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There are over 300 suspected massage businesses in Houston that facilitate prostitution and human trafficking, according to Children at Risk. The non-partisan research and advocacy organization is at work to make that number go down by hosting human trafficking bus tours and presenting their findings in court.
To find these illicit massage businesses (IMBs), Children at Risk searches the Texas Dept. of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) website to find all running massage therapy establishments in Houston. They then cross check these with detailed reviews on RubMaps and Yelp made by buyers who use their services to pay for sex. From there, the list is given to the Harris County Attorney’s Office for further investigation.
“The most disturbing RubMaps reviews are the ones where they talk about how the girls are unhappy or seem mechanical or seem forced because these girls are being trafficked,” Children at Risk Senior Staff Attorney, James “Jamey” Caruthers said
One of the bus tour stops is of an apartment complex that used ten of its units to traffic women and girls from 2009 to 2017. Up to seven women were working in one unit at a time and at least one victim was just 14 years old.
While RubMaps is a primary data source for finding prostitution, research goes deeper than reading anonymous online reviews and taking them for face value.
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Based on the Children at Risk 2018 Houston analysis, a massage therapy establishment becomes a suspected IMB if they lack a registered license, if there is proof of illegal sale of sexual services, and if there is an active stream of online contact between reviewers looking for sex.
Children at Risk uses TDLR to verify if a business does not hold a license. In affidavit form, this verification is used in prosecution and abatements suits through Project AWESOME (Attorneys Working to End Sexually-Oriented Massage Establishments).
Project AWESOME began work in 2017 with Harris County Attorney, Vince Ryan, and lawyers from the Reed Smith law firm to close unlicensed massage parlors that facilitate human trafficking in Houston.
“The Office investigates game rooms, spas and other notorious locations where habitual criminal activity takes place to rid neighborhoods of these nuisances,” the 2017 Harris County Attorney press release said.
Children at Risk also share their findings with the public by including maps of suspected IMBs near public schools and by hosting bus tours around the city that expose some of the businesses.
Since the launch of Project AWESOME, Children at Risk has closed around 20 locations.
Despite the evidence against these businesses, Children at Risk and the Harris County Attorney’s Office cannot close all suspected IMBs because many of the female workers recruited from other countries are unwilling to testify out of fear for their safety and the safety of their families.
An extensive research study at Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, shows that not only are many of the sex workers women and girls (99 percent of the 3.8 million sex slaves in 2016), but they are also brought in from outside of the United States.
“More than seven in ten victims were exploited in the Asia and the Pacific region,” Global Estimates of Modern Slavery said. “This was followed by Europe and Central Asia (14 percent), Africa (8 percent), the Americas (4 percent), and the Arab States (1 percent).”
Unless there are arrests or convictions against the business owners, or a corroborating testimony against the business, “There’s nothing to implicate the owner, other than that prostitution happened on their premises,” Caruthers said.
To combat some of the resistance, Children at Risk worked to pass the Texas Model, which is a method of services that helps people who are in a life of prostitution to exit. It also penalizes buyers more.
With the Texas Model, after a first prostitution offence, sellers are put on mandatory probation. This forces the worker to connect with services for drug and alcohol counseling, domestic violence counseling, and help with General Educational Development (GED).
After about a decade of hosting bus tours, Children at Risk plans to continue sharing their findings and partnering with law enforcement to help sellers that are trapped in sex work to get out of that situation.
“With every aspect, it [human trafficking] is not compatible with civilized society,” Caruthers said. “It is not compatible with a society that values individual rights, it is not compatible with a society that values human rights.”