Billed as the first of its kind, Polaris, a group fighting modern slavery, conducted a study of more than 32, reported human trafficking cases in and found that the illegal massage parlor industry represents the second-highest volume of calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
More than 9, salons are currently open for business across the US, with locations in every state. Often rundown, nondescript, and tucked into strip malls, the massage parlors accounted for 2, calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline over the period - , Polaris reported, and they are popping up at alarming rates in every state across the US. They look abandoned, empty, and you think, Who would want to go in there? Yes or no. If it's no, it's probably a place that's trafficking women.
The victims are primarily immigrants from China or South Korea who speak little or no English, are burdened with debt, and are desperate to help support their children. The women are lured by advertisements and word of mouth, but are increasingly being targeted on social media platforms, specifically the highly popular chat apps WeChat and KakaoTalk.
They are finding these women in these apps and promising them better lives and steady wages in different languages, and that's really difficult to detect and crack down on," Keyhan said. Thousands of Mandarin-language ads are constantly popping up across websites recruiting women for massage establishments.
After speaking to more than 1, victims, Polaris also found that many of the exploiters were former workers who moved up the ranks, became managers, or opened their own massage parlor. These massage parlors are also rarely stand-alone operations. The average salon connects to at least one other business, as well as nail salons, restaurants, grocery stores, and dry cleaners, researchers noted.
