NH bill targets massage businesses to stop human trafficking

Women are forced to sleep on plywood sheets placed over cinder blocks in the back rooms of massage parlors. U-Haul trucks arrive at night, relocating them every two weeks to different locations. Their passports and other immigration documents are taken away.

These are the grim realities that police uncover time and again when investigating massage parlors used as a front for prostitution.

State Rep. Charles Foote of Derry said House Bill 1469 would address a major enforcement gap by requiring not just individual massage therapists, but the businesses themselves, to be licensed by the state.

“It will give the state the authority to inspect these businesses for health, safety and legal compliance,” said Foote. “Right now, if a bad actor shuts down and reopens with a new name, the system is always playing catch-up.”

Currently, the state’s Office of Professional Licensure and Certification regulates individual massage therapists. Since the massage businesses themselves aren’t subject to oversight, authorities cannot monitor for illegal activity or inspect them for safety standards such as hygiene and sanitation. 

The change would bring massage parlors in line with other licensed and inspected businesses like barbers, beauty salons and tanning shops.

Foote said that in some cases, investigations of illicit massage parlors revealed that the establishments were reusing linens in an effort to minimize evidence of sex trafficking.

Since November, the state Department of Justice, working with local and federal agencies, has shut down at least 15 such massage businesses in communities including Concord, Derry, Londonderry, Hudson, Merrimack, Manchester, Dover, Salem, and Somersworth.

Authorities have found that because owners rent storefronts and aren’t licensed, they tend to quickly relocate to a new community.

Detective Sergeant Charles Pendlebury of the Merrimack County Sheriff’s Office said the bill brings New Hampshire one step closer to preventing illicit massage parlors from opening.

When the state licensing body conducts inspections at these businesses and identifies warning signs, it can notify law enforcement, who can then investigate.

Pendlebury said that New Hampshire is currently more attractive to human trafficking because the ringleaders often face only misdemeanor charges, whereas similar offenses in Massachusetts are treated as felonies.

“Everything is weak. The law is weak. The inspection requirement is weak,” said Pendlebury, a former member of the state’s human trafficking task force. “A misdemeanor crime for a house that facilitates prostitution is a joke.”

As state authorities tried to unravel human trafficking enterprises in New Hampshire, they found some common issues.

The illicit businesses are often set up as Limited Liability Companies with no identifiable owner, or, if a person is listed, they are frequently out-of-state. Most often owners and managers had a New York address. 

Alexander Kellerman, a prosecutor with the Attorney General’s Office, said the bill would make it easier to bring charges against those running these illicit businesses.

“I think the degree to which it is happening is what changes when you start to see more law enforcement focusing on this, more regulatory authorities addressing the issue, more community involvement, awareness of what is happening, neighbors who are stepping up to report things,” said Kellerman.

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