VCU news

By Jake Burns
VCU Police

When most people think of human trafficking, they may envision someone being kidnapped under the cover of darkness, then physically forced into commercial sex or labor. Lindsey Lane warns against such a simplistic image.

“The fact is, human trafficking is a very financially motivated crime, and it’s happening in plain sight,” the former prosecutor said. “What I heard the most in working with survivors is just being in a really dark space and feeling like there was no way they were going to get away from it.”

Lane and her colleagues from the Human Trafficking Institute are working with Virginia Commonwealth University this month as a part of Operation Silence Shattered, an initiative that aims to change misconceptions into effective tools to combat trafficking – including on college campuses, which introduce certain vulnerabilities that traffickers often attempt to leverage.

Launched by the Governor’s Office this year, Operation Silence Shattered is designed to raise awareness and protect vulnerable young people across communities and college campuses in Virginia.

Human trafficking is a crime involving the exploitation of a person for labor, services or commercial sex through force, intimidation or deception. VCU Police is partnering with Virginia State Police and the Human Trafficking Institute to help educate VCU and VCU Health students, faculty and staff on the signs of human trafficking and how to act if they believe someone they know is being exploited.

Experts from each agency are working with VCU to plan an event reaching both the Monroe Park Campus and the MCV Campus this semester.

“Human trafficking is a scourge on society, and we want to do our part to put a stop to it,” VCU Police Chief Clarence Hunter said. “Our team of victim-witness experts stands ready to help anyone in the VCU community. We’re proud to partner with state police, the Human Trafficking Institute and the Governor’s Office to better equip our community members to recognize the signs.”

During her work as a prosecutor, Lane worked on hundreds of trafficking cases, and many times, victims did not recognize they were victims of a crime.

“They all would say, ‘I was just in over my head. I got myself into this mess. I couldn’t get myself out.’ What they didn’t really realize is, no, you’re being exploited,” she said. “It’s not their fault.”

That applies to college students, who can be targeted by traffickers. Young people on campus can face financial strain, they are entering a new environment without an established support system, or they may develop new romantic relationships that lead to exploitation.

Online spaces and social media create avenues for exploitation as well. There were more than 600,000 commercial sex ads posted online in Virginia in 2023, according to state data.

Nathan Whiteman is a former FBI agent who focused on human trafficking cases for more than 20 years and now works for the Human Trafficking Institute.

“We’ve all had cases where one or more of our victims have been recruited off of a college campus or a job that they held while they were still attending college. Raising our students’ awareness, or opening their eyes to what the recruitment process looks like, is to really try to avoid another generation of victims out there,” Whiteman said.

Similarly, faculty and staff at universities and front-line health care workers play an important role identifying potential victims and guiding them to the appropriate resources, Lane said.

“Especially if they’re a nursing student or they are a front-line worker, they are going to likely have day-to-day interactions with high-risk people, vulnerable populations, who are typically the most likely to be recruited and exploited,” she said.

While a victim’s situation is unique, there are universal behavioral, situational and physical signs that a person is possibly a trafficking victim. The Virginia State Police Human Trafficking Unit has a list of possible signs.

Lane said recognizing them and getting help for victims ultimately blocks the root cause of trafficking: the traffickers.

“Even if we protected one victim, they would just go find another victim. It’s a very financially motivated crime. While it’s a physical crime, it’s financially motivated,” Lane said.

Whiteman noted that his institute’s workshops with law enforcement often are relevatory, even for experienced officers.

“At the end of an intensive, weeklong training, we ask police officers to look back at their career and ask if they now see that there might have been a possible human trafficking case they investigated or had some sort of contact with that you didn’t even know that it was human trafficking. Astoundingly, even trained law enforcement officers are like, ‘My gosh, yes,’” Whiteman said. “It is taking those blinders off so that [you] can really take an evaluation of the whole scenario.”

Resources for victims are available in Richmond and throughout Virginia. The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services provides this comprehensive resource guide.