With awareness of human trafficking increasing on a nationwide scale, Texas agencies as well as Houston-area law enforcement officers and advocacy groups have increased their push to find out more about sex and labor trafficking in our region. Melissa Torres, director of the Human Trafficking Research Portfolio at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin, is part of a team that has studied human trafficking in Texas. Her team released the Statewide Human Trafficking Mapping Project for Texas report in 2017, which detailed the extent of human trafficking across the state. For Phase 2 of the study, which Torres said will be released in early March, her research team investigated child sex trafficking in Texas. On March 1, Community Impact Newspaper hosted a panel discussion with Torres along with Sarah Koransky, an education specialist with nonprofit United Against Human Trafficking, and Christopher Sandoval, captain of the Special Investigations Division of the Harris County sheriff’s office, to talk about how local agencies, organizations and advocacy groups are addressing human trafficking in the Greater Houston area. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.