Columbia Links I-Team Human Trafficking White Paper

A White Paper by the 2014 Columbia Links I-Team

columbialinks.org 1

2

Too close to home

The United Nations defines human trafficking as “all acts related to the recruitment, transport, sale or purchase of individuals through force, fraud or other coercive means for the purpose of economic exploitation.”

T

here is a common misconception about human trafficking: That it takes place elsewhere in the world—not in the United States.

But it’s happening right here and many people are unaware of it.

That may no longer be the case. Human trafficking has received national and international attention in the last two months.

Most recently in courts in Washington State and in Boston, teen girls are suing the Internet website backpage.com in the two separate cases, claiming they were sold for sex on the site.

And next month, Dec. 10, 2014, the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to its youngest recipient ever and a 60-year-old man whose life has been devoted to ending human trafficking, particularly among vulnerable children and teens. Malala Yousafzai, 17, a Pakistani native who advocates for the education of girls, will share the prize with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian human rights activist who is an expert on child slavery.

Yet Chicago, with its vaunted transportation options and myriad ethnic neighborhoods, is one of the country's major hubs for sex and labor slavery, according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center/ Polaris Project. And, as stats show, teens are often the targets.

This summer, the Columbia Links I-Team set out to bridge this knowledge gap as it delved deep into the issue—listening to experts, making field trips, spending countless hours researching and writing—and found the uncomfortable truth: Human trafficking preys on victims, many of them in teenage years, right in our own neighborhoods in Chicago.

Though the scope of the problem remains uncertain—no national statistics for the number of U.S. victims exist—Polaris Project, a nonprofit that runs the national human trafficking hotline, has received reports of more than 9,000 unique cases of potential trafficking between 2007 and 2012. At least 2,000 callers have identified themselves as students, and 323 callers identified as school staff members.

According to the FBI, human trafficking generates an estimated $9.5 billion in annual revenue in the U.S. In the Chicago metropolitan area, between 1,800 and 4,000 women and girls are involved in off- and on-street prostitution activities in any given year, according to a 2001 study by the Center for Impact Research. Another 11,500 regularly exchange sex for drugs. The U.S. Department of Justice says the average age of entry into prostitution is 12 to 14.

To the members of the I-Team—six Chicago-area high school students—the issue hits a little too close to home.

In the following pages, you’ll find stories about the disturbing prevalence of human trafficking in our communities—and different ways that the problem is being perpetrated. These are stories that the students worked hard to tell because they know that raising the awareness among fellow young people is critical in putting an end to this problem.

At the end of this report, the teens offer some solutions for what we can do to help youth in crisis.

The Columbia Links staff

3

Homeless teens in the crosshairs of pimps

By Kaylah Harrington They escaped from the drug dealers Lindblom Math and and ran away to Chicago to reunite Science Academy

D

iane, who celebrated her 21st birthday on Sept.

10, has been homeless on and off since she was 16.

To support herself and her daily marijuana habit, she has worked as a dancer and a prostitute. “I’m not sure my mother knew or even cared I was a prostitute,” Diane said in a matter-of-fact voice.

Diane, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, said her mother, a heroin addict, sold her and her younger sister to Milwaukee drug dealers to pay a drug debt. Diane was 9, and her sister was 7 at the time.

She and her sister, whose name is also being held to protect her identity, lived for two years in conditions fit only for some four-legged animals.

“We were chained in the basement and fed raw meat,” Diane said.

4

with her mother. The reunion didn’t last. At 16, her mother threw her out of the house because they weren’t getting along. “It went bad, and she put me out,” Diane said.

Without a place to live, Diane said she went “from house to house.” To make ends meet, she began working as a dancer in strip clubs and as a prostitute to support herself. “I met men in the clubs. I never worked on the street,” she said.

Diane recounted her past as she rode in a van operated by The Dreamcatcher Foundation, which assists prostitutes and at-risk youth.

Brenda Myers-Powell, a former prostitute and cofounder of the foundation, had arranged a tour of West Side neighborhoods frequented by prostitutes for Columbia Links members, and brought Diane along.

Diane, who was an inmate in Cook County Jail, met Myers-Powell who helped her turn her life around.

But Diane never finished telling

her whole story because, as she recounted her experiences, she burst into uncontrollable sobbing.

As Diane continued to cry, Myers-Powell sat in the seat next to Diane and held her. “You’re a queen,” Myers-Powell repeatedly whispered.

“Prostitutes go through a great deal of trauma,” she explained to the other riders who were stunned into silence by Diane’s sobbing.

Vulnerable homeless teens Pimps, formally known as human traffickers, are predators. They hunt for their victims with keen senses, and they prey on people who are vulnerable. A group that’s especially vulnerable to human traffickers are homeless teens.

Myers-Powell says one in three homeless youths will be approached by a trafficker after the initial 48 hours on the streets.

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless estimates that about 12,186 unaccompanied youth—from

Teens who are

juvenile prostitutes: ages 14 to 21—were homeless in a year that ended in June. Some 2,500 homeless students have been identified by the Chicago Public Schools, said Beth Cunningham, the coalition’s staff attorney.

Many homeless youth are kicked out of their homes by their parents, for reasons such as sexual orientation. Others run away from family abuse and neglect. Still others become homeless because of economic hardships—even though some teens have jobs.

There are only 339 beds in Chicago, 117 beds in the suburbs, and 90 beds in downstate Illinois for homeless teens, leaving thousands of teens unprotected and susceptible to dangers on the streets.

Cunningham said homeless youths who cannot find a bed in a shelter find other places to sleep—couch surfing, for example. Others sleep in abandoned buildings and, when it is warm, sleep outside. Still others sleep on the trains. “There is not one place where homeless youths go to sleep,” she said. “There are a combination of places.”

An emergency shelter can provide a home for overnight or longer.

Low-threshold housing provides a home for up to 120 days, and tran-

In Chicago, 12,186 unaccompanied youth—from ages 14 to 21—were homeless in a year that ended in June 2014, and 2,508 of them were attending Chicago Public Schools.

SOURCE: Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Chicago Public Schools

75%

Runaways and children who are forced from home

sitional housing provides living conditions for up to 180 days.

Illinois increased funds for homeless youth by $1 million, bringing the total budget to $5.6 million for the fiscal year, which began July 1 and ends June 30, 2015, said Jennifer Cushman, policy specialist for the Coalition for the Homeless. “The $5.6 million budget is the highest in Illinois history,” she said.

As a result of the record budget, six new programs received funding for Homeless Youth Services, Cushman said. “Some of the programs were already operating, but they received state funding for the first time,” she added. “However, many of them are new to Homeless Youth Services.”

Modern-day slavery Human trafficking is the illegal trade of humans for service. It’s a modern-day slavery, practiced all over the world, that exploits people for sex or labor.

The word “trafficking” suggests that transportation is key to human trafficking, but exploitation of a human being does not have to take place in another country or involve transportation for it to be considered human trafficking. Human trafficking is everywhere. And pimps don’t always fit the stereotypical mold— not outfitted with vibrant-colored suits, gaudy jewelry and a cane. They could be any person you see on the street: a 20-year-old college student, or a middle-aged, suburban father with a wife and three children.

According to MANNA Freedom, the human rights branch of MANNA Worldwide, a Fort Worth, Texas-based nonprofit helping impoverished children around the world, Chicago is among 10 U.S. cities where human trafficking is most prevalent.

Diane’s life as a prostitute was tough. It made her realize she did not want this life for other women in her family, she said. “It was very difficult.

25% Other

I was afraid all of the time,” Diane said.

“I didn’t want my other sisters to become involved in prostitution.”

But she still has legal problems.

Diane is on probation for drugs, although she has stopped smoking marijuana. “I have been clean now for 12 months,” she said.

She has hidden talents, like writing poetry. “I write about everything.

One of my poems is about domestic violence,” Diane said. She began writing poetry at the urging of her therapist. “It was a way for me to resolve my anger,” she said.

She is trying to improve her life in other ways. Diane recently enrolled in Kennedy-King College to earn her GED. When she is not writing poetry or studying, Diane rides around with Myers-Powell in the Dreamcatcher van, handing out plastic bags containing condoms, toothpaste, a toothbrush and Shewee, which allows women to urinate standing up.

“It is very convenient for prostitutes because they don’t have to pull up her dress and squat,” Myers-Powell said.

Diane is not a regular Dreamcatcher employee; she is paid a stipend for her work. “We pay her so she can purchase essentials and so she won’t go back to prostitution,” MyersPowell said.

Kaylah Harrington is a senior at Lindblom Math and Science Academy. Frederick H. Lowe contributed to this story.

5

From video games to prostitutes

W

By Byron Mason II Whitney M. Young Magnet High School

hat does it mean to be a man? Strength? Money?

Power? Seemingly endless sexual encounters?

Unfortunately, the focus on sex is the image that comes up too often when you ask someone that question; even worse, it can contribute to greater issues such as sex trafficking.

Believe it or not, sex trafficking operates like any other industry, run based on the economic theory of supply and demand: Customers

6

The next generation of ‘johns’ demand a product, and the supplier provides that product at a certain price. In this case, people who purchase sex, also known as “johns,” are the demand side of this industry. The people being trafficked for sex, usually women, provide the supply.

Our culture today is saturated with hypersexualized themes and misogyny, negatively influencing young men and causing them to purchase sex. According to the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, people purchase sex for the first time

between the ages of 19 and 23.

Fortunately, there are organizations like CAASE trying to combat this negative idea of what it means to be a man. CAASE fights trafficking by putting on plays and hosting other social events to raise awareness about sex trafficking.

What’s unique about CAASE is that it focuses not only on the victims who are trafficked but also on the people who purchase sex.

CAASE has worked with 15 schools, sending outreach workers to educate

students on the issue. While both male and female students need to learn about sex trafficking, CAASE holds sessions with young men—because males are usually the ones who are purchasing sex.

Caleb Probst, the education outreach associate of CAASE, is the one who talks to male students. His approach in preventing human trafficking is a little different than you might think. “My job with CAASE is not to prevent boys from having sex until a particular age,” he said. “My job is to help young men reframe their own notions of masculinity and sexuality.

This will prevent boys from committing acts of exploitation.”

There are myriad answers why people purchase sex at a young age.

Youngbee Dale, a journalist at the Washington Times and self-employed counter trafficking consultant, says there are too many broken families, usually with the father absent; with no father to look up to, the boys may look to other places for a father figure. “And, our hypersexualized culture certainly doesn’t help these boys from not becoming sex buyers, either,” Dale said.

This sexualized culture built up by media and other surrounding factors is not the only influence on young males. Society itself conditions males to embrace the stereotype of what it means to be a man, said Ben Anderson, a volunteer educator at CAASE. Anderson describes the different stereotypical roles that many young men fall into. For example, he said, the jock is “someone [who] is always willing to ‘compromise his own longterm health; he must fight other men when necessary; he must avoid being soft; and he must be aggressive.”

“By demonstrating his power and strength, the jock wins the approval of other men and the adoration of women,” Anderson said.

Anderson also describes the joker as a very popular character with boys, perhaps because laughter is part of their own “mask of masculinity.” “A potential negative consequence of this stereotype is the assumption that boys and men should not be serious or emotional,” Anderson said.

‘Entry age’ of males who pay for sex

NOTE: Numbers dont add up to 100% due to rounding

10-15 years

11% 44%

16-20 years

31%

21-25 years 26-30 years 31 and older

10% 5%

SOURCE: CAASE, “Deconstructing the Demand for Prostitution,” 2008

Peer pressure is another factor that contributes to this issue. “There is societal pressure for boys and men to be hypersexual,” said Christopher Jaffe, strategic development manager at Becoming a Man, a schoolbased program in Chicago operated

by Youth Guidance. “If men don’t constantly ‘check out’ other women or aren’t interested in going to strip clubs, they are often ridiculed by their peers.” This pressure may lead young men to pay for sex, thus contributing to sex trafficking, he says.

An effective way to reduce sex trafficking over the long term may be to discourage future buyers, said Daniel Heiniger, a BAM counselor and supervisor. Changing negative attitudes about females and showing respect for women of all ages

is the focus of BAM’s “Respect for Womanhood” component. Integrity, accountability, self-determination, positive anger expression and visionary goal setting are the other “core values” the program promotes.

Boys who are made aware of prostitution may be less likely to patronize an industry that degrades and oppresses women, Heiniger said, because “they learn to see from other people’s perspective.”

“The students may already respect the women and girls in their lives,” he said. “They learn to treat women like they would want guys to treat their sister—not like a piece of meat.”

Byron Mason II is a junior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School.

7

Sex trade goes viral

Shopping around on backpage.com

T

By Nathan Cordero Lane Tech High School

wenty-two million dollars.

That’s what one website alone made from prostitution advertisements. The Internet is responsible for many great things, but its monetizing of the sex trade is not one of them.

Criminals all over are trying to up their game. Pimps are no different.

Through the Internet, their business has found a new home.

Brenda Myers-Powell, cofounder of The Dreamcatcher Foundation, a nonprofit working to end human trafficking in Chicago, recounts a story of a young girl who was tricked into prostitution after pursuing an online ad from a “music producer” looking for video models.

Myers-Powell says the man offered the girl money in exchange for pictures. The girl then received a prepaid credit card for $250. The card also came with a one-way plane ticket to Atlanta. The man told the girl he’d arrange for her to go back home once she worked on the video.

Photo by LILY MOORE 8

The girl, who was not named, got on the plane and was quickly lured into prostitution in Atlanta, Myers-Powell said.

Buying sex over the Internet as opposed to on the street is a lot more common today than it was in the past. A 2008 study by the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE) reported that, of the 113 men who bought sex in Chicago, 34 percent said they contact women through the Internet.

Craigslist gets the ball rolling Craigslist was once at the root of the problem. Law enforcement agencies nationwide started catching on that the site aided the facilitation of sex trafficking by having ads—for things ranging from escort services to prostitution—in the adult-services section.

“The role of the Internet within the sex trade has been on law enforcement’s radar ever since the rise of Craigslist,” said Britt Logan, a

spokesperson for the Cook County Sheriff ’s Office.

At first, Craigslist defended the site’s adult-service ads, claiming that it helps fight trafficking by giving authorities the information about traffickers. It also claimed that it can be a place to set up reverse stings. But, with lawsuit threats from several states’ law enforcement agencies, Craigslist moved to shut down its adult services section in 2010. It was estimated that, had it not shut down, Craigslist would have reported revenues of $44 million that year from the adult services, according to AIM Group, a media and advertising consulting firm that closely monitors the company.

But people adapt; when they lose something, they find something else to replace it. When the adult services section of Craigslist was shut down, prostitution ads did not stop. Instead, traffickers found a new place to post ads to find and facilitate trafficking victims: backpage.com.

The throne of backpage.com Now, backpage.com is the prime suspect when it comes to prostitution over the Internet. It was formerly owned by the same company that published the Village Voice, a famous alternative weekly newspaper in New York.

Backpage.com is not much different from Craigslist. Both are sites where people post ads seeking goods and services. Just like Craigslist, backpage.com charges a certain amount for ads, and that’s how it makes its money. Backpage.com accepts credit and debit cards.

With the fall of Craigslist’s adult services, people went to backpage. com to post adult ads. “Backpage accounts for about 70 percent of prostitution advertising among five websites that carry such ads in the United States,” Nicholas Kristof wrote in a 2012 column for the New York Times.

Backpage.com is the site that racks up the $22 million in ad revenue. It has been making money from these ads for several years now. Attorneys general from nearly every state have been trying to shut it down by sending warning letters to backpage.com.

But, unlike Craigslist, backpage.com has yet to succumb to the pressure and get rid of the adult-services portion of its website.

In 2012, the attorney for Village Voice Media, which at the time still owned backpage.com, responded to the pressure by claiming it is an “ally in the fight against human trafficking.”

Sound familiar?

Many sex trafficking crimes have been linked to backpage.com. Darren Vann, a convicted sex offender who confessed to murdering seven prostitutes, used backpage.com to contact some of the women, according to police. Vann, who lived in northwest Indiana, was arrested in October.

Just recently, a series of sex stings took place across the country. According to Time.com, of the 115 men busted trying to purchase sex in Phoenix, 91 were using backpage.com.

For now, backpage.com continues

its reign as the mecca of Internet prostitution.

Credit card companies’ role Though politicians and the police rail against backpage.com and other media outlets such as the Chicago Reader and sites like Eros.com that promote prostitution, the credit card industry embraces them.

According to backpage.com’s website, an ad can be placed on the site using “all prepaid cards and debit/ credit card with valid logos of Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express.”

Columbia Links contacted MasterCard and Visa, the world’s two largest credit and debit card brands, about the use of their cards on backpage.com.

Seth Eisen, a spokesman for MasterCard, which is based in Purchase, N.Y., and Jake Standish of Visa Inc., which is based in Foster City, Calif., told Columbia Links that they would get right back with a statement, but failed to do so. Neither man returned the second call.

Where things stand now Slowly but surely, law enforcement agencies are making strides in cutting down on the Internet sex trade. The summer of 2014, 31 men, or “johns” as they’re commonly called when paying money for sexual acts, were arrested for attempting to purchase sex in Cook County during a sting referred to as National Day of Johns Arrests. Some of these arrests were the result of reverse stings.

And, in 2011, an operation by the Chicago Police Department called “Little Girl Lost” resulted in the arrest of nine gang members and more than 50 johns in one of the bigger prostitution busts in recent years.

The gang bangers were selling girls as young as 12 on the street and the Internet, according to the police.

“Between 16,000 and 25,000 women and girls [in Chicago] are estimated to be exploited by sex trafficking each year,” U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) penned in an article for the Chicago Tribune in October

Estimated revenue for backpage. com for its adult services section:

$22

million SOURCE: AIM Group, a media and advertising consulting firm

2014. "Human trafficking, and especially sex slavery, is a particularly insidious crime because it targets the youngest and most vulnerable in society … It is critical to understand the extent of the problem in order to confront it and determine how each of us can play a role in successfully combating it.”

On Sept. 11, 2014, the sheriff’s office’s vice squad arrested a 29-yearold man from East Moline, Ill., for pimping his girlfriend at a Schiller Park motel. The sheriff’s office learned about the man by monitoring backpage.com, Logan said.

Since 2009, the sheriff’s office has made more than 650 arrests by monitoring backpage.com ads on charges that included prostitution, promoting juvenile prostitution, human trafficking and involuntary servitude.

“Much of the emphasis is on international women and girls being trafficked into the United States. This is a critical issue, but [Cook County] Sheriff Tom Dart would like to see more of an emphasis on women in our backyard who are being trafficked and exploited,” Logan said.

Nathan Cordero is a senior at Lane Tech High School.

9

International challenges Foreign-born victims come for jobs and education, end up being exploited

L

By Solomon Davis Marist High School

ured by the promise of good jobs, some 500 skilled laborers from India came to the United States to repair oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina. They paid as much as $20,000 each to a recruiter for travel, visa and other fees. Once here, they were forced to live in cramped trailers and pay $30 a day for food and housing. Chain-link fences kept them from leaving the premises.

They joined the thousands nationwide who become victims of human trafficking, the widespread exploitation of individuals for labor or sex. Victims can be young children, teenagers, men or women.

Some enter the country legally with work visas and may work at legal factory or construction jobs, while others are involved in illegal trades such as prostitution or drug dealing.

Efforts are underway by government officials, communities and nonprofit organizations to curb this growing problem.

A common misconception is that human trafficking only happens overseas, but, as more cases are exposed, we learn that some of the country’s biggest cities, including

10

Chicago, are hubs of the trade.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, was the first federal bill to address human trafficking in this country.

The law’s primary goal, according to Smith, was to “ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, and to protect their victims,” primarily women and children.

The plight of the Indian guestworkers came to light in 2011 when the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Signal International LLC, a marine services company on the Gulf of Mexico with shipyards in Texas and Mississippi. The EEOC, which enforces federal workplace laws, accused Signal of segregating the Indians based on national origin or race, and subjecting them to a hostile work environment.

The EEOC said Signal recruited them to work as welders and pipefitters beginning in late 2006. Signal forced them to live in modular trailers enclosed by fences built by the company. It assigned numbers to the Indian workers and used them for identification and reference rather

than their names. Signal said recruiters “misled both the workers as well as Signal,” and said the company “fully expects to be vindicated” when the cases go to trial.

Just how extensive is human trafficking? Because it operates mostly in the shadows and thrives in secrecy, that’s difficult to answer. Only a small number of cases are “actually brought to court or investigated,” said Moizza Khan, executive director of the International Organization for Adolescents, a nonprofit that is part of the Cook County Human Trafficking Task Force, whose members work together on human trafficking cases. Citing figures from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Khan said there have been no reported cases of labor trafficking of a child in state care. The agency began investigating human trafficking allegations in 2011.

In the 14 years since passage of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, has the legislation been effective then? Khan says it has helped spur many states to jump in and help sex slaves and indentured servants.

“The biggest change that legislation in Illinois has brought about is a shift

in perspective regarding minors’ status as victims rather than perpetrators,” she said. “In the past, minors could be arrested for juvenile prostitution, but the Illinois Safe Children Act has clarified that minors found ‘prostituting’ are victims of trafficking rather than criminals.”

Language barriers, poverty and other factors make immigrants prime targets for exploitation.

Traffickers find it easy to attract people from poor countries seeking good-paying jobs or a better education in the U.S., so they can live “the American dream” and send money to their families back home.

“Recruitment agencies in the home countries advertise for jobs abroad, and these agencies are not regulated by the government,” Khan said. If workers sign a contract, they—or their family—cannot just walk away from the obligation to work. For example, a woman’s contract may call for domestic work, Khan says, but, once she is on U.S. soil, the job may not exist, and she could be forced into prostitution. Or the wages and work conditions may not match what was offered. “Recruiters in the home countries may also threaten to harm a victim’s family if they do not comply with the trafficking situation,” Khan added.

There are other tactics to keep international victims trapped. Traf-

fickers may withhold the victims’ passport or other vital identification, lock them up, or take advantage of their inability to speak English. Traffickers may convince a victim that it’s not safe outside the work premises, that they face jail or deportation if they leave.

Unknown numbers Some 12 million people, including 6 million children, are caught up globally in human trafficking, according to Rocio Alcántar, a supervising attorney for the Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center, which provides legal services to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Those are “rough estimates” based on “victims that have come forward, plus have received services,” she said.

Exact figures are not available, but the U.S. Justice Department estimates that 17,500 people are trafficked each year. Between 2007 and 2010, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center’s hotline, operated by the Polaris Project, logged about 72,000 interactions—9,000 of which were potential cases of human trafficking. From a total of 588 cases, 35 percent of callers requested help from the hotline for immediate extraction. The primary language of callers was English, with Spanish in

Between 600,000 and 800,000 people were trafficked across national borders worldwide between April 2003 and March 2004.

Between 14,500 and 17,500 of them were trafficked into the United States.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, “The Exploitation of Trafficked Women,” 2006

second place.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act established the T visa, which allows foreign-born victims of trafficking to stay in the country. But it has been underutilized. If there are millions of trafficking victims globally and thousands here in the country, then why is there a high number of T visas left on the table?

“It just shows that there is a lot of need to identify victims,” Alcántar said.

Another reason could be that qualifying for the T visa is difficult and time-consuming. Applicants must prove they are in this country because of human trafficking, and they have to testify in court against their accused trafficker. Fear of retribution keeps many eligible victims from seeking a T visa, Alcántar said.

Modify the business Approaches to tackle trafficking are plenty, from organizations like IOFA that work with child victims and efforts like those led by the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Cara Hendrickson, chief of the public interest division for Madigan’s office, says a current focus is on labor trafficking.

Hendrickson’s division is looking into complaints about Chinese-style buffet restaurants. The workers, most of whom are immigrants, claim that they are underpaid, despite being forced to work 11 to 13 hours a day, six days a week, and live in crowded housing provided by their employers.

If an investigation substantiates these complaints, Hendrickson says her office will pursue “a variety of remedies in court.”

To pursue more investigations like the buffet case, Hendrickson says her office will be looking to work closely with organizations that serve trafficking victims. “There is a lot of work that government agencies can do in cooperation with nonprofit organizations and communities to address these issues, and there’s certainly more work to be done,” she said.

Solomon Davis is a junior at Marist High School.

11

From trafficked to TRAFFICKER

Maria’s story of working as a Pimp

By Tonyisha Harris

M

By Tonyisha Harris Whitney M. Young Magnet High School

aria was a pimp in a profession dominated by men.

She began traveling the road to becoming a pimp after running away from her abusive foster parents. “They dragged me through the house by my hair and that was the final straw,” said Maria, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

Maria began dabbling in the sex trade at the ripe old age of 8, when she started collecting money for pimps in her Portland, Oregon, neighborhood.

“By me being so young, that was the only way for me to make money,” she says. “I had everything I wanted, and couldn’t ask for much more.”

But things did not go well for Maria as a child and as a teenager. “I was in and out of [juvenile detention center] for several years. I started stripping when I was 15,” she said. She also worked as a prostitute for a number of years to support herself before getting out of the profession.

The work of Maria, now 31, as a pimp isn’t new, historically speaking; women have long worked as madams, a glorified name for female pimps.

Sisters Ana and Minna Everleigh are perhaps the most famous. From 1900 to 1911, they operated the Everleigh Club, a high-class brothel on South

12

Dearborn Street in Chicago. Hollywood has even glorified women pimps in movies like “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” a 1982 musical comedy starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds.

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery where profits are derived from the control and exploitation of fellow humans. Victims are usually forced into sex or labor trafficking, but some, like Maria, get into the sex trade because they need the money or like the excitement— sometimes both.

Sex trafficking has a hierarchy, with pimps at the top and their stable of prostitutes at the bottom. But some prostitutes, ones who have been with the pimp the longest, move up in the ranks. The girls “might get tired of working, and the pimp says she can recruit and teach girls instead of work” as a prostitute, said Heather Morse, human trafficking outreach advocate at the Chicago Dream Center, which offers services to sex workers.

A 40-year-old woman who participated in the study “From Victims to Victimizers: Interviews with 25 Ex-Pimps in Chicago” told the DePaul University researchers: Her pimp “told me if I could recruit girls, I could run the spot myself as long as I

covered each shift with at least three to four girls. I was tired of selling my own body. It wasn’t my idea at first but I knew all the ropes, and the girls trusted me.”

Morse says the women, once moved up in rank, no longer have to meet a quota, but must train the new girls and keep the old ones in check. If the other women misbehave or do something wrong, they would have to beat the offending women. They would also suffer a beating from their pimps.

Sex trafficking victims suffer physical, mental and emotional abuse for as long as they’re in the industry, said Brenda Myers-Powell, who was shot five times and stabbed 13 times during her 25-year ordeal as a prostitute.

Abuse through the hands of pimps and “johns”(the men who solicit prostitutes) is common, Myers-Powell said. Maria was raped twice by johns, including one she met online.

So why would these victims bring other women into trafficking?

Maria says she became a pimp because she needed to support herself and did not realize the consequence— that she was harming others. “It was a hustle; I was trying to make some money to get high. I didn’t feel anything,” she said. “At the time, I didn’t know I was a victim myself.”

Maria is a unique case; she began pimping with no coercion from a pimp because she wanted to be her own boss. As a female pimp, Maria had advantage: Vulnerable girls would walk up to her. “They saw me driving around the West Side of Chicago in a Mustang. They wanna see how I got my money, and it went from there,” she said. “The girls that I’d work with would be the ones that run away from [other] pimps. I was helping the girls; they wanted it.”

But male pimps do have a few tricks up their sleeves to keep their girls, according to Linda Smith, author of “Renting Lacy: A Story of America’s Prostituted Children.” “Romeo pimps” shower women with gifts and empty promises. “Gorilla pimps” are violent and often use force—such as resorting to trunking, an act of forcing women into a trunk and kidnapping them.

And sending out a female to recruit girls, or collect money, is a safety tactic for pimps. The pimp is watching

his ladies from a safe distance while a female pimp goes out to collect. If the police happen by, she would get arrested, not him.

“Law enforcement are arresting the girls, not necessarily the pimp,” explained Rocío Alcántar, a supervising attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “Law enforcement officers arrest the victims and don’t provide any services to help them.

The pimp is free to continue trafficking other victims while the victim lies in jail.”

Myers-Powell debunks a misconception that prostitutes are financially well-off due to the money they make—usually meeting quotas of $1,000 a night. But most of the cash they earn goes directly to their pimp.

They are completely dependent on their pimp for clothes, money, food, shelter and drugs.

At the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a brothel in Crystal, Nevada—a state where prostitution is legal—the owner receives 40 percent of the prostitutes’ income, according to Myers-Powell. The rest of the money is budgeted to pay the rent and other necessities such as soap and condoms.

When under the control of a pimp, the victim is completely dependent.

“If they needed food or shelter, [the pimp] would make sure he provided it for them and making the girl dig herself into a hole,” Maria explained.

“She can’t get herself out without giving up all the money.”

The Dreamcatcher Foundation helped to get Maria out of the sex industry. One day on the tracks, Brenda walked up to Maria and shared her own story of prostitution. Maria found hope in Dreamcatcher, and it, along with her desire to support her baby girl, motivated her to get out of the sex trade.

She is currently living in Chicago with her fiance and two daughters ages 5 years and 7 months old. She plans on seeing her children graduate.

Maria is trying to find a job, but she has hopes of becoming a business owner. She wants to open a restaurant or rehab houses.

Tonyisha Harris is a senior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School. Frederick H. Lowe contributed to this story.

GENESIS HOUSE A refuge for former prostitutes, closed due to theft

Photo courtesy of Google

By Tonyisha Harris Chicago’s prostitutes once could seek refuge at Genesis House, but the facility was ordered closed in 2006 because of mounting debts incurred after the nonprofit’s executives stole huge sums of money from its budget.

The misappropriation of funds by Patti Buffington, Genesis House’s executive director, was discovered when employees complained to the Chicago Office of Inspector General.

Buffington was arrested in October 2006 for stealing nearly $500,000 in government funds over three years. In 2010, she pleaded guilty to felony theft and was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution, according to office.

While she was embezzling money, Genesis House’s unpaid debts were adding up. It had an annual budget of about $1.1 million—much of it coming from government grants—and carried annual liabilities that exceeded $725,000, while its projected yearly revenues were approximately $250,000, according to court documents.

“The closing of Genesis House broke my heart,” said Edwina Gateley, who founded Genesis House in 1983. “It was a great loss to Chicago. The women who ran Genesis House were not committed to the spirit in which it was founded. They were incompetent, and they misappropriated money,” she said.

Gateley, who now lives in Erie, Pennsylvania, blames the board of directors of Genesis House for its closing. “I warned the board that the leadership was not right,” she said.

Started by a lay missionary Gateley founded Genesis House in the early 1980s at 911 W. Addison

St., a block east of Wrigley Field.

She came up with the idea of Genesis House following nine months of prayer in a hermitage. “Genesis means creating order from chaos. I wanted a new beginning for women who were involved in prostitution,” Gateley said.

Gateley is author of 14 books, including “I Hear a Seed Growing: God of the Forest, God of The Streets,” which is about ministering to prostitutes in Chicago. Gateley spent more than a year in 1983, walking the streets of Chicago with homeless women involved in prostitution, according to her biography on her website.

She also had a friend who shared her beliefs: Father Depaul Genska, who met Gateley at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. The two shared similar ideas about ministering and offering refuge to prostitutes.

Genska’s master’s thesis was titled “Street Ministries: With Emphasis on Female Prostitution.” He wrote: “The mission of Genesis House is to offer hospitality to all adult women caught up in the system of prostitution, to provide an environment where they can make a free choice regarding their lifestyle, and to assist those who choose to leave prostitution by offering them appropriate services and support.”

Brenda Myers-Powell, a former prostitute who now works for the Cook County Sheriff ’s Office, used Genesis House’s services to turn her life around. Myers-Powell calls Gateley her mother.“My real mother died when I was 6 months old, and [Gateley] became my mother,” said Myers-Powell. “After I got out of prostitution and off of drugs, she was a mother to me. She raised me.”

Gateley said, “I hope I win the lottery so I can start it [Genesis House] again.”

13

Photo by Carolina Sanchez

A modern-day story of prostitution How one woman escaped the clutches of human trafficking

By Maria De Leon Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center Brenda Myers-Powell: A new life and renewed efforts to reach back to help others.

A

15-year-old girl stands on the corner of Clark and Division Streets near downtown Chicago, wearing a cheap, glittery green dress. A man rolls to a stop nearby. She gets into his car, crying.

Abused and raped from the age of 4, Brenda Myers-Powell endured more than any child should. At 9 years old, she moved in with her alcoholic grandmother. Living in a neighborhood where prostitutes stood outside her window, Myers-Powell wanted to be “shiny,” just like they were.

When she asked her grandmother about what those “shiny women” were doing, her grandmother replied: “They take off their panties, and men give them money.” Myers-Powell could relate, because by then, men had been taking off her panties without permission. “I’ll probably do that when I grow up,” she thought, and her grandmother gave her this advice: “Whatever you be, be the best.”

That 9-year-old girl decided that she would be the best prostitute she can be, and the best she became. She was what others would call “the go-to girl.” She would hang out with boys in the trap houses—abandoned homes used for drugs and prostitution—because she just wanted to feel liked.

By the time she was 14, she had already given birth to two children.

Her grandmother gave her the task of providing for her children, and what else can a 14-year-old girl do?

14

Myers-Powell went down the path of prostitution, and when she began coming home with more money than she ever had, her grandmother stopped calling her names and asked no questions.

Myers-Powell wasn’t the only young woman to be sucked into prostitution.

In metropolitan Chicago, according to The Dreamcatcher Foundation, onethird of the 16,000 to 25,000 women and girls involved in the sex trade started at age 15, while 62 percent started at 18 years old.

Grabbed by pimps, forced into modern-day slavery

About the fourth time she went out on the street, two men in a Cadillac followed her. They were pimps who had threatened her before, and she had been lucky to elude them.

She wasn’t lucky this time.

One of the men grabbed her by the neck and busted her head with a pistol. He shoved her into the trunk of the car—which, in the pimp world, is called “trunking.”

When the trunk opened, she was alone in a dark cornfield with the two guys, who had guns pointed at her head.

“You’re under pimp arrest,” they said. “You’re going to work for us.”

For two days, she was locked in the closet of a sleazy hotel with no bathroom or food, for the pimps were “seasoning” her. “Seasoning” is intimidation to the point of obedience— they wanted Myers-Powell to obey them, and she had no choice. She was

hungry, and the pimps said that they would not feed her unless she started working for them.

She thought she could get away, but the pimps were never far from where she was. Myers-Powell attempted to escape many times, but the consequences were severe—coat hanger whippings and beatings. The things they did to her were so horrible that she stopped trying to run. The pimps controlled her. They controlled what she ate, what she wore, what she thought.

Myers-Powell had become trapped in human trafficking, a predicament described by the Polaris Project, an organization for victims of human trafficking, as “a form of modern-day slavery where people profit from the control and exploitation of others.”

Her only hope was that maybe, just maybe, her family would look for her.

Maybe someone would call the police and rescue her.

After six months, the pimps grabbed another girl and started “seasoning” the new girl. Myers-Powell saw that as an opportunity to escape.

At a truck stop where the pimps had her working, Myers-Powell got into a truck and started crying. “What’s wrong with you?” the driver asked.

And she told him. “I’ll get you out of here,” he promised. And he did.

He took her home.

Sometimes, the streets were better than home

Once back at her grandmother’s house, Myers-Powell was most hurt

In the Chicago metro area, between 1,800 and 4,000 women and girls are involved in street prostitution activities in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Another 11,500 are regularly exchanging sex for drugs.

SOURCE: Center for Impact Research, “The Prostitution of Women and Girls in Metropolitan Chicago: A Preliminary Prevalence Report,” 2001

to learn that no one had notified the police to report her missing. In the six months that she was missing, no one bothered to look for her.

She couldn’t stay home because no one cared, so she went back to the streets. Within 48 hours, she was in the arms of another pimp.

This pimp was different, though.

He was nice—in the beginning. He bought her clothes and jewelry, gave her a nice place to live and took her to all the clubs. But the one thing that she liked most about this pimp was that he called her beautiful. He told her he loved her.

No one had ever looked her in the eyes and said, “I love you.”

She knew what he wanted her to do, but she decided to stay because it beat living at home and being abused.

“I’ll do what I have to do,” she thought, “just to get that attention.”

She stayed with that pimp for seven years, but she ended up in prostitution for 25 years.

She got shot five times, stabbed 13 times and trunked more than she likes to admit because “that’s what pimps do.” She was hit in the head, beat up by customers, thrown into jail and all the things people don’t know that come with prostitution. When the media talk about prostitution, they omit the gritty details. They

don’t discuss the beatings, the trunkings, the hardships. Others don’t understand that prostitution comes with pain, abuse and trauma.

One day, Myers-Powell looked up and she was 39 years old, still working the streets.

She chose not to live that life anymore

Her last customer drugged her, spit on her, beat her and put her in the hospital. When they found out she was a prostitute, the hospital wouldn’t treat her at first because of the stigma of prostitution. Finally, they found a doctor to treat her. They directed her to social services, and social services had no clue what to do with her.

Thankfully, she remembered listening to an outreach worker, and she went to Genesis House, a place for women in prostitution. That’s where she went to heal, and she stayed there for a year and a half. During that time, with motivation from a mentor, Myers-Powell gained the confidence to leave prostitution for good and make a life for herself. That mentor encouraged her to use her personal story to help other women escape the hard life on the streets.

She decided that she will never leave another woman on the street the way she was left. She will never leave another woman “in the gutter.”

“No matter where you prostituted at,” Myers-Powell said, “and I’ve done it everywhere—I’ve done it at strip clubs, I’ve done it as an escort, I’ve been in the streets of Nevada, I’ve been to all of the corners of the United States and abroad, I’ve been in every seedy corner of any city and state, I’ve been beaten and stabbed— it was all for money.”

Despite all this trauma, somehow she believed that she would be successful one day, doing what she does.

That was all she knew, and when she left the Genesis House, she realized she actually had a brain, so she went to school.

Myers-Powell found work, too—first as a maid and then as a bill collector.

These days, she’s also taking college courses online. “I’m still trying to better myself,” she said. “I want to grow.”

As for her children, Myers-Powell

says they thrived in the care of her aunt after her grandmother died.

“One is a doctor, and the other is working on her master’s degree.”

Starting The Dreamcatcher Foundation

In 2008, Myers-Powell, along with Stephanie Daniels-Wilson who has a background in social services, founded The Dreamcatcher Foundation, using their personal savings.

The foundation’s vision is to “create an environment in which victims of human trafficking can be empowered, educated and self-confident.” It includes an outreach program where Myers-Powell and her partner drive around Chicago in search of people in the same situation she was, hoping to help them change their lives, too.

Since 2008, the foundation has “reached out to over 1,500 and helped more than 70 survivors successfully exit the sex trafficking lifestyle.”

They achieved this by “scouring neighborhoods in the middle of the night in [their] 2010 Chevy Express passenger van, in search of distressed victims.” The foundation also provides training for police and other law enforcement agencies, helping them to better understand the complexities of human trafficking and prostitution.

Caleb Probst, a Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation educator, believes Dreamcatcher is “vital for people trying to exit ‘the life,’” and finds it admirable that Myers-Powell has “an opportunity to do so on her own terms, and not through the terms of the criminal justice system.”

Probst believes that the root of the prostitution problem is the demand for sex. “If there were no demand, there would be no trafficking,” he said. That’s how CAASE tackles the issue—by cutting off the demand for it.

Myers-Powell’s story is a beacon of hope to women who are in the situation she was before. She was able to escape and live her life the way she wanted to. If she can do it, anyone can do it.

Maria De Leon is a junior at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center.

15

Rare in Illinois

Anne’s House provides a long-term home for sexually abused women

By Frederick H. Lowe

I

llinois offers one of the few longterm care facilities in the nation for the treatment of victims of sex trafficking, and, combined with recent legislation, the Land of Lincoln has become the nation’s leader in fighting this crime. Because of its central location and demographics, Chicago plays a major role in human trafficking.

The Salvation Army of Metropolitan Chicago operates Anne’s House, a home that serves up to eight women at a time. There are a total of 12 beds or houses available for long-term use in Illinois for sexually abused women.

While the number is small, most other states don’t have any beds.

Anne’s House opened about five years ago with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, said its founder, who does not want to be identified by name. For purposes of speaking to the media, he only goes by his title—the director of the Salvation Army Promise Program/founder of Anne’s House.

There is a reason for the high security, he explained. “Pimps want to find this place because we have taken away their source of income, which is the way they view these women. I’m always asked, where is Anne’s House located?”

It’s outside Chicago, but that’s all the information disclosed about the facility’s location. Anne’s House takes its first name from its largest private donor. Her full name is also a secret.

Anne’s House is unique in Illinois because, unlike shelters, women can live there for years. “It takes time to 16

deal with the trauma they have experienced,” the director said. Men who are victims of sexual trafficking can’t live there.

Residents range in age from 12 to 21.

Some of the women earn their high school diploma. They also receive medical and psychological care free of charge.

Why are there so few facilities?

“Trafficked women don’t count. I know all of the aldermen, and they tell me there is no money available to help trafficked women,” said Brenda Myers-Powell, cofounder of The Dreamcatcher Foundation, which works with prostitutes.

Anne’s House has a staff of 13, who work three shifts seven days a week.

The facility costs $450,000 a year to operate. The facility is part of an umbrella organization called Partnership to Rescue our Minors from Sexual Exploitation, or Promise. In 2005, Promise launched a task force that teaches law enforcement officials, medical personnel, teachers and students about human trafficking.

Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, mothers and fathers, guardians and others from all over the country refer the women and girls to Anne’s House. They are either interviewed over the telephone or in person. And, if the staff and the applicant believe they can live there, they become a resident.

The Salvation Army has committed capital funding to build a second eight-person home in Illinois for trafficked women. “We need to raise $450,000 in operational income to

provide the needed services,” said Anne’s House’s spokesperson, who also declined to be identified.The Illinois General Assembly has spotlighted sex trafficking In the last couple of years, the state legislature passed, and Gov. Pat Quinn has signed into law, the Children’s Act of Illinois and the Funding Specialized Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking Act, which fines individuals for soliciting prostitution or promoting prostitution.

In 2010, Quinn signed the Illinois Safe Children Act. The law protects Illinois children from being forced into the sex trade and gives police additional tools to fight the human trafficking groups that exploit them.

For example, the law addresses human trafficking of children under 18. The law states that children under 18 are presumed abused or neglected and can be placed in a secure setting until a proper home can be found.

“The laws and Anne’s House help make Illinois the nation’s leader in fighting human trafficking,” said the founder of Anne’s House, although the number of long-term homes for women remains extremely small.

The Funding Specialized Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking law takes effect Jan. 1, 2015, and is expected to raise $3 million its first year.

Anne’s House will apply for some of those funds when they become available, the spokesperson said.

Frederick H. Lowe is founder and editor of NorthStar News & Analysis.

Law would fine pimps and johns Fees would pay for services to help trafficked women

T

By Solomon Davis Marist High School

he Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation won an important battle this year.

CAASE, which works to eradicate sexual exploitation, including sexual assault and the sex trade, was one of the forces behind the push to pass Senate Bill 3558 in the Illinois General Assembly. The bill, which would provide services for human trafficking victims, passed on May 27, 2014 and was signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn on Aug. 21. Known as “Funding Specialized Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking,” the law takes effect Jan. 1, 2015, said Leena Saleh, spokesperson for End Demand Illinois, a campaign of CAASE, which lobbied for the legislation.

The law creates the Specialized Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking Fund, which will be used

by the Illinois Department of Human Services to identify the needs of victims of prostitution and human trafficking, and support social service agencies to “provide specialized, trauma-informed services specifically designed to address” them.

Law expects to bring in $3 million the first year Caleb Probst, a CAASE educator, says the old strategy to end human trafficking was to arrest and prosecute prostitutes. The new strategy shifts “the way society addresses sex trafficking” by targeting the business side, he said.

Money for the fund would come from fines paid by pimps and johns—those convicted of such crimes as trafficking in persons, involuntary sexual servitude of minors and the promotion of prostitution.

Arresting pimps and johns would signal a major change in policing.

Historically, police have handcuffed prostitutes and taken them to jail

while sending the men home to their wives and girlfriends.

Arrest figures in Chicago bear this out. In 2012, the latest year for which figures are available, the Chicago Police Department arrested 993 women for prostitution, which carries jail time and a criminal record. That same year, CPD arrested only 111 men for soliciting prostitutes.

The outcome for the men was very different compared to the women: 70 percent were given an administrative hearing, and the charges were dropped, according to End Demand Illinois.

A john is “usually anonymous and is the man who purchases sex,” Probst said. “A pimp or trafficker is controlling the body and mind of people.”

If police throughout the state focus on arresting pimps and johns, the law is predicted to bring in $3 million in its first year, Saleh said.

Solomon Davis is a junior at Marist High School.

Photo by: Leena Saleh, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation

Gov. Quinn signs into law the Specialized Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking Fund to support the development of services for prostituted and trafficked people. The funds will be collected against pimps, traffickers, and people who buy sex.

17

Kalyani Gopal

Photo courtesy of Kalyani Gopal

A crusader for children unites the world in global conference

By Michelle Stevens

K

alyani Gopal had just begun her doctoral training in clinical psychology at Vanderbilt University when she first became aware of child sexual abuse and all of its ramifications – for the survivors and their families.

An 8-year-old girl shyly confided in Gopal that her father had “touched my pee-pee.” After consulting her superiors, they reported him to authorities. Criminal charges were filed, and the girl was placed in a foster home. Sometimes, individuals who report abuse just want it to stop, and are wracked with guilt for “destroying” the family if the abuser is sent to prison. But Gopal has since learned that foster care is not always the best recourse for sexually abused children.

“Foster care is a major pipeline to sex trafficking,” said Gopal, a past president of the American Psychological Association who now has more than 25 years' experience working with sex victims. Without proper treatment and counseling, people who are sexually abused at a young age may not know what is normal behavior; they can be become addicted and gravitate to sex trafficking.

“Sixty percent of kids in sex trafficking have been in a foster home,” she adds, citing statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

She has written a reference manual, “Supportive Foster Care,” as a handy guide for those who want to be great foster parents and break the cycle of abuse and neglect in the kids’ biological families.

She has made a career of counseling abused children as young as age 3, and in 1996 she opened her first private practice. She now supervises six out-

18

Kalyani Gopal, clinical psychologist and president of SAFE (Sex-Trafficking Awareness, Freedom and Empowerment) Coalition for Human Rights.

patient clinics in suburban Chicago and Indiana, and serves as a preferred provider for Illinois' Division of Children and Families, and a contracted provider for the Department of Child Services in Indiana. She conducts workshops on child sexual abuse across the U.S. and in other countries.

Last November she formed the SAFE (Sex-Trafficking Awareness, Freedom and Empowerment) Coalition for Human Rights, a nonprofit organization designed to bring together U.S. and international experts to fight the common scourge by bringing sex-trafficking survivors into the mix.

She realized that professionals need to hear directly from survivors of human slavery to thoroughly understand how to stop it.

The group hosted its first global conference Oct. 29-31, 2014 at the Hilton Hotel in Oak Lawn. When she first began organizing it in March, she said she expected to rent a small space for just two days, and was pleasantly surprised when scores of doctors, lawyers, judges and other professionals signed up to share their expertise.

For example, Nancy Rivard, president of the nonprofit Airline Ambassadors, discussed how airline staff can identify children being transported by air.

Ending trafficking will require thinking outside the box, collaborating with others outside the profession, Gopal said. That's why the keynote speakers were two sex trafficking survivors: Marian Hatcher of Indiana and Holly Smith of Norway. The women also serve on panels to train law enforcement and practitioners. “Survivors help us learn what questions to ask to

get them to trust us and confide in us.

You can learn a lot from survivors.”

For example, she said, “I learned about the foster care pipeline from the victims themselves.” Survivors can correct other common misconceptions as well. Not all girls are dragged off and forced into sex trafficking, as so dramatically portrayed in the Liam Neeson blockbuster movie “Taken.”

Some are latchkey kids whose parents are always working and don't spend much quality time with them; they may gravitate to men who recognize their loneliness and feed on it, Gopal said.

Likewise, “I learned that not everyone wants to be rescued, and not everyone is ready to get help.

“I had one young woman tell me, 'You call it trafficking, but I don't consider myself a victim. I make good money and my boyfriend and I can afford to go on vacations,'” Gopal recalled. In that case, all she could do was advise the woman to protect herself by getting an education, and to have a backup plan if her boyfriend/ pimp dumped her.

SAFE's long-term goal is to connect all stakeholders involved in sex trafficking so they can share what they've learned. “We can't just have this conference and say, 'Goodbye, see you next year,'” Gopal said. “We're going to have monthly meetings and quarterly networking events to keep building on what we've learned and keep the lines of communication open.”

Michelle Stevens is the former editorial page editor of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Solutions

and warnings

19

How to help a youth in crisis You have to start somewhere and it starts with you

See something, say something Trafficking victims range in age, race and gender. Victims blend into the general population, looking like the average person. Look out for: • Lack of identification.

• Living at their place of work.

• Inability to speak to individual alone.

• Submissive or fearful.

• Under 18 and in prostitution.

• Signs of physical abuse; broken bones, and bruises.

If you suspect a case of trafficking, contact the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline: 1-888-373-7888. nhtrc@polarisproject.org | www.traffickingresourcecenter.org If the victim is in immediate danger, call 911.

Text for help In March 2013, Polaris Project launched a texting shortcode to help victims of human trafficking find safety. When victims text to BeFree (233733) they reach one of the call specialists, who assists them in planning their escape and/or connecting them to services in the area.

Text HELP or INFO to BeFree (233733)

Work exploitation For labor trafficking concerns, call 1-888-373-7888 to report suspected instances of human trafficking or worker exploitation or contact the FBI field office nearest you.

Homeless youth are among the most vulnerable Many are physically, sexually and/or emotionally abused.

They may identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning and are rejected by their families.

Some become pregnant or give birth at a young age.

Many are displaced due to poverty and severe economic stress.

National Runaway Safeline: 1-800-RUN-AWAY

20

What can you do? What can I do?

The Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE) has developed a toolkit that is downloadable. Go to its website: caase.org/toolkits What we found most helpful—in fact, universal—are the five key steps that CAASE has outlined for demanding change or for change to happen. These steps can be applied to any issue that negatively affects our communities and needs correcting.

Take everyday action in your own community If you suspect someone is a victim of the trafficking or the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSES), contact CyberTipline, a reporting mechanism. This includes child pornography, online solicitation of children, child victims of prostitution, etc. Reports can be made 24 hours a day at www.cypertipline.com or by calling 1-800-843-5678.

Reframe the language that glorifies or condemns. Be aware that those who are trapped or traded in trafficking are victims, not to be put down. Challenge the stereotypes of prostitution and help others understand the broader contexts of human trafficking.

Raise awareness Get to know the national public awareness campaign Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative. Use it to inform and educate your communities. www.justice.gov.psc/

Volunteer Host clothing and supply drives for victims of childhood sexual exploitation in your community through agencies that serve them, such as the Dreamcatcher Foundation. www.dreamcatcherfoundation.org

Advocate for change Contact your legislator and urge him or her to work toward the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified international human rights treaty. It has changed the way children are treated but there is still work to be done. November 2014 marks the 25th anniversary of its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly.

Lobby to have law enforcement refocus activities on adult perpetrators of sex crimes against children: pimps, traffickers and offenders who buy sex. Learn more at www.enddemandillinois.gov Ensure that schools have curricula that highlight the harms to children, teach how to identify pimps and traffickers and explain the role young men can play in ending sex trafficking. Ensure that teachers are trained on how to identify if a child may be the victim of commercial sexual exploitation.

Keep learning More than 100,000 children are sold in the U.S. every year. The ECPCAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children) website lists resources, training manuals, global monitoring reports. Educate yourself about the ways to take action. www.ecpcat.net For Additional Information on Youth and Human Trafficking CAASE (Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation) The Dreamcatcher Foundation Heartland Alliance National Immigration Justice Center (NIJC) National Human Trafficking Resource Center National Runaway Safeline: 1-800-RUN-AWAY Polaris Project 21

columbialinks.org

22