Last year I had the opportunity to attend Garden Gate Ranch’s Spring Charity Gala.

What’s Garden Gate Ranch? It’s a faith-based organization that provides safe housing and restorative and transitional services for women who have been sexually exploited, including having been trafficked for sex. Housing is also provided to women with children.

Brenda Long, a Newton native, began the organization about five years ago. At last year’s gala, women who had been helped by Garden Gate talked about their experiences, some of which occurred in Iowa hotel rooms.

So it was heartening to read in the Wall Street Journal that nationwide, more than 40 lawsuits have been filed in the past year against large hotel brands, accusing them of ignoring sex trafficking at their properties.  

Corinne Ramey reports for the Journal that the lawsuits say the hotel companies and franchisees profited from sex-trafficking operations being run out of their establishments and that hotel employees either were aware of it or should have been.

The hotel companies have argued in court documents that their employees have no control over what happens at franchised hotels and that since the allegations, policies have been implemented to prevent trafficking.

Ramey reports that the lawsuits are relying on the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which was amended in 2008 to allow for civil lawsuits against anyone who “knew or should have known” that sex trafficking occurred and financially benefited.

Regardless of the lawsuits’ outcome, it’s good to see a light shined on this hideous activity. 

It’s also great to have organizations in Iowa like Garden Gate Ranch. The group provides three phases of housing for women: a pathway house that provides immediate shelter to women, with or without children; a ranch house that provides continued restorative care; and cottages that allow women to continue gaining independence while still receiving support services.

By the way, this year’s Garden Gate Ranch Gala is April 25 at the Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center. For more information, click here.