Human trafficking festers as growing problem
She ran away at age 14, tired of a stepfather who pawed her and a mother who preferred to ignore the problem.
Within 72 hours, a sweet guy had befriended her, offering her meals and a place to stay. This new life wouldn’t be so bad, she thought.
Her honey bought nice clothes for her; she just couldn’t believe her good luck.
Pam Strickland, founder of Eastern NC Stop Human Trafficking Now, was a recent guest speaker at the Lois G. Britt Agriculture Center in Kenansville.
She balked. He showed her a photograph of the two of them in bed and said he’d email it to her grandparents who she loved dearly. They knew nothing of the sexual abuse and the photo would break their hearts.
So she agreed to his plans and pleasured the men he brought to her. And it wasn’t so bad as long as she forced the plastic smiles, always said sweet nothings to the men and never made her honey angry.
This girl isn’t real, but a composite of teenage runaways who invariably end up prostitutioned by lowlife pimps and other creeps who are the real villains in this ugly, horrible story. That’s what Pam Strickland, founder of Eastern NC Stop Human Trafficking Now, told folks gathered last Wednesday evening at Ed Emory Auditorium in the Lois G. Britt Agriculture Center in Kenansville.
Strickland said it’s important that these underage American girls and boys never receive blame for the crime of prostitution. They are victims, she stressed. Yet some police departments still arrest them. Instead of a juvenile detention facility, they need to be in a shelter getting the help and counseling they need.
The Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Prevention Act in 2000. The legislation has to be reauthorized every few years, and it needs to be reauthorized this year…in fact this month, according to Strickland. Part of the federal trafficking bill is a provision that would call for the establishment of four shelters across the nation.
Many of the teens who end up in enforced prostitution come from the foster home system, according to Strickland. They’re there because they come from broken homes and usually have ended up in the juvenile court system.
Strickland gave a roundup of the state of human trafficking today not just in the U.S., but throughout the world. She provided the technical definition of human trafficking as the “illegal trade and transport of human being through forceful or coercive means, for the purpose of exploitation. That usually means the victims are forced into sexual slavery or forced labor. Forced labor can mean working at hotels, restaurants, nail salons, sweatshops and farms.
In the first decade of the 21st Century, human trafficking is the modern version of slavery.
Organizations like Strickland’s group exist all across the nation as well as internationally. They want to energize grassroots support that results in pressure put on politicians and law enforcement to go after human trafficking’s villains.
They also want to see everyday people change their buying habits and not purchase things made by 21st century slaves in overseas sweatshops.
Strickland held up a $4 t-shirt offered for sale by a well-known superstore chain. She said people can help out in the cause by just being aware and not buying cheap goods that probably were made by coerced laborers forced to work in sweatshops. Instead, they can buy “Fair Trade” merchandise.
“Be part of the solution,” Strickland advised people.
Last week’s meeting was sponsored by the Duplin County Cooperative Extension, the Duplin County Library Board and the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office. A planning committee has been established to evaluate forming anti-human trafficking organization in Duplin County.
The next anti-human trafficking meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 6, 6 p.m. in the Lois G. Britt Agriculture Center’s Ed Emory Auditorium.
