The Courier (Findlay, OH) - Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Author: SARA ARTHURS ; Staff Writer
Human trafficking is prevalent in this part of the country, and it's children who are the victims, said human trafficking survivor Theresa Flores at the Open Arms annual meeting at Parkview Church on Monday night.
Flores is a licensed social worker and author of the book "The Slave Across the Street."
Human trafficking occurs when a person is forced to work under another's control, pay off a loan by working instead of paying money or perform a sex act for money or anything of value, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The United Nations estimates that there are at least 12.3 million enslaved adults and children around the world at any given time, of which at least 1.39 million are victims of commercial sexual servitude.
Flores ' experience started innocently enough, but soon became a horror. She grew up in a well-to-do family. As a 15-year-old in a Detroit suburb, she developed a crush on a boy who seemed to be "everywhere I turned." But her parents forbade dating. Then one day he offered her a ride and she said yes. Instead of taking her home, he took her to his home, where he drugged and raped her.
But this was only the beginning. A few days later he came up to her with an envelope of photos of the rape. He threatened to show them to her priest at church, her classmates and her father's boss unless she would "earn them back" from him and his family. Flores didn't know what that meant but didn't want her parents to know what had happened. The boy and other members of his family began threatening her.
They would call her private phone line at midnight. She would be instructed to sneak out and wait for them on a nearby street. They would pick her up and take her to upscale homes where she would be taken to a bedroom, sometimes tied up, while one man after another came in. She would be driven home around 4 a.m. and she would get up for school as if nothing happened.
The boy and his family threatened to kill her parents and brothers if she didn't comply. They terrorized her, following her to school, showing up at her workplace and calling the homes where she would baby-sit. Sometimes at her mailbox she would find dead animals.
One night instead of the usual driver, several other men picked her up and drove her to a motel in inner-city Detroit and dragged her by her hair out of the car. "In that motel room were over two dozen men waiting for me," she said. "'Terrified' does not cover it."
She was raped over and over again until she passed out. After she woke up, naked and bleeding with no shoes or money, she put on her pajamas, which had been soaked in a bathtub. She walked until she "stumbled into this little diner," where the waitress called the police. But Flores kept silent, fearing for what would happen to her family. The officer knew her traffickers and said, if she wanted it to stop, he would need her help. He gave her his business card.
Flores stayed home from school the next day. In the afternoon her mother asked her and her brothers if they knew where the family dog was. They looked for it in the neighborhood but couldn't find it. Soon, Flores heard the phone ring. She answered and there was no voice on the other end but as she was about to hang up, she heard a dog bark. Then a gunshot. The meaning? "If you bark, meaning if you speak, you will die," she said. She tore up the police officer's business card.
Eventually, her captors lost interest in her, grooming other girls to take her place. Her family, which had moved often because of her father's job, moved out of the area, allowing her to escape. She went to college to study social work, eventually earning a master's degree in counseling education from the University of Dayton.
For a long time, Flores was silent about what had happened to her. Then she went to a conference on human trafficking and realized there were many others experiencing what she had, and she began speaking out. "I lost my voice for 20 years and when I found it, I didn't want to stop," she said.
There is no such thing as child prostitution, Flores said. A child who is a prostitute is a victim of human trafficking, and the traffickers, not the girl, keep all the money. Yet it's usually the girl, not the pimp, who is arrested and punished, she said.
She said in Cincinnati there is an 11-year-old girl in the court system for solicitation. "She should be home playing Barbies," Flores said. "She is the victim here." Flores keeps an eye on Internet ads for escort services as part of her activism. She showed one at her talk of a girl advertised "for sale." The ad said she was 22 years old. "How many of you think she looks 22?" Flores said.
Flores said children who are trafficked have a 40 percent higher chance of death from murder, suicide or overdose. They have a 77 percent chance of becoming adult prostitutes, she said, and the average life expectancy is 40.
Trafficking happens worldwide but in the United States it is prevalent in Detroit and Toledo, Flores said. More than 1,000 girls are estimated to be trafficked in Ohio right now. Flores said red flags that something like this might be occurring include a girl having an older boyfriend, running away, having a lot of cash on her, new clothes or new cellphones that the boyfriend bought her, starting to do drugs, changes in friends, being tired and sick, missing school or getting sexually transmitted diseases.
Flores started the campaign known as Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution, or SOAP. She put the number for a trafficking hotline on a bar of soap and began distributing the soap at hotels. She also printed up cards in English and Spanish to go on the carts of the maids who clean hotel rooms. "The only place that these girls are ever allowed to be alone is in the bathroom," she said. Motels are the hub for trafficking, Flores said, and this includes everything from inexpensive to luxury hotels.
Flores and her fellow activists particularly target hotels in cities where sporting events are being held. They distributed 10,000 bars of soap for the Super Bowl in Dallas. She said any time a city has a large influx of people, and especially of men, the ads for escort services rise dramatically. Men who use prostitutes may not realize the girls are underage and not there by choice, she said.
Flores frequently hears from hotel management, "We see this all the time in our hotel and we didn't know what to do." She said the campaign is working. She told of one girl, 21, who had been kidnapped and taken from city to city. She took a bar of soap and, during a rare moment when her captors let her out of sight, made the call for help and was able to escape.
Flores is also director of awareness and training for Gracehaven, a nonprofit, faith-based organization in Dublin, Ohio, for girls who have been trafficked. Gracehaven will eventually offer a shelter where girls can live, get counseling and work on their GED. Without such facilities, a girl would end up in jail or the foster care system, Flores said.
About 20 percent of trafficked children are boys and there are no services in the United States for them. Flores said we live in a society in which sex is "everywhere you turn," including in television and dolls for young children. Magazine covers boast of learning new sexual moves. "This has become normal for our kids," Flores said. "So what's going to happen when they have kids?" Flores said ordinary people can get involved against trafficking by being a "nosy neighbor." "If you have a suspicion, you know, do something about it," she said. Parents need to check their children's beds and make sure they are safe, she said. "Knowing that this is out there is a first step for parents," she said. Flores said many of the girls form a sort of bond with their traffickers and it is like being in a cult in which the girls are brainwashed, making them less likely to escape.
The trafficking hotline is manned 24 hours a day by trained volunteers. If a girl calls, they patch the call to state troopers, who have been trained in handling trafficking, Flores said. Citizens can also call to report suspicions. The hotline number is 888-373-7888.
During the business portion of the Open Arms' meeting, outgoing board member Paul E. Schmelzer was recognized and Eric Anderson took over as new board president. Bob LaRiche was recognized as board member of the year, Luella Eddington volunteer of the year, Jennifer Scannell received the Unsung Hero award and Marathon Petroleum Co. received the special service award. Cheryl Wenner received the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Hardy Hartzell of Charles Construction Services, Inc., an incoming board member, presented Open Arms with a $10,000 check representing the proceeds from the Charles Construction Services 2011 Golf Classic.
Online: www.traffickfree.com http://www.gracehavenhouse.org/
Arthurs: 419-427-8494 saraarthurs@thecourier.com
Edition: Final
Section: A - News
Page: 06
Record Number: CSS9A9
Copyright 2011 Courier, The (Findlay, OH)
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