College Station is a city in eastern Texas and has a population of approximately 113,700 residents. College Station and its sister city, Bryan, TX, known as the Bryan-College Station (BCS) area, are home to the state’s largest university, Texas A&M University. Due to the city’s location, prostitution and sex trafficking are pervasive issues within College Station. College Station is located in the center of what is known as the Texas Triangle. The Texas Triangle is located in the heart of Texas, with the metro areas of Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio acting as the Triangle’s vertices. The three destination cities are connected through Interstate 35, Interstate 45, and Interstate 10. These highways are popular routes for travel as individuals can easily move between the highly populated cities for either business or leisure. The city’s close proximity to Houston and its position along Interstate 45, which runs from Houston to Dallas, contributes to the significant amount of prostitution and sex trafficking activity within the county. In an effort to deter local sex buyers and sex traffickers, several demand reduction tactics have been incorporated by officials in the city. For example, in the fall of 2016, local and state law enforcement rescued a victim of sex trafficking at a local College Station hotel. The survivor reportedly told officials that she had run away from her husband and met a sex trafficker who threatened to hurt her family if she ran away. The sex trafficker posted ads of the woman on backpage.com. Over the course of 54 days the survivor was transported from Louisiana to Texas, to Colorado, and back to Texas, where officers were able to rescue her outside of a local College Station hotel. Since then, she become a Human Trafficking specialist for Mercy Gate Ministries and a survivor leader for A21 Freedom Chasers and Roy Maas Youth Alternatives. In addition, two years after her rescue, Unbound Bryan College Station was founded where she has the opportunity to share her story and help others in need. In 2017, a man was arrested for promotion of prostitution as a result of a web-based sex trafficking operation. The man had allegedly posted an advertisement of a woman offering sex in exchange for money and drove the woman to College Station, whereupon officers responded to the advertisement and arrested the sex trafficker. In addition, two male sex buyers who had responded to the advertisement were arrested during the operation.

Buyer Arrests:

In April of 2019, a College Station man was arrested for attempting to solicit sex from a minor through Snapchat. According to reports, the victim and the sex buyer had met at College Station Middle school when Lane was visiting one of his relatives who attended the middle school. The investigation began after the victim reported the incident to College Station police. According to reports, the offender had since been sexually harassing the middle school student and asking them to engage in sexual activity through Snapchat. The offender was arrested and booked at the Brazos County Jail, on a $10,000 bond. The offender’s identity, image, age, location, and charges were included in reports from local news sources. In May of 2020, College Station police arrested a man for allegedly offering a woman food and “leather gifts” in exchange for sex. According to reports, the sex buyer was driving his vehicle when he approached a woman who was walking back to their apartment complex and offered to give them leather gifts and food in exchange for sex. The woman called police upon arriving to their apartment complex. The offender happened to live at the same complex at the woman he approached. The sex buyer was arrested and booked in Brazos County Jail. The offender’s identity, image, age, location, and charges were included in reports from local news sources.

Neighborhood Action, Public Education:

Unbound Global is a network of anti-human trafficking agencies working in communities in the United States and around the world. Although the work of each Unbound location is unique, depending on the needs of its community, all Unbound agencies firmly believe that combating the demand for commercial sex is a crucial,

“Trafficking is a supply and demand business. Because there is a demand for cheap labor and a demand for commercial sex, human trafficking continues to exist. With sex trafficking, engagement in the commercial sex industry, whether in viewing pornography or purchasing sex, is creating profit for traffickers that drives demand. As we work to prevent trafficking and strengthen the protective factors of our communities, we also have to educate and fight the demand.” —Unbound Global