January has been made human trafficking awareness month, and the number of cases tracked by the Montana Department of Justice increased from 7 in 2015 to 68 in 2021, an increase of 871 percent.
But Montana Attorney General Knudsen doesn’t think that human trafficking is actually happening more frequently.
“Well, I would say we’re seeing a rise in our cases, but I don’t necessarily think we’re seeing a rise in the amount of human trafficking going on in the state. Human trafficking is a different animal, I think it’s always been here. I just think we didn’t know what to call it, we didn’t know what to do with it, so we called it prostitution and frankly kind of turned a blind eye to it. I think a lot of law enforcement for decades have not really understood what human trafficking is. We treated it like prostitution, we treated it like a victimless crime, two consenting parties, and that is just not the case, or at least it is a very very very very small percentage of your prostitution cases. We now know, just through education and years of experience, human trafficking, this is slavery. This is modern day sex slavery that is happening here in Montana.”-Montana AG Austin Knudsen
Tami Hochhalter a cofounder of the nonprofit Lifeguard Group that works to spread awareness and help human trafficking victims in Montana agrees with the Attorney General.
“I think more than there being an increase in trafficking, it’s always been a huge problem, but we are just now getting the light shed on it, so we see that it is a big problem.”-Tami Hochhalter
