The house on Morris Street looked like every other house on the block in West Dallas, except that its fortified doors and windows concealed a dark secret too prevalent in our society.

Then came news recently of a law enforcement bust and the secret spilled onto the street. The house was a hub for sex slavery.

For about three years, women were locked up in the 672-square-foot home, drugged, raped, beaten and forced to perform sex acts for money. Cameras monitored their movements and one of the traffickers allegedly slept by the front door with a weapon to discourage escapes. The courage of a passing ice cream vendor to aid one woman's flight to freedom finally shut down this house of horrors. The two accused traffickers, Desmond Kintwana Bethany and Bailey Jane Hance now face federal charges of conspiring to engage in sex trafficking.

As a community, we should be repulsed by this modern-day slavery, which ensnares 313,000 Texans, including 79,000 children, at a staggering $6.6 billion cost to society, according to a study by the Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault at the University of Texas. The Lone Star state ranks second in human trafficking, behind California, and the best available estimates tell us that hundreds of children are exploited for sex day and night in Dallas.

Sex trafficking is among the most vicious and difficult crimes facing our society. Traffickers prey on vulnerable people, including American kids who've run away from abusive homes, undocumented immigrants, and others who fall into their clutches. Traffickers often create emotional dependency, destroy self-worth and isolate their victims.

At the Morris Street house, at least one woman who had fled was lured back by a woman working for Bethany. On another occasion, women at the house were blindfolded and taken to Miami where the sex traffickers allegedly used now-shuttered Backpage.com, a site linked to trafficking, to solicit customers.

In short, this case highlights some of the complexities that law enforcement needs to overcome in order to wipe out human trafficking. For example, those who have been trafficked often do things that are inconceivable from the outside, such as returning to a house where they were abused. Trafficked victims also often refuse to testify in court.

In this case, we can celebrate that a handful of victims were rescued. But long term, we must get at the deeper problems that allow this cancer to exist in our society.

What we've heard from people on the front lines is that it is exceedingly important to have hope. Without hope, there will be no action. And this is one area where enforcement often proves to be a significant deterrent. It is also one area where smart enforcement, such as going after traffickers and concentrating on helping victims build new lives, can make a meaningful difference.

Actions like those on Morris Street recently should give all of us in Dallas hope.

Human sex trafficking in Texas by the numbers

14,414 — Total calls to National Human Trafficking Hotline from Texas since 2007.

2,048 — Texas calls to the hotline in 2017.

792 — Human trafficking cases from Texas reported in 2017.

267 — Cases filed with the Dallas County district attorney since mid 2014.

15 — Adult trafficking cases handled by the Dallas County district attorney's sexual assault unit this year.

Source: National Human Trafficking Hotline, Dallas County district attorney

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