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Feb. 1, 2021 Campus Voices | News | Sex Trafficking | Review | Media | Crime | Feature
HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING: “WICH comfortable [and] moving them into areas of bad behavior. The more they know about bad behaviors, the more likely they are to recognize those red flags of when something is not right,” Mallow said. Mallow said one location for a human sex trafficking ring was a beautiful home in a nice neighborhood, and this location was discovered when neighbors grew suspicious because of the high volume of cars parked at the house at night. “It’s being aware of what’s going on, and if something just doesn’t seem right, act on it. I think that’s the biggest thing people need to do is to trust your intuition. If something seems not right, maybe just report it,” Mallow said. Extensive training on sex trafficking about what a scenario may look like in the medical and social work field is paying attention to a victim-chaperone relationship. “We see it when somebody is not speaking for themselves, when it seems that someone is handling them or speaking on their behalf,
someone who won’t leave the room, someone who is close by and watching them but not necessarily interacting,” Early said.
HOW IT HAPPENS
According to Earley, in sex trafficking, pimps are often called street psychologists, because they excel at recognizing and exploiting vulnerabilities. “[They’re] looking for vulnerabilities. Children, by nature, are very vulnerable. Children who have endured trauma are, by nature, especially vulnerable,” Earley said. “If someone is trying to exploit you, they would offer whatever you need, and once you’ve established that trust, because they’ve given you things that you need, they expect more and more in return, and this develops quickly.” In films and television, sex trafficking is often portrayed as a victim being abducted off the street. Facebook and Twitter posts often have information circulating about how a trafficker might grab a victim in a parking lot.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE INSTITUTE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT
“We’d like to say, ‘It’s only at the bus station,’ but in all honesty, it is everywhere at this point,” Catherine Earley, assistant professor of social work and Texoma Child Abuse Prevention member, said. ELIZABETH MAHAN | BRIDGET REILLY REPORTER | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Human trafficking does not discriminate against age, race, gender, wealth or nationality. In every corner of the globe, women, men and children are being trafficked, right now. According to the State Department, the 2018 Trafficking in Persons report found that the US was in the top three nations of origin for victims of human trafficking alongside Mexico and the Philippines.
WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING?
There are three types of human trafficking: sex, forced labor and domestic servitude. “If someone else is profiting and it’s forced, fraud or coercion, it is human trafficking,” Catherine Earley, assistant professor of social work and Texoma Child Abuse Prevention member, said. “When we talk about human trafficking, a lot of times... your first assumption is going to be sex trafficking, but if you look at trafficking by the numbers in the state
of Texas, it’s really much bigger than that.” A study from the Statewide Human Trafficking Mapping Project of Texas found that there are more than 300,000 victims of human trafficking in Texas, including almost 79,000 minors and youth victims of sex trafficking. However, according to Earley, these numbers are an estimate. “When we’re talking about trafficking, any numbers that we talk about, are guesstimates, at best. If you’re going to engage in something illegal, are you going to report it? No,” Earley said.
“TRUST YOUR INTUITION”
In order for the community to be able to report human sex trafficking, they must be aware of the warning signs to look for. First Step holds training presentations on healthy relationships to help educate the public. “Human [sex] trafficking often starts out as somebody, a predator type of person, grooming a child, making them more familiar and
A study from the Statewide Human Trafficking Mapping Project of Texas found that the minors and youth of sex trafficking.
