A woman who was the victim of human trafficking was found after hiding in a bathroom at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
She said she had been evading her captors for 10 days.
She was found by Monica Phillips, an airport worker at Bush Intercontinental who is trained in spotting the signs of human trafficking. That is part of her job responsibilities as a security officer. But it started with a suspicious phone call from the 52-year-old woman’s son.
“Friday, June 2, I took a call from a man who claimed he was looking for his 52-year-old mother,” Phillips said. “He said that his mother had boarded a flight in Lubbock, Texas, bound for Houston on Sunday, May 28. And that he hadn’t heard from her.”
Why the man waited five days to place the phone call is unknown, but it was a red flag for Phillips.
“I knew something wasn’t right about his story,” Phillips said. “I had this gut feeling that this was a case of human trafficking.”
On June 7, Phillips arrived to work to find a woman who was speaking Hungarian and was having trouble communicating with police. Phillips thought it might be the same woman who was reported missing.
The airport worker turned out to be correct. Phillips does not speak Hungarian, but used translation technology to verify the woman’s story.
The airport worker said that she and police tried to call the son back at the number in which he originally called, but that it was disconnected. It was another red flag for Phillips.
It turns out that the woman traveled from Lubbock to Houston and was supposed to take another flight to Europe. She was accompanied by two men and escaped into a bathroom where she hid for more than a week.
“I can’t begin to imagine how scared she was. To be in a new city, unable to speak English, hiding for your life in an unfamiliar airport,” said Phillips, the airport worker.
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