COOS BAY — The crime of human trafficking — holding someone for sexual exploitation and profit — seems distant from small coastal Oregon cities.

But it’s not.

Coos Bay and North Bend, or for that matter any place in the world, are not out of reach for pimps and perverts, said Detective Yonsoo Lee, an undercover agent with the Oregon Human Trafficking Task Force, a division of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, Saturday.

“We’ve seen sex trafficking all over the state — even on the coast,” Lee said to more than 200 members of Soroptimist International of the Americas at the Red Lion Inn in Coos Bay.

Lee and Catholic Charities Anti-trafficking Coalition Coordinator Chris Killmer were speakers at the Soroptimist’s convention this past weekend.

Traffickers exploit mostly minors, mostly in inner-city areas such as Portland’s Old Town area or Las Vegas, Lee said. But the advent of the Internet has made it ubiquitous.

“There’re a lot of them out there on Craig’s List, Back Page and even MySpace, Lee said. “It’s not limited to prostitution. It’s any commercialized sex — child pornography, exotic dancers.”

He said one in five American children who use the Internet have been sexually solicited.

Oregon is attractive for this underground business. It’s a transient business that capitalizes on the large population of migrant workers, which makes it easier to hide people smuggled from out of the country. Oregon also has a lot of street kids.

Lee’s audience, mostly members of the Soroptimist International District 2 Northwest Region who were at the organization’s annual convention, gasped when Lee said the average age of girls entering prostitution is 12 to 14 years old.

“Oh, that’s scary,” said Marilyn Brown, who traveled from Camas, Wash.

Janet Gibson of Junction City asked what role drugs play in human trafficking.

Surprisingly, Lee said, little to none as far as prostitution goes.

“The pimp doesn’t want someone strung out on dope,” he said. “They don’t want to pay for the dope either.”

A five-year task force member, Lee said he’s been involved in hundreds of cases and of those, less than 10 percent didn’t have a pimp and represented themselves.

“From a law enforcement standpoint, there is no prostitution that’s voluntary,” he said.

The minors Lee has dealt with most of the time aren’t very forthcoming with information when they’re apprehended, he explained.

“You’re looking at a population that is extremely traumatized,” he said, adding that techniques pimps use range from isolation to rape and torture.

“Pimps. They simply view them as a reusable commodity,” Lee said. “They perform 10 to 15 sex acts a night, six nights a week, totaling between 9,360 and 14,040 sex acts in a year.”

Lee said the pimps he deals with run the gamut on sophistication.

“Some of them are highly sophisticated. From the very crude people that use just brute force. They’re selling a dream to somebody,” he said. “Pimps who apply the trade, they are just master manipulators. A lot of the time, there’s very little outward sign of violence. They use psychological manipulation.”

Another complication can be that, with all the agencies involved, cases get lost in the paperwork.

Marti Crook of McMinnville asked if a solution might be for law enforcement to concentrate on arresting the people who pay pimps for prostitutes.

“Some people believe it’s all about the demand,” Lee said. “I don’t believe that at all. I believe in decreasing the demand and decreasing the supply.”

Human trafficking, which includes slavery, is a $32 billion a year enterprise worldwide, Lee said. Of this, $19 billion is from sex trafficking.

Oregon hasn’t helped matters. The state lags behind other states, with laws against sex trafficking not even appearing until 2007. And these laws are “vague and difficult to use,” Lee said.

In Oregon, federal and local law enforcement believe they are encountering three to five girls per week who are victims of trafficking, according to information provided by Transitions Global, a Portland-based organization that is working to establish a shelter for minor victims of human trafficking.

People can help by watching for signs of human trafficking. (See sidebar.) According to information provided by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, people should look for evidence of someone being controlled, such as inability to move or leave a job, bruises or other signs of physical abuse, fear or depression, not speaking on own behalf and/or non-English speaking; or no passport or other forms of identification.

Killmer said there are other suspicious circumstances to watch for that could indicate people are being held captive.

“If you’re passing by a building and the barbed wire on the fence is facing in, instead of out,” Killmer said.