Georgia Capitol dome

On most days of the year, the Georgia capitol building is swarming with activity. On February 1st, however, there is a sense of urgency and purpose not often seen among the usual visitors to the political center of the city. Community leaders, activists, students, and others are there to remind their legislators that throughout the state of Georgia, minors of both sexes are sexually exploited. Approximately 7200 Georgia men pay pimps to participate in sex acts with these youth, who are coerced and manipulated into performing. [1] In 2005, Atlanta was named by the FBI as among fourteen U.S. cities with the highest incidences of sex trafficking, and the latest research from the Governor’s office of families and children suggests that in Georgia alone, between 220 and 500 girls are commercially exploited each month. [2]

Amy Walters of Street Grace describes the the goal of Lobby Day as having always been a “…grassroots mobilization of the community to express our voices on behalf of those that do not have a voice.” Volunteers on behalf of Street G.R.A.C.E, Wellspring Living, and A Future Not a Past have been consistently peaceful, polite, and persistent over the years. Last year, lobbyists visited the offices of their representatives and senators, leaving behind a symbolic white rose and a note to remind them that hundreds of victims suffer the consequences of being commercially exploited every month. In years past, volunteers have either informed their legislators of the reality that Atlanta is a center of sex trafficking, both of U.S. citizens and of people trafficked into the country, or asked them to support bills like S.B 304 and S.B 69. This year, volunteers will thank their legislators for working hard to protect Atlanta’s children from victimization.

A Future Not A Past representatives expect between 600 and 1,000 Georgians to participate in Lobby day. They will join Attorney General Sam Olens, Senator Renee Unterman, Representative Edward Lindsey, and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, all of whom are scheduled to speak on behalf of CSEC victims in Georgia. Atlanta musician Janie Chu will perform her single “Dear John”, as well as other songs from her sophomore release, on the capitol steps before Lobby Day begins.

“This is probably the easiest way to make a difference,” Walters explains. “Showing up really matters and this is your chance to be a voice for those who don’t have a voice. We have people coming from all over the state…Let’s pack out the north steps of the capitol.”

Click here to register for LOBBY DAY 2012.

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[1] Georgia Demand Study, 2009. The Shapiro Group. http://bit.ly/xejRol

[2] Georgia Governor’s Office. http://1.usa.gov/op1S7d

The hotline, inherited from Princess Night (a ministry of Atlanta Dream Center), went live on December 19, 2011 as a non-vanity number: 404-941-6024. Because many victims call from phones that do not have lettered keypads (like hotel room phones and some payphones) and it may be safer for them to dial an inconspicuous number on a cell phone that lists call records, a non-vanity number was chosen as the best option.

An Out of Darkness representative explained that the organization plans to work alongside agencies like Polaris Project and Seattle Against Slavery to track call volume, demographics, and the locations of phone calls; however, rescue takes precedent over information gathering. The hotline is connected to four homes, three of which are dedicated to women exiting commercial sexual exploitation. Out of Darkness expects to add three more homes by February.

Currently, Out of Darkness is in its early stages. Its greatest needs from the community reflect the needs of the entire effort to end trafficking throughout the nation: donations and volunteers. The faith-based organization hopes to use donations to upgrade its free phone service to a more efficient commercial phone service and increase its office space to accommodate a growing corps of volunteers and interns. Volunteers – particularly male volunteers – from all geographical regions in Georgia are needed to participate in as many rescues as possible.

On January 27 and 28, Out of Darkness will host a volunteer training for those wanting to get involved. To learn more about Out of Darkness and find out how to volunteer, visit their website by clicking HERE.

Get the full story here.

Source: Reuters

Jesse Eaves, Policy Advisor for World Vision’s Children in Crisis program, stresses the extreme importance of the bill to anti-trafficking efforts:

“The Trafficking Victims Protection Act is hugely influential in giving other countries the support they need to step up their fight against trafficking…It is the best diplomatic tool we have, and if it is not renewed, the United States’ fight against trafficking will end on October 1.” (Health News)

So what’s so important about this bill, anyway?

HISTORY

In 2000, the U.S government passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), a bill now regarded as the most significant step forward in combating trafficking in the nation’s history. (For a history of trafficking related legislation prior to the TVPA, check out Summer Intern Natalie Decker’s blog post) According to a fact sheet provided by the Department of Health and Human service, the 2000 TVPA took a firm stand against trafficking into and within the United States through a model of prevention, protection and prosecution.

The preventive aspect of the bill authorized the annual Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report, which gathers extensive research about global patterns of trafficking and increases public knowledge and awareness. The TVPA also established a global standard for countries dealing with human trafficking, which the TIP reports on each year. As well as raising awareness, the original TVPA was designed to protect victims from deportation and retaliation, which encouraged them to testify against their traffickers in court. Temporary visas, permanent residency, witness protection program eligibility, healthcare, housing, and rehabilitative services are provided to trafficking victims who are willing to aid in the prosecution of human trafficking. To punish the traffickers and deter would-be criminals, the TVPA upped the charges of trafficking from a misdemeanor to a felony, and introduced the possibility of life sentences in jail, depending on the nature of the crime.

Every few years, the TVPA is reincarnated as a more improved version of itself through reauthorization. This has taken place in 2003, 2005, and 2008 as knowledge and methods of combating trafficking have increased. Activists and anti-trafficking leaders hope that it will take place again in this year with the 2011 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA).

WHAT DOES THE 2011 TVPRA MEAN FOR CHILD TRAFFICKING VICTIMS?

• “Authorizing the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Office to negotiate child protection compacts with designated focus countries to increase resources and political will to eradicate child trafficking (the essential provisions of the Child Protection Compact Act). ” (IJM)
• Further prosecuting American citizens who travel abroad to have sex with children by strengthening the Protect Act. The Protect Act allows the U.S government to prosecute Americans visiting abroad who participate in child sex tourism. The 2011 TVPRA would also allow prosecution of Americans living abroad that purchase sex with underage victims of trafficking, as well.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR VICTIMS WHO HAVE BEEN TRAFFICKED INTO THE COUNTRY?

This recent story about a trafficking witness whose family became the target of a trafficker almost says enough about the need to protect witnesses and victims of trafficking from their abusers. In this case, the U.S government failed to keep its promise of protecting a witness and instead deported him. He was shot and his daughters were kidnapped by the man he’d planned to testify against (all three family members are currently safe).

The 2011 TVPRA will also protect unaccompanied minors who’ve arrived in the U.S by granting them access to the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor program, which places them in foster care programs ”tailored to the specific needs of vulnerable migrant youth”. (Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services)

The TVPRA will continue the TVPA’s initiative to grant victims of trafficking temporary or permanent residence as well as giving them access to rehabilitative care. It also makes the important distinction between victims of trafficking and illegal immigrants.

Acting Deputy Assistant of the Office of Immigration and Border Security Kelly Ryan stated in a report to the Senate Judicary Committee earlier this week that

From October [2010] through July 2011, USCIS has approved T nonimmigrant status for 1,009 victims of human trafficking and their families (437 principals and 572 family members). This already represents a 26 percent increase from fiscal year 2010. This upward trend indicates that we are becoming better at identifying victims and offering assistance.

The TVPA has made history, and will continue to do so, as one of the United States’ most effective means of addressing an insidious injustice occuring within its own borders against its own citizens. Be a part of that history by picking up the phone and calling your senators.

REFERENCE

Department of Health and Human Services Fact Sheet

Health News: World Vision says fight against human trafficking will end if Congress doesn’t pass Trafficking Victims Protection Act

International Justice Mission

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services

United States Department of Labor

Recently I saw a TV show episode, during which a man seeking fame and fortune irreversibly transforms his young daughter into a monster as a scientific experiment. Two passersby in the lives of the man and his daughter are seized with guilt, anger, and depression at the realization that there is nothing they can do to change the girl back into what she once was.

It’s doesn’t take a creative leap to draw a comparison between the story of the fictional girl and the story of a real youth whose future, dignity and hope is snatched away and exchanged for a life of shame and abuse. The average age that a young girl is initially commercially and/or sexually exploited by a pimp or john is between 12 and 14 years old. For boys and transgender youth, that age drops to between 11 and 13.

However: there’s also a significant difference between the two narratives.

In real life, minors who are victimized at the hands of traffickers and johns don’t have to remain trapped in the form of what society views as monstrous. There is restoration. There is redemption.

First, it requires recognition: law enforcement agents, counselors and others must recognize that a victim is not a monster – he or she is a victim of a monster. A victim is legally not a prostitute if under the age of 17 in Georgia or willing to testify that they have been coerced into commercial sex acts through fraud and/or violence. Nevertheless, minors swept up into the sex industry face the harmful misnomers of “teen hookers” or “child prostitutes”. One of the largest hurdles that human trafficking awareness agencies must clear is changing a public mindset of blame. The International Labor Office recently released a summary of findings they gathered while conducting a study of CSEC victims in Belize. According to their findings, half of the victims “…endured insults and humiliation from the public in relation to CSEC. A significant number (11 out of 30) also said they were scorned by family members.”

Secondly, rehabiltation requires intervening on the victim’s behalf. This isn’t always an easy task, as victims of CSEC are often manipulated into believing that they’re monsters, too. Victims don’t always come forward for fear of backlash from the law or their own community. It’s important for law enforcement agencies, teachers, doctors and nurses, family members, dentists, or anyone else who may encounter a victim be aware of the signs that a person is being trafficked. (Check out the risk factors of CSEC here)

Only then can restoration occur. Across the nation, girls and boys are receiving new beginnings through rehabilitative programs like those offered by the organizations below.

Wellspring Living For Girls is a Georgia-based restorative system of care for girls who have been sexually exploited. Recognized as a leader in best practices for treating victims of sexual abuse and exploitation, Wellspring works alongside a licensed children’s home, a non-traditional school, and groups and individuals in the community. Wellspring For Girls provides girls between the ages of 12-17 with “counseling, group therapy, education, life skills and vocational training, family reunification as well as spiritual care” and has assisted in the acquisition of three high school diplomas and several GEDs.

Love146 provides a safehouse for children who have been rescued from commercial sexual exploitation and are in need of protection, direction, and rehabilitation. This safehouse is called the Roundhome. As the name implies, the shape of the safehouse is circular, indicating a symbolic return to one’s former self:

…the Round Home … enable[s] the child to come full circle, liberated from their traumas and sufferings, to realize their innate worth and worth as a potentially valued and productive member of society. (Love146)

Victims are counseled to overcome the psychological trauma of commercial exploitation, educated on the dangers of trafficking and their role in the community, and reintegrated into normal life.       

Innovative therapeutic programs like equine-assisted psychotheraphy are gaining more prevalence, too. According to Main Stay Therapeutic Riding’s mission statement, therapy “…provides an opportunity for new self awareness when students experience how their actions, whether physical or verbal, strong or passive – influence the horse…The non-judgmental horse, combined with Main Stay’s supportive team and inspiring setting can be a safe haven – a place to feel secure, trusted, positive and in control.”

Though traffickers gain psychological control over victims by robbing them of their true identity as valuable, autonomous members of society, organizations like Love146, Wellspring Living, and others are working to combat that lie by pouring love, encouragement and strength into the survivors. And it’s working. Rob Morris of Love146 recently tweeted,

Three of our girls in the Love146 Round Home have just ranked in the top 10 in their entire freshman class in school! Survivors to thrivers!

If you’d like to help but are unsure of how you can directly become involved, check out ways you can raise money and awareness for the organizations that are working to give victims their identity and freedom back:

September 8th: National Call in Day to pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act

September 17: Stop Injustice 5K – benefits Wellspring Living

Innocence Atlanta Event Calendar

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“From the Love146 Reintegration pamphlet: A safehome is where we nurse the bird’s broken wing. If we do well with our nursing, then the bird should be able to fly again and…soar to the heights it was meant to reach. If it casts a glance at the safehome again, then it should be from above, among the clouds of its achievements.”

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Other Resources:

 Angela’s House

 Love146 Aftercare

Georgia Care Connection 

Main Stay Therapeutic Riding

http://white.oit.org.pe/ipec/documentos/belize.pdf

The most alarming aspect of the story, aside from the growing trend of the United States of America as a destination for child sex tourism rather than a source:

Federal agents said when they arrested Bichl in Cleveland, he had a laundry list
of items with him, including lingerie, sex toys, bondage ropes, a mask, and some
stuffed purple unicorns for his victim, along with sedatives in case she got
scared…

Otto Linzenbach and Peter Bichl of Germany, Zachary Casey of Millersburg, Ohio and Johnathan Waltman of Nashport, Ohio will be formally sentenced in coming months.

Read the full story here.

Source: Fox 8 Cleveland

Source: Hawaii News Now

The full story can be read by clicking here.

Get the full story here.

Source: Change.Org

A Boston study indicates that over 27% of people victimized by traffickers will seek out emergency health care at some point. However, only 3% of medical staff are trained to recognize the signs. Get more info at Meet Justice Medical.

Read the full story here.

Source: seMissourian.com

A new film has hit the theaters of America, forcing the issue of human trafficking into the forefront of people’s lives. The Whistleblower is based on the true story of Kathy Bolkavac, who, during the late 1990’s to early 2000’s, worked as a UN Peacekeeper in Bosnia. While there, she uncovered an underlying scourge of human trafficking, specifically sex trafficking, taking place in the country. Kathy learns during her investigations that members of the UN, from fellow peacekeepers to police and high officials, not only take part in abusing the victims, but often directly facilitate their abuse. From driving vans of women across the borders to avoid security, to taking bribes for their cooperation, Kathy discovers that the employees of the UN are deeply ingrained in this industry. As usual, some artistic interpretation was taken with the film, which is explained in the opening scene.

Starring Rachel Weisz and including renowned actors Vanessa Redgrave and David Strathairn, The Whistleblower is a tale that deserves to be told, even if it has been somewhat “hollywoodized” to make it palatable for the audience. Even so, it does not back off from showing some of the more horrific experiences that the women go through. Shot in intentionally dark tones with a gritty atmosphere, the film mixes artistic representations with the occasional blatant exhibition, which at times go a little too far.  The representations and “almost but not quite” scenes were so well done that further demonstration wasn’t needed and only served to cheapen the overall effect, leaving one puzzled at their purpose. Here is an example of what I mean.

At one point in the film, Kathy is investigating a bar for sex trafficking after she has just been introduced to the subject. In her investigation, she spots a wall of what could be considered “trophy” photos. We are shown close ups of Polaroids featuring nude victims being groped and abused, one by one, and these pictures return several times throughout the film. This is what I would consider to be a blatant exhibition of the victimization and torture that the movie didn’t need. Even if it is “just a movie,” these types of scenes still require actresses and actors to “pretend” to participate in such activities. It then begs the question whether or not “pretending” to be tortured and to torture is any better than reality.

Right after this moment in the film, Kathy investigates a back room where the girls were kept. The camera slides over a floor ingrained with dirt, closes in on a bowl that was used as a toilet, sweeps over a mattress covered in used condoms. A moment later we see a few thick chains lying on a block of cement. These all clearly indicate how the women were being treated and the horrors they had to go through without actually showing their exploitation. Occasionally film makers forget that “less is more” and that sometimes, by keeping something in check, by giving the audiences enough to arrive at the right conclusion without explicitly spelling it out, they can achieve a much higher impact.

You are shown almost all areas of sex trafficking in The Whistleblower, from how a woman can be pulled in, to how johns and pimps respond to the victims. In a way it humanizes what the movie Taken glamorized by delving into the darker shadows of this industry. It takes a stance between mainstream and niche- there are enough elements of action and suspense to keep up the pace and allow a general audience to engage with the story. However, the subject and intensity of the film could be more tolerable to those already involved in the anti-trafficking movement and aware of its severe nature. In other words, this would be a good film to show to those who are interested in learning more about human trafficking, but not necessarily to those who have never heard about the issue before due to the heavy atmosphere and realistic aspects of the film.

The entire movie is a conversation piece which encourages the desire to learn more. It can be a great tool for those in the anti-trafficking movement to use if they are looking for a more lifelike portrayal than Taken offers, as long as you give a warning to your audience beforehand about some of the more intense content of the film. One possible negative is that The Whistleblower is still focused overseas, which could further ingrain in people’s minds that this is an issue “over there,” when human trafficking is happening in their own backyard. It is also focused solely on sex trafficking, and does not address other forms that human trafficking can take. However, it can be used as an effective device to generate awareness, especially if you hold a conversation with your friends, family, and other fellow movie-watchers afterwards, explaining the context and tying it into the reality of trafficking in the United States, and trafficking as a whole. If you can handle the language and nudity and the intense atmosphere of the movie, then The Whistleblower is definitely a must-see.

One more side note, some of the dialogue is difficult to hear and understand, so you will need to keep your ears perked.

Read More about the Signs of Sex Trafficking

Read More about the Signs of Labor Trafficking

Read More about Human Trafficking in Atlanta