TOLEDO, Ohio — While four people were arrested for allegedly promoting prostitution Tuesday following a criminal investigation in which five massage parlors were searched by SWAT teams in relation to human trafficking, no one has been charged with human trafficking.
Human trafficking is a nationwide issue though, and Tracy McGinley, director of the criminal justice program at Bowling Green State University, has been teaching Ohioans it's an issue that can happen closer to them than they may think.
"They say 'it doesn't happen in the United States. Certainly not. You know, we're in a rural area more so over here. Not in Rural America it would never happen here,'" McGinley said.
According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which says human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery, in Ohio alone, there were more than 1,100 calls for human trafficking in 2021. Nearly 300 trafficking cases were identified, too, which also helped identify more than 400 victims.
McGinley said the issue in Ohio likely stems from grooming situations.
"For a lot of people, it's somebody they know, somebody they befriended or somebody they thought they could trust who then tricks them into or deceives them into being trafficked," she said.
McGinley also said it's best to wait until more details about the case are apparent before making judgments about the arrests.
"We don't know if they chose to work there, if they were tricked to work there, if they're being forced to work there," she said. "They may have taken a job that they thought was a massage parlor job."
She said human traffickers can also take legal documentation from non-U.S. citizens that shows their work eligibility in the U.S. They can also force the workers to do long hours, not pay or feed them or tell them they're not welcome at home.
Recent data published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found more than 3,500 people were arrested for human trafficking and more than 630 faced convictions in 2022.