Washington state a hotbed for human trafficking, report says

By Florangela Davila
Seattle Times staff reporter

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The state's international border with Canada, its many ports, rural areas and dependency on agricultural workers make Washington prone to such exploitation, according to the report.

"It is such a hideous crime because it's really slavery," said Bev Emery, who manages the state's Office of Crime Victims Advocacy. "It's looking at and treating human beings as though they are a commodity to be bought and sold."

The 93-page report, commissioned by the state Task Force Against Trafficking of Persons, is being distributed to legislators and social-service providers this week as a call to action for more collaboration among agencies as well as increased resources for victims.

The U.S. government estimates that between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the country each year, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a speech to Congress last year.

As of April, authorities had 153 open trafficking investigations. Under a 2000 federal law that makes trafficking a crime, federal officials had prosecuted 110 people between fiscal years 2001 and 2003. Authorities have also issued more than 400 immigration visas to adult trafficking victims since October 2000.

Seattle, according to the state report, is on a trafficking circuit that can include Honolulu, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Portland, Vancouver (Clark County) and Yakima. The route also extends into Canada.

Human Trafficking: Present Day Slavery A new report by the Washington State Task Force Against Trafficking of Persons is available by calling the Office of Crime Victims Advocacy at 1-800-822-1067.

Based on extensive interviews with local social-service providers, the report notes trafficking has occurred in 18 Washington state counties, with victims ranging from "mail-order" brides to sex workers to domestic workers and children. The local victims have been brought from Russia, the Philippines, China and Mexico.

But what has been difficult, according to the task force, is coming up with an actual number of trafficking victims.

"It's just like domestic violence and sexual assault 20 years ago," said Emery. "We didn't know those numbers either. We just knew it was there."

Trafficking has been a priority for several local officials since the 1990s when the state's Filipino-American community mobilized for statewide action.

In 1990, Helen Clemente of the Philippines was forced into a sham marriage arranged by an ex-Seattle police officer and his wife, and then forced into indentured servitude for three years.

In 1995, Timothy Blackwell shot and killed his wife, Susana Blackwell, also from the Philippines, whom he had met through an international matchmaking agency. Susana Blackwell had left her husband two weeks after the marriage because of domestic violence.

The report notes other cases that either occurred in the state or involved victims who used local services: Anastasia King, originally from Kyrgyzstan, who married through an international matchmaking agency and was killed by her husband in 2000; Victor Nikolayevich Virchenko, who recruited and forced women and girls to dance nude in an Alaskan club; and Kil-Soo Lee, who recruited more than 250 Vietnamese sweatshop laborers to work in American Samoa in 2001.

Washington was the first state to make trafficking a state crime, in 2003. No one has been convicted under the state trafficking law, but there is at least one case pending, according to the report.

Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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