Wednesday, January 11, is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.
In honor of this day (which I hope we soon don't have to commemorate), I want to tell you about my recent experience as part of an undercover operation in a large US city.
Our focus was Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST). These are minors (under 18) and US citizens.
It was an eye-opening, two-day operation. Here's what I learned, in part from Giselle Rodriguez, state outreach coordinator for the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, who trained us, and in part from my own experiences on the street:
1. We were not in the "bad" part of town but in a area popular with tourists and families.
2. We worked with undercover investigators who regularly monitor DMST happening throughout the city.
3. We saw at least one minor being trafficked, right in the open. We knew there were many more we couldn't see.
4. We talked to hotel owners about DMST and watched their varying reactions. Some said they'd seen girls being trafficked and reported it to the police. Others denied ever seeing anything--but their body language and quick, furtive glances told us otherwise.
5. Girls are controlled by a network of pimps, handlers, and others who are watching her at any given moment from hidden locations. (This is why we were told NOT to try to rescue girls we saw but to get as much information as possible and report to the investigators at our control center.)
6. We must see these girls as victims. They are doing what they do because of force, fraud, and coercion--not because they've made a lifestyle choice.
7. 2,500 children go missing every day--in the US alone. That's 1.6 million a year. Not all of them are trafficked--but they are all at-risk for trafficking.
8. Within 48 hours of running away, a teenager will be approached by traffickers. Most runaways don't bring cash, lunch, or other necessities, so they are easy pickings for traffickers who offer all that and more.
9. Today the average age of a trafficked person is 12 years old. That's the average age, so many are much younger. Traffickers are going after younger and younger children because they are easier to manipulate.
10. One of the common recruiting locations that trafficking recruiters frequent are the halls outside juvenile justice courtrooms.
11. Trafficked children don't call their controllers "pimps" but rather "Daddy" or "Boyfriend." And that's how they really see them. Traffickers work to create a feeling of family because who isn't looking for a family to belong to? Children will ignore the abuse, violence, and control because trauma bonding is so strong. In fact, if you try to rescue a victim of DMST, she will fight you because you have just ruined what she sees as a perfect world.
12. Victims of DMST are trained to lie for their pimps, to take the fall for their "knight in shining armor," and to distrust everyone else (that would be you and me).
13. Once a child is trafficked, her average life expectancy is 7 years.
It is very difficult to rescue a trafficked child--not to mention help them heal. That's why our goal at The Born2Fly Project is to reach kids before the traffickers do. Our goal is to cut off the supply line of kids by educating them ahead of time about the lies that traffickers tell.
My other goal is that some January in the future we will not need a Human Trafficking Awareness Day. My goal is that one day the world will be free of child slavery.
Thank you for the comments.
Jacl, I agree. I recently returned from Russia and was amazed at how many people don't know how bad the trafficking situation is there--but I reminded myself that most people in my own country don't know how bad the trafficking is here, either. Awareness education is a huge part of our job.
Amanda, you are right that not all children see their victimizers as knights in shining armor and I should have said "many" do. The brainwashing they experience is beyond our comprehension. (See Jacl's comment re the breaking grounds.) A rescuer once told me, "It's easy to rescue children who want to be rescued, but these children do not want to be rescued." An undercover investigator told me basically the same thing.
ChristineP, I agree that there is no way to accurately determine the numbers of children trafficked--but children are still trafficked. Whether it's 1 million or 1.2 million, it doesn't matter. I've been in this fight for many years and been to 42 countries, so I can tell you first-hand that the numbers are very, very high. You're right that trafficking is illegal--in every country. But that doesn't mean that the laws are enforced everywhere. There's a reason why trafficking is the 2nd highest grossing illegal industry on the planet. It's very lucrative with very little risk. The information, stats, and stories that I share and others share are not from one source but from countless. You make a lot of claims in your comment without anything to back them up. I wish you were right and that everyone else was wrong because it would mean there is not really much trafficking anywhere, but sadly that is not the case.
Diana
Posted by: Diana Scimone | April 13, 2012 at 09:28 AM
You can tell by the 2 comments made here that we as American citizens are pretty much in la la land about trauma perpetrated to manipulate people long term. If you have ever listened to actual rescued traffic victims accounts of the "breaking grounds" they were taken to to break their identity & their will by being tied by both wrists to a headboard face down & raped daily by 30-40 men for weeks, etc, you would begin to get an inkling of understanding of how trafficking victims would begin to see their pimps, etc as their protectors, their "knights in shining armor." Coming out of trauma that is that evil & that profound would completely blow anyone's rational world to smithereens.
Posted by: jacl | April 11, 2012 at 03:52 PM
Where do you come up with your made up numbers? How do you know Once a child is trafficked, her average life expectancy is 7 years? What research method was done to come up with this made up figure? No one knows this answer.
The media will say that millions of people are sex slaves without doing any real research on the topic. Only taking the word of special interest anti-prostitution groups which need to generate money in the form of huge government grants from taxpayers, and charities. These “non profit” group’s employees make huge salaries, therefore they need to lobby the government, and inflate and invent victims in order to get more money into their organizations. If you look into how many real kidnapped forced against their will sex slaves there are, and not just take the anti-prostitution groups word for it. You will be very surprised.
Where are all the forced sex slaves? I would like to meet the millions of slaves and see for myself if they were kidnapped and forced against their will.
Sex trafficking is illegal and the pentities are very severe. It is very difficult to force someone to be a sex slave, they would have to have 24 hour guards posted and be watched 365 days a year, 24 hours per day. Have the threat of violence if they refused, and have no one notice and complain to the authorities or police. They would need to hide from the general public yet still manage to see customers from the general public and not have the customers turn the traffickers in to the police. They would need to provide them with medical care, food, shelter, and have all their basic needs met. They would need to have the sex slaves put on a fake front that they enjoyed what they were doing, act flirtatious and do their job well. They would have to deal with the authorities looking for the missing women, and hide any money they may make, since it comes from illegal activity. They must do all of this while constantly trying to prevent the sex slaves from escaping and reporting them to the police. They would need to prevent the general public from reporting them into the police. This is extremely difficult to do, which makes this activity rare. These criminals would be breaking dozens of major laws not just one. Kidnapping itself is a serious crime. There are many laws against sex trafficking, sex slavery, kidnapping, sex abuse, rape, sexual harassment etc. If someone is behind it, they will be breaking many serious laws, be in big trouble, and will go to jail for many long years.
The numbers and scale of this crime is exaggerated. The very nature of someone pulling off a kidnapping and forced sex for profit appears to be very difficult. Since it would be difficult this makes this crime rare.
A key point is that on the sidelines the adult prostitutes themselves are not being listened to. They oppose laws against prostitution. But no one wants to listen to the prostitutes themselves. Only to the self appointed experts that make up numbers and stories many of which have never met a real forced sex slave. The media and government never ask the prostitutes themselves what would help them in terms of laws.
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Posted by: christinep | April 10, 2012 at 01:53 PM
I would not make the assumption that every child being used in this way is happy about it and sees their victimizer as a 'knight in shining armor'. Children are often pretty aware of how adults are manipulating them.
Posted by: Amanda M | February 4, 2012 at 11:59 AM