Restricting massage businesses could limit sex trafficking, activist says - Ames Tribune

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By Austin Cannon Staff Writer acannon@amestrib.com
The Ames City Council on Tuesday will proclaim next week (Jan. 9 to 16) “Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention and Awareness Week,” but George Belitsos hopes the panel will take the cause a little further in the new year.

Belitsos, the board chair of the Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking, wants the city to craft an ordinance that regulates massage parlors, which are sometimes used as way to facilitate human and sex trafficking.

He called massage parlors being used for those purposes a “growing problem.” There’s a network of traffickers who run the illicit parlours, which advertise online and stay open late at night. Men will go to the parlors and pay for sex from the women there, who aren’t paid themselves and sometimes live in poor conditions.

“It’s basically modern-day slavery,” Belitsos said, mentioning that a regulating ordinance from Ames would help legitimate massage businesses.

For Ames, Belitsos would like to see an application process for massage businesses and have those businesses prove their massage therapists are licensed. They would also have to allow background checks of their employees and couldn’t be open at certain hours — namely, the middle of the night.

Back in September, Belitsos presented a copy of the city of Johnston’s ordinance that regulates massage parlors. To his knowledge, the Des Moines suburb’s measure, the first in the state, has led to the closure of one business while two others have decided to leave town. He called it “very successful,” and mentioned other cities such as Marshalltown and Sioux City that are on their way to doing the same.

“We’d like Ames to stay in the lead and to take on and pass an ordinance to regulate these businesses,” he said.

And that could be a possibility in 2018. Last year, the council referred the Johnston ordinance to staff and then spent time on other issues, including the time-consuming, deadline-fueled debate over the city’s proposed new rental-occupancy ordinance.

The ordinance will likely be adopted on Tuesday, which means the council will have a big task off its plate and time for other things, Councilwoman Gloria Betcher said. An ordinance on massage parlors is “absolutely” something the city could do, she continued, but the Johnston ordinance might not be an exact fit for Ames. Plus, massage parlors aren’t the only vehicles for human trafficking and the city wouldn’t want to limit its scope.

“We want to make sure we do the right thing,” Betcher said.

Councilman Chris Nelson said it could be useful to observe if Johnston has any “growing pains” from afar and react accordingly. Because it’s so early in the year, he said it’s hard to foresee if the issue will return to the council table in the coming months. Over the next two weekends, the City Council will go through a pair of goal-setting sessions to prioritize for the coming year.

Councilwoman Amber Corrieri remembered from earlier discussions last year that there were some questions from the Ames Police Department about enforcement and who’d be responsible for any kind of licensing regulation the city would decide to use.

Like Nelson and Betcher, she also noted that the Johnston ordinance might not be what’s best for Ames.

“We need to make sure we are continually communicating with our law enforcement community and having lines of communication open with the most common places where trafficking occurs like hotels and massage parlors and those types of businesses,” Corrieri said.

Along with the City Council, the Story County Board of Supervisors will also proclaim “Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention and Awareness Week” on Tuesday. And the Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking will spend a day at the capitol in Des Moines, where it will encourage lawmakers to adopt eight bills that would fight against human trafficking, Belitsos said.

In the past, the statewide network, which is based in Ames, has helped train hotel and motel staff on how to spot signs of human trafficking and slavery. Belitsos said that initiative was funded by Ames Rotary Club.

While some people might believe human trafficking doesn’t happen in Ames or Iowa, Belitsos said that he’ll see online advertising for elicit locations in and around Ames.

“It definitely happens here,” Betcher said.

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