Report to the Louisiana Legislature – Relative To Human Trafficking,Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes, and Commercial Sexual Exploitation

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYAct 564 of the 2014 Louisiana Legislature requires the development of an annual statistical report on human trafficking in Louisiana. The report is to be submitted to the Legislature by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). DCFS developed a list of 59 Human Trafficking providers in Louisiana and contacted them to report information on human trafficking victims that they served. An Excel spreadsheet was developed with instructions and sent to each of the providers. A website was developed with the assistance of Louisiana State Police for providers to securely enter their data, for those agencies wishing to use the website. A total of 17 agencies provided data for this report. One of the limitations of the report is that only 29% of the identified providers of human trafficking providers have provided data for this report. DCFS has made numerous outreach efforts to providers to obtain data, but the number of providers submitting data has only slightly increased from 15 in 2015 to 17 in 2017. Some of the feedback from providers, not providing data, is that they believe that to provide some of the data items in the report would be in violation of Federal confidentiality laws. Another response by providers was that there is no requirement for them to provide this data. For the providers that did provide data in 2017, they reported a total of 447 confirmed and prospective victims. This was a 25% increase in the number of the victims identified compared to 2016 (357). Of the victims identified in CY 2016, 446 (99.8%) were sexual trafficking victims and 1 victim with no type reported. For sexual trafficking victims, 201 (45%) were identified as juveniles, 214 (48%) were identified as adults, and 32 (7%) were identified without a known age or approximate age. For juvenile victims of trafficking, Caddo and Orleans parishes were the two most frequently identified parishes for both trafficking and parish of origin. Caddo and Orleans parishes also have the largest number of adult victims. Data for victims in East Baton Rouge parish was significantly impacted in the 2017 submission, because the major provider of services for this area, HP-Serve, lost the majority of their records due to the August flooding. For Gender, 401 (90%) of the victims were female, 35 (8%) of the victims were male, 9 (2%) of the victims were Transgender, and 2 (>1%) of the victims were of an unknown gender. The age range of Sexual Trafficking victims was from 2 -55. There were 20 (4%) sexual trafficking victims age 12 and under. The most frequently provided services were Referral to Community Services, Mental Health Services, Health Services, Legal Services, Education, and Housing.  Access the Full Report – Published February 2017