Skip to content
  • COVID
  • Criminal Justice
  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Poverty
  • State Government
Please Donate
  • Please Donate
  • logo
  • logo
  • About Eye on Ohio
  • Who We Are
  • Good River: Stories of the Ohio
  • Internships
  • Sponsors
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Please Donate
  • More
    • COVID
    • Criminal Justice
    • Energy
    • Environment
    • Poverty
    • State Government

Eye on Ohio - In-depth, underreported and high-impact journalism that promotes the public good

Eye on Ohio (https://eyeonohio.com/)

  • About Eye on Ohio
  • Who We Are
  • Good River: Stories of the Ohio
  • Internships
  • Sponsors
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

Fighting to open closed doors: how advocates stepped up efforts to help sex trafficking survivors in a world where hiding victims is easier than ever

By Christopher Johnston | January 14, 2021

This article is from Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join their free mailing list, as this helps provide more public service reporting. For women survivors of sex trafficking struggling to make ends meet, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated an already desperate situation. Funding programs to support them have shifted to more urgent crisis funding— to house and feed the homeless, for example. Losing financial and food security only places these already scuffling women at an even greater risk of being trafficked again to earn money just to survive. Renee Jones, president and CEO of the Renee Jones Empowerment Center (RJEC)  in Cleveland, a trafficking recovery center she founded in 2002 to help women survivors of sex trafficking, has observed a definite increase since the spring. “We’ve seen the number of women and the need for help increase in all of our street outreach locations,” she said. “A lot of the women either lost a job that paid minimum wage or had their hours cut, so there’s definitely been an impact on the population that we serve.”

Although accurate statistics for trafficking victims are difficult to track because of the underground nature of the crime, during 2019, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office identified a total of 305 potential victims of sex trafficking in the state, 96 of them were 18 or under. According to the Polaris Project, a nonprofit dedicated to ending modern slavery and human trafficking, which has operated the national  Human Trafficking Hotline since 2007, the pandemic and subsequent quarantine has led to an escalation in trafficking activity. 

Full 2020 statistics are not yet available from Polaris, but the number of crisis trafficking cases handled by the Trafficking Hotline increased by more than 40% in April following the shelter-in-place orders compared to the prior month.

This Speech Clinic (Literally) Helps Trans People Find Their Voice

This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the Buckeye Flame. Please join our free mailing list or the mailing list for the Flame as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

Ohio clean energy foe at the forefront of key points in bailout law and ratification efforts

House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz called the law at the heart of an alleged corruption case “the best energy bill we ever passed.”

This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join our free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy New Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

FirstEnergy faces another audit as advocates and others press for broader investigations

The order comes as newly released documents point to a larger role on legislative matters for the former utilities commission chair. This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network.

More Headlines

Dodging disconnection
Who should keep an eye on drug seizure accounts?
Ohio Department of Job and Family Services tries to bolster its own workforce by posting jobs with no medical benefits in pandemic
Featured

FirstEnergy faces another audit as advocates and others press for broader investigations

By Kathiann M. Kowalski | January 6, 2021

The order comes as newly released documents point to a larger role on legislative matters for the former utilities commission chair. This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network.

Previous Stories

2020 Articles

2019 Articles

2018 Articles

Sign up for statehouse news

 

© Copyright 2021, Eye on Ohio

Eye on Ohio is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑