted age of
a sex worker is about 24, but in reality, it's
probably younger. The older the worker,
the less they make. About half of sex workers
advertised in Nebraska are from here, and
stay in one location. Another fourth are
from here but travel. A fourth come to Nebraska
from nearby cities. PRICE: One group in particular
that experiences heavy travel are those who are
advertised as very young. Young girls are
particularly vulnerable to being trafficking victims. TOBIAS: And younger sex
workers are more likely to work in groups
called stables, another indicator the worker
isn't selling sex voluntarily. Which gets to the question, how much is voluntary
prostitution, how
much is trafficking? There's no clear-cut answer, but the online research
shows seven out of 10 Nebraska sex workers
with some indicator of being trafficked,
and 15 percent with multiple indicators. PRICE:
Since Nebraska sees roughly
800 sex workers in a month, this would mean that potentially
120 sex workers a month are high-risk
trafficking victims. TOBIAS: This
research isn't easy. Online ads are often
inaccurate and nasty. PRICE: I'd say about
once every couple of months, I wanna throw my
computer against the
wall and just be done. TOBIAS: But academic research
like this is a valuable new tool for Nebraska
agencies and law enforcement. CLARK: Our job is to not
just quantify it, but also talk in terms of,
okay, so what are the drivers that lead to the problem? Where is this more likely to
exist as pockets in the state? And what are the best
policy approaches, and approaches by
service providers to
deal with the issues? (traffic on interstate) (Soft music) TOBIAS: Location, a big
part of the trafficking business model. ANNA BREWER: I
think our location makes
it very opportunistic for those who wish
to exploit others on so many levels. TOBIAS: The interstate
makes it easy for traffickers to keep moving to
where there's business. Truck stops, rest
areas, and hotels along the way are
part of the mix. Strip clubs and massage parlors are another aspect of
the business model. Traffickers find customers
during big city events like the College World Series,
U.S. Olympic swimming trials, even the Berkshire
Hathaway annual meeting. Smaller towns and their events are also opportunities
for traffickers. (traffic noises) JAMIE MANZER: For most
of our trafficking victims, this is kinda where
we're gonna start. TOBIAS: It's the gifts
room at SASA Crisis Center in Hastings, a place that
helps victims of domestic and sexual violence,
including trafficking. The room is packed
with donated basics most of us take for granted. Jamie Manzer helped
trafficking escapees for several years here. They often came with just
the clothes on their backs. MANZER: We will give them some
version of this care pack, and it's full of donated
hygiene products, feminine products,
but then always in it is an opportunity for a journal, because that's a huge
source of relief. "May light and love
surround your home, "and the stars always
dance above you." TOBIAS: SASA serves
mostly rural counties, but they've seen
more than a dozen trafficking victims in a year, business sometimes
created by county fairs, a motorcycle event, even the
state fair in Grand Island. MANZER: For the state fair,
we did have three ladies brought on motorcycle from
Daytona Beach, Florida, into the community, locked
in hotels for multiple days, and then the gentlemen
who'd brought them there, who they thought they knew
and thought were acquaintances of theirs, brought multiple
men in, blindfolded them, forced them to have sex, so
they couldn't even tell me who they'd had sex
with, how many times. BREWER: This guy is the guy
from Atlantic City, New Jersey, that recruited the young
lady out of the mental health facility and
brought her to Omaha during the College World Series. TOBIAS: Anna Brewer's
collection of trafficker photos also includes a Kearney
woman who sold her three young children,
a woman trafficking out of an Omaha massage parlor, and a young Omaha
man, Ramon Heredia. (marching band music) TOBIAS:
Under the Friday night lights
of a suburban football game, Heredia hunted girls
for the trafficking operation run by his
aunt, and he found them. One 15 years old, one 13. The girls wore electronic
monitoring devices, showing that they'd
been in trouble before. They were vulnerable. BREWER: Ramon had
led them to believe that he lived in
this great house, and that there was no
rules at the house, and it was a fun
place to hang out at. TOBIAS: Once the two young
girls got to the house, what happened to them? BREWER: After the night of
partying and fun frolicking was over with, as I like to say, that stuff you ate
last night wasn't free, and the stuff that you drank
last night wasn't free. We own you now. TOBIAS: How long did that
go on for them? BREWER:
That went on for a day or two. I know that the older girl was forced to engage in
two commercial sex acts. At a minimum. TOBIAS: Heredia had the
looks, the walk, the talk. RAMON HEREDIA:
I recruited three women. TOBIAS: He spoke
with law enforcement before heading to federal
prison to serve time for conspiracy to
commit sex trafficking. OFFICER: Ramon, how
did you recruit the girls? HEREDIA: Well, it usually
started off, I would meet a girl through a friend or a family
member, whoever it may be, or sometimes I met them
just on the street. And started talking then,
just like any other guy would, kinda charmed them a little bit. Let them think I'm
nice, you know. And then, after a couple weeks, a lot of them came
to live with me for whatever reason,
usually it was they didn't have
anywhere to stay. And then I would start off by telling them, asking if
they were interested in doing like a rubdowns
as in massages or bra and pantie
shows, or stripping. And then they would do
that for a couple days, and then, after that, they would become prostitutes. Some of them I knew
for a period of time, so I told them, you know, if
you loved me you would do this. Others, I told them, you know,
hey, it's easy money to make. TOBIAS: In a letter,
Heredia told us he was an 18-year-old
quote sold a dream by his aunt, who's also
serving a federal sentence. And Heredia says he's
not proud of his actions and knows he hurt
a lot of people. (traffic noises) RACHEL POINTER: We moved here
the year that I turned six. So this is that house
that we were living in. And this is the house next door, where this all started at. TOBIAS: Six-year-old Rachel
had a friend next door. The friend had an older sister. The older sister
had a boyfriend. Rachel says the
boyfriend raped her, then he started selling her. Rachel was trafficked
for a decade. POINTER: He used my friend threats against
him, first of all. If you don't do what
I'm telling you to do, then I'm gonna hurt him,
and those kinds of things, as ammunition basically to rope me in, and then
started with threats against my family and other people that I knew. At first, it was just
random other people coming over to the
house next door, and then it was like, well, I think that we
can probably do more or get more out of you, so let's go to the
house down the street or around the corner
or across town. And it was three, four,
sometimes five times a week. He would either
come and tell me, this time or this,
when this happens, then I'm gonna need you to
do this and leave your house. Or he would tell my
friend to tell me this, after dinner tonight,
pretend you're sick, or something along those lines, and then go to bed early
and then sneak out. At some point, he
kinda fades out and just off the face
of the radar basically. And then it was just different
people, to be honest. Today, it would be this guy, and then a couple days later
it would be another guy. But you always knew
who was in charge and who was going
to follow through on whatever threats that they
made when they came along. TOBIAS: Rachel says
her house was chaotic, full of siblings, so
family didn't notice. The kids were home-schooled. Outsiders didn't see
what was happening. POINTER: Lot of my bruises
and things like that were in places that
you wouldn't see unless you were bathing or
something along those lines. More obvious to everybody,
I was an emotional wreck. Because I just, you can only
block it in for so long. Drugs and alcohol became
part of the picture at a very young age, seven,
eight, nine years old. Cocaine, mostly, and alcohol. I mean, not a lot
in today's terms, but enough to take the edge off and to keep me up and
to keep me compliant. And after a while,
it got to the point where I was very uncooperative. This sounds so weird to
say those kinds of things, but in terms of business, like, I wasn't
profitable anymore. And basically said, you know, you either need to let me go or you need to do
whatever you're gonna do. Because I'm done, I can't
keep doing this anymore. HEREDIA: Usually it was a girl
that I would see as vulnerable in my opinion, as in
someone that's not really, that didn't come from
like a high-class family that would be stuck up, or had everything they need
as you could say. SAKURA YODOGAWA-CAMPBELL: You're
looking at vulnerabilities. You're targeted,
you're isolated. And it's that whole, I call it like a push-me
pull-you kinda thing. It's like, I love
you but I hate you. And you're keeping a person in a constant state of confusion. TOBIAS: The vulnerable,
runaways, homeless, people dealing with mental
health and substance issues, all targets for traffickers. Then it's a matter of control. Some traffickers
brand their property. They take away identification
and communication. Control through
movement, isolation, beatings, drugs, and mind games. BREWER: The person who is
exploiting wants to keep that person unstable. They wanna keep
them disoriented. They wanna move them from
city to city, state to state, so that the person
who's being exploited doesn't know where they are,
where they're coming from, where they're going to. If you can control their mind,
you can control their body. DOUG PETERSON: Nebraska has
historically rated fairly low. TOBIAS: Low by some
measures in how the state fights trafficking. Just a few months
into Peterson's tenure came the launch of a
new statewide task force and strategic plan. More than Nebraska has ever
done to fight trafficking, led by someone who helped
start a similar effort in the Omaha area. STEPHEN O'MEARA:
The three keynotes
of this plan are to help victims and survivors,
to stop human traffickers, and to reduce the human
trafficking market. TOBIAS: A report
delivered to state senators about the same time pointed
out many of the problems with how Nebraska
fights trafficking. Availability of services for
victims was called bleak. MEGHAN MALIK: Currently, a
majority of service providers are under-equipped to respond
to victims of trafficking and do not have the tools
they need to identify victims. O'MEARA: We know that some of
the most urgent needs are, that first shelter
that you can find to actually help protect a
person who is being victimized, and get them into services
that are much more significant. We also know that emergency
response capability and mental health services
are really important. MALIK: Housing and shelter
are really critical, and what that is gonna
need to look like for every survivor is
gonna be different. TOBIAS: Trafficking-specific
housing has been mostly nonexistent in
Nebraska, but that's changing. Restoration House
in the Omaha area was one of a handful
in development when we got a look inside. We're showing things that
don't easily identify the house because traffickers want
to find these places and the women living here. Common are stories of victims
dropped off at shelters only to walk out the back door and ride away with
their trafficker. Trafficking victims will
stay here up to two years, surrounded by women who've
gone through the same experience and treatment
they need to recover. JULIE SCHRADER: We will
bring in counselors also. Intense therapy, group therapy. And be able to do it
right here in the home. A survivor of trafficking has so many other components, and we feel that being together in one place with the
same past, basically, is gonna make a huge
difference in their healing. MIKE TOBIAS: Another challenge
the attorney general's task force is trying to address
is what some have called a piecemeal system of help
for trafficking victims. SGT. BEN MILLER:
It is difficult because there's
not just like a checklist where if I find a victim
of human trafficking I can go down and say,
okay, I call this person and they're gonna give
them all of these things. ALICIA WEBBER:
It's absolutely piecemeal. It's really hard at this point because there's no best practice for serving survivors
of trafficking. TOBIAS: As part of
the task force effort, three Salvation Army
trafficking specialists are now stationed
throughout Nebraska to better connect
victims with resources. WEBBER: What they're doing
is working and meeting with that survivor who calls
or the service provider who calls and refers
and talking about like big picture, what
do you wanna change? What do you want
things to look like? And then being the referral
for the other providers. FEMALE ANNOUNCER: Ladies
and gentlemen, if you're looking for bags
from Dallas, Flight 448, there's some bags... TOBIAS: Those fighting
trafficking say the lack of awareness allows
it to happen, especially in the Midwest,
where many think trafficking only happens in faraway places. But in a small
grassroots sort of way, awareness and
interest is growing. From an art student creating
a display of ceramic birds. ELISA WOLCOTT:
Each of the birds represents
a victim of sex trafficking. There are 2,000 of them. TOBIAS: To a weeklong
event for college students. MORGAN MALLORY:
We are raising awareness
for modern-day slavery. We just want to shed
light on the issue, bring awareness to it and
kinda raise our voices. SHANE FAGAN:
Just after three short days
of being prepped in this life, her mother couldn't
even recognize her. That changed her so much. TOBIAS: There's also an
identified need for awareness and training for
people who might see sex trafficking happening. Here, hotel workers. FAGAN: Like in housekeeping,
you might be in the room, see things like provocative
clothing, sex toys, condoms, and an unusual collection
or amount of those. SISTER CELESTE WOBETER:
We want them to know what
are some signs and indicators that they can look for
in the different areas where they work, in
their departments. TOBIAS: And to know that
to do and who to contact when they see
something suspicious. The need for training like
this goes beyond hotels. One study says 88
percent of victims have contact with a
healthcare professional while they are being trafficked. STEPHEN O'MEARA: I have heard
story after story from survivors of sex trafficking
who have indicated that they encountered a
law enforcement officer or they encountered somebody
in an emergency room or a clinic, or they
encountered other people who they felt should
have understood what was happening to them, but none of those
people helped them. TOBIAS: Traffickers were
driving Laura from Chicago to South Dakota when
police pulled them over. LAURA: Officer, you know, says
"oh, your taillights out. "You need to get it fixed. "Just, you know,
letting you know." Doesn't look over at me, that
you know, my lip's busted. Black eye, looked like I had
been through the wringer. (traffic noises) SGT. BEN MILLER: We're
still in negotiations about who's going to do
the undercover. It won't be before nine. I don't think so. - [Dispatcher] All units
regarding a possible 4-6, last seen northbound from 40th. TOBIAS: Sergeant Ben
Miller has set up a meeting with a woman he
found on Backpage. SGT. MILLER:
Gotta text her real quick. TOBIAS: Now he's in a race. Can Miller get
everything in place for an undercover
officer and team to go in and bust her
before she turns him down for another customer? SGT. MILLER: I'm just telling
her that I'm running late. She's a little
iffy about waiting, so it might fall through. It's a little bit
harder with the girls because they, I mean,
there's a lot of them that do some screening
and stuff like that. (text message tone) Yeah, she's canceling. TOBIAS: Miller
says that's common in his fight against
sex for sale. He's one of just a handful
of Nebraska law enforcement officers with trafficking
as a specific assignment, and in Miller's case,
it's not all he does. A lot of his work is done
here, in the wee hours of the night,
trying to infiltrate Lincoln's commercial
sex industry. He's got a wealth
of information. Leads from street officers
and Crimestoppers. And phone numbers and messages from phones confiscated
during arrests. SGT. MILLER: The first kinda
thing that I'm looking for on this one was,
you know, is there somebody that's controlling her, like a pimp or something like
that, that's running her? And who is that person? You know, so you'll
look at that, or is this person
giving them direction? Because now you can
then make a case on that person potentially, you know, based
on phone records. - [Mike] This man
thinks he's buying sex, but he's about to get busted in a Lincoln police
sting operation. A few times a year, Miller
and team post fake ads and set up in a hotel
room with hidden cameras and undercover officers to
lure buyers and sellers. TOBIAS: This time,
six men were arrested for soliciting prostitution. That same night, five women
were arrested for prostitution. TOBIAS: Undercover
stings aren't new. This operation did not end with trafficking charges
or victim rescues. But Miller says
that's a bigger focus than it used to be. SGT. MILLER: In the past, it was
let's go find the prostitute, arrest her, throw
her in jail, done. But now, I mean, we
spend quite a bit of time really trying to talk
to these individuals to try to find out, you know, really if they are a
victim because, you know, under most circumstances,
if you find a victim, they're not coming out
immediately saying, yeah, I'm a victim,
thanks for saving me. TOBIAS: There's hope that
stings decrease demand. But penalties for buyers
are minimal in Nebraska. The buyers sentenced for
solicitation of prostitution after this operation
were fined $250 each. That's typical, and less
than some speeding tickets. O'MEARA: Certainly, we have to
do more with regard to buyers. We know that we want
to really go after, for the most serious, readily
provable offense available, not only the people we
currently call sex traffickers, but also the buyers and also entities, businesses who both benefit from and also facilitate,
either knowingly or with reckless disregard. JUDGE: Counts two
and three you're charged with human trafficking. TOBIAS: Marcueiese
Johnson of Lincoln picked up a woman in Arkansas and sold her out of a hotel
near a Grand Island truck stop. He was convicted and sentenced
to four years in prison for felony trafficking but
could be out after 15 months. (door closing) TOBIAS: Ramon Heredia got
an 11-year federal sex trafficking sentence. RAMON HEREDIA: In my honest
opinion, I believe that I got a lot less than I truly
deserved, you know. TOBIAS: Often, there are
no arrests, no prosecutions. For various reasons, no one
faced trafficking charges for what happened to
Rachel or Sakura or Laura. One reason, for a long time
trafficking wasn't understood. Victims often didn't realize
what was happening to them. Outside help didn't exist. ALICIA WEBBER: Be comfortable
hearing their story and believe what you're told, because quite frankly you can't make most
of these stories up. TOBIAS: Nebraska
is getting serious about fighting sex trafficking. One example, several
hundred service providers, law enforcement officers,
healthcare workers and others attended
extensive, two-day regional training sessions put on by the state's
trafficking task force. ANNA BREWER: It's
gonna take a number of times meeting with that survivor, and meeting that survivor
where that survivor is. That's how you're gonna get to a more successful
prosecution. TOBIAS: But significant
work remains. JAMIE MANZER: The state
prides itself so much in being Nebraska nice,
but sometimes to confront our deepest, darkest secret
is really hard to do. And that deep,
dark secret is that human trafficking
is alive and well. MEGHAN MALIK: Once we start to
realize that this is happening, I think we can start to
effect cultural change to stop it. TOBIAS: Rachel Pointer
used to play here. She used to tell
people her bruises came from sliding
down this hill. She was lying. This was the first
time Rachel returned to her old neighborhood to
talk about what happened here, how she was raped and
sold for sex for a decade. RACHEL POINTER:
This is a part of my history. And that's not gonna go away, that's not really gonna change. What I can change is
our future, my future, and hope that somebody else doesn't have to
be in this space. You know, experiencing
what I experienced. TOBIAS: Sex trafficking
stole Rachel's childhood. But she escaped, got
a college degree, got married and
works with youth. She fights trafficking through
the organization she started, the Free the People Movement, and by telling her story. POINTER: And this is an issue
that affects all of us. For us as survivors, as
victims, as former victims, however you wanna label that, you know, we've come a long
ways in the last few years but we still have
a long way to go. Long way to go. TOBIAS: Because
unfortunately, there's probably another six-year-old
being sold someplace now. POINTER: Yeah, absolutely,
absolutely. (piano music) Captioning by Finke Copyright 2016
NET Foundation for Television (piano music)
