Oakland City Attorney John Russo upped the city’s fight against sex trafficking of children this week by filing lawsuits against three hotels on allegations they let their businesses be used for prostitution.

“Certain hotels in this city have allowed and profited from this criminal industry -- an industry in which horrific crimes against women and girls are routine,” Russo said at a press conference he held Wednesday to announce the suits. He is seeking to shut them down or extract penalties of up to $25,000, according to the suits filed in state Superior Court in Alameda County.

An 11-year-old girl from Berkeley who was cajoled by relatives to sell her body on the streets for money is one rescued victim. An abducted 15-year old from Oakland is another. A 16-year-old from Colorado who befriended a pimp and wound up trapped in an Oakland hotel by day and forced to work the streets by night – until police rescued her – is another.

These young girls and others have been rescued from human traffickers and life on the streets through a collaborative effort by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, the Oakland Police Department, a half-a-dozen nonprofit agencies, the county’s Family Justice Center and law enforcement in nearby cities.  So crucial has collaboration been at catching traffickers and bringing safety to their victims that the county D.A.’s office launched a campaign, H.E.A.T. Watch - HEAT stands for human exploitation and trafficking - to widen the collaboration to include businesses, neighborhood groups and law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions. 

by Barbara Grady and Sarah Terry-Cobo
      
Two reporters and a photographer observed one of the busiest pieces of “the track” for eight hours one night in late February. We watched from the second story of an empty building on International Boulevard at 42nd Street, in Oakland, CA.  This is a chronicle of what we observed.

This is the index to Oakland Local's complete May 2010 series on youth trafficking, a growing problem in Oakland, Calif.