A half-empty bottle of vodka stands in the street gutter at Hotel Circle North, an area that police identify as a prosititution hotspot of human-trafficking victims. (Will Parson/Guardian)

Slavery is not dead in this country. In fact, worldwide,
there are more slaves than ever, according to a report by Anti-Slavery
International. In the international sex-trade industry, poverty is fuel and the
targets of enslavement are mainly women and children. The Victims of
Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 has helped police recognize
that these victims are not actually criminals themselves. Once lured by
traffickers who promise paying jobs, many are transported across international
borders to work in foreign locations where they can be more easily controlled.
As a border city, San Diego has its
share of victims from around the world, brought in from Mexico
to be prostituted on the streets or through Web sites like Craigslist.

All this I learned from the Feb. 29 “STOP TRAFFIC: Human Sex
Trafficking” on-campus event. On a whim, I had gone to see how the issue would
be treated — whether the speakers would talk about a vague, distant issue in a
poor country on another continent, or a pressing local tragedy. It wasn’t until
Deputy Sheriff Rick Castro of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department took
the podium that the event really got my attention. As part of the San Diego
Region Human Trafficking Task Force, he revealed the local ends of the
worldwide trafficking industry. His language was direct and sometimes bordering
on indelicate, but he had the firsthand experience to back up his assertions.

One part of his speech really got my mind turning. He was
mentioning San Diego’s problem
areas, such as Hotel Circle
and Seaport Village
and suggested that if the audience were to go to Hotel
Circle that night between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
they would see about 10 young girls just standing outside. Though, he said, if
you’d ask them what they were doing, they would deny everything and say they
were waiting for someone. He explained that because of the coercion and threats
of humiliation that the traffickers use, they have the luxury of sending their
victims out alone, even with a cell phone and a car.

So, after talking more with Castro after the event, I went
to Hotel Circle the next
night in the hopes of answering his challenge to find these victims, and maybe
even bring some pictures back as proof of the personal tragedies incurred by
this global problem. I arrived at around 10:30
p.m., driving slowly down the quiet road to gauge the territory. I
saw almost no one, let alone someone who could have possibly been a trafficking
victim, but I didn’t get discouraged.

It is common to find human-trafficking victims in empty hotel parking lots early in the morning. (Will Parson/Guardian)

At the western end of the vast stretch of hotels I parked my
car and went into a convenience store. A quick browse of the aisles yielded me
some sunflower seeds. When one cashier saw my camera he remarked that it was
too bad he didn’t have one himself just a short while before to take a picture
of the naked woman sitting in the parking lot.

My eyes were wide as I asked him about it. In matching
Southern drawls the two cashiers recounted how a woman in her 30s was in front of the store, completely naked. The
cashiers said she “didn’t look good,” as though they were more concerned about
her level of attractiveness than her situation. In describing what she was
doing, the cashier who sold me the sunflower seeds reiterated, “Just sitting.”

The episode set the tone for my night. Someone’s loneliness
or despair always seemed one step ahead, and I couldn’t catch up. There were
certainly clues everywhere. In front of more than one hotel I found vending
machines for papers advertising “Girls gone bad,” and “100s of Personal Photo
Ads.” I later passed an open bottle of Vodka in the gutter, still upright, half
full and cold.

After talking to the cashiers I realized that I had probably
missed one of the victims of whom Castro was speaking, which was unfortunate
because I didn’t see another that night. Walking up and down Hotel
Circle for hours with my camera discretely tucked
in my jacket, shelling a sunflower seed every 10 feet or so, I at least got a
feel for the area. Deserted businesses interrupted hotel after hotel. Signs in Hotel
Circle offer ironic contradictions to the seedy
nature of the place; I walked by a 24-hour “family” restaurant, and one hotel’s
billboard was lettered, “Welcome Pastor Convention.” Next to one hotel’s “No
Vacancy” signs, another’s rooms were mostly empty. More ominous than the long
stretches of unoccupied rooms, though, was the one room out of the lot that had
a light on and a car out in front.

Ultimately, it’s the transitory nature of the area’s
residents that makes such stark contrasts. A family spending the night before
their big trip to Sea World certainly wouldn’t be tuned in to worrying about
sex traffickers raking in money in the same places night after night. It’s some
comfort that the law enforcement is tackling the problem. But, for one night’s
searching, I can’t help but feel disappointed that I couldn’t take a photograph
in order to attach at least one person’s face to this horrible practice.