POULSBO — What industry is thought to be the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world — second to the drug trade — at $32 billion a year?

The answer: human trafficking, and it’s happening here in Kitsap County.

At the community discussion, “Sex Trafficking: Behind Closed Doors in Kitsap,” March 9 at Gateway Fellowship, participants learned some truths about human trafficking, and what they can do to help stop it.

Of the estimated 4.5 million victims of sex trafficking globally, 300,000 are minors being trafficked out of the United States, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

“[This business is] extremely lucrative,” said Del Chittim, executive vice president of Rescue: Freedom International. “In sex trafficking in particular, a pimp can sell a girl 30 times a night and turn around the next day and do the same thing again. The fact that this is happening shows there’s tremendous demand. As long as that demand stays high, traffickers will continue to play the role of distributors and they’ll create the supply to meet that demand.”

According to Chittim, 80 percent of victims are women and 50 percent are minors; the average age of victims in the U.S. is 12-14.

“And it tends to get younger,” Chittim said. “These are not kids that are foreign born. These are kids that are from our homes, our churches and our schools.”

Many sex traffickers and buyers use apartments, hotels, massage facilities, parking lots, restaurants, and shopping malls. Employees and owners are cautioned to watch for signs.

Victoria Ahlfors, survivor and co-founder of Scarlet Road, a local nonprofit that helps survivors, said, “I was being groomed through a job that was legal. I entered into the sex industry through being a dancer and I was trafficked out of country through that. It happened very quickly.”

A 2012 study of sex-trafficking related cases prosecuted by the King County prosecuting attorney’s office found that 63 percent of trafficking incidents involved hotels, ranging from economy to luxury hotels. Chittim spoke of two cases in King County in which girls came from stable families.

“One was a daughter of a professional athlete and one was a daughter of a well-paid executive,” he said. “The commonality was loneliness. These girls did not know that someone cared about them [or felt unloved]. Those that are into trafficking tend to play on the fragile edges of society. They find the areas they can exploit, and they exploit them.”

Jo Lembo of Shared Hope International added, “Every child is vulnerable. Every child has something to be exploited.”

Chittim used the country of Moldova as an example. Nestled between Romania and Ukraine, it has the highest rate of unemployment in the world. Sex traffickers identify areas with severe poverty and set up a fake storefront that looks like a legitimate business to lure in potential victims. Two weeks after opening, the shop is gone and the victims are exported.

“In the U.S., often times, it would be the foster care system. There’s 10,000 kids in foster care in Washington state and 2,000 of them are awaiting adopted families. As they get older, they feel like no one wants them and no one cares. A trafficker would exploit that population because no one has told them they’re valued.”

For Kitsap County law enforcement, a deeper understanding of the complexity of human trafficking has changed their perspective. Kitsap County Sheriff’s Sgt. Randy Plum said prostitution was prominent in Bremerton 20 years ago, and at that time prostitutes were looked at as criminals. However, about 10 years ago, law enforcement began to take a victim-centered approach.

“We make arrests to remove the women from the situation — to get the women out of that lifestyle,” he said. “We work hard to target pimps and really focus our investigations on the demand side. The prostitute is actually the victim. These are not victimless crimes. But it’s getting better. It’s definitely getting better.”

A victim’s road to recovery is very long, Ahlfors said.

“Once you step into this life … you’re trapped,” Ahlfors said. “You’re labeled, you’re looked at. You don’t have a clear path out and you’re like, ‘Now what do I do?’ … Sometimes you submit.”

In addition to a victim’s dependency on their pimps for what they think is love, as well as drugs and the basic essentials, the complex trauma a victim is subjected to often scars them for life.

“Prostitution victims go through a very complex trauma,” she said. “Not only have they lost everything that’s familiar and put in terrifying situation and hurt, they have been repetitively raped — over and over and over. They may have the same person raping them over and over and then on top of that they have 10 to 12 to 30 strangers a night, week-after-week, after year-after-year, raping them for profit.

“If we as citizens want to get these girls off the street we have to realize [that] we have to provide what the pimp has been providing — housing … care. There’s certain things they’re receiving in the life and we have to provide that for them.”

Programs such as the Human Trafficking Diversion Program facilitated by Natalie Mays, a Prosecutor’s Office investigator, works primarily with cases involving human sex trafficking.

“I’m not a cop. I’m not a social worker. I’m not an attorney,” she said. “My job starts on the front lines.”

Through investigation, advocacy and probation, she begins to build trust with victims.

“One of the best ways to get them to start talking is through food,” she said. “Food is love language. It gets them to talk and they do open up to me …”

“It’s a two-year program. It’s very small. Right now we have seven or eight girls. I’ve got three in college, a couple who are living on their own and one women is working on getting her daughter back. And it’s very promising.”

The panelists said the most important thing the community can do, other than being informed, is to listen to the young community, to mentor them and get involved.

Harriet Bryant, co-founder of Our G.E.M.S., a non-profit organization in five school districts, does esteem-building work with more than 200 girls said, “We empower them. We work to give them self-esteem. We do everything in our power to make them successful young women in our community.”

Bryant said they even have a program now called “Our Gentlemen,” working with young men in the community to teach them how to be gentlemen.

“Being preventive and putting this kind of information in front of them is kind of like that ‘Scared Straight’ tactic,” she said.

Businesses can help prevent sex trafficking by being aware of the signs. An initial study suggests the peak-time in which sex is 2 p.m. online.

The panelists advise the community to support nonprofits that educate and inform youth, as well as create ways to start the conversation.

“Human trafficking is a crime that will take a great deal of change on the part of our society if we truly want to make a difference,” Sheriff Gary Simpson said. “This is a problem that is not just our problem to solve, and this is just the beginning. We need everyone to become educated and give this problem the attention that is long overdue. The matter of human trafficking and the victimization of women and girls is a matter for all of us to solve. I hope the information you gain from the presentation today enlightens you, inspires you and calls you to action.”

Chittim added, “As long as it’s OK culturally, we have not hit the tipping point yet to say, ‘This is wrong, it’s hateful toward women. It’s despicable and we won’t put up with it anymore as a culture.’

“As we unite as professionals, we need to say, ‘Our voice is going to be heard’ and put this beast down.”