Kathy Lacey, who heads the vice unit for the Anchorage Police Department, said more than arrests for prostitution occur in the city each year. Most of the women are victims of sex trafficking, in which a person β adult or teenager β is induced into prostitution. Many are prevented from escaping their situation by force, fraud or coercion by a trafficker.
Victims include both American-born and foreign-born women. Mary Magdalene Home provides counseling and social service referrals to 50 to 60 sexually exploited women at any one time, Cole said. She helps direct the Innocence Lost Task Force, a joint effort between the FBI and Anchorage police designed to identify and rescue underage sex trafficking victims. Most minors arrested for prostitution are sent to McLaughlin Youth Center, a juvenile detention facility.
Often those caught by authorities are cited and released with a ticket and a court date. Police try to connect each woman to social services, including drug and alcohol treatment, employment and housing. Enter Mary Magdalene Home Alaska.
For many women, that starts in voluntary group meetings with volunteer case workers who visit the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center, a local prison, each week.
After their release from prison, women are invited to attend a support group while Mary Magdalene workers help them find a safe, secure place to live. After 11 years, Mary Magdalene Home has raised enough funds to purchase a safe home for women. Cole said the home, which opened in April in a residential neighborhood in East Anchorage, accommodates up to seven women at a time.
