Push to end human trafficking on Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's radar

CLEVELAND - Adriane Holloway pleaded guilty to holding a 16-year-old captive in Cleveland and forcing her into prostitution.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty has heard enough. When he was first appointed last October by Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald, he moved to expand the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) taskforce by including human sex trafficking.

“Our ICAC unit has been so successful,” McGinty said at Monday’s human trafficking program put on by Collaborative Initiative to End Human Trafficking.

"We are going to make it unsafe for the John, unsafe for the pimp, unsafe for the guy or girl working,” he said.

About 1,000 American-born children from Ohio enter the sex trade each year, according to a report from a Toledo professor.

Nationally, between 18,000 and 20,000 victims a year are trafficked in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that number between 600,000 and 800,000 worldwide.

Currently, the human trafficking unit is prosecuting one case, but is involved in several others. McGinty said the unit plans to be aggressive.

“I don’t like to pass up the opportunity to arrest a pimp. I don’t like pimps,” McGinty said. “I want to bring them into their new home. The cross bar hotel.”