For now, all is quiet on the Pasco side of the riveras Edberg and two volunteers walk through dewy grass. The agency helps survivors of sexual abuse and human trafficking.
They planned to pepper the porta potties on the Pasco side with flyers they hoped could help victims of human trafficking.
The Columbia Center Rotary tackled porta potties across the river in Kennewick. This was the first year at boat races flyers with tear-off tabs have been posted. A lot of the trafficking takes place at area hotels, advocates said. Mirror Ministries, another advocacy group, passed out flyers featuring missing kids to hotel front desks.
Julia Hull used to work at higher-end hotel front desks in Kennewick and Richland. The problem is larger than many people know, advocates said. But there's horrible things happening to them.
Gangs can traffick people — but most often, she said, moms are the first traffickers. Numbers for human trafficking are hard to come by, she says. Oregon and Washington rank among high-trafficking states. In , a survey estimated girls were prostituted every night in the Tri-Cities. At first, she thought that sounded nuts. Then, a sting in the Tri-Cities resulted in 26 men arrested over five days — a youth pastor, a scientist, businessmen among them.
