Trafficking

By: Melissa Henderson

Everything we’ve heard about it so far. From the medical, to immigration and people doing it to escape poverty. This is worst than we expected.

I landed at the Atlanta International Airport at 8 am. During the walk to baggage claim, an announcement was made on the intercom, “Human trafficking is real and a serious offense. In the words of the MTA, If you see something say something. More or less it said something like that. But I’m not going to lie; I was mildly thinking about my escape route should I find myself in a trafficking ring on my way to my grandparent’s house. Not to freak you out, but what would your escape route be?

Trafficking as a topic has finally made its way to Instagram. There’s no escaping this meme reposted on several accounts that the meme is now blurry and no telling where it originated. The few that are circulating talk about precautions we all need to take while traveling even in the U.S. “Double-check that the uber door isn’t on child lock and make sure the license plate matches the one on your app.” However, these are just small ways we can protect ourselves from getting kidnapped and/or raped in the digital age because predators are more strategic than they were in the 90s. ( Re: VSZ’s work in revenge porn speaks directly to women’s safety online regarding assholes.) However, double-checking if an uber door is locked is far from the issue. Taxi cabs have always been unsafe. After much scrutiny, Uber released a U.S. Safety Report for 2017-2018, revealing there have been over 6,000 sexual cases documented on the ride-sharing app. In a universe of nearly 4 million Uber trips happening every day in the U.S., which equates to more than 45 rides every second! That’s less than 1% but still. All lives matter.

It’s right under our noses, and we don’t know how to stop it. We just deal with it. If you Google “human trafficking bust,” you will read about dozens of recent news stories about so-called “pimps” and their elaborate hostage schemes.

But this is a very contentious issue that has layers of nuances that we can’t ignore. According to the National Runaway Safeline, between 1.6 and 2.8 million youth run away each year in the U.S. These are people under 18 years of age. Amongst the noise on Instagram, we were able to find @missingkid run by The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). This page posts about missing children and includes information on when they were seen last in the region. The page also posts updates for the few children that are located. People can comment and inquire. One photo of this

young girl named Destyny O’Neill, now 17, instantly caught my eye. The post was uploaded a week ago. Who was this girl missing since Feb. 18, 2018, in Delray Beach? One comment said, “I tried Googling and found nothing even with the spelling of her name.” There was another comment that referenced a page for missing black teens called @_haveyouseenme. The resources seem to be there but, are people using them? Or is it so extensive, we just can’t keep up??

In my previous job, I came across a university briefing that stated over 460,000 youth go missing in the U.S. each year. The U.K. was the second-highest on the report. But the data could be even more staggering because our systems simply lack the infrastructure to track these underage missing children.

But ‘missing children” can be a lot of things. They could be affected by sex trafficking. According to the NCMEC, child sex trafficking has been reported in all 50 U.S. States. Plus, there’s a lot of other stats we have to look at when it comes to where these people go missing and why. On the issue of immigration, ICES, poor people’s rights in this country, we have to start addressing trafficking as a governmental crisis with dedicated people, and infrastructure to handle this epidemic. Deporting the parents and keeping the children in U.S. custody is wrong and borderline trafficking.

Back in the day, 20 years ago, small towns were vulnerable to a lot of murders and kidnappings because it’s easy to watch what other people are doing. However, tracking someone’s comings and goings is easier than we think in a place like New York City, where you can meet your neighbor for the first time two years after signing your lease.

Case and point: the internet reacted in true fashion when a 16-year-old girl from the Bronx was kidnapped, and it was all caught on camera. Amber Alerts notified us iPhone users, with an alarming notification, and there was a search going on in the NYC metro area. Well, until it didn’t. We found out it was fake news. The 16-year-old teen staged her own kidnapping and came running back home less than 12 hours later! Someone from the neighborhood spotted her while crossing the street. In the wise words of J.Cole, “Don’t save her, she don’t wanna be saved.”

On the flip side, some cases are mysterious. One time, a nail tech told me her friends were disappearing. She moved to NYC to find work and stay out of trouble. She was intrigued by the Big Apple.

“I like it here. It’s big and ain’t a lot of people in your business,” she told me while she shape my acrylic nails. She seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders. It was enough for me to admire her determination to work in the city that never sleeps, even if it was just for a few weeks out of the month. I’m nosy, so I was all up in her business.

“So many girls I know go missing,” she told me casually. She was concentrating on perfecting my nail shape.

“Their abduction is reported to the police, but nothing happens. They just disappear, and no one comes looking for them.”

“Tuh What do you mean? Also, where you from again?” I said in disbelief.

“Sis, l I already told you. I’m from Durham.”

“Their abduction is probably reported to the police but nothing happens. They just disappear.” she told me while she started painting fresh gel color on my nails.

“Did the parents come looking for your friend?” I kept asking questions that one would ask if someone went missing. I kept hitting a brick wall. She wasn’t tryna spill no real tea!!

Finally, I resorted to, “Damn, that’s crazy.”

Did you know that 60% of young black girls go missing in the U.S.? Why they go missing is nuanced, but a lot of it has to do with trafficking. As a concept, it has made its way to social media. An issue once reserved for third-world countries and white-collar crimes is now spiraling out of control in the hood. So much so that people think it’s a game. Going back

to the nail salon where I found out this girl, Karole Sanchez had staged her kidnapping everyone reacted around me in the same manner. “WTF? This lady I met at this nail salon proudly told me she worked at ACS (Administration for Children Services). She knew all along that this news story was a hoax. “I work with ACS. Teens call us to report their parents all the time.” She did not give me her name, but she said that the overflow of cases she has to work on daily is overwhelming for the small team she works on, and employees who do these jobs get burnt out fast “They don’t last long,” She told me. She says she’s also dealt with cases where teens run away from home and don’t want their parents to come looking for them.

However, I do know that some teens come to their senses when they run out of options. I’ve met people like this in my past. Some are remorseful. Ms. Sanchez was probably freaked out. It was like all over social media the same way Jussie Smollett’s saga erupted. The difference is that somebody apart of Sanchez’s heist probably told her to go home, and she came shivering back to the block. She had celebrities tweeting about her - Will she make her official statement on TikTok? Can she leverage this to be successful? What exactly was she running away from? This is the core of the issue. Girls are running to escape from something.

To the overall trafficking problem, If we apply data to the situation, can it be fixed? I don’t know. But we need to start documenting trends to figure out how to strategically go about it. It’s going to take everyone getting on the same page. That means our police stations need the most up to date information and technology systems to properly document cases of who’s missing, who’s filing missing reports, etc. I would make a CRM system to document each and then standardize it. That means all these smaller niche organizations have to report into it. They can still function on their own; the information just needs to be centralized.

Regarding underage youth in the U.S., children can travel with no identification. Especially under 12-year-old age, you don’t need an id to travel. Including people who can pass for younger ages. One time, I sat near a young black boy traveling by himself, and we were on a 10+ hour flight! He seemed mature, and the flight attendants kept checking on him, but I would be scared to death as a parent wondering if my child had arrived safely. Airlines charge additional fees if parents/guardians need to send their child on a flight unaccompanied. Delta has an “unaccompanied minor program,” and children starting at age five can travel alone. The few times I traveled with children, they were my family, and it was apparent. When you pass through U.S. security guards before boarding, children can be asked various random questions by TSA. For example, they may ask a child, “What’s your name?” “How old are you?” In other instances, I’ve witnessed a U.S. guard at the airport asks, “Who is she to you?” to a child. Meaning, the child is supposed to respond, “That’s my mom.” Or someone related. If not, the wrong answers to these questions could be indicators the child is being trafficked. Other Indicators include but are not limited to according to the NCMEC website:

- Multiple children are present with an unrelated male or female - The child has no I.D., or another person holds I.D. - Presence of an overly controlling or abusive “boyfriend” or older female - The child does not ask for help or resists offers to get out of the situation (child does not self-identify as a victim).

Other reasons children have gone missing or trafficked, is that they come from lowincome families who lack resources to keep their families together. This is unacceptable in the U.S. and first-world countries where our tax dollars and access to everything should keep children safe. But here we are. Another important reason to note is that the federal foster care system can’t keep track of coming-of-age teens who may “graduate” out of the system with no plan to start life. The state doesn’t have the resources to keep them engaged, and these children who have come of age in a broken system are now could fall into homelessness easier, some falling ito trafficking schemes. Surprisingly, Pennsylvania just passed a bill to make college free for students who have been in the foster care system. However, we’ll see if throwing coins to education will actually help people who’ve had their bouts with the foster care system.

I’m writing this because I want people to know that trafficking is a real issue and it’s getting worse because regular people are now talking about kidnappings like it’s just light conversation the nightly news is too busy to handle. It’s not our problem unless someone close to us has gone through it, and then we wake up. Ava Duvernay said it best: All change starts with awareness. So even if it’s not you, you can still be in a position to assist. Or you may have the power at work or wherever to ignite that change.