Multnomah County prosecutor on combatting human trafficking and providing help for survivors

JR Ujifusa is a Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney and heads its Human Trafficking Team. He’s also the chair of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children & Youth. His team and other partners working to eliminate trafficking and support survivors are trying to locate anyone who was trafficked on the now-defunct Backpage.com, which was one of the largest online prostitution sites in the world. The DA’s office wants to let survivors know there is money available to them in the form of restitution from the successful prosecution of those who profited from that trafficking. Ujifusa joins us to share more about that effort and the progress that’s been made more broadly since he began working in this area in 2008.

Help is available 24/7 on the National Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Seven years ago, the federal government shut down Backpage.com, and its CEO pleaded guilty to money laundering and conspiracy to facilitate prostitution. Now, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office wants to let survivors know that money is available to them from the prosecution of people who profited from that trafficking.

JR Ujifusa is a deputy district attorney in the office. He heads its Human Trafficking Team and is the chair of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children & Youth. He joins us now with an update. Welcome back to Think Out Loud.

JR Ujifusa: Thank you. Good afternoon.

Miller: I should also say, before we begin, that we will be talking about sexual exploitation and sexual violence, so this conversation might not be appropriate for all listeners. I want to start with this recent news: the availability of money from the prosecution of Backpage. Can you remind us just how big this sort of Craigslist-like website was before it was shut down?

Ujifusa: Yeah, it was the go-to website for human trafficking and prostitution-related activity, at least in the United States, probably internationally, for close to when it closed down. It was the main web page where both buyers would go and where traffickers would sell victims.

Miller: How much contact information did you have for those victims or for survivors? We’re talking here about … because you put out a press release last week saying, “Hey, there’s money available.” How much do you know about the people who were on that site?

Ujifusa: What we know, in the DA’s office, are individuals who are victims of our cases, our trafficking cases. In addition to that, we did some searches to look at, a long time ago our office prosecuted crimes of prostitution. So those individuals who were sellers, that’s how we refer to them – the victims, the survivors – a long time ago, more than 10 years ago, we also identified as individuals who could have also been exploited and victimized on Backpage.

So we cast a broad net, and that’s why, not only did we do a letter campaign to send out forms and information to last-known addresses to individuals, but we also did a press release. We have it on our website to make sure that as many people who can find this information can apply. It does not need to be individuals just from Multnomah County.

Miller: Can you give us a sense for just how many people you have been able to track down and get some money?

Ujifusa: There hasn’t been any awarded money yet. This is a program that ends in February of next year, so the applications are open now until February. But we sent out over 1,200 letters to individuals in Multnomah County alone that we’ve identified that may be eligible for this money.

Miller: Not everyone who does work in this area – responding to human trafficking – was happy when Backpage.com was shut down. Lois Lee, the founder and president of the sex trafficking victim organization called Children of the Night, said this: “It’s a sad day for America’s children victimized by prostitution. Backpage.com was a critical investigative tool depended on by America’s vice detectives and agents in the field to locate and recover missing children, and to arrest and successfully prosecute the pimps who prostitute children. The ability to search for and track potentially exploited children on a website and have the website bend over backwards to help and cooperate with police the way Backpage did, was totally unique.”

What’s your response?

Ujifusa: You know, I know Lois and I think that that is part of the unintended consequences for going after a website like Backpage. What we see in the result after Backpage was closed down is additional websites, but websites that are across the seas, that don’t respond to subpoenas, that don’t respond to requests we have, that are still doing similar things. So we have seen sort of a splintering off of web pages who are trying to copy the model of Backpage, that are no longer responding to things like a subpoena when I send them to find out the name, the address, the email, the IP address of where the ads came from.

So it was a tool that we used. I joke sometimes that I was in constant contact with the people who responded to subpoenas at Backpage because I would send out subpoenas almost on a daily basis to find out, where did this ad come from? Who paid for this ad? What IP address? And they were, within hours, responsive to our subpoenas.

Miller: So then, was it overall good or bad that this site was shut down?

Ujifusa: That’s a really tough question because it exploited and victimized many people, and it was the main way in which traffickers exploited, especially minors. So that’s why I said it’s an unintended consequence. I’ve talked to survivors and individuals who live experiences who have said it’s less safe now that some of the online trafficking has gone underground. They feel less safe. So it’s a very complex issue. I can’t really answer that question.

Miller: Is it even possible to know if, overall, trafficking has gone up or down? I mean, if this is so in the shadows, and now, if the kind of main switchboard for connecting buyers and exploited young people or potentially adults, if that’s overseas, how do you get good data about the level of trafficking?

Ujifusa: I’ll start with the last part of that question, which is, I don’t think we have great data. I think it is underreported by far. If you look at data when it comes to domestic violence or sexual assault, we know that there’s an underrepresentation, based on the dynamics of those victims. The victims of trafficking have even more complex dynamics involved. So I think the data that we see is not fully accurate. I think it’s underreported.

What I do see, though, back to your original question, is how do we know that this is making a difference or there’s been some decrease? I do see an increase in education, an increase in individuals being involved. When we talk about human trafficking today, it’s very different than what we talked about, let’s say, when I began focusing on human trafficking issues in 2008.

Miller: I’ve seen in the last couple of years – and I want to get back to the changes since that time – bus billboards and signs here and there, what I guess is evidence of the public awareness campaign you’re talking about. And some of these ads are for the general public. They essentially say, “Hey, if you see a young person who won’t meet your eyes, who seems to be with an older person and there’s something awkward about their relationship, you should say something.”

I’m paraphrasing, but I’ve seen those ads and I’m wondering if they’re successful. Do you get tips that end up actually cluing you into human trafficking from random passersby seeing somebody walking into a Plaid Pantry?

Ujifusa: We absolutely do. And what I will say with that is, we rarely have a victim or survivor of trafficking call and say, “I’ve been a victim of a crime.” Many crimes in this community – when you get robbed, your car gets stolen, your house gets burglarized, you’re the first one on the phone to call and say, “Hey, I’m the victim and I want to report this.” The dynamics of trafficking are completely different than that. So very rarely do we have a victim calling and saying, “I’ve been the victim of trafficking.”

We need individuals, whether it’s proactive police work and law enforcement work to individuals on the street who have identified either something isn’t right, the dynamic is wrong, there’s something about this relationship between these two people. So absolutely, we’ve had some extraordinary cases or large cases that have come from an observation from a motel manager, or someone in a parking lot, or a family member who noticed something is wrong. We rely a lot on those things.

So educating the public does a couple of things: One, it creates eyes and ears all over the place to help us identify victims who are unable to, or unwilling, or don’t feel like they’re a victim at that time. It also allows us to get through some of those stigmas or some of those myths about what trafficking is.

Miller: Let’s go back to the question of what’s changed in the 17 years since you’ve been doing this, starting with language, because I think actually … and this is maybe often the case in societal changes, that you can understand something about what’s changed when you start to dig into how the language has changed. So what has changed just in the course of your career doing these kinds of prosecutions, in terms of language?

Ujifusa: I really appreciate that you talk about language. When I present, it’s one of the first things I talk about. I said when I started this, I used to roll my eyes when a presenter would start talking about language. But absolutely, language reflects what you think about a subject matter. It has changed a lot.

I’ll first say that we really try to focus as a district attorney’s office, especially in the human trafficking unit, on being victim-centered and trauma-informed. And that means we try not to increase the trauma of these victims. We recognize that trauma. And being victim-centered means that we allow victims and survivors to dictate parts of their case that they can. We listen to them, and we help them get to a place, rather than forcing them, rather than arresting them, where they’re willing to talk about their traffickers, willing to talk about the crimes that have happened against them – whether it’s their traffickers or their buyers. And we help facilitate that as prosecutors.

Miller: But even the word “traffickers,” is that a word you would have used 17 years ago, 18 years ago?

Ujifusa: No. People refer to them as “pimps.” We used to refer to buyers as “Johns.” Society used to refer to victims of trafficking as “prostitutes.” I think there’s been a lot of change in the vocabulary and language, too, for good reason. They’re survivors, they’re individuals.

I use the word “victim,” because it has a legal connotation, but most of the victims I know like to be called survivors or someone with lived experience. We don’t refer to them as pimps because I think there’s a lot of connotation in our society about the word pimp. You hear “pimp my ride,” those sorts of things, where it’s maybe not as serious as it should be. So, “sex trafficker” is what we use now.

Miller: You are the head of the Human Trafficking Team for Multnomah County. I have to say, despite having had conversations like the one we’re having right now over the years, I think if someone says, “human trafficking, what’s the image in your head,” the first thing that I would come up with would be some kind of people smuggled in to do some kind of manual labor, and not having any legal rights and feeling scared to go to the authorities because they were brought here illegally. But some kind of elaborate work-related scenario is the first thing that comes to mind.

Why lump everything together in human trafficking?

Ujifusa: I don’t think we lump it together, but human trafficking is the umbrella, and underneath that umbrella, there’s sex trafficking and labor trafficking. So what you’re talking about could be labor trafficking and also smuggling. Sometimes people confuse smuggling with human trafficking. So what we focus on most mostly is sex trafficking. The vast majority of our cases are sex trafficking, although we focus on labor trafficking as well, and that falls under the human trafficking umbrella.

But what I will say is that what we’re trying to do is get the community to realize that there is a problem with sex trafficking, and it’s not foreign nationals. They are children and adults in your community who are being exploited, abused and trafficked in your communities.

Miller: What’s it like to do this work in Portland, where there is, I guess, a proud history of strip clubs and of legal erotic work that adults engage in and pay for? I’m curious what you see as the social politics of this work now?

Ujifusa: Yes, it’s a balancing act for sure because there are many legal establishments. But what we’ve seen in this area – and I’ll say specifically Portland but also the Northwest – is because of those things you just mentioned. We have a significant demand problem. And what I mean by that is we have no shortage of buyers, individuals who are willing to pay for illegal sex acts. So that has made it challenging.

In addition to that, because we have such a, I would say, as you mentioned, a healthy legal sex community, that we have a lot of ways in which traffickers can groom and recruit vulnerable victims in order to get them to do or engage in commercial sex under force, fraud or coercion, or other ways.

Miller: Are there people who choose to engage in sex work – adults who can legally … well, legally is a question, but at least at the age of consent for sex – who you would argue are not being trafficked? This is an argument that always comes up. Oh, but for some people, this is legitimate work. They should be free to do this.

Ujifusa: My answer from my position as a prosecutor is, I do think there are people who say that. I do think there are people who are, but I think that is a very small minority. What I see and what I try to remind individuals, is that the victims of trafficking are individuals who lack choices, who are either trafficked at the time or have been trafficked before.

The average age of an individual entering into trafficking, sex trafficking, is between 13 and 15 years old. So even if they’re an adult when you come across them or talk to them, most likely they’ve been trafficked since they were a child, and most likely they’ve had a trafficker or an individual they may not identify as a trafficker, but someone who’s exploited their vulnerabilities, exploited their lack of choices to get them to do that.

What I usually remind people when I teach or talk to them or educate them is, when you get down to the details of what this actually is, strangers in hotel rooms and in cars that are violent, that act as if they own you because they paid for 30 minutes or an hour – that’s violent [and] it’s exploitative. It’s taking advantage of our most vulnerable population in our community.

Miller: When you talk to young people who are in this position right now, is it sometimes a struggle for you to get them to talk with you and to participate in the prosecution of their traffickers?

Ujifusa: That’s the biggest challenge we have, absolutely, because there’s something called a “trauma bond.” There’s a bond that many of our victims share with their exploiters. So our biggest challenge, both as law enforcement and prosecutors, is to build rapport and trust in order to get victims, when they’re ready, to cooperate and to engage or work with the prosecutor. Very brave individuals.

Miller: JR, thanks very much.

Ujifusa: Thank you.

Miller: That’s JR Ujifusa. He is a prosecutor in the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office. He heads the Human Trafficking Team there. He’s also the chair of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children & Youth.

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