As part of the Strategic Plan developed by the Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Coordinating Council, the third pillar, Protect, will be used by the council to ensure victims of human trafficking will be protected after being recovered.
While the council has made the first pillar, Partner, a top priority, protecting human trafficking victims is the most pressing need, the plan states.
"Victims who try to escape, but are unsuccessful, often find themselves subject to brutal reprisal from their trafficker," the Strategic Plan states. "Fear of such brutality makes escape all but an afterthought for many victims. For this reason, identifying and arresting human traffickers and purchasers is critical to anti-trafficking protective responses."
The Protect Pillar includes five strategies to help the council carry out the need to protect victims.
The first strategy is to collaborate between the state, county and local governments, enforcement partners and NGOs to identify and rescue victims of human trafficking, to arrest their traffickers and purchasers and to dismantle the trafficking organizations, the plan states. Together these groups will be able to form response teams to investigate target traffickers.
Law enforcement is a key aspect of this strategy, because it will increase the opportunities available to recover victims.
The second strategy is to develop victim response and services procedures that are consistent across the state, the plan states. But the services need to be consistent throughout Texas and allow the regional response teams to tailor the services as needed.
"Since victims often have to be recovered by law enforcement multiple times, and because traffickers may move victims, it is important for regional response teams to provide a consistent response to victims in order to guarantee the type of response a victim will receive and ensure the best possible outcome," the Strategic Plan said. "A consistent response allows for a more streamlined process, especially if multiple teams are coordinating together on a case that spans two or more regions."
The services should be consistent, but have the availability to be customized when necessary.
The third strategy is to increase the victim rescue and penitentiary potential of interdiction for the protection of NGO referrals, children stops, Department of Family and Protective Services requests and other agency requests, the Strategic Plan states. All of these should be maximized so all members of response teams can appropriately interact with victims as they go through rehabilitation.
Since human trafficking victims are likely to be distrustful from their experience, they may not be likely for them to cry out, especially if they have fear about speaking out against their exploiter. This means response teams need to rely on their observations and the signs given that the victim was exploited by a trafficker in order to rescue the victim.
Enhancing internal and external knowledge on human trafficking topics is the fourth strategy. This strategy also calls for knowledge on the topics of trauma-informed investigative techniques, victim rescue and victim identification to be enhanced as well.
To increase knowledge, human trafficking investigators need to have completed all of their work that's required by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the plan states.
"Law enforcement must assign investigators and essential personnel to attend trainings on labor and sex trafficking, human trafficking investigative techniques, victim trauma and specialist interviewing," the Strategic Plan states. "We must facilitate ongoing awareness and enforcement training in order to enhance division awareness and education."
Community awareness is also an important part of this strategy. The community can have an increased awareness on human trafficking by participating in educational awareness events and school presentations and several other ways.
Ensuring victims have access to protective orders and government programs is the last strategy of the Protect Pillar. This strategy also ensures that victims utilize these orders and programs, which will help increase their anonymity and safety.
Each victim should have an advocate that collaborates with law enforcement to create a plan to keep the victim safe and upholds their rights, programs and other safety measures. Some ways to protect victims are by offering them a pseudonym to use, which would legally require law enforcement to remove their name from files and records, or by using a free mail forwarding service or a substitute post office box address, the plan states.
"In summary, protecting human trafficking victims must be consistent and deliberate throughout the state, specifically to identify victims or suspicious activities, during human trafficking investigations, prosecution, and when providing services to victims," the plan states.
