Activist Yolanda Schlabach says Delaware law enforcement is slacking when it comes to locking up human traffickers.

Limited data is available, but numbers show only 51 cases and about 150 victims were reported in Delaware from 2007 to the end of 2016. Schlabach blames low arrest rates on a lack of training among Delaware's police agencies and a lack of infrastructure and support for victims.

Human trafficking in the United States is a $32 billion a year industry, Schlabach said.

“The average age of lure into this is 11 to 12,” she said during a presentation March 23 hosted by the Greater Lincoln Civic Association. “We have this in every county in our state.”

Schlabach, a member of the state's Human Trafficking Coordinating Council and director of Zoë Ministries, said police need more training to address the problem.

Instead of pressing charges against the traffickers themselves, Schlabach said, police often arrest women on prostitution charges and provide little or no help to the women, who are then labeled as criminals. Schlabach pointed to recent incidents where undercover police caught women offering sexual acts, or “happy endings,” at the end of massage sessions at Delaware massage parlors.

When police go undercover to bust massage parlors, she said, they're only trained to bring justice to what they see happening.

“They don't see anybody holding a gun to her head. They see a free-will therapist giving a massage, offering sex for money. Then she's arrested as a prostitute,” she said.

Schlabach said those women are being trafficked against their will.

“Every county has them,” she said, pulling up several websites that identify massage parlors and salons in Delaware that offer more than a shoulder rub.

But the investigations need to go further. Police are not asking questions and investigating deeply enough, she said.

Arrest rates remain low and statistics are nearly nonexistent in the First State compared to other states, Schlabach said. In Maryland, identified surviving victims nearly doubled from 217 people in 2013 to 396 survivors in 2014. Most of the victims identified were involved in sex trafficking, and nearly all of them were U.S. citizens, she said.

“It can be absolutely anyone,” she said. “There really is no profile for either [traffickers or victims].”

Even though Delaware lawmakers passed legislation in 2014 to promote the fight against human trafficking and protect victims, Schlabach said law enforcement lacks the training to pursue human trafficking cases, and the whole state lacks aftercare, therapy and housing infrastructure for trafficking victims.

“The more we talk about it and the more the public is aware … that's what's going to make the landscape change in this state,” she said. “It's not going to come from the top down, or it would have already.”

Schlabach said in recent years she has shown her presentation about human trafficking to Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn and all the police chiefs throughout the state, but nothing has been done.

“But it's really the attorney general's responsibility to bring training to law enforcement, and it has not been done,” she said.

Delaware State Police spokesman Sgt. Richard Bratz said in an email that troopers are taking the issue seriously.

“As law enforcement first responders we have a duty to respond to incidents reported and thoroughly investigate crimes of potential and valid human trafficking cases,” he said in an email. “The Delaware State Police provides the necessary resources to investigate these types of crimes and have a key role or critical role in exposing human trafficking crimes and prostitution.”

State Rep. Ruth Briggs King, R-Georgetown, joined the question-and-answer session at the end of Schlabach's hour-long presentation and agreed with Schlabach that Delaware police agencies need more training, and family services and healthcare organizations need more education.

“What we have to do is look to some other areas that are doing this and have had some experience with it,” she said. “But a lot of it comes from forums like this, where people come out and get informed.”

To report suspected instances of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888. For more, go to humantraffickinghotline.org.