Washington first US State to Pass Law Tightening Oversight of Escort Sites

April 03, 2012

The Washington Legislature has passed, and Governor Gregoire has signed into law, a bill that would require websites within the state to obtain documentation that escorts advertised there are at least 18.

SEATTLE — For more than three months, she was sold online for sex. She had run away at 15, gone back home, then run away again. Finally, an undercover police officer caught her, and her pimp. This time she went home and stayed, but she was not the same.

“She was a different child after that,” her father said. “It was like she was programmed. She spoke different. She looked different. They cut her hair, they dyed her hair, they bought her new clothes.”

Now 17, the girl is in counseling and in college, “on her way,” her father said.

She is also evidence. When one of the men who raped her was sentenced in February, one of the exhibits that prosecutors used was an advertisement selling her services as an escort on backpage.com. The ad said she was 18.

That same month, the Washington Legislature was debating a bill that would require sites within the state to obtain documentation that escorts advertised there are at least 18. On Thursday, Gov. Christine Gregoire signed that bill into law, the first of its kind in the country.

“It’s a start, and it’s a precedent,” the girl’s father said, “and it will make a difference.”

The Washington law was praised last week by groups working to stop child sex trafficking. Other states, including Connecticut, are considering similar legislation. Yet even some supporters of the law question how effective it will be — paperwork can be easy to fake, after all. And will shutting down one Web site simply prompt another to open? Some also wonder how it will fare against potential legal challenges that it limits free speech.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Andrea Powell, the executive director of FAIR Girls, which seeks out and helps girls who have been sexually exploited. “But I don’t think it’s going to be the solution they’re looking for. It might reduce the volume of ads, but the ultimate goal is to shut that section down. There’s no way with an escort section that pimps aren’t going to post there. They’re not going to just stop posting on backpage.”

After public and political pressure led Craigslist to remove its escort sections in 2010, experts say backpage became the biggest mainstream platform for similar ads. Yet unlike Craigslist, backpage, which is owned by Village Voice Media Holdings, says it has no plan to remove its escort sections and it has not ruled out challenging Washington State’s law. The company says that the role it plays is vastly overstated by critics and that it screens and reports ads to try to prevent exploitation of children.

“There’s going to have to be a challenge to it,” said Liz McDougall, general counsel for Village Voice Media Holdings. “Otherwise it would effectively shut down an enormous portion of the Internet that currently permits third-party content.”

Ms. McDougall said the law could potentially affect Web site forums and chat rooms that are unrelated to escort sites, but where illicit content might be reposted. She also made arguments that even some law enforcement investigators make, that some sites that promote child sex trafficking can lead investigators and advocates to victims and their abusers.

That argument falls flat for many advocates.

“That just doesn’t work because, of course, they’re causing far more harm than they’re helping prevent,” said Washington State’s attorney general, Rob McKenna, a Republican who is running for governor. “There’s no excuse for being part of the problem.”

Human trafficking has been a prominent issue in Washington State for at least a decade. Following a series of high-profile trafficking-related episodes beginning in the 1990s, Washington passed the first state law, in 2003, to criminalize human trafficking. In 2010 it significantly increased prison sentences for child sex-trafficking. Last year, Mayor Mike McGinn of Seattle pulled city advertising from The Seattle Weekly, which is owned by Village Voice (but requires age verification for escort ads that run in print). Mr. McKenna, the current president of the National Association of Attorneys General, made the issue the centerpiece of the group’s meeting here last week.

He and others say they want Congress to amend the federal Communications Decency Act. The act, passed in 1996, provides broad free-speech protections for Internet sites that opponents of trafficking say did not anticipate the way the Web is now used — but that could make the Washington law vulnerable in court.

State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the sponsor of the new law, said she and others spent more than a year working on language that the American Civil Liberties Union and some newspaper groups eventually supported.

“We provide the means for them to have an affirmative defense,” Ms. Kohl-Welles said of the escort sites. “That is, if they can document they verified the age of the individual being portrayed. We think that’ll do it.”

Ms. McDougall, of Village Voice Media Holdings, said it “took some convincing” before she recently agreed to take her job, because she also had questions about backpage. But she also questioned the need for the new Washington law.

“If we’re not already the industry leaders based on what we’re doing, we are going to be the industry leaders in fighting trafficking online,” Ms. McDougall said. “My goal is to get us there.”

Adapted from “Washington is First State to Take on Escort Sites,” The New York Times, 1 April 2012.

IOM Reports Child Trafficking and Labor Trafficking Cases Are Rising

IOM reports child trafficking and labor trafficking cases are rising

April 10, 2012

Child victims of human trafficking helped by IOM increased to 2,040 in 2011, up 27 per cent from 1,565 in 2008, according to new IOM data.

It shows that the number of adult victims referred to 89 IOM missions in 91 countries during the same period rose 13 per cent to 3,404 from 3,012.

While the number of female victims remained stable at 3,415, compared to 3,404 in 2008, the number of male victims rose 27 per cent to 2,040 from 1,656, reflecting growing public recognition of the trafficking of men for the purpose of labour exploitation.

Labour trafficking cases rose 43 per cent to 2,906, up from 2,031 in 2008. In contrast, cases of trafficking for sexual exploitation dropped 19 per cent to 1,507 from 1,866 four years earlier.

International trafficking cases fell 13 per cent to 3,531 in 2011, down from 4,066 in 2008. But domestic cases shot up 140 per cent from 713 in 2008 to 1,708 last year.

The fall in international cases may reflect more efficient immigration and border controls, while the increase in the number of domestic cases may reflect greater public awareness of trafficking and improved domestic law enforcement, according to IOM Head of Counter Trafficking Laurence Hart.

Out of a total of 5,498 victims helped by IOM in 2011, 1,606 were in Europe, 1,049 in South and Central Asia, 984 in the Western Hemisphere, 860 in East Asia and the Pacific, 696 in the Middle East and 303 in Africa, according to IOM 2012 Case Data on Human Trafficking: Global Figures and Trends.

Roughly a third (36 per cent) of cases involved children under the age of 18. Nearly two thirds (62 per cent) of the total were women and a little over a third (37 per cent ) were men.

In Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Central and Southern Asia, women outnumbered men by roughly two to one. In the Middle East, the Western Hemisphere and Africa, the gender gap was less pronounced.

The top ten countries of destination for human trafficking victims helped by IOM in 2011 were the Russian Federation (837), Haiti (658), Yemen (552), Thailand (449), Kazakhstan (265), Afghanistan (170), Indonesia (148), Poland (122), Egypt (103) and Turkey (101).

The top ten countries of origin for victims were Ukraine (835), Haiti (709), Yemen (378), Laos (359), Uzbekistan (292), Cambodia (258), Kyrgyzstan (213), Afghanistan (179), Belarus (141) and Ethiopia (122).

In Europe, IOM Ukraine recorded the most victims assisted with 814 of the total. Belarus recorded 142, Moldova 98 and Germany 69.

In Central and South, Asia Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan topped the totals, accounting for 202, 204 and 199 cases respectively.

In the Western Hemisphere, IOM helped 656 victims in Haiti, 65 in the United States and 49 in the Dominican Republic.

In Asia and the Pacific, Thailand accounted for 260 cases, Laos for 195, Cambodia for 122 and Vietnam for 102.

In the Middle East, IOM offices recorded 513 cases in Yemen and 100 in Egypt. In Africa IOM handled 47 cases in Tanzania, 45 in Uganda, 44 in Ethiopia and 32 in Mali.

IOM provides a wide range of services to help victims of human trafficking, including shelter, medical and legal assistance, vocational training, assisted voluntary return to the country of origin, and reintegration assistance once they return home.

Click here to read the full International Organization for Migration 2011 Case Data on Human Trafficking: Global Figures & Trends.

Adapted from “Child Trafficking and Labor Trafficking Cases Rising: IOM,” International Organization for Migration, 3 April 2012.

Prop 35 Proponents Respond to District Court Ruling

Requirement that Convicted Sex Offenders Provide Internet Identifiers Now On Hold Until Further Litigation

San Francisco, California – The proponents of Prop 35 released the following statements responding to a ruling today by Senior District Judge Thelton E. Henderson of the United States District Court, Northern California District. Judge Henderson has granted a preliminary injunction on one provision of Prop 35 that required convicted sex offenders to provide internet identifiers to law enforcement. The ACLU and EFF filed a lawsuit shortly after the initiative’s landslide victory at the polls in November 2012 on this provision and today’s ruling continues a temporary injunction awarded just after Election Day.

“We are disappointed with this decision, but we are confident that in due time this common sense provision will be upheld by the courts,” said Chris Kelly of the Safer California Foundation. “The claims made by the ACLU have been previously litigated, and appellate courts have rejected their misinterpretation of the Constitution. We will continue to advocate for the protection of vulnerable women and children online and on our streets that California voters called for in their overwhelming support of Proposition 35.”

“Californians made clear when they passed Prop 35 with 81% that the people support making the internet a safer place for vulnerable women and children,” said Daphne Phung, Founder of California Against Slavery. “This was the most popular initiative in California’s history. Given that overwhelming support, it was disappointing that court took a different view on a provision of the initiative. We are confident that in due time this provision will be upheld.”

All other provisions of Prop 35 are in effect. The injunction applies only to the one provision that convicted sex offenders provide internet identifiers to law enforcement.

California Proposition 35, Ban on Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery (2012)

Proposition 35, the “Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act” Initiative was on the November 6, 2012 ballot in California as an initiated state statute, where it was approved.^[1]

The day after the election, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that prevents Proposition 35 from going into effect. The judge acted in response to a class action lawsuit filed against Proposition 35 by ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of two anonymous sex offenders to whom the provisions of the initiative apply.^[2] This temporary injunction was extended on January 11, 2013.^[3]

Proposition 35:

• Increases      prison terms for human traffickers.
• Requires      convicted sex traffickers to register as sex offenders.
• Requires      all registered sex offenders to disclose their internet accounts.
• Requires      criminal fines from convicted human traffickers to pay for services to      help victims.
• Mandates      law enforcement training on human trafficking.

Sonoma County authorities’ changing views toward prostitution

By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at 9:47 a.m.

Just down the hill from some of Santa Rosa’s toniest neighborhoods, an Oakland man brought his 20-year-old “girlfriend” last month to rendezvous with an undercover police officer, ostensibly to trade sex for money, authorities said.

Her “boyfriend” carried a loaded handgun purchased mostly with proceeds from an earlier all-night “date,” which brought in $800 in exchange for the young woman’s submission to repeated and varied sex acts, Santa Rosa police Detective Chris Mahurin said.

When police stopped the man’s car behind the Flamingo Hotel on Sept. 11, the young woman’s 17-year-old sister was inside. Investigators believe he hoped to lure the teenager into the trade, as well.

The suspect, Mike Lavella Turner, 19, admitted the older sister — the one who called him “boyfriend” — was his “ho,” Mahurin said. He said he had “taught her what to do.”

It’s the kind of case local authorities say is far too common in Sonoma County and across the nation: Vulnerable young women, girls and sometimes boys sold for commercial sex by others who profit from their emotional dependence or fear of violence.

Until recently, those providing the sex would likely be considered criminals. But increasingly, authorities are viewing some prostitutes as victims of a crime, not perpetrators. With new understanding of the dynamics of human trafficking, local law enforcement agencies are reassessing their approach to combatting prostitution and trying to change attitudes

“We tend to think prostitution is a choice, (that) these girls enjoy turning six to eight tricks a night with six to eight different men,” Mahurin told a roomful of Sonoma County hotel managers and owners last week. More likely they’re working for someone who maintains strict control over their lives and their money, he said.

“We’re evolving,” Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch told the same group.

The meeting was organized by the revitalized Sonoma County Human Trafficking Task Force, led by Chief Deputy District Attorney Bill Brockley. It is part of a campaign to raise community awareness and make the county inhospitable to people who traffic other humans for any purpose.

The conference drew about 50 hotel and motel workers to learn how to detect sex trafficking. Signs may include an unusual number of people coming and going from a room; women from outside the area, wearing skimpy clothing, who let their male partner do all the talking; a man who wants to register without showing identification or a credit card, or who uses the woman’s identification to register but pays cash for the room himself.

Police do not expect hotel workers to confront or interrogate guests, Mahurin said.

But if a guest can’t answer common questions like, “What brings you to the area?” or “What do you plan to do while you’re here?” it might be worth making a note or alerting law enforcement, he said.

“You guys are the first line of defense,” Mahurin said.

“What these individuals are looking for is opportunity . . . favorable conditions,” Santa Rosa Vice Mayor John Sawyer said.

For many, the phrase “human trafficking” is something that happens only in distant lands, evoking images of foreign women or young girls smuggled across international borders.

But it happens right here in Sonoma County, authorities said, on Santa Rosa Avenue, all over the Web, in massage parlors, and in hotels and motels, from modest to luxurious.

“These people are sold, so they are trafficked,” said Chris Castillo, executive director of Verity, a local rape and trauma counseling center.

Once considered a “victimless crime” whose primary ill was the blight it brought on a neighborhood, prostitution is now viewed as a far more serious and widespread problem, Santa Rosa Police Detective Sgt. Mike Clark said.

On Tuesday, for example, several hundred prostitutes were listed on a website advertising commercial sex in the North Bay. A few might answer only to themselves, Mahurin said, but he believes the majority are making money for someone else.

Mahurin said his profound awakening on the subject occurred last April, while investigating the disappearance of a 14-year-old Santa Rosa girl who had run away.

When he found her in Fairfax four weeks later, she’d been trading in sex in communities around Sonoma and Marin counties under a different name at the instruction of a man she said had threatened harm to her and her family, Mahurin said.

When the detective met her, the teen refused even to acknowledge her real name. But she eventually decided to trust him, he said, “lunged forward, hugged me, and started crying,” and said, “If I tell you anything he’s going to kill me.”

The man, Amari Folsom, 19, was later arrested at the Third Street Transit Mall in Santa Rosa in the company of two young runaways from Marin County. He ended up pleading guilty and was sentenced last week to four years and eight months in prison, Mahurin said.

Earlier in April, police arrested a Los Angeles man at a local hotel who, they said, brought a 16-year-old girl to town. He sexually and physically assaulted her when she refused to have sex with customers, police said. The man was charged in court but the case was dropped when the girl and others who had worked for him refused to testify, the District Attorney’s Office said.

Turner, arrested last month behind the Flamingo Hotel, remains in custody and has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the undercover sting. A preliminary hearing in his case is scheduled Thursday. Charges against his “girlfriend” are pending, authorities said.

In another Santa Rosa police case over the Labor Day weekend, a developmentally disabled 19-year-old woman from Sacramento escaped a Cleveland Avenue motel, saying another woman had been trafficking her in Santa Rosa and San Francisco before she was able to flee, police said.

Mahurin also tells of a raid on a Santa Rosa massage parlor whose workers, police learned, were rotated out weekly between operations in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago and Santa Rosa.

“It scares me,” he said, “to believe that Santa Rosa is in that group.”

(You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.)

 Original article: http://www.petaluma360.com/article/20121010/COMMUNITY/121019986?p=4&tc=pg

Human trafficking–even in Sonoma County

September 7, 2010

CLOSE TO HOME        Santa Rosa Press Democrat    February 23, 2007

Human trafficking – even in Sonoma County

By THE REV. JEFF JOHNSON

 

Rev. Jeff Johnson

The Rev. Jeff Johnson is pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Fellowship in Santa Rosa. “Amazing Grace,” a film about the life of William Wilberforce, debuts today at the Roxy Stadium 14 in Santa Rosa.

The end of slavery began 200 years ago today, when William Wilberforce – after 13 years of trying – convinced the English Parliament to outlaw slave trading. But that was only the beginning of what has been a prolonged and dubious abolition. Like a monster refusing to die, slavery has lashed back and today claims 27 million subjects throughout the world, roughly comparable to the combined total of four centuries of African slave trading.

Are there slaves in Sonoma County? Yes, according to Det. Brad Conners of the Santa Rosa Police Department. Without a doubt. Perhaps not very many, but no one knows for sure. The local victims we know about are young girls forced into prostitution. No matter the industry, whether prostitution, agriculture, or domestic services, forced labor is still slavery and human trafficking is still slave trading.

According to the group Free the Slaves, the majority of today’s slaves – 15 million of them – live in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal and work as bonded servants, sometimes called “debt slaves.” That leaves 12 million unaccounted for, so no one should have been surprised when, in 1995 in El Monte, Calif., federal agents freed 72 Thai women from captivity, where some of them had been kept for as many as seven years working 16-hour days, under armed-guard in the worst kind of stale, dark, roach-infested sweatshop imaginable. They were making clothes.

Closer to home and more recently, there was Lakireddy Reddy, the Berkeley apartment owner and restaurateur who brought Indian nationals into America over a period of 14 years, from 1986 to 2000 before an accident finally blew up his crooked scheme of subjecting them, mostly women, to forced labor and sexual abuse. He is currently serving an eight-year sentence for his crimes.

In 2003, President Bush announced to the United Nations that nearly 1 million slaves are trafficked across international borders each year.

Approximately 17,500 to 20,000 of them have America as their destination, which explains why just last year on June 13 the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department formed a task force with the city of Santa Rosa, and the nonprofit group United Against Sexual Assault to combat human trafficking, the slave trade, in Sonoma County.

According to the recently published report “Hidden Slaves: Forced Labor in the United States,” most slaves in America today come from China, Mexico and Vietnam. Most slaves in America today live in California, Florida, Texas and New York. They work on farms. They work in massage parlors. They work in homes. They work the streets, and they work the Internet. There is more than enough supply and demand to keep this system going and not nearly enough law enforcement to stop it.

More easily obtained and more cheaply transported than they were 200 years ago, slaves have become a throwaway commodity, far more valuable when bought in bulk.

The end of the end of slavery needs courageous individuals like Wilberforce, not to pass new legislation, but to be nosy neighbors, to blow the cover of anonymity behind which slave owners and slave traders hide. Ask questions. Start caring for those around you. Develop friendships with those you meet during the course of a day. Who lives next door? What’s happening on your street? Make it your business to know. This is our home. These are our neighbors.

Who knows, but you might end up rescuing a modern-day slave. You might become a modern-day abolitionist.

John Newton, the once-infamous slave trader who converted to Christianity, gave up slaving and penned the six-stanza song our whole culture knows as “Amazing Grace.”

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

May we all have the eyes to see the faces and the facts of those around us.

Original article: http://jmtjohnson.wordpress.com/

Human trafficking a reality

By Emily Charrier-Botts INDEX-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITEREditor’s note:

This is the first in a two-part series that will look at human trafficking in Sonoma County. The first part will deal with human trafficking for sexual exploitation, while the second article will look at forced labor.

In many minds, human trafficking is something that only occurs in the far corners of developing nations, where children and adults end up as modern day slaves in the commercial sex industry or as forced labor. Many believe it is not something that could be rampant the United States, let alone within the tranquil confines of Sonoma County.

“It’s all around us,” said Kathy Hargitt, a consultant on human trafficking and a Valley resident. “It’s everywhere.” And it’s an issue that elected officials in Sonoma are starting to more seriously address. Earlier this month, the Sonoma City Council and the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors declared that Jan. 11, would forever more be Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

A recent report from the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force found that California was the top destination in the United States for trafficking people.

And human trafficking has become a real problem in Sonoma County, which is rich in the agricultural industries that brings in forced laborers and is close enough to the Bay Area to attract the commercial-sex industry.

Actual statistics on the number of people who are trapped in these modern-day slavery rings are nearly impossible to determine because of the secretive nature of the industry, but the federal government conservatively estimates between 14,000 and 17,500 people are brought into the country against their will each year.

According to the report, about 80 percent of those trafficked into California are women. About 66 percent of humans trafficked into America are brought for sexual exploitation, the remaining 34 percent are forced to work in sweatshops, agriculture fields or as domestic servants.

“The statistics on this whole issue are really hard to get,” Hargitt said. “What we do have is a lot of stories, a lot of qualitative data.” 

Hargitt recalled an incident where a developmentally disabled girl disappeared from the campus at Santa Rosa Junior College. The girl’s mother said her daughter had trouble making friends, but had been approached by another woman on campus to hang out. Her daughter was not seen again, but because the girl was considered an adult, law enforcement could do little to help.

The mother went on a crusade to find her daughter. It took a full 18 months, but she finally discovered the girl was being sold on Craigslist.com, an online classifieds Web site that has become a hotbed for the commercial-sex trade. The mother was able to set up a sting operation to get her daughter back, but many parents are not so lucky.

“There are quite a number of women who have experienced being coerced into commercial-sexual exploitation,” Hargitt said. While many traffickers feed on the most vulnerable members of society, such as runaways, drug addicts or immigrants who do not understand their rights, the high-market value for young, white girls in the sex trade has brought some traffickers to the suburbs. While thousands are trafficked in every year, an unknown number of American teens are sold throughout the country for sexual exploitation.

“There’s an epidemic of white, upper-class kids in this industry,” Hargitt said.

Many of the minors who end up in commercial sex rings are contacted over the Internet on social-networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace.

After establishing a friendship, the predator gains the minor’s trust and is able to easily manipulate the child’s behavior, including convincing the child to run away from home. They are then forced to rely on their captors for the basic necessities of life, and a sort of Stockholm Syndrome sets in where the victim will sympathize with the trafficker. In other cases, the victims are terrorized with threats of violence on their life and that of their families to keep quiet.

“It’s a psychological brainwashing that happens,” said Chris Castillo, executive director of United Against Sexual Assault of Sonoma County, which works with law- enforcement agencies to support victims of sexual assault, including those who have been trafficked.

Castillo said her organization works to repair the survivor’s sense of self, empowering him or her to realize their value as a person, and the human rights we all possess. “It’s a slow process,” Castillo said, but a vital one, especially to bring the guilty to justice. “(The survivor) may not be able to help prosecute their captors because they’re too afraid.”

Sgt. Dave Thompson, with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit, said pinpointing a human trafficking ring is the most difficult aspect for law enforcement, especially when victims aren’t talking.

“We may not recognize it when we see it. It’s not something where people come into town with a big banner on the side of their van,” Thompson said. “(The survivors) are reluctant to give up any information. There’s a fear factor built in that is very tragic.”

Thompson said whenever a minor is discovered being exploited in the commercial-sex industry, law enforcement can immediately take the survivor into protective custody.

However, Hargitt said many victims are so dependant on their captors that they will run away from their foster homes and return to the traffickers. And many of those who are trafficked are over the age of 18, meaning that unless they tell law enforcement they’ve been trafficked, they will be treated as conventional-prostitution cases, and can be released from custody to the waiting arms of their captors.

“There needs to be a follow up service,” Hargitt said. “They need to be treated as rape victims, which they are. There’s a lot of old attitudes that need to be changed.”

Castillo agreed, saying there was a negative stigma against prostitutes in the community when a large number of them are actually sexual slaves. This stigma may keep people from seeking the help they need.

Thompson, Castillo and Hargitt are all a part of the North Bay Area Human Trafficking Task Force, a collection of law enforcement and nonprofit organizations that are working together to tackle these issues. All three agree there is a long way to go to solve these problems, but the process will involve providing more training to officers and spreading awareness in the community.

“There is an absolute need to let parents know what’s going on,” said 1st District Supervisor Valerie Brown, who has been actively involved in pursuing a better understanding of the depth of human trafficking in Sonoma County. She said the greatest need is to develop a system to understand the scope of the issue. “We do not have a good system for data collection. Really, we need to figure out what information needs to be collected.”

Hargitt and Castillo said getting parents involved is an important preventive measure. United Against Sexual Assault will be offering a free training class for parents to learn more about talking with their children, gang prevention, Internet safety and more. The classes will take place on Tuesdays from 8 to 10 a.m. or Wednesdays from 6 to 8 p.m. beginning Feb. 4 (call 545-7273, ext. 16 for more).

Hargitt added that getting involved in mentoring programs can ensure a child understands their self worth enough to avoid the temptation of easy money. “If you want to make a difference, be a mentor. These kids need to understand they’re valued. Some of their parents couldn’t care less because they’re more in love with their drugs than their children,” Hargitt said.

For now, these advocates will continue to find ways to collaborate and share resources to better fight the spread of sexual exploitation.

“We’re very committed to fighting this,” Thompson said. “We don’t want to be a mecca for this type of thing.” 

United Against Sexual Assault of Sonoma County has a wide range of services for survivors of human trafficking or sexual assault. The main office number is 545-7270. The 24-hour crisis line can be reached at 545-7273.

POSTED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY

Continue reading at NowPublic.com: Human trafficking a reality | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/world/human-trafficking-reality#ixzz2LUOUTSn7

CLOSE TO HOME: The Threat of Human Trafficking

EFREN CARRILLO
and VALERIE BROWN

Published: Monday, June 29, 2009 at 3:00 a.m.

According to the U.S Justice Department, more than 450,000 children run away from home every year in the United States. A third of them — 150,000 — will be lured toward prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. Their average age: 12 years old. They belong to all races, ethnicity and religions and cross all socio-economic classes. They can be female, male or transgender. Many have been victims of sexual assault or family molestation. A large number live on the streets or in foster care.

What do these youth have in common? They are all vulnerable, frightened and caught in a continuing cycle of abuse. From a legal stand point, they are considered victims of human trafficking, the term that describes forced labor, bonded labor, involuntary servitude, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking and other related abuses.

Traffickers (pimps) often physically and/or psychologically control every aspect of their victims’ lives. Victims are trained to distrust law enforcement, lie and fabricate stories to avoid being brought into the legal or “protective” system. They are provided with easy-to-obtain false identification and are frequently moved from place to place. Here in Santa Rosa, a 16-year-old girl enduring this form of abuse was taken into custody during “Operation Cross Country II,” a nationwide child prostitution sweep conducted by the FBI and local law enforcement in October.

Why don’t victims of these horrendous crimes simply seek help?

Because they are closely controlled and isolated, beaten, raped, tortured assaulted or constantly threatened. Their self-esteem often sinks to a low level of self-blame for the situation in which they find themselves. They can become dependent physically, emotionally and financially on the very traffickers who control their lives.

Victims of human trafficking can be controlled by a boyfriend, father, mother, brother, uncle, coach, teacher, peer or anybody else in a position to exert control over them — in short, anyone who facilitates or benefits from their plight.

Possible red flags for parents, teachers or friends of victims may include excess amounts of cash, hotel room keys, signs of branding, lying about age (false identification), inconsistencies in stories, lack of knowledge of a given community, an overly controlling or abusive “boyfriend,” fear of making eye contact, signs of physical abuse or torture, overall demeanor (fear, anxiety, depression, submissive, tense, nervous) or claims of being an adult although appearance suggests adolescent features.

It would be all too easy to think of human trafficking as a distasteful problem that exists someplace else. It would also be naive: Human trafficking does exist in Sonoma County. It isn’t pleasant to talk about and it can be difficult to recognize. It is a hidden problem that continues to threaten our young people.

A year ago, community partners joined forces in sponsoring a forum to bring awareness to this issue. In response, the District Attorney’s Office has formed a task force to address this multifaceted problem. The task force includes representatives from law enforcement, health and human services, the YWCA, United Against Sexual Assault, Child Protective Services, the Human Rights Commission, the Commission on the Status of Women, and a host of others who have joined together to leverage existing resources in identifying and dealing with local trafficking issues.

We urge you to remain aware of the problem, be alert to potential victims and become knowledgeable on how to help those who may already be caught in this vicious cycle. Look for opportunities to attend talks by members of the district attorney’s task force. Become familiar with the guidelines and list of warning signs they distribute. Join with your schools, clergy and neighbors to remain vigilant to this issue.

Our most vulnerable deserve our commitment.

Efren Carrillo and Valerie Brown are members of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

Original article link: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090629/OPINION/906269897?p=3&tc=pg

Human Trafficking In Sonoma County is a Real Issue

California is a Hot Spot and Sonoma County is at the top of the list

The average age of victims: 12-14 years old.

These terrible crimes against humanity are being perpetrated on our streets and in our neighborhoods. We can do something and that starts with being aware.