Human traffickers are trickling into western North Carolina to exploit the trail of vulnerability that Hurricane Helene left in its wake, a law enforcement representative warned at a recent North Carolina Human Trafficking Commission meeting.
Anti-trafficking leaders said they expect to see more trafficking as communities begin long-term recovery efforts.
The storm’s devastation stripped people of their basic needs, leaving survivors at higher risk of human trafficking, which is defined as using force, fraud or coercion to exploit someone for labor or sex. At the same time, the storm and its aftermath upended trafficking prevention and enforcement efforts.
While the region is teeming with nonprofits and volunteers from outside the area who have good intentions, bad actors can slip unnoticed into the disarray — especially since law enforcement has been pulled away from typical duties for disaster response, said Marc Nichols, a law enforcement consultant, member of the commission and retired North Carolina State Highway Patrol major.
Now, “the Atlanta cartels are pushing people all up in South Carolina, North Carolina, trying to recruit and find victims,” Nichols said at the commission meeting late last month.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina said in an email that the office hasn’t filed any human trafficking charges in the district since Helene, but “the safety and well-being of all communities in Western NC is our priority, and we are fully committed to bringing to justice individuals that seek to profit from criminal acts and the exploitation of vulnerable populations.”
The risks
North Carolina was a hotbed for trafficking even before the storm, in part because of its major interstate highways and large agriculture industry, which demands cheap labor. The state ranked No. 10 in the nation for cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline in 2023. The hotline identified 235 human trafficking cases in North Carolina, which is likely a small fraction of the total.
Natural disasters exacerbate factors like food and housing instability, which can make people vulnerable to trafficking, said Leanne McCallum Desselle, a research analyst and training and technical assistance provider at RTI International. They also create labor opportunities that can be alluring to at-risk populations.
“People may come and say things like, ‘I've got food and shelter and clothing for you, but you have to come with me now,’” said McCallum Desselle, who has studied the connection between human trafficking and disasters. “Offers that are too good to be true or wages that are too good to be true can be really enticing when you’ve lost everything.”
Danyelle Smith, co-executive director at The Bridge International, an anti-trafficking nonprofit in Boone, told the commission that storm-related stress can trigger people’s maladaptive coping mechanisms. That could mean an uptick in substance use, which traffickers can then exploit to coerce or control victims.
Asheville-based anti-trafficking and sexual violence nonprofit Our Voice has heard law enforcement and victim reports of forced labor in post-Helene cleanup efforts, said Rita Sneider-Cotter, its executive director. Some of those cases have turned into sex trafficking, she said at the commission meeting.
When the storm pummeled telecommunications and internet infrastructure, inflicting an estimated $101 million in damage, it downed Our Voice’s 24/7 crisis line for trafficking survivors in Buncombe, McDowell and Transylvania counties. A Jackson County nonprofit, the Center for Domestic Peace, took over the hotline for about two weeks, Sneider-Cotter said.
“It brought me to tears to have that happen because we did not have cell reception, and so trying to figure out how to even switch that hotline was quite a task,” Sneider-Cotter said.
Our Voice is back to operating its crisis line and offering free support services during limited hours. Sneider-Cotter said the group is bracing for an influx of need as recovery efforts continue.
“We already were in a really bad housing crisis, in Buncombe County especially, but really all of western North Carolina,” Sneider-Cotter told the commission. “This disaster is just going to exacerbate that, and we know that is going to cause an increase in trafficking.”
Finding safe shelter is particularly important for trafficking survivors, who are more susceptible to reverting to the same situation, said Nichols, the law enforcement consultant. He said traffickers, even those associated with crime groups, look like ordinary people. Law enforcement has worked to vet shelter volunteers, but it’s still in “reaction mode,” Nichols said, so it’s hard to say if the law enforcement community has the manpower to scrutinize every incoming group.
Dean Duncan, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill and an Asheville resident who leads Project No Rest, an anti-trafficking initiative aimed at North Carolina youth, said he’s seen misinformation about child trafficking on social media, including false claims that scores of children in Spruce Pine were unaccounted for after the storm.
The U.S. Office on Trafficking in Persons says some warning signs that an individual has been trafficked are if he or she:
- Seems like they’re being controlled physically or psychologically
- Appears to be monitored by another person who speaks for them
- Doesn’t have possession of their own identification documents, like an ID or passport
- Has signs of physical abuse, like bruises or burns
- Lacks a sense of time and space, or doesn’t know what city or state they are in
A long-term concern
Though it’s been nearly two months since Helene barreled through western North Carolina, the trafficking risk in the region will only grow. In the long-term recovery after a disaster, McCallum Desselle said, the workers helping rebuild — often migrants with temporary work visas or who are in the country without legal authorization — are some of the most vulnerable to labor trafficking.
After Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of guest workers, bound to their employers by temporary visas, filed into the United States to take on low-wage repair jobs on the Gulf Coast. Some were recruited to fill vacancies left by evacuees.
One ship building and repair company, Signal International, in 2006 lured Indian guest workers into a labor trafficking scheme with the false promise of becoming lawful permanent U.S. residents. More than 225 workers, who were forced to live in squalid labor camps and repair damaged oil rigs, sued the company. One group won a $14 million judgment, and Signal International settled another suit for $20 million.
In 2007, a North Carolina district court awarded a nearly $1 million judgment to a group of Thai laborers against a company they claimed held them captive, sometimes with guns, while they were transported from North Carolina to New Orleans to demolish buildings. One survey of New Orleans disaster recovery workers found that nearly half weren’t paid in full for their work and 55 percent weren’t paid overtime.
Another major at-risk group, McCallum Desselle said, is children. “They can experience sex trafficking at the hands of family members, sometimes driven by substance use or trauma or lack of economic opportunity,” she said, particularly when they’re out of school for weeks at a time.
Most school districts affected by Helene have reopened, The Asheville Citizen-Times reported. Yancey County kids will return to school on Monday.
Last week, Nichols said he planned to meet with state Senate leader Phil Berger’s team to discuss anti-trafficking efforts. NC Newsline reported that the legislature might consider an $830 million Helene relief package in its four-day session next week, but it’s not clear whether a bill will be introduced or what it would contain.
“We're going to do everything we can to prevent this horrific crime from occurring,” Nichols said. “I've interviewed and talked to a lot of victims, survivors, and it's just hard to describe the trauma those people live in every day.”
For Helene survivors, McCallum Desselle said to remember that “not all help is good help.”
“If you've been impacted by the storm, make sure that when you're accepting help, support, that you're using vetted resources,” McCallum Desselle said. “So looking at your local government, federal government, established nonprofits. Really just leaning into making sure that you can verify who they are and what they do.”
Our Voice supports human trafficking survivors in Buncombe, McDowell and Transylvania counties. Call its 24/7 crisis hotline at 828-255-7576.
Our Voice emphasized that it does not send unsolicited text messages from the crisis line number, the nonprofit said on Facebook earlier this month. An unknown party has been using the crisis line to send suspicious messages.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline is available 24/7 in more than 200 languages at 1-888-373-7888. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
You can also email the hotline at help@humantraffickinghotline.org. All communication with the hotline is confidential.
For more resources, visit the National Human Trafficking Hotline website.
Llame a la Línea Nacional Contra la Trata de Personas, las 24 horas del día, 7 días a la semana en más de 200 idiomas al 1-888-373-7888. Si está en peligro inmediato, llame al 911.
Usted puede enviar un correo electrónico a help@humantraffickinghotline.org. Toda comunicación con la línea directa es confidencial.
Para más recursos, visite el sitio web de la Línea Nacional Contra la Trata de Personas.
This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
North Carolina Health News is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina. Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org.
