Sex Trafficking 'Epidemic' Inspires New Initiative By LI Officials

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY — Suffolk County officials unveiled a comprehensive multi-agency initiative on Thursday aimed at combating child sex trafficking and safeguarding vulnerable children from exploitation.

Called Operation Safe and Lasting Return, the initiative works to recover current sex trafficking victims and serves as a preemptive strike by providing services to at-risk children before they get taken advantage of by predators.

"Human trafficking in Suffolk County is at an epidemic proportion, we are in the top 20 percentile for human trafficking in the nation, a distinction no county would want to have," said Deputy County Executive for Human Services Sylvia Diaz at a press conference. "Just like drug trafficking, human trafficking is a business."

According to Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine who also spoke at the press conference, OSLR will involve efforts from numerous agencies including the marshalls' offices, sheriffs' offices, police, town and village police, legislatures, and state senators, who will work together "across jurisdictional lines."

He called the operation "the largest, and most significant effort in this metropolitan area to implement a child advocacy program."

Diaz said that Suffolk is one of two counties in the state awarded funds by the State of New York to "provide critical services to this very specific population and to address with children who need these services."

She added that the grant provides training for law enforcement involved in OSLR to provide comprehensive supportive services like therapies and therapeutic inventions that will be "intertwined" with the rest of the supportive services.

"In my 43 years in law enforcement, I have never seen such a collaborative effort dealing with this mission," said Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon, Jr. "And it is a mission that all of us need to look at and address."

Toulon added that in 2018, his office established the first human trafficking unit in any U.S. jail, which has since identified 354 victims and 224 traffickers.

Suffolk Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina, who was sworn in on Feb. 4, explained that sex trafficking victims are "lured" by predators in a multitude of ways, including through social media. Then they "exploit them mentally, find a way to meet up physically, offer drugs, fake love, something like clothing and things they might not get at home, and eventually they say 'pay me back' with sex work."

But OSLF will also focus on stopping the vicious cycle before it starts, Catalina said.

"This approach will find those girls and boys and offer them services before they can be dragged into this horrible, horrible world," he said. "Our service providers are incredibly well-versed in finding and helping those individuals so they don't get dragged into this life."

Romaine noted that some families aren’t equipped to deal with the challenges of daily life, especially those faced by adolescents, and even meeting basic needs. He that while it’s "one of the saddest things" that sometimes a family may be "dysfunctional," no children should be trafficked, left unattended, or uncared for, rendering them a prime target for traffickers.

"Today we're united in one goal and that's to protect our children. Suffolk County will become a national leader in fighting the epidemic of missing children, human trafficking, and child abuse and those three topics all go together," Romaine said. "So we are going to step forward today, we're going to make sure that we go after these, we're going to assemble everyone here. We're all united in one effort, to care for our children."