Credit: Amanda Burg/LevittownNow.com
The Falls Township Board of Supervisors are planning an ordinance that they intend to help crack down on potential human trafficking.
Last week, the supervisors voted to advertise a proposed ordinance that would require all massage parlors and alternative therapy businesses to obtain a license annually to operate in the township.
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The supervisors will vote on the ordinance at an upcoming meeting.
“Guidelines of the ordinance as drafted require that all massage therapists be licensed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Copies of state licenses must be submitted along with the license application. Alternative therapy technicians must all be licensed by Falls Township. Proof of education, training or certification of graduation is required for all alternative therapy applicants,” Falls Township officials said.
Massage parlors, in some cases, can be hives for human trafficking and illegal sex businesses. The Polaris Project, a nonprofit that fights sex and labor trafficking, estimated in 2018 that 9,000 illicit massage parlors operate in America.
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“Force is rarely an element of massage parlor trafficking. Instead, victims are controlled by traffickers through a complex mixture of cultural manipulation, fraud, and coercion. Key among these are telling the women that the police are in the pockets of the traffickers and will simply arrest them, that the rest of society views the women as worthless, and that they have no real options but to stay at the massage parlor and do what the traffickers say,” the group said in a report.
Nelson Whitney, the Falls Township police chief, said the township has had problems at massage businesses in the past.
“What this is about is human trafficking,” Whitney told the supervisors, adding that the adopted ordinance would “allow us to discourage businesses to engage in human trafficking and allows us to detect it.”
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“This is something clearly we don’t want in Falls Township,” he said.
Township solicitor Lauren Gallagher explained that the proposed ordinance is similar to other regulations enacted in the area.
Supervisor John Palmer said that other additional measures could be undertaken to tackle the issue.
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“Why does it end with massage?” he asked. “Why not restaurants and retail?”
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