We are gearing up for Dolly Caswell’s presentation on Human Trafficking, April 30th at 7pm in the Noel Wien Auditorium.  Educators and service providers should contact me for more information about our providers meeting.  We’re pleased to bring Dolly up to talk about this painfully relevant issue.  We know far too little about human trafficking.  In preparing to open The Door, an emergency youth shelter, we’ve become seeped in facts and statistics.

We know, for instance, that at least a third of runaway teens are lured into sexual exploitation and trafficking within 48hrs of leaving home.  Anchorage’s Covenant House reports that 75% of their runaway girls have experienced sexual abuse, incest, or rape prior to leaving home, and those who have experienced sexual abuse as children are the most likely to be targeted for exploitation: 95% of sex trafficking victims have been sexually abused at home.  Most of those involved in prostitution ran away from home at an early age to escape their abuse…then turn to prostitution as a way of survival.  Girls involved in prostitution are increasingly getting younger, dropping from 14, to 13 and 12 years old. Every woman who has been in the Dignity House jail program stated she has been raped, robbed, kicked and beaten with fists, knives, guns, coat hangers, baseball bats, and boards – either by a trick or her pimp. Each girl knew someone who had been murdered while working in prostitution.

The process of recovery for a woman leaving prostitution takes at least two years of very supportive intervention. Women who are trying to leave the sex industry have the same needs that traditionally battered women have. Many are fleeing with the clothes on their backs with no money and no place to go. This is compounded by the isolation known to all battered women and the stigma that is unique to prostitutes.

Yesterday in Utah, survivors of sex trafficking shared their stories of escaping sexual exploitation as runaways: “The very first contact I had with a social worker, the very first thing that she told me that I was a throwaway. I know that on the inside, that’s the terminology that is used, but for me, that word really painted the picture for my future. I was trash.  I want to take a minute for us to just peel back all the labels, the runaway, the disadvantaged youth, the victim and lets talk about what the real matter is. We are talking about children.”

We encourage you to learn more about this horrible reality facing our young people. We wish – oh, how we wish – that we wouldn’t expect our future clients to be victims of sex trafficking.  Unfortunately, that hope doesn’t reflect the reality of what we expect to find.  Some of our clients will have been exploited.  Some will have experienced sexual violence, either at home, in the street, or both.  Many will have been coerced to exchange sex for food and shelter – a practice known as ‘survival sex‘ that hovers on a fuzzy border with the concept of sex trafficking. We will do all we can to connect these youth with resources that can help them, people who can protect them, and the support they need to achieve stability.

Sources:

Polaris Project
Veronica’s Voice
Salt Lake City News
Anchorage Daily News