BYU speaker decries human trafficking

PROVO — Last year, for the first time in Utah, government officials identified three Mexican females, one 14 years old, as victims of human trafficking, a Salvation Army official told the Deseret Morning News Thursday.

Nobody knows how widespread the problem is in the state, but prosecutors, social workers and academics are pleased with federal efforts to uncover the full extent of the problem and respond to 21st century slavery.

"This is the human-rights struggle of our time," said Donna Hughes, a researcher at the University of Rhode Island who spoke at Brigham Young University on Thursday. Her lecture was sponsored by the Marjorie Pay Hinckley Endowed Chair in Social Work and the Social Sciences.

"Sometimes people like to think, 'If I had lived in 1840, would I have been an abolitionist? If I had lived in 1915, would I have been a suffragist, working for the vote for women?' " Hughes said at BYU. "Right now there is a very important human-rights movement going on around the world, which is the abolition of sex trafficking, and I want to encourage you to be part of it."

Hughes hailed the Bush administration for taking steps to abolish prostitution. Experts believe prostitution creates most of the demand for global human trafficking of women, boys and girls — according to the U.S. State Department, children make up 50 percent of the 600,000 to 800,000 people annually trafficked across international borders.

The United Nations estimates 4 million people are trafficked each year, most within their own country.

"Men who purchase sex acts are ultimately the consumers of trafficked women," Hughes said. "They help create the demand for human trafficking."

In the Utah case, there are no allegations the Mexican females — ages 24, 16 and 14 — were brought to the United States to work in the sex trade. However, according to federal court documents, Armando and Martina Gutierrez brought the women to Salt Lake City illegally "for the purpose of private financial gain."

The Gutierrezes allegedly agreed to bring them to the United States for $1,700. When they arrived in Utah, a federal complaint charges, the Gutierrezes raised the price to $2,800 each, threatened the females' relatives in Mexico and provided fraudulent identification so the women could find work.

The U.S. Attorney's Office could not prosecute the case under federal human trafficking laws but did contact The Salvation Army, which uses grants to provide aid to foreigners identified as the victims of human trafficking, said Adam Freer, coordinator of the relief group's anti-trafficking program.