Houston outpaces New York City, North Jersey in online sex trafficking ads

Assistant Chief Marlin Suell of the Harris County Sheriff's Office, left, and Julie Waters of Free the Captives discuss a new report on sex trafficking ads in Houston, Sept. 30, 2014. Assistant Chief Marlin Suell of the Harris County Sheriff's Office, left, and Julie Waters of Free the Captives discuss a new report on sex trafficking ads in Houston, Sept. 30, 2014. Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Houston outpaces New York City, North Jersey in online sex trafficking ads 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

About any way you look at it, Houston is a hub for both international and domestic sex trafficking.

And it's not just the city's size, port location and ethnic diversity, according to a recent analysis of online advertisements of commercial sex and sex trafficking. The sex trade has penetrated neighborhoods such as Katy and The Woodlands, said Julie Waters, a lawyer and founder of Free the Captives, an anti-trafficking organization in Houston.

Waters presented findings of a three-month analysis of ads posted on backpage.com, a national website where users can post items for sale. A portion of the site is dedicated to commercial sex ads, Waters said.

From March 17 to June 7, a research team for Free the Captives and the Imagine Foundation analyzed 25,950 ads for commercial sex posted for the Houston area. The nearly 30,000 ads represented a higher number of ads per person than were posted for Manhattan and northern New Jersey during this year's Super Bowl, Waters said.

One curious finding was that a higher number of Houston ads were posted on Tuesdays than on other days of the week.

"This indicates that we have a large number of business travelers who fly in on Monday and leave on Thursday," Waters said.

One of the sex-trafficking "hot spots" cited in the ads was the Hobby Airport area, she said.

Most of the girls in the care of Free the Captives are from the Houston area, Waters said. The youngest victim the group has seen was 10 years old when she was trafficked and had had four pimps. Another teen was trafficked in six states, according to the report.

A 16-year-old was forced to be with more than 60 men in one months, Waters said.

Free the Captives is providing raw data from the analysis to the Harris County Sheriff's Office to help law enforcement combat trafficking, Waters said.

Assistant Chief Marlin Suell said Sheriff Adrian Garcia has made a commitment to target the people who make trafficking a problem in Harris County -- the perpetrators and customers.