GREEN BAY, WI -- It's a hidden crime that's happening every day across the country: sex trafficking.
Now, those working to stop it say Green Bay has become a "hub of activity."
It's a $31 billion industry each year, fueled today by dozens of ways to purchase sex on line.
"I think it's because the internet is so prevalent," says Ashwaubenon Public Safety investigator Robert Messer, who has been focused on internet crimes against children investigations in the village for more than two years now, "the fast pace of the internet. It's quick."
I'ts an illegal world Messer is fighting to end.
Messer says, since January 2014, there have been 136 prostitution related arrests in Ashwaubenon alone.
"They are not in this life by choice," says Messer, adding that some of these sex trafficking victims are as young as 12-14 years old. "There's usually coercion of some sort. They are being forced somehow."
It's trafficking Messer and others say is fueled in part by the area's major highways.
"There's a lot of traffic in and out," says Messer, mentioning that Brown County is home to a truck stop that's in the state's "top 3" for sex trafficking activity. "The trucks are there from all over the United States."
The business of sex trafficking is also as lucrative as it is shocking. If you imagine one prostitute making $1,000 a night, 7 nights a week, 12 months a year, one pimp in charge of 3-4 women could easily clear over $1,000,000 annually.
"It's happening at the mall," says non-profit Eye Heart World aftercare coordinator Dawn Spang, "it's happening at local high schools."
Along with viewing the prostitutes as victims, both Messer and Spang are spending this Sunday at Calvary Lutheran Church, in Green Bay, educating neighbors on the signs of sex trafficking.
"Knowledge is power," says Spang. "If people are aware of it, then they can look for it."
The non-profit started an outreach team in the area in November 2015, and has been working with police to provide victims of trafficking a way out.
"If they want out of the life, we give them options," says Spang. "Do they need a place to stay? Do they need some place to go? Do they simply need a way away from the trafficker?"
Eye Heart World is planning to open an "aftercare home" in Brown County for victims of sex trafficking sometime this summer.
Spang says the home was donated by another non-profit, and will be rent and utility free for victims of sex trafficking looking to get away from the life. It will require a $300,000 operating budget, and fundraising efforts are currently underway.
