Des Moines, IA (KICD) — Washington Based Polaris an organization dedicated to disrupting human trafficking has identified Des Moines, Iowa in the top 100 locales for suspected massage-related trafficking by scraping data from paid online sites where customers review sex workers.
According to the Des Moines Register Polaris discovered 8 locations in the city and a total of 45 trafficking locations in the state. Rochelle Keyhan the person directing the national effort, says that many of the massage workers trafficked in the U.S. orginally come from China or Korea and are shipped across the country usually starting out on the coasts in cities such as New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles.
Polaris states that traffickers often blend in next door to legitimate businesses. The Iowa Attorney’s General’s Office this summer hired a new coordinator for the state’s human trafficking efforts.
