Columbus Dispatch: The Slave Across The Street
March 8, 2010 by Katie
Filed under Newsletter, Print, Recent Press: Gracehaven
“I met the devil, and lived in hell.”
So writes Theresa Flores in the The Slave Across the Street.
Were it a novel, her new book might be dismissed as unbelievable. But it’s a memoir – stunning and frighteningly true. The nightmare happened to a teenage girl living with her family in an affluent U.S. neighborhood.
Her ordeal began nearly 30 years ago when Flores was 15 and living in a Detroit suburb.
A shy newcomer to her school, she was befriended by a boy who was part of an Arabic ethnic group known as Chaldeans, from southern Iraq and Kuwait. He raped her. His cousins took photos and used them to blackmail her into becoming a sex slave.
When the traffickers called her at night, she would sneak out of the house, meet one of her persecutors in a car and be driven to places where she’d be forced to have sex with men – sometimes dozens a night.
“To the men who used me night after night, I was not a human being,” she writes. “As they performed the most intimate act a man and a woman engage in, I was only a dollar value. A commodity. To know this in my formative teenage years, during a period when a woman defines her worth and identity, was devastating.
“So many, many men . . . celebrated my humiliation, degradation and pain.”
Her nightmare ended when her family moved out of the state.
The Slave Across the Street describes the ordeal in gritty, understated detail. Her plain talk will make readers flinch, shake their heads and cry. Flores hopes they won’t turn away.
Her book is part confessional, part crime drama, part wakeup call. It is not easy or entertaining, but it is important.
In Ohio, a multiagency task force formed by Attorney General Richard Corday recently reported that more than 1,000 children younger than 18 were sex-trafficking victims in Ohio and that 783 foreign-born people were trafficked for sex or forced labor in the past year.
Law-enforcement officials and the judicial and social-services systems are just now understanding the scope of the problem.
Today, Flores, 44, works as a counselor, a licensed social worker and a founder of Gracehaven, a Columbus-area home for young female trafficking victims. She is divorced and has three children. Recently, she was featured in an MSNBC series on sex slavery and appeared on Today. She speaks nationally on the issue.
Decades ago, she didn’t tell her parents, a teacher or the police what was happening to her, she writes, because she was young, embarrassed, humiliated and afraid that her traffickers would hurt her or her family.
She credits faith and time with helping her heal.
“I am the woman I am today because I met the devil and lived in hell,” she writes. “I choose to use the past as a steppingstone for something good. I choose not to be quiet. I want to help save another young girl from being tied up and taken against her will until she loses consciousness.”
Dispatch Reporters Alan Johnson and Mike Wagner spent months researching the subject of human trafficking for stories published June 28, 2009. To see the stories and a related video, visit Dispatch.com/reports.
Helping Trafficked Clients: From the Shadows to the Light
March 4, 2010 by Katie
Filed under Print, Recent Press: Human Trafficking
A Great article that Shelly Pinnell (CORRC) wrote for the National Association of Social Workers newsletter.
Download newlsetter (pdf) The piece starts on page 17.
End Human Trafficking Interview with Theresa Flores
February 24, 2010 by Katie
Filed under Newsletter, Print, Recent Press: Gracehaven
categories: Child Trafficking, Sex Trafficking
Published February 23, 2010 @ 03:35PM PT 432 Views
view entire article: http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/an_interview_with_the_slave_across_the_street_author_theresa_flores
Theresa Flores wants you to know that, in the United States, human trafficking can happen to anyone. Factors such as gender, race, and ethnicity are moot in terms of who is trafficked –- and who is trafficking. As someone who was enslaved as a teenager while living in an affluent Detroit suburb, she would know.
Since it is now the second leading crime in the world, and the fastest growing, I would have to assume that it is definitely more frequent now.As for it being rare, I do think that other types of enslavement (runaways, kidnapping, etc) are more common, but I have heard from many women that they had similar scenarios. And if you count girls who have been “pimped out” by their fathers (I get these emails, too), then they are living at home and this would be a similar scenario as well.
Two things are lacking at the moment, housing and mental health counseling. These girls have nowhere to go, no other option. Many cannot return home and have run away from an abusive, dysfunctional family. So having a place for them to live in which they can also heal (therapeutic) is ideal, yet rare. There are 3 shelters/homes like this in the entire U.S. As for counseling, I never got counseling that was specific to [my experience] or even addressed the PTSD. This is crucial in a person returning to be a productive member of society. The psychological abuse is so extreme that many women cannot even hold a job afterwards. We need all counselors and therapists to be trained on human trafficking, the signs, and how to help the victim heal and become a survivor.
The bottom line of slavery, no matter in the old days when it was legal, no matter what country it is happening in or if it is labor or sex trafficking, has to do with economics. It is also the devaluation of human beings. That being said, the old slavery was also a racial issue. Today that is not true. It does not matter what gender, race, or ethnicity you are. Poverty is also an issue (risk factor) of some slavery, but I believe more so is isolation. That does not need to be physical either. I see many young girls who had no one to turn to and talk or confide in. They had no social support. And this was my case as well.For me, culture and gender were an important factor in why I was trafficked. Some cultures, even though they migrate to the US, still maintain their cultural values of women. And this was true for the group of men who trafficked me. They did not value women. I do not like to focus on this part because many factors went into play as to why I was trafficked. The point I will always make is that it can happen to anyone.
I have embraced the entire issue of Human Trafficking as this journey continues to take me places I had never dreamed of. When I wrote the book and told my story in public for the first time, I never imagined I would have other women who were victimized by this crime reach out to me and thank me for speaking for them as well. So I do it to be their voice as well. I am also the Director of Awareness and Training for Gracehaven, a long-term rehabilitation home I am helping open in Ohio, for girls under 18 who have been victims. Additionally, I help organizations, like Stop Child Trafficking Now, raise awareness and funds so they can attack the Demand side of this [issue].Lastly, I have started what I call the SOAP Project. I want to reach out to these girls, and it is very hard to get to them and find them. I recalled my worst night and that was in the motel. I tried to think, what would it have been that I could have seen to help me at my worst moment? And I thought of the room. And the bathroom. I realized that there are no toiletries in those kind of motels, but there is always a bar of soap. And the girls will always wash up afterwards. So I am working on getting labels made up with several key questions like, “Are you being forced to do something against your will?” and the national human trafficking hotline phone number. They will go on the bars of soap and be offered to motel owners free of charge. When the cases of soap are delivered, volunteers will train the motel owners and housekeepers on the signs of trafficking as well.I hope that this will reach girls at their darkest hour. Since it never reached me.
Report: Human Trafficking Big Business In Ohio
February 15, 2010 by Katie
Filed under Print, Recent Press: Gracehaven
WTOV out of Steubenville reports on Theresa’s Story, and Gracehaven
Excerpt:“I thought I had been the only one this ever happened to,” Flores said. “And then I learned there was no law in Ohio against it. And that made me mad.”
In hopes of changing that, Flores and the rest of the Trafficking In Persons Study Commission, delivered a 69 page report to Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray this week.
Cordray said it exposed startling facts about the trade in human beings in Ohio.
According to the study, nearly 800 immigrants are forced into the sex trade or hard labor jobs each year in the state.
As many as 1,000 children born in Ohio are compelled into sex slavery or sweatshop-type jobs in restaurants or fields.
The report also estimated that as many as 17,500 trafficking victims pass through the state each year.
“Ohio, in particular, has a very unique issue,” said James Pond of Transitions Global, which helps trafficked persons recover. “There are a lot of major freeways for transports.”
The study also cites Ohio’s proximity to Canada as a reason so many enslaved people pass through its borders.
Ohio does not have a standalone human trafficking law, although 42 others states do.
It’s just one of three shelters in the U.S. for trafficked kids.
View Entire news article here
The Slave Across The Street
While more and more people each day become aware of the dangerous world of human trafficking, many people in the U.S. believe this is something that happens to foreign women, men and children – not something that happens to their own children and neighbors.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
In this powerful true story, Theresa Flores shares how her life as an All-American, 15 – yr-old teenager was enslaved into the dangerous world of sex trafficking – all while living at home with unsuspecting parents in an upper-middle class suburb of Detroit. Her story peels the cover off of this horrific criminal activity and gives dedicated activists as well as casual bystanders a glimpse into the underbelly of human trafficking.
Even more importantly, Theresa’s Story and expertise as a counselor and licensed social worker help identify red flags that could prevent her plight from becoming the fate of an unsuspecting teenager. She discusses how she healed the wounds of sexual servitude and offers advice to parents and professionals through prevention tips, education and significant information on human trafficking in modern day America.
With insights and perspectives from a doctor, a friend and her own brother, Theresa’s memoir provides a well-rounded portrait of the dark world of human trafficking and serves as a reminder of the most important element to overcoming slavery: hope.
Paperback on Amazon | Buy the Kindle eBook
Article in 614 Magazine
November 18, 2009 by Jeff Barrows
Filed under Newsletter, Print, Recent Press: Gracehaven
Breaking the Chains
Combating human slavery, right here in the capital city
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By Kae Denino |
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” …he had me by the throat, then he dragged me up the stairs and had me almost all the way over the edge of the balcony and almost threw me off it. Then he pulled out his gun and pointed it on my leg, and said he would blow my leg off the next time. Then he had me give him oral sex and he raped me anally. I had never done that before… I passed out… woke up in the bathtub and I could barely stand up. But he made sure I had some crack on the counter… After that, I couldn’t leave. I had to do whatever he said. The word ‘no’ wasn’t part of my vocabulary. Saying ‘no’ was like telling him to beat my ass or slap me or rape me. There was no, ‘No.’”
The above story didn’t take place in Thailand, or Vietnam. Laura Smith’s story took place in Columbus. The trafficking, control, and sale of people for sex is happening right here; as you read these words, women within a few miles of you are trapped.
Women are owned: controlled by drugs, violence, and fear. The above is an excerpt from a letter by a local woman who was, until recently, held against her will, and forced to use her body to make her trafficker money.
Laura did not grow up in poverty; rather, she was the daughter of an affluent suburban couple that slowly drifted into the company of the wrong kinds of people. Her experimental drug use gradually became more and more serious, and addiction led her to estrangement from her family, making her a prime candidate for a trafficker’s control.
“He is about over six feet tall and huge. He promised me the world… he saw that I needed a place to stay… he got me new clothes and let me stay with him… But within a couple of days he changed.”
Becoming violent and demanding, her trafficker supplied Laura with crack and she was prostituted, sometimes having sex with several men a day. He took all of the money.
“I had to give him money everyday. If he wasn’t high, or I didn’t have any money to give him, he would threaten my life… he wouldn’t let me leave. I had to prostitute. He would call certain people. I would have to have sex with them for drugs. It was so scary. But it’s a big circle. I was scared of him. He always had a gun and a knife to my throat and he told me he would kill me. I felt like I couldn’t get away from him… and he’s done things to other girls…”
So why didn’t she just leave? Why not call the police, or try to escape? If someone forced into prostitution tries to escape, she can still be in terrible danger. Often, pimps will threaten to harm the woman’s family, or their ’sisters,’ fellow prostitutes. If she fails to escape cleanly, she can face brutal rape and violence – sometimes in front of the pimp’s other ‘girls’ to provide a graphic example of what happens to those who try to get away. According to some reports, victims have been set on fire and even electrocuted. Victims of prostitution learn very fast to just say yes – to everything.
But if she does get free and makes it to a police station, the police may see her as a ‘crack whore,’ and book her for prostitution. Then her pimp will come down and bail her out, and she’ll be taken ‘home,’ where her chances for a welcome-back party are slim.
Pimps and traffickers can find runaway girls fast – often faster than the girls can find safety or family. Lots of victims don’t know who to call. Most slaves come from broken or violent homes, and the average age a female becomes a prostitute in this country is 12 years old. The National Center for Exploited and Missing Children estimates 100,000 – 300,000 kids are on the streets right now, hungry and exhausted abuse victims, making them perfect prey for traffickers. The chance of a runaway child being approached by a sex trafficker within three days is nearly 100 percent, according to the NCEMC.
There are more than 15 court cases in recent Ohio history involving human trafficking, including a bust of more than 50 pimps in a child sex-trafficking ring in Toledo. The youngest survivor of slavery from Columbus was three years old when she was rescued in 2006 and turned over to Franklin County Children’s Services. She is a tiny Latina girl who may never speak. And, according to the Licking County court system, a Reynoldsburg man convicted in 2005 repeatedly raped and then pimped out his daughter via online classifieds on the website craigslist.org.
This is slavery
Human trafficking, according to the UN’s definition as laid forth by 2000’s Palermo Protocol, focuses on the exploitation of human beings – be it for sexual exploitation, other forms of forced labor, slavery, servitude, or for the removal of human organs. Trafficking takes place by criminal means, through the threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of positions of power, or abuse of positions of vulnerability. It relates to all stages of the trafficking process: recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons. Trafficking is not just a trans-national crime across international borders – the definition also applies to internal domestic trafficking of human beings.
For many women in forced prostitution, the door is barred by deep fear and heavy psychological barriers – in Laura’s case, for example. Victims of prostitution interface with the public quite a bit, but as you read above in Laura’s story, the traffickers have shown the capacity for appalling violence, and in the event of an escape, there will be hell to pay.
Globally, human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry in the world, behind drugs and firearms, but trafficking is the fastest growing industry and will, unless fought, rise to the number one criminal industry in the world.
Why Ohio?
It’s odd, isn’t it? We’re a progressive place. Harriet Tubman ran back and forth across our land hundreds of times, helping slaves get to freedom. But slaves have been found in every state in America, and we Ohioans have many elements that make us susceptible to the industry. One main reason is Toledo. Five major freeways join there, linking the East to the West. Police officers and FBI agents have named Toledo as a major hub for forced sex labor and child prostitution in America, leading one Pennsylvanian police officer to joke, “Is everyone from Toledo a prostitute?”
We also have a large illegal immigrant population, and many slaves reach the US illegally. Their IDs are taken, they don’t speak the language, they have no idea where a police station is, or what might happen there – prison? Deportment? Some women brought from far-off countries such as Turkey, Russia, Moldova, may go for periods of time without even knowing what country they’re in.
The Polaris Project, an anti-human trafficking non-governmental organization in Washington D.C., has a special Columbus branch, every one of our major cities has cases of forced prostitution, and only recently has Ohio begun to create a strong law against human trafficking.
Attorney General Richard Cordray is taking a lead in combating human trafficking. He advises citizens to pay attention to what is happening around them.
“If people see suspicious activity in their neighborhoods or communities, like when it appears that a young person or a woman is under the control of someone else, they should call the police,” said Cordray. “We see two forms of trafficking primarily: forced prostitution and forced migrant labor, which can happen over an extended period of time. The individual is often unable for a variety of reasons to contact the police. That’s one way to keep them in control,” he said.
Cordray advises anyone who sees what they think could be trafficking to call the Ohio anti-human trafficking hotline at 1-800-282-0515, or simply call 911. If you do that, you might want to say the words ‘human trafficking’ several times to the operator.
Mike Taylor of Youth for Christ is the compassionate chaplain of two juvenile detention centers, in Columbus and Lancaster, said he routinely sees evidence of forced prostitution.
“Girls seduced by pimps at 15, girls seduced into drugs and prostitution at 12,” said Taylor grimly. “You can’t imagine the frightening lives of children, and that goes on in Franklin County, I’ll tell you that,” he said.
Thankfully, there are many ways to get involved, and to make a real difference in the fight against this reprehensible practice.
Modern-day Abolitionists
All around Columbus, a vibrant new network of people is fighting slavery here and abroad. The fighters include lawyers, social workers, politicians, students – people from all walks of life, united by one purpose: ending human trafficking.
Central Ohio Restore and Rescue Coalition
“These people deserve the very best, because they’ve had the very worst,” says Michelle Hannan, the coalition’s manager and the director of Professional and Community Services of the Salvation Army. Hannan is on the forefront of the fight, and CORRC is her army. This is a super-group that combines forces with every facet of anti-trafficking work in Columbus. Part of the commission is charged with creating new and specific anti-trafficking legislation, and they also work to raise awareness. They work with the police and shelters and GED teachers and everyone in between. CORRC also has a hotline and can get anyone to emergency law enforcement within 15 minutes of receiving the call.
In addition to providing medical attention, and shelter, CORRC also strives to help trafficking victims construct a plan for sustained safety and ongoing case management, especially with regards to counseling, medical care, employment, and educational and legal assistance. They can even reconnect survivors with their families.
But the hotline only works if the slave can get the phone number. CORRC prints flyers of all kinds and in many languages, hanging them in places likely to see the most instances of human trafficking, such as truck stops, gas stations, and motels.
One way for people to participate in their programming is to provide them with opportunities to educate everyday people on human trafficking, offering speaking engagements for churches, clubs, and businesses.
“This is really about hooking us up,” says Nadia Lucchin of the CORRC Speaker’s Bureau. “We’ll talk to anyone.”
The Heroes of Gracehaven
Gracehaven House, opening in Columbus in 2010, will be the fourth shelter in the United States for child survivors of trafficking, and the second in Ohio (the first being in Toledo, called Second Chance).
“We’ll take 11-year-olds if we see them,” said Jeff Barrows, the executive director. “But God, I hope we don’t see many 11-year-olds.”
Barrows was formerly an OB/GYN; he became involved in the fight against sex slavery in 2004, when John Embody of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Trafficking in Persons Office asked Barrows to give his opinion on the effects of human trafficking on women survivors.
“I said, ‘I’d love to, but what’s human trafficking?’ He gave me a few books,” said Barrows, who was immediately outraged. He began talking with survivors and learning the details of the industry, and training health care workers how to recognize and treat trafficking survivors. Now, he is opening up Gracehaven in order to protect some of trafficking’s youngest victims. The shelter will have 10 beds for girls ages 12 – 17, providing long-term refuge and everything the girls need: food, clothes, shelter, counseling, health care, and the skills needed to start life in freedom.
Theresa Flores, the Director of Development for Gracehaven, was trafficked from Michigan as a teen, and then went on to serve as a social worker for 25 years. In 2007, Flores wrote The Sacred Bath about her experience as a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. Now she speaks on anti-slavery all over the country, and has appeared on mass-media outlets like The Today Show. If there’s a meeting in this town about slavery, she’s there, and often running the show. Flores has a kindness to her that is critical when dealing with the battered and terrified women involved in CSE. She believes education is necessary, because so many people have no idea this is going on, especially right here in hometown America.
“Tell two people what you heard, because the one response I get over and over is people saying, ‘I had no idea this was going on,’” said Flores. “People say, ‘I had no clue.’”
Working with this population is no simple task. Survivors have very special needs and require careful therapeutic intervention. In addition, a shelter must have a strong legal presence, qualified counselors, and comprehensive educational, medical, counseling, and security systems in place. Thankfully, those working on the front are not only passionate, but they are also highly qualified.
Bev Delashmutt is the Chair of the Board at Gracehaven. Much of her work echoes the beginning of the anti-slavery movement in our country, started in California by Norma Hotaling, who went into the prisons to speak with survivors who were in prison for crimes committed while they were being trafficked. Victims are often arrested when their pimps commit other crimes. Delashmutt also works to bring volunteers into prisons, building the beginning of a support network; these volunteers can provide an invaluable ear for survivors who just need to tell their story to someone.
Right now, there are approximately 50 such shelter beds in the US, and approximately 300,000 kids on the streets. You can do the math, but it’s depressing, so just help the cause instead. Support for the organization can include volunteering for events like the annual gala and “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes,” an event in which men walk a mile in high heels and raise money for the cause. Gracehaven is in need of a bevy of cash to begin hiring their counselors and staff, and to renovate the house.
Not for Sale Ohio
Not for Sale Ohio is another non-governmental organization that is combating human trafficking by raising funds for rescue, rehabilitation, and awareness in the United States, Uganda, Ghana, Thailand, Nepal, and Peru.
Not for Sale Ohio meetings are held at the Clintonville Global Gallery Cafe on the first Thursday of every month at 7 p.m., at 3535 N High Street.
New Legislation Will Aid Law Enforcement
One of Ohio’s biggest problems is that we don’t have a strong anti-human trafficking law on the state’s books. Human trafficking, therefore, can only be prosecuted through other criminal statutes, such as rape or prostitution, kidnapping or assault.
In hopes of bolstering the state law, a study commission has been formed comprised of Ohio’s attorney general, Richard Cordray, and experts in human trafficking, as well as Senator Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo), Executive Director of Franklin County Children’s Services, Eric Fenner, and Celia Williamson, University of Toledo professor and the founder of that city’s survivor shelter, Second Chance. The commission intends to create strong legislation specifically targeting human traffickers. Although passage of the law itself may still be a few years away, the legislation should also make it easier for FBI agents to work with local jurisdictions on investigations.
As the laws stand at present, only the feds can really be looking specifically for trafficking. While the federal agents certainly do investigate trafficking cases (more below), they have plenty of other areas that need attention as well.
“This is positive, positive good stuff,” says Michelle Hannan of CORRC. “I’m very excited about our attorney general, and about what he and his office are doing.”
The new law will label human trafficking a felony, and enable authorities to efficiently seize traffickers’ assets, allowing them to be used to help survivors. It will also provide for funding of state and local law enforcement training in human trafficking detection and enforcement, and provide funding for rescue and rehabilitation centers for survivors.
The legislation will also update the legal definition of trafficking to include sex slavery, along with debt and labor bondage.
The old law is so weak and incomplete that the Polaris Project, another important anti-slavery NGO that specializes in drafting anti-slavery legislation, doesn’t consider Ohio to have an anti-human trafficking law at all.
“Hopefully that will change,” said Barrows. “We [he, Flores, and other abolitionists] testified before the Ohio senate judicial committee. It came through in a very weakened form. Now, we serve on the Ohio commission for the new law,” he said. “The purpose is to further investigate, then make recommendations to the legislation. We’re divided into subcommittees, doing research.”
“We have a ways to go,” he adds.
State Representative Kathryn Chandler and Kathleen Davis from the Polaris Project will be drafting the bulk of the language, which will build upon the U.S. Department of Justice’s model anti-trafficking state law.
“Most people think [the model is] fairly good, and a good place to start,” said Barrows. “We’re far short of what the Department of Justice has put together.”
Of course, he feels strongly about funds being appropriated to aid survivors.
“The state has got to come in with the next bill and allow for funds that recognize the unique needs of these individuals,” he said.
The first classes on Human Trafficking in the Ohio Police Departments are scheduled to take place this fall. The four-hour classes will be a part of the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy, and will help officers recognize signs of human trafficking. In 2010, the course will be expanded to include investigative techniques. But right now, all local and state law enforcement agencies can do is pass on any information regarding possible trafficking to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
One story often told in these circles (and confirmed by several state patrol officers) involves police seeing a van full of people on a freeway traveling North through Ohio, and later returning empty. Police officers reported seeing this occur repeatedly, and not knowing what to think of it. When they do receive training, they’ll know what to think – and what to do.
That’s not to say that police aren’t fighting trafficking. Almost everything traffickers do is illegal, like kidnapping women and children, and beating, raping, and torturing them. But when the law requires all police officers to receive ample training on how to rescue survivors and how to investigate human trafficking cases and enables local jurisdiction to work with federal enforcement agencies, traffickers will have to fear a much more concerted and comprehensive effort. Mike Bales of another advocacy group, Free the Slaves, says that every police department in the world needs a human trafficking agent, or better, an entire division.
Laura is now in prison; she was arrested by police after her trafficker was arrested for another crime, as often happens to trafficking victims who find themselves too closely associated with their trafficker’s other criminal activities. But things could have gone far worse for Laura.
“If no one believes me than so be it, but I know what kind of person Mike is and I know the hell I went through when I lived with him. It was worse than being in here. I was trapped with one way out: death. But thank God I’m here now. I have a second chance at life. I know I can do it… Getting high numbed me from what was going on. From the beatings, rapes, and just that life. Getting high was the only thing that made it not so bad…
I do feel safe in here. It sucks, but I am safe. I don’t have to worry about him. Well, I still worry because whatever I say they’ll tell [Mike]. I don’t know what kind of connections he has. But he can’t touch me in here, I’m healthy. I am so thankful to be away from him, and relieved. I thought the only way I could get out was to die. I’m lucky to be alive.”
Recent Zonta event in the news…
November 9, 2009 by Jeff Barrows
Filed under Awareness Events, Newsletter, Print, Recent Press: Gracehaven
Sex trafficking hits close to home; 60-90 women affected in Franklin County
Sunday, November 8, 2009
 "Photo: Megan Maxwell / The Lantern")
Dr. Jeffery Barrows, Executive Director of Gracehaven, speaks about creating a safe home for victims of human trafficking.
 "Photo: Megan Maxwell / The Lantern")
Theresa Flores, a survivor of sex trafficking, believes “it’s important to see the red flags and take action.”
When Theresa Flores was 15 years old, she lived in an upper-class neighborhood in Birmingham, Mich. Her dad was an executive with a large company. She had a crush on a boy at her school, and like any other teenage girl, she accepted a ride home from school with when he offered. The ride home with that teenage boy would be the start of two years of sex trafficking for Flores.
Flores shared her story at a STOP Human Trafficking Forum Saturday.
Sponsored by the Zonta Club of Columbus, a service organization dedicated to improving and advancing the status of women, the forum was aimed at education and awareness about human trafficking in central Ohio.
Most human trafficking in the U.S. is related to workers who are here illegally and held as virtual slaves.
Toledo is the second largest area in the country for human trafficking, said Sgt. Toby Wagner of the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Criminal Intelligence Unit, citing numerous explanations.
Ohio has a lot of farmland, which leads to easier forced migrant labor. Toledo is not far from Detroit, known for its high crime rate. And Ohio also has many major highways running in all directions, making it easy for victims to be trafficked into other states.
“We didn’t know how deep it runs and how rampant it runs,” Wagner said. “If you think it’s not in your backyard, you’re fooling yourself. Every state in the union is affected by this crime.”
Wagner said the Ohio State Highway Patrol has successfully rescued three victims of human trafficking this year.
Some of this trafficking involves prostitution.
An estimated 60 to 90 females are trafficked for sexual purposes every year in Franklin County, officials said.
Human trafficking is the second largest criminal industry in the world, with 15,000 to 18,000 people trafficked in the U.S. annually.
The issue of human trafficking in Ohio was first brought to the attention of Brent Currence, manager of the Ohio Missing Children Clearinghouse and member of Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray’s office, in 2005.
This year, the Ohio Highway Patrol trained its entire agency on this issue, Currence said. Prior to this, Currence estimated only 4 percent of Ohio’s law enforcement was trained on human trafficking.
“Our law is ranked as the worst human trafficking law in the country,” Currence said. “We need to update and change our laws in Ohio.”
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office has established a basic training course for all law enforcement, with the first courses beginning this month, Currence said. It is in the process of creating an investigator’s course and prosecutor and judge courses, as well.
“All my life, I had searched for a word for what had happened to me,” Flores said. “It wasn’t rape. It happened more than once. I saw the definition of human trafficking, and it was like a brick hit me.”
It is estimated that worldwide human trafficking profits exceed $32 billion annually, which is more than the annual profits of Starbucks, Google and Nike combined, Wagner said.
Wagner quoted a sergeant from Atlanta’s police department, who said that there is no common thread to the victims of human trafficking and that “anything goes.”
“There’s not a one of us in this room that doesn’t fit into a victim category,” Wagner said.
When Flores, now a licensed social worker, accepted a ride with the boy, she ended up at his house instead of her own. She was date-raped before being taken home.
“I ignored all of the red flags that day, and it turned out they were right,” Flores said. “And I can tell you that [the taking of my virginity] was devastating, and unfortunately, that wasn’t the worst of it.”
Later on at school, Flores said the boy came to her and said his cousins were also there that day and had taken pictures of her. The boy wanted Flores to work to make the pictures go away, or risk having them revealed to her friends, family and church.
“At times, cars would pull over as I walked home from school,” Flores said. “I would be taken away, have no idea where I went or how long I’d be away. They threatened to kill my family if I told anyone.”
Flores said she had a phone line in her room and she would often get calls at around midnight ordering her to sneak out of the house to a waiting car.
“They would take me to the very nice homes of men, and I can’t explain to you the feeling of terror of a child, of never knowing if I’d come home again,” Flores said.
One night when Flores was 16, the car showed up with six men. She
was taken to Detroit and forced into a hotel room where two dozen men were waiting. She was auctioned off to the highest bidder.
“I was drugged, beaten, sexually molested, and I passed out,” Flores said. “I woke up alone and I couldn’t find my clothes. I had no idea where I was. It was probably the darkest, deepest despair of my life, and nobody saved me.”
Flores was eventually pulled out of her life in sex trafficking when she received help from a waitress at a 24-hour diner attached to the motel. Soon after, the police came and rescued her. Her family moved away from the area.
“Somebody saw I was vulnerable. They saw they could make money off of me, and I was living a nightmare and afraid to live my life,” Flores said. “People don’t see the psychological bondage. There are young girls and they don’t have a choice.”
Girls who are victims of sex trafficking need specialized care to get back into any semblance of a normal life, said Dr. Jeffrey Barrows, executive director of Gracehaven House, a nonprofit organization that aims to offer shelter and rehabilitation to girls under age 18 in Ohio who are victims of sex trafficking.
The house is not yet open but has been purchased in northwest Ohio. It can house up to 10 girls at a time and will be a long-term shelter for victims. Barrows said the goal is to open the house by summer 2010.
Girls will receive counseling at the shelter and will have the opportunity to earn the equivalent of a high school diploma. Barrows said sex trafficking victims, on average, have the educational level of a fourth-grader.
“Many times we get people who ask us, ‘What can I do?’” Barrows said. “Raise awareness. Become informed.”
More information is available on the house’s Web site, gracehavenhouse.org.
“If you see something that doesn’t look right, feel right or smell right, it probably isn’t right,” Wagner said. “Help us out and give us a call.”
Anyone who suspects sexual or human trafficking is asked to call 614-466-2660.
Second Sunday Dispatch Article
June 29, 2009 by Jeff Barrows
Filed under Print, Recent Press: Gracehaven, Recent Press: Human Trafficking
Rosita Curry fell into prostitution at age 13 after she was befriended by a man who later sold her to a pimp. Now 19 and hardened by her abuses and homelessness, she envisions turning around her life. “But I have to see myself in a better way first,” she says.
As a teenager, Abby Yates, now 22, aspired to be a classical dancer. That dream was shattered by a man who duped both her and her foster parents and dragged her into a life of prostitution.
Like many victims of human trafficking, Ashley Berner, now 19, of Hilliard found that journaling helped her cope with her abuses.
Jeff Barrows, executive director of Gracehaven, watches for human-trafficking victims at an I-71 truck stop north of Polaris. Gracehaven is an advocacy group that focuses on identifying and treating victims.
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“These girls are vulnerable, and the people looking to get control of them know how to take advantage of that,” said Jeff Barrows, executive director of Gracehaven, an advocacy group that focuses on identifying and treating trafficking victims in central Ohio. “Most want help, but they don’t know where to find it.”
Some might wonder why women trapped in these situations don’t escape. Some try and are punished, sometimes brutally. Others feel trapped by drug habits they develop while being abused, trapped by threats against themselves or their families, or because they have nowhere else to go, or because they develop a twisted sort of loyalty to their captors.
Unlike for victims of other crimes and abuses, there are few support groups, treatment programs or emotional outlets for these victims. Worse, they often are treated as criminals.
To cope or to escape, they often write of their tragic, vivid experiences in a journal or notebook. They search aimlessly on the Internet for a stranger who might listen to their stories. Or they try to push on with life, pretending that their haunting pasts never existed.
These are some of their stories:
Basement rape
“As I hang from the beam of a dim, musky, cold basement, I think of as many descriptive words as possible for the body parts I loathe the most. I have endured 14 hands, 70 fingers, all the while my hands are tied. They are numb from being laced above my head and are exhausted from supporting the rest of my body. I am naked, beaten, bleeding, and alone. Sunshine creeps in through holes in the shades and amplifies my new wounds. I am coming down from a large dose of cocaine and I hope that at least one pair of hands returns to feed me some more. I close my eyes because the drips of sun, of life hurt, and I begin thinking of names of presidents and countries. Dusk approaches with footsteps. I count 14 feet, 70 toes, returning for another round. I inhale, I exhale, I brace myself. I close my eyes, ask silently for death, and hope they have enough blow to get me through the night. I am twelve years old.”
This journal entry was penned about 12 years ago by Chelsey, a 24-year-old from Georgia, who says she was sold as a prostitute by her own father beginning at age 10. She said the passage describes her worst experience as a trafficking victim.
She lived in a middle-class neighborhood with working parents. She said her mother was aware of the abuse but did nothing out of fear that she also would be harmed.
Social workers, teachers and counselors would quiz her about black eyes or marks on her body, but Chelsey always had a cover story ready. It continued until she was about 15.
Few have heard Chelsey’s story, but she recently started sharing her dark past with a Columbus social worker on an Internet social-networking page.
Chelsey not only graduated from high school but also completed a bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Georgia. She worked as a social worker in Georgia for two years, and now is working on a masters degree.
“I made it out,” Chelsey said. “Most of the girls don’t.”
Broken promise
Just a couple hours into the long drive from Columbus to Florida, the young girl sensed that she had made a dangerous mistake. The 14-year-old, who had pretended to be 18, admitted her real age to the people who promised to make her a star model and asked them to return her to her extended family in Columbus. The student lived in a middle-class neighborhood with her parents in another state but had been visiting family in Columbus.
Alan Townsend was enraged by the girl’s plea. He slapped her face and told her that he was going to keep her, according to FBI records.
Just a few days earlier, the girl encountered Townsend and his recruiter, Courtney Shine, on a social-networking page. First came a wave of e-mails, then a cell number, and then the girl met Shine in a park. Townsend typically used Shine to make the initial contact with young girls to make them feel more comfortable.
Shine assured the girl that she would be safe and everything would be “cool” on the trip to Florida. During the drive, the girl said Townsend continued to slap her and attempted to fondle her several times.
Townsend, Shine and the girl arrived in Gainesville, Fla., on June 13 of last year.
The girl was soon given a condom and told to offer sex for $150 to the first man who walked by their cheap hotel room.
“I’m a virgin!” the girl pleaded. “I’m a virgin.”
The next night, the girl again refused to solicit men in a hotel parking lot and began to cry.
“Stop being a bitch,” Townsend said.
Both Townsend and Shine attempted to have sex with the 14-year-old, but she again fended them off.
Finally, after a stop in Orlando, they arrived in Daytona Beach, where the girl was able to break free and use a stranger’s cell phone to call police.
The girl was unharmed and returned to Columbus. Both Townsend and Shine were arrested and recently plead guilty to sex trafficking.
Now, Townsend, who admitted to being involved with at least six other girls, is serving an eight-year prison term.
“I wasn’t gonna just give up, ’cause I was like, ‘I brought this girl all the way down here,’ ” Townsend told detectives in Florida. “I might as well get something out of it.”
Empty hope
When Abby Yates talked of being a classical dancer, her friends laughed. When she told her foster parents that she wanted to be a veterinarian, they offered a doubtful frown. Whenever 17-year-old Abby dared to inject hope into her future, someone found a way to erase it.
Everyone but a guy named “Jerry.”
Jerry promised her a career in modeling that would take her from a small Kentucky town to New York City. Jerry bought her clothes, listened to her ideas and promised to help her escape an abusive past that started at age 10. And Jerry gave her the hope she couldn’t find elsewhere.
Her foster parents trusted Jerry enough to allow Abby to spend nearly every night of her senior year of high school at his studio. Soon, Abby had a “fuzzy feeling” in her head nearly every morning in school. She had a hard time remembering assignments or studying for tests, and her grades dropped from As and Bs to Cs and Ds.
“I knew something wasn’t right, but I never imagined that I was being drugged,” Abby said. “I was naive, and I turned my life over to a man I didn’t really know.”
Records indicate that Abby slowly became addicted to several drugs, including Xanax. She thinks Jerry mixed them into her food and drinks.
For three years, Abby, unaware that she was being drugged, was pimped out by Jerry to his friends. She danced in exotic clubs and turned over nearly all of the money to the man who helped transform her into a prostitute.
Abby eventually went to a rehabilitation shelter last year in Columbus, and she slowly started to put her life back together. She remained drug-free for months and was going to job interviews this past spring.
However, Abby recently learned from doctors that she has a life-threatening syphilis infection. The news sent her spiraling back to the streets, and now she floats between the shelter and a mental-health facility.
“The damage done to these girls can linger on the rest of their life,” said Marlene Carson, director of Rahab’s Hideaway, the Columbus shelter that has been housing Abby. “No matter how hard they fight to overcome their past, it still haunts them in ways few of us can imagine.”
Pimp to pimp
The 13-year-old girl wandered up and down E. Main Street trying to find the two brothers she hadn’t seen since their parents died about eight years earlier.
Rosita Curry had been in and out of a dozen foster homes where she said that in some cases she was fondled and forced to touch men in inappropriate ways.
The search consumed nearly all day, and Rosita was greeted mostly by insults or threats when she knocked on the doors of strangers. She had taken a break on a bench near the street and was crying when a blue Cadillac with a white top and white leather seats pulled up.
“What are you crying about girl?” the man asked. “Just get in, and I’ll try to make things better.”
For about a week, the man fed, clothed and cared for Rosita. Soon, he pushed her to learn how to sell drugs and pit-bull dogs on the street. But Rosita, at least in her keeper’s eyes, wasn’t any good at those tasks.
So, the 13-year-old was sold to a pimp who began prostituting her.
“There were lots of times when I had guys put guns to my head if I didn’t do what they wanted,” said Rosita, now 19. “I wanted out, but I was trying to survive.”
For nearly three years, Rosita was prostituted throughout Columbus by at least two pimps.
She continued to take high-school classes at a Columbus charter school but dropped out early in her junior year. Eventually, she landed back in the foster-care system before being jailed in a juvenile-detention center for nearly 18 months on charges stemming from an altercation at a foster-care facility, according to social-services records.
Rosita was homeless for much of the past year, covering herself with cardboard boxes on some winter nights.
It wasn’t until she was arrested for solicitation that she managed to get off the streets. She offered oral sex to an undercover cop for $20. He then called a social worker, who visited Rosita in jail and continues to help her now.
“I want other people to see me as something other than a whore,” Rosita said. “But I have to see myself in a better way first.”
Sunday Dispatch Article
June 29, 2009 by Jeff Barrows
Filed under Print, Recent Press: Gracehaven, Recent Press: Human Trafficking
Ashley Berner, 19, of Hilliard, left home after graduation and quickly became trapped in the underworld of human trafficking.
A year earlier, Ashley was a typical high-school student.
Ashley now lives in a shelter for victims of human trafficking and is working through the emotional and physical trauma of her experiences.
At a strip club in Dayton, Pastor Sharon Amos, left, the founder of Oasis House, talks with Audrey about the women’s shelter run by church members. It provides food, counseling and help with education.
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Untold horrorsYoung women forced into the sex trade often suppress their emotional trauma, but some ease their pain by journaling or talking about human trafficking and the abuse they endured.
Ashley Berner, barely 18, pleaded to the driver to let her go. Three other women, who had taken her in from the streets, introduced her to the man she didn’t realize was a pimp. Soon, he was beating her and threatening to kill her and harm her family if she didn’t continue prostituting in the back seat of that car.
Two weeks earlier, she had been sitting in English and math classes at Hilliard Darby High School. She left home after graduation to get out on her own, and the first people she met lured her astray.
And just that fast, Ashley was trapped in an ugly underworld with no clear escape.
“I wanted out,” she said. “But he told me they owned me now.”
The image of human trafficking is one of women being smuggled across foreign borders into sex rings, or of children being abducted from Third World countries and forced into slave labor.
But a form of this heinous crime — the sex trafficking of juveniles and young women — is happening here in our community with our children.
Pimps and their recruiters target girls in schools and shopping malls, on Internet sites and college campuses and elsewhere. They trick or coerce them into prostitution.
The U.S. Department of State estimates that 15,000 to 18,000 women and girls are trafficked in the U.S. each year. Up to 300,000 may be at risk because they live in poverty, have a family history of abuse or are vulnerable for other reasons.
Once the pimps or sex-ring operators have girls such as Ashley, they use whatever it takes to keep them under control — drugs, beatings and death threats.
Some force girls to work in strip clubs and escort services. Immigrants often are forced to become domestic servants and day laborers for low pay and no freedom. There is little data to measure trafficking in central Ohio. But one rescue group says it sees up to 21 cases a month.
A Dispatch examination of sex trafficking confirmed that it is a serious and growing threat, largely invisible and vastly underreported. The problem is not limited to the inner city. According to law enforcement, it extends to affluent suburbs where pimps are increasingly looking for unsuspecting and naive girls.
“If these girls don’t have good role models or a guiding force in their life, they are left wide open to this kind of activity,” said Eric Fenner, executive director of Franklin County Children Services. “These are smooth-talking people in most cases who have made coercing these young girls into a science. We need to recognize that these girls are victims.”
That viewpoint gets to the heart of why it is so difficult to size up the problem: Society generally views prostitutes as criminals, not victims. Quantifying the problem — and fighting it — begins with a new definition of underage prostitutes as crime victims, say their advocates.
“A 12-year-old girl doesn’t decide to be a prostitute on her own,” said Theresa Flores, an advocate and former trafficking victim. “They are coerced, tricked and forced into that world.”
Officials from the State Highway Patrol, Ohio attorney general’s office, Franklin County Children Services, FBI and advocates who try to rescue and treat trafficked girls say the problem is serious.
“I would say this is a strong threat,” said Kristin Cadieux, an FBI agent who investigates federal trafficking cases in the Columbus area. “There are serious things happening out there to young girls.”
Some recent examples:
• Cadieux investigated a case last year in which seven women, mainly ages 18 to 22, were taken to West Virginia to be sold for prostitution. The young women were passed off as 14- and 15-year-olds by the pimp and his female recruiter.
• Federal investigators in Maryland used Web-based sex ads this past spring to lure pimps who were buying, selling and prostituting young girls. Authorities in the area between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., made several arrests and took numerous girls into protective custody. Two of those girls were from Columbus. One was 17; the other, 12.
• A Columbus man faces charges for running a sex ring from his home after he arranged for a 16-year-old girl to have sex with an undercover detective. Authorities said the girl was recruited and used in nude pictures on the Internet to advertise prostitution. It’s unknown how many other girls were involved.
Toledo’s reputation as a haven for human trafficking prompted creation of an FBI-led task force focused exclusively on the problem. In Columbus, 50 agencies are part of the federally funded Central Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition.
Awareness of sex trafficking has been slow to spread, especially in suburban communities, where many who are aware of trafficking are hesitant to talk about it because they don’t want their communities or schools associated with the issue.
David Axner, superintendent of Dublin City Schools, made an exception this past spring by inviting Flores to speak to high-school girls.
Having heard Flores’ powerful story at a Rotary Club meeting, Axner said that his students should be told of the potential dangers.
“If I had not brought her to our district to raise awareness to this issue, I would not have been doing my job. It would have been irresponsible,” Axner said. “I didn’t want to sweep what I learned under the rug and hope it doesn’t happen to one of our kids.”
After Flores’ presentation at Dublin Coffman High School, some students approached at least one counselor and expressed concern about friends or other teens who they feared might be susceptible to trafficking.
“I think the potential for this has always been there and continues to be there,” said GeorgiAnn Diniaco, a counselor at Coffman. “It was a good opportunity for the girls to have a chance to be empowered rather than taken. What I’m hearing from them is they are now more aware of who surrounds them and the situations they put themselves in.”
Some high-ranking politicians have long viewed girls caught up in trafficking as victims.
Among them are Teresa Fedor and Deborah Pryce, who are from opposite sides of the political fence: Fedor is a Democratic state senator from Toledo, and Pryce is a Republican former judge and congresswoman from Upper Arlington.
In recent years, they independently arrived at the same conclusion: Human trafficking is “modern-day slavery,” and it’s happening in Ohio.
Fedor subsequently sponsored Ohio’s new human-trafficking law; Pryce led the charge to reauthorize and strengthen the federal trafficking law.
Experts say that Ohio is a prime Midwest “recruitment area” for young girls who are forced to work as prostitutes in hotels, truck stops and temporary “cat houses” at major sporting events.
“The recruiters in trafficking go to the very places where you think your kids are safe,” said Celia Williamson, a University of Toledo professor and founder of Second Chance, a group founded 16 years ago to get women and girls out of the sex business.
“They don’t go to the bus stations,” Williamson said. “They go to the mall. They go to the hangout house where there are all girls there. The recruiter could be another girl.”
The rush from crack cocaine was the only thing that seemed to revive Ashley’s weary body and broken spirit night after night on the streets. Her pimp got what he wanted – a drug addict who needed both him and prostitution to support her craving for crack. She traded the little money she kept from turning tricks for more drugs.
She had become like the other street girls she encountered. Many were teenagers, some very young . Most were coerced into prostitution because of a history of abuse or trouble at home . They were prey for other women who faked friendship just long enough to introduce them to a pimp.
And, like Ashley, they were passed or sold from pimp to pimp.
A 2007 report on human trafficking was critical of how Ohio law enforcement, the courts and the juvenile system deal with the issue. The state generally has “a lack of awareness, training, resources and policies,” said the RAND Corp. Report prepared for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police.
The report by the independent, nonprofit think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif., singles out law enforcement and social-service providers.
“In Columbus, there is little identification of human-trafficking cases,” the report said. “There is no awareness of possible juvenile sex-trafficking victims in Columbus despite the broad consideration of the issue in Toledo.”
The report said that Franklin County’s juvenile-justice system “treats juveniles arrested for prostitution as offenders instead of victims. According to respondents, these cases are not treated as possible human-trafficking cases and are not investigated or prosecuted as such by federal law enforcement.”
Victim advocates agree, saying that more education is needed. They also call for a unit dedicated to pulling young girls out of those situations and arresting pimps. They argue that if sex trafficking were a higher priority for police, they would arrest more pimps and document the growing problem.
Columbus police officials say they know about the “hot-button issue.” Vice detectives working the streets typically carry a list of active prostitutes that included more than 800 women last year.
“It could be happening out there, and in some instances, I’m sure it is,” said Lt. Steve Hope, head of the Columbus vice unit. “But I wouldn’t say it’s rampant, based on what we have seen.”
Columbus Police Chief Walter Distelzweig said additional scrutiny is needed.
“Based on the increased concern from the FBI and others, it’s something we should take a harder look at,” he said.
He was just another man, just another trick for Ashley.
She had seen hundreds of men during the summer of 2008. Any attempt or even hint of running away prompted beating s and more threats. So with her pimp watching from nearby, she routinely offered men oral sex for $20.
But this particular guy wasn’t another john; he was an undercover Columbus cop. He arrested the teenager for solicitation and, without pity or coddling, booked her in to jail.
The police record lists Ashley’s address as “streets of Columbus.”
“I know I would be dead if he hadn’t arrested me that night,” Ashley said. “I was just a crack-addict hooker he was pulling in off the streets, not a victim. But that’s what gave me a chance to get my life back.”
On an uncharacteristically chilly June night, Sharon Amos and her band of volunteers prepare for their weekly visit to strip clubs on Dayton’s “Dixie Strip.”
The old stone building that is home to Oasis House seems out of place in an area that some say is riddled with the highest concentration of sex businesses in Ohio. Directly across the street is the Adult Superstore. A few blocks north is the Flamingo Show Club. To the south are Sharkey’s Lounge, the Harem, the Living Room and the Gentleman’s Club.
The five clubs employ about 400 dancers. Most perform topless, and a few take it all off.
Amos, pastor of Higher Ground United Methodist Church, heads to the Flamingo Show Club, where a sign outside advertises: “Amateur Night: $400 in prizes.”
Amos and a volunteer carry in trays of chicken-salad sandwiches, chips, strawberries, angel-food cake and brownies and spread them out on a table at the rear of the bar. Nearby, young women dance topless in front of mirrors and leering men. The women are bathed in neon and flashing lights, and gyrate to the sound of loud music with a deep, pulsing bass.
Within a few minutes, several scantily clad dancers perched on 6-inch heels gather around the food. Amos offers hugs to all, most of whom she knows by name.
She and the Oasis volunteers do not preach or push God in the clubs. Their goal is to help women escape stripping — considered by advocates as a form of human trafficking — and turn their lives around. Since Oasis House opened in late 2005, about a dozen women have taken the offer.
Remarkably, Oasis volunteers are not only welcomed but protected and encouraged by club managers, dancers, bartenders and bouncers.
“She’s a fascinating woman. I can think of several girls here at my club that they’ve helped out,” said Tim Walker, Flamingo manager. Walker said he doesn’t mind that Amos’ mission is to get women out of the business where he makes his living.
“A dancer’s career arc is pretty short,” he said. “Maybe it’s a good thing sometimes for them to leave.”
Amos’ ministry to strippers started when a dancer came to her church, also located on the Strip. For nine months, Amos and her volunteers mustered only enough courage to pull into the club parking lots during daytime hours, park their cars and pray.
“We were scared to death to start this ministry,” Amos said. But just before Christmas 2005, they took gift bags to the dancers.
“I knew we had to go to them,” Amos said. “They weren’t going to come to us. We were received very well.”
Most of the dancers at the Flamingo and other clubs are single moms who have health problems, addictions and felony records but no high-school diplomas. Few have transportation, and some are homeless.
Donna Cox, a licensed professional counselor on the Oasis staff, said most dancers are hooked up with boyfriends or pimps who force them to perform so they can bring home money each night.
On a good day, when customers are generous and “money rains,” as the dancers say, they can make up to $1,000. More often, they go home with just a few dollars and they can face punishment from their boyfriends or pimps.
“I see women beat up all the time,” Cox said. “I saw a woman so beat up I didn’t recognize her. She had the imprint of a man’s fist in her chest.”
Ashley awoke drenched in sweat, the image of her former pimp’s hardened face burned in her psyche. It had been seven months since a policeman pulled her from the grip of her captors .
But the nightmares still came in waves, even at a shelter that specializes in caring for battered young women. On this night, she couldn’t fall back asleep, so she wrote in her journal:
Dear Mom,
I’ve been feeling very scared lately. If he is to ever find me he would kill me , and that scares me. I’m trying the best I can to stay strong. I just feel so weak inside. I know I’m safe where I’m at and all, but I feel like he is right over me and breathing down my neck. I don’t like feeling this way, I hate it Mommy. I just need to hear your words of hope and love.
Love,
Ashley
Karen Stauss, policy director for the Polaris Project, a national and international anti-trafficking organization, said Ohio’s new trafficking law, while well-intentioned, is so weak that Polaris doesn’t include it among the 40 states that have specific criminal provisions on the books.
Ohio law adds a trafficking specification, much like the one tacked on for commission of a crime involving a gun, when there are already two other felony charges. It has other restrictions.
“I don’t think there’s a state in the union that doesn’t have a serious problem. It’s a big, big business,” Stauss said.
The Salvation Army plays a vital role locally as the organizer of Central Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition. Columbus was the 21st city in the country to get funding for a coalition, because federal officials determined that central Ohio is “at risk” for trafficking. But the $20,000, eight-month federal grant is now gone and agencies are on their own in operating the coalition.
So far, the coalition has responded to seven trafficking cases with help for the victims, three of them in the last three months, said Michelle Hannan of the Salvation Army. However, coalition participants estimate they encounter 13 to 21 new cases each month, Hannan said.
Ohio’s law was a challenge to get through the legislature but needs to be strengthened, said Sen. Fedor.
“I was just horrified about this situation. … These victims are suffering in silence. They’re drugged, beaten, starved and in some cases even chained and locked up.
“It’s an invisible crime. … They’re selling our children and women and making huge profits.”
Williamson, the Toledo trafficking expert, describes Ohio’s law as “bare bones.”
“It was so difficult to get the law passed, it was ridiculous,” she said. “We had to keep taking things out to satisfy other people.”
Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland may have the same problems as Toledo, but “don’t have the law enforcement tools,” she said.
“If you go to Atlanta or other hot spots, that’s where you’re going to find our kids. … We’re a hub in the country.”
Williamson said Ohio trafficking victims are frequently moved to other states, mostly large cities.
While the illegal sex business involves more than just a trafficker and victim, the customer — that vital link in the business — remains in the shadows.
“From federal law on down to the street level, the customer always stays invisible. When you are purchasing sex with children, you’re not a customer, you’re a sexual predator,” she said.
Attorney General Richard Cordray has invited representatives from law enforcement, social-service agencies, the courts, trafficking experts and victim advocates to serve on a human-trafficking commission to be established under the new state law.
“We don’t really have a handle on the scope of the problem,” Cordray said. “One of the things we’ll look at will be how do we quantify, identify, give some parameters to the problem. There’s a lot that is not understood.”
“You see the problem and realize that could be my son, my daughter,” he said. “You do feel it at a personal level. They’re reaching into our communities.”
Gone is the girl in the senior-year photo with the rose - colored skin, innocent smile and ambitious eyes. What’s left is a pale , anguished woman with hardened eyes. Almost a year removed from life on the str eets, Ashley’s body is fragile . Bu t what remains of her s p irit fend s off the demons when her mind wanders to the past.
“I have flashbacks, awful flashbacks,” she said. “I’m trying hard to be normal again, to have a decent life.”
There is hope. She was accepted into college and plans to attend classes in the fall.
There is also despair. She has been in and out of mental - health facilities, briefly turned back to crack cocaine, and once attempted suicide .
And there is still fear. Constant, vivid thoughts haunt her — that somehow, some way, one of her former pimps m ight find her.
“No matter what people think of girls like me, no matter if they see us as victims or not,” she said , “ t here are more still out there that need help.”
Victim of human trafficking ring shares her story
April 24, 2009 by Jeff Barrows
Filed under Print, Recent Press: Gracehaven
By Bridgette Outten
Staff Writer Updated 8:00 AM Friday, April 24, 2009
Springfield Sun
SPRINGFIELD — When Theresa Flores was 15 years old, she lived in a suburban Michigan home with her nice, middle-class family, attended church every day and sang in the youth choir.
That was the year she became a sex slave.
Targeted by a criminal ring of human traffickers operating near Detroit, Flores’ ordeal began when she was lured to the home of a classmate, drugged and sexually assaulted.
A devout Catholic who did not want to shame her parents, Flores didn’t think she had a choice when the ring’s operators blackmailed her with pictures of the assault, threatening to show the photos to her father and her priest.
The traffickers did not kidnap Flores from her home, but used threats, intimidation and blackmail to force her into prostitution while she lived under her parents’ roof.
Over the next two years, Flores would remain in a world of prostitution, where she was routinely sexually assaulted and brutalized while her traffickers profited.
“But I got lucky,” Flores told an audience of Clark County law enforcement officers, social workers and child advocates on Thursday, April 23. “I escaped.”
About 30 years later, her mission now is to challenge the “front line” workers — that is, the ones most likely to encounter the victims of human trafficking — to look beneath the surface to identify victims.
“It’s not just bad kids with bad parents,” said Flores, the keynote speaker at the Clark County Child Advocacy Center annual meeting and luncheon Thursday.
Flores, who has written a book about her ordeal titled “The Sacred Bath: An American Teen’s Story of Modern Day Slavery,” is also the director of development at Gracehaven, a home that will open for underage girls who have been victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Logan County.
“It’s about creating awareness,” Flores said. “Most people don’t even have the mentality that this is going on. That’s where we need to start.”
More information about Flores can be found at www.traffickfree.com and www.gracehavenhouse.org.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0374 or boutten@coxohio.com.
