Family physician Ronald Chambers has spent hours searching the website Backpage to see if he might recognize former patients among the dozens of girls posing and smiling in sex ads. He wonders if their layers of makeup hide bruises or if he might have missed the telltale signs of sex trafficking in patients at his south Sacramento clinic.
Chambers, like a growing number of health care providers across the country, has waded into the disturbing world of human trafficking to learn how to better recognize and treat its victims. Although the illicit trade has become a media buzzword in recent years and a cause célèbre for public health campaigns, medical professionals have, until recently, remained largely in the dark about their role in helping fight the crime.
“We just don’t look for it,” Chambers said. “We’re some of the few people in society who actually see these victims while they’re being trafficked. We’re just now recognizing them – and that’s a huge piece of the puzzle.”
Trafficking refers to the use of force, fraud or coercion to engage victims in sex or labor services against their will, and often involves transporting them across state or international borders. More than 100,000 minors are trafficked at any given time in the United States, according to FBI data. California law enforcement agencies arrested more than 1,200 children on prostitution charges between 2010 and 2014.
While much of the trade takes place on illicit websites and in out-of-the-way hotels, experts estimate that more than 30 percent of trafficked youths see a medical professional at some point while they’re being exploited.
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