TO LEARN MORE
To learn more about human trafficking issues and how to help or get help, visit the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's website ItHasToStop.com, or nonprofit organization sites EndSlaveryTN.org or SecondLifeOfChattanooga.org.
Investigators from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation wanted to catch sex traffickers in Chattanooga, so they posted three advertisements online featuring women who promised sex for money.
In about 10 hours, 145 people called the number on the ad.
"Men willing and asking to buy these women for sex," TBI Special Agent in Charge Margie Quin said at an awareness event hosted by the Chattanooga Coalition Against Human Trafficking on Friday.
TBI agents worked with local law enforcement to turn those calls into arrests, and during a four-day sting in September and October, authorities arrested 20 men on prostitution charges.
"At one point they were three deep in the hallway waiting to get in," Quin said. "It was one of the most incredible things I've seen in my 24 years in law enforcement."
Quin addressed a crowd of about 200 people who attended Friday's "Unite, Wear White," event in downtown Chattanooga. The event is designed to educate the public about human trafficking and featured many of the local organizations dedicated to stopping trafficking.
Quin, who leads TBI's anti-trafficking efforts, said in her keynote address that trafficking is frequently misunderstood, and that Chattanooga is unfortunately well-suited for trafficking.
State law defines human sex trafficking as any time a person commits a commercial sex act by force, fraud or coercion, she said. And if the person who commits the act is a minor, it's automatically human trafficking, she added.
In other words, the law shifts criminal responsibility for the commercial sex act away from the person who performs the act when that person is a minor or if that person is somehow forced into the act.
In the four-day sting in Chattanooga earlier this year, the 20 men who were arrested were charged with prostitution-related offenses, rather than human trafficking charges, although the TBI said at the time that human trafficking charges could be added on.
And because Chattanooga is at a significant crossroads - with multiple major interstates running through the city - the city has become a geographic center for such trafficking, she said. The men arrested in the four-day sting were from Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, she said.
Hamilton County was one of eight counties in the state that handled more than 100 adult sex trafficking cases in the 24 months leading up to a 2011 TBI study, records show.
The TBI now is investigating 12 cases of minor sex trafficking and 40 cases of adult sex trafficking, Quin said.
"These are our kids," she said. "They were born in Tennessee, and they are being bought and sold right here."
Multiple speakers at the event praised Chattanooga's efforts to combat human trafficking and called for increased cooperation and funding to address the issue.
Jerry Redman, CEO of Second Life Chattanooga, a nonprofit organization focused on educating the public about trafficking, said understanding the problem is the first step to stopping it.
"We need large-scale community involvement," he said.
Contact staff writer Shelly Bradbury at 423-757-6525 or sbradbury@timesfreepress.com with tips or story ideas. Follow @ShellyBradbury.