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Collaborative holds free human trafficking awareness day
NATALIE PEACOCK
Legal News Reporter
Published: February 9, 2016
The story of human trafficking includes some grim statistics: 1,078 Ohio children become victims each year, 3,016 more are at risk and the average victim is 13 years old. But the face of human trafficking is a survivor named Angel, who spoke at the Collaborative Against Human Trafficking Summit County’s free event on Jan. 23. The movie Chosen was shown in Our Lady of the Elm’s auditorium, followed by Angel’s story.
“I’m about 14, looking for love,” she said. “I’m angry at my family because they’ve moved me way out here to Arizona, and I just want to be accepted and I want to feel beautiful and I think the only way to feel love is to have sex.”
Angel described the way many young girls end up as victims of human trafficking. Unlike a generation ago, she said today’s girls are from all socio-economic levels adding that they are recruited for the sex industry by men who pretend to be their boyfriends and promise to take care of them.
“That’s what they always say,” Angel said. “‘I’m going to take care of you, I’m going to look after you.’ And then they would beat me and hurt me and take things from me. The more they did that, the more I would try to hold on because what am I going to have if I don’t have him?”
After moving back home to Ohio, Angel said she lived on the streets for the next six years, addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine and working as a prostitute. But then on April Fool’s Day of 2008, in the Summit County Jail, she met a woman in the Summit County Jail who had a Bible. She said it was then that she found the strength to turn her life around.
“It’s been a rough but beautiful journey,” she said. “On April Fool’s Day this year, I will have eight years sober.”
Angel still lives in the same neighborhood where she used to work as a prostitute, helping women who are still trapped in the human trafficking trade.
“All I ask,” she said, “is that you take the tips that Chosen showed you so that we have information to be able to help other women not to fall into a trap that they may never get out of.”
The movie Chosen features two teenage girls who were groomed for the sex trade by older men who pretended to be their boyfriends. Both girls escaped their captors with help from family and professionals in law enforcement.
Studies show that there are common signs of someone who is a human trafficking victim. The person may be submissive, afraid, nervous, appear malnourished, show signs of physical or mental abuse, show evidence of confinement, not speak for him or herself, avoid eye contact or conversations, be unpaid or paid very little, live where he or she works, be fearful of law enforcement, have a much older boyfriend/girlfriend, not be free to socialize with others and have expensive clothing/jewelry that does not fit her/his age or story.
Akron Police Department Sergeant James Currie spoke about the difference between human traffickers 30 years ago and now.
“A lot of these guys, they meet in the neighborhood,” he said. “We see a lot of them involved with the so-called rap industry where they are taking these girls to concerts. We’ve had these girls as far away as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. They get them in hotels and are putting them to work when they get them there.”
Currie said human trafficking methods have changed with modern technology.
“They’re not pimps in the sense that you think of a pimp being this guy rolling his car up and down the street,” he said. “These girls aren’t working on the street. They are working in the telephone system. Their cell phones are very important to them because all their meetings are arranged. They are either working out of a house or meeting people in hotel rooms. It’s more of an individual thing.”
Currie said the juvenile detective bureau has identified roughly 27 girls from Akron who are victims of human trafficking or who are at risk of being trafficked. Currently there are seven open cases. The Internet has also become the new marketplace for prostitution, he said.
“I would venture to say 100 percent of our 27 girls have been advertised on (the internet) for their services,” he said. “We see a direct correlation between the girls that we have identified as trafficking victims and missing persons.”
Andrea Lisowski works with young people who are survivors of human trafficking through the Summit County Juvenile Court’s Restore Court. Lisowski said running away is a huge red flag for identifying human trafficking victims.
“Kids run away to get away from something or go to somebody so don’t be afraid to ask questions,” she said. “‘What’s going on and where are you going when you’re running away?’”
Both Currie and Lisowski agreed that when talking to human trafficking victims avoiding asking “why?” because “why?” tends to create shame.
“Why creates walls,” Currie said. “Because now they think you’re judging them. It’s better to ask open-ended questions.”
The problem in many instances, Currie said, is that human trafficking victims don’t see themselves as victims.
“They will tell you they’re out there to get paid,” he said. “They are getting things they didn’t have at home and drugs are provided. They’re not willing to give up names, phone numbers, who their pimp might be, who the guy is that is running the trafficking. There are a lot of obstacles to prosecution.”
The event also included activities for younger children at the Highland Square branch of the Akron Summit County Public Library. The exhibits explained human trafficking and how to talk to children about it. There were booths for GASP fingerprinting and face painting.
For more information on human trafficking, how to identify the signs and help, visit the Collaborative’s website at www.endslaverysummitcounty.org