WA must give police more tools to shut down human trafficking | Editorial

Once again local law enforcement is playing whack-a-mole with massage parlors engaged in human trafficking. State lawmakers should provide police here and across Washington with the resources necessary to better fight these crimes against women.

Human traffickers have set up shops in the Tri-Cities area, coercing women brought here primarily from China and other East Asian nations to solicit money for sex.

This month, Kennewick police shut down four massage parlors accused of offering far more than massages. It was just the most recent of several enforcement actions against massage businesses in recent years, but they keep coming because the people who operate the illegal businesses have become adept at rebooting them.

Kennewick police commendably have made closing the shops a priority. Officers arrested three owners for permitting prostitution and a fourth owner for prostitution in the recent raids.

Since 2023, when city officials gave police additional tools to investigate massage parlors, more than a dozen establishments have been shut down. But the problem persists in part because the demand persists. Even former Kennewick Mayor Bill McKay admitted to paying for sex with women who authorities say were being trafficked. He characterized it as personal “investigations” but resigned and was not charged.

In each of the recent arrests, victims of trafficking were offered assistance from local community service groups. Some have accepted, but others declined, presumably afraid of repercussions. According to police, the women are held captive in the massage parlors, provided minimum food and supplies, and often are moved from one location to another.

When the raids began increasing in Kennewick a few years ago, Tricia MacFarlan of Mirror Ministries recalled one woman had been allowed so few personal belongings that she cried when offered new underwear.

MacFarlan said the illicit parlors were an open secret here until the raids began. Her faith-based group is one of several offering to help victims to escape their current life.

Nationwide, there are an estimated 7,500 to 9,000 such establishments. The number increases by about 10% a year, according to Chris Muller-Tabenera, the chief strategy officer with The Network, an intelligence-driven counter human trafficking organization.

“What’s really driving the increasing market is the level of impunity and invincibility that operators feel in running an illicit massage parlor,” he said.

People might know which are the real massage parlors and which the “massage parlors,” but it is often difficult for law enforcement to act. They cannot harass legal businesses with over-broad sting operations. Rather, they typically must wait until they have some evidence.

Even when officer close a site engaged in sex trafficking, it is often only a temporary solution. Parlors swap owners and managers and reopen under a new name, forcing police to start over. Kennewick investigators closed Shangri La Massage following arrests in 2023. It reopened as Lotus Massage, which then operated for a couple more years before police could shut it down again.

Several states have tried to supplement federal laws setting tough sentences for human trafficking with ordinances and policies aimed at driving illicit parlors out of business.

In California, for example, officials can use public nuisance ordinances to close massage parlors, forbid owners from reopening elsewhere and penalize property owners who rent to the parlors. A Florida law requires that the phone number for an anti-trafficking hotline to be posted on the premises.

With their 2026 session over, lawmakers should spend the rest of the year reviewing those and other states’ laws so that they can craft a concerted approach to the problem ready for passage next year.

Provide localities more tools to assist the women caught up in human trafficking and to permanently remove these criminal operations that prey on communities and the unfortunate women victimized by these operators.

In the meantime, Tri-Cities residents can help law enforcement by learning the signs that differentiate an illicit shop from a legitimate one and reporting suspected illegal activity.

Citizens can share information through a non-emergency dispatch line anywhere in Benton and Franklin counties at 509-628-0333. Kennewick also has an anonymous tip line at www.kpdtips.com.