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Check out the Columbus Dispatch Article

Congratulations to the other 199 organizations who also made it to the top – may God Bless your efforts!

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/142979.pdf

“The Report, for the first time, includes a ranking of the United States based on the same standards to which we hold other countries. The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America. This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it.” (H. Clinton)

According to UNICEF, as many as two million children are
subjected to prostitution in the global commercial sex trade.
International covenants and protocols obligate criminalization
of the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The use of
children in the commercial sex trade is prohibited under both
U.S. law and the Palermo Protocol as well as by legislation in
countries around the world. There can be no exceptions and
no cultural or socioeconomic rationalizations preventing the
rescue of children from sexual servitude. Sex trafficking has
devastating consequences for minors, including long-lasting
physical and psychological trauma, disease (including HIV/
AIDS), drug addiction, unwanted pregnancy, malnutrition,
social ostracism, and possible death.

Page 13, 2010 TIP Report

Case Study: United States:

Harriet ran away from home when she was 11 years
old and moved in with a 32-year-old man who sexually
and physically abused her and convinced her to
become a prostitute. In the next two years, Harriet
became addicted to drugs and contracted numerous
sexually transmitted diseases. The police arrested
Harriet when she was 13 and charged her with committing
prostitution. They made no efforts to find her
pimp. Harriet was placed on probation for 18 months
in the custody of juvenile probation officials. Her
lawyers have appealed the decision, arguing that since
she could not legally consent to sex, she cannot face
prostitution-related charges.

Page 30, 2010 TIP Report

Read Article Here!

By Alan Johnson

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

DORAL CHENOWETH III | DISPATCH

“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.

View Dispatch Article

Download newlsetter (pdf) The piece starts on page 17.

An Interview with “The Slave Across the Street” Author Theresa Flores

by Angela Longerbeam

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.

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

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

Combating human slavery, right here in the capital city

By Kae Denino

25 Comments

” …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.”

By Caitlin O’Neil
oneil.97@osu.edu
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Photos: Megan Maxwell / The Lantern

Dr. Jeffery Barrows, Executive Director of Gracehaven, speaks about creating a safe home for victims of human trafficking.

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.