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April 3, 2020 by Guest

Space, Time, and the Covid-19 Continuum: Effects on the Exploited

By Kathy Bryan

This pandemic that has turned our world upside down is having particular impact on vulnerable and at-risk populations. As the Director of Elevate Academy, I work with a client base of over 600 trafficking survivors. We are receiving daily, desperate communications with the most prevalent issue being significant financial problems due to loss of work without pay either because of child care/school closings and/or their employer closing. Several clients have the virus and there are those who have lost a family member to Covid-19. Additionally, the emotional toll is quite high as confinement is very triggering for survivors of sex trafficking.

Even survivors of human trafficking who have been out for several years are seriously impacted. Many are single moms already struggling to get by on incredibly tight budgets while negotiating the intense healing still needed after years of abuse and trauma. Those challenges are more magnified by the unfortunate fact that they are often saddled with criminal records which prevent them from receiving government financial assistance. Those crimes, in so many cases, are acts they were forced to engage in by their traffickers. Add this pandemic to the mix, and their current circumstances are beyond grim.

The financial strain results in a high risk of recidivism due to incredible pressure to meet even the most basic needs. Survivors already have beaten the odds by enduring the most horrific experiences; to think that circumstances might force them to sell sex to survive is heartbreaking. The health risks to trafficking victims and those who might in desperation consider selling sex for survival are exponentially high right now. “Shelter in place” is not adhered to by sex buyers, nor do traffickers/pimps choose to give time off…trust me when I say, as a survivor myself, there are NO days off. In fact, in times of crisis, it is the norm for exploiters to tighten their grip on those they abuse, and to bring more people into their folds.

Human trafficking is a deplorable crime, but it is also a business and thrives during times of crisis by adapting quickly to opportunities the crisis presents. For example, with schools and daycares closed, parents are forced to work from home while keeping their kids home OR entrusting them to themselves during work hours. Ultimately this tends to mean an increase in screen time with less supervision as parents attempt to juggle employment requirements while being full-time caregivers. This is a BONUS for traffickers as they have increasingly been recruiting their victims online. Factor in the isolation that comes from being out of school, yet sequestered from society, and children are hungrier than usual for companionship and guidance that exploiters are all too happy to provide.

Another nefarious business, Pornhub, has quickly jumped at the opportunity to bolster business. Guising themselves as benefactors, they are ‘graciously’ giving 50,000 masks to emergency workers, and ‘benevolently’ providing free access to their online porn services. Disguising it as charity, they are luring captive audiences pining for entertainment with free content, knowing the “gift” will increase their subscriber base. There is a direct correlation between the purchase of sex and viewing of pornography. While not everyone who consumes pornography buys sex, those being bought for sex will tell you the buyers all watch porn.

As businesses are shuttered due to Covid-19, traffickers are taking advantage of new ways to increase the flow of cash. So, in addition to meeting the demand of sex buyers, some victims are forced to take on-demand jobs like Uber or Instacart. Strip clubs are morphing their services too, requiring their workers to begin delivering food with an accompanying striptease, doing drive-thru no-touch lap dances, etc., and demand for cam services is also on the rise.

Why am I sharing all this?

It is absolutely crucial that we provide both financial and emotional support to victims and survivors, now. Helping them cover basic needs like groceries and rent will go a long way to helping them weather this storm safely while continuing the important work of healing and maintaining their freedom. Healthy and healed survivors are the leaders who are vital to the work of helping others find a way out!

In the midst of this crisis, I am incredibly grateful to Shared Hope International. They have pledged to provide financial relief to the extent possible to the desperate women and youth through partners in their scope of care. If you are a survivor in need of assistance, please reach out to Shared Hope via savelives@sharedhope.org.

And if you are able to help…if keeping survivors of sex trafficking free and standing on their own feet is important to you, please make a donation to Shared Hope, designating the survivor benevolence fund! Let’s help protect their hard-won freedom. Let’s prevent the Covid-19 pandemic from taking extraneous victims along with it.

March 31, 2020 by Guest

Renting Lacy Reveals Reality: A Student’s Perspective

I was assignment to read Renting Lacy for a class on human trafficking at my university. Renting Lacy was a required book for the course. Though it was a quick read, it was notably substantive.

Renting Lacy is a fictional, yet reality-based story founded upon the biographies of the unfortunate lives that are involved in the child sex trafficking network in the United States.

The novel depicts a story of an underage girl and her co-workers who are trapped in a sex trafficking ring in Las Vegas. Lacy has been a victim of sex trafficking from a very young age and has been loyal to her trafficker, Bobby Bad, for many years now. She manages and cares for the other girls, Star, Sugar, Cherry, Brandi, and KiKi, who are stuck in her same situation. The book explains how Bobby grooms vulnerable girls by using love, affection, and gifts. Once they are hooked on him and the drugs he supplies, he detracts, leaving them wanting more. This is when he knows they will do anything for him, something even as dehumanizing as selling sex for money. Yet, they all feel a sense of loyalty and even fear towards him.

The mental torment, deceit, and violation the girls endure has left an immeasurable impact on me. Even more so, knowing that even though the book is a compilation of replicated accounts, these intertwining stories are consistent with the real life experiences of individuals manipulated into sex trafficking.

A unique aspect of Renting Lacy is the comprehensive approach to defining, analyzing, and understanding the dynamics of a trafficking situation. Not only is the story told through the dialogue of traffickers and the targeted girls themselves, but of police officers, judges, family members, buyers, and sellers that are included as well. This is illuminating because there is so much value in the awareness of multiple perspectives in regards to the study of sex trafficking.

This book is raw, explicit and devastating, but it tells a strong story that is a solemn reminder of the vulnerabilities of our youth. It is a story that needed to be told to really grasp the interconnectedness and intersectional issues that are presented on this topic. The interwoven events of being trafficked and also being forced to engage in the victimization of others results in compounded trauma. For many of the girls in the book, the victim-offender intersections of their experiences makes the girls’ situation that much more complex. This leads them to be identified as criminal, rather than victim. Shared Hope released a report on this very issue in January that you can read here.

I am glad I got the opportunity to cross paths with Renting Lacy and take from it the knowledge and awareness of an issue that is happening all around us. It forced me to take a hard look at the world around me, instead of brushing off this topic as ‘someone else’s issue’. It is all of our problems and we are all part of the solution. This is an important book for future students to read, as well, because is motivates a discussion of the reality of sex trafficking. Renting Lacy is a humbling book that has the ability to spark initiative.

March 18, 2020 by Marissa Gunther

Traffickers Are Taking Advantage of COVID-19

Our Shared Hope International team hopes you and your loved ones are coping with the unprecedented disruption we are all experiencing and that you are doing well in the midst of so much change. Know that we are praying for you.

The women and children we serve are no strangers to lives turned upside down; and now we see that sex traffickers are taking advantage of this current nation-wide disruption to entrap more vulnerable youth with false promises.

Children are out of school for social distancing, and are now likely spending more time on the Internet or gaming than during a normal school week. With everyone being encouraged to stay indoors and children are home from school due to COVID-19, porn companies are offering free viewing of their content in select countries as a marketing strategy. And according to Google Analytics, porn searches skyrocket by 4700% when kids are out of school.

Shared Hope is working to counteract traffickers and Internet-based dangers by getting our Internet safety materials in as many hands as possible, to help you and other caregivers keep children safe from the lure of traffickers during social distancing. If we work together, we can stop the traffickers in their tracks.

Help us stand in the gap through prevention. Download and share our free resources and Internet Safety Video Series. The more people who know how to take action, the less traffickers are able to move in the shadows of the Internet.

Our policy team is actively working with US Senators’ offices that are sponsoring The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act, which will improve protections for children online by establishing best practices for the technology sector to combat online child exploitation. We created an advocacy campaign so that you can let your legislators know how critically important this bill is to you and to the children in your community. Taking action only takes a couple minutes and can easily be done from your couch.

And our international Villages of Hope are working hard to keep the homes healthy and safe, and paying close attention to levels of supplies; local stores are experiencing large amounts of shoplifting and hoarding. Those we are serving domestically are being made more vulnerable as resources are cut off; the reality of having to face school closings, lack of childcare, lack of options for hourly workers, and the list goes on.

Your faithfulness in giving will help us counteract the threat of economic instability for the women, men, and children we serve.

You will stand in the gap for survivors like Serana**.

Serana was born in small village where most of the girls born to poor families are prone to be trafficked. She was sold to India by her cousin at 13-years-old and there, she lived a life of Hell in the famous Red light District of Kamathipura. She was then moved to Mumbai with the brothel owner who highly indebted her. She had no control over her home or money. She was trapped for years. Our Village of Hope in Asha Nepal paid her debt to the brothel owner. She was rescued and offered a place at Asha Nepal. Now, she desires to serve and share her story to those who are still enslaved in the brothels of Mumbai. She is leading fellowship in Asha Nepal, helps in the kitchen, is receiving an education and growing skills in bag making.

In the coming weeks of uncertainty, your faithfulness and generosity are more important than ever — to make sure our critically important work is not diminished. Recoveries like Serana’s are made possible because of our supporters’ belief that no child should live the life that Serana had to live. Times of crisis should strengthen our resolve to serve, to band together and take care of each other.

Please help us counteract the traffickers.

Your sustained support will ensure those we serve remain stable and continue to thrive. If you had planned to give to Shared Hope soon or in the future, now is the time to do so. Your actions and giving will help us ensure stability and certainty for the women, men, and children we serve. Thank you.

**name was changed to protect survivor’s identity

February 8, 2020 by Guest

You Don’t Always Get to See the Seed Sprout

By Butch and Jean Fitzpatrick

As Ambassadors of Hope, we spend time proactively communicating, giving out resources, sharing about DMST and the work of Shared Hope International, and make ourselves available for prevention and awareness but we don’t always get to see the seeds we plant sprout into action.

In September 2018 we spent time in Upper MI, responding to the urgent needs of an 18 year old survivor and seeking police rescue, health care, and legal support. That day we visited different government and health service organizations as well as law enforcement. Sharing what we do, explaining the situation and the need, and giving SHI resources. As part of that day we visited with the MI State Police post in Wakefield, MI. As we talked to the duty officer, giving him a number of resources (which we always have with us), we explained how we use the “Chosen” film in our prevention/awareness presentations. The officer was very interested and said MI had a Human Trafficking Liaison officer and he would make sure to give him the information. We hoped he would.

With Shared Hope’s support, we had communicated with the State and sent them info on what tools were available to possibly meet their certification requirements for dentists. It required multiple follow up phone calls to different State Offices giving them information on the i:Care materials that had just been released.

In a circuitous way, during an annual check-up at the dentist, our hygienist told us that she had attended a “packed” community prevention/awareness event in Wakefield hosted by the MI State Police and they used “Chosen” as part of their presentation. Our hygienist said that attending this presentation met the requirement for her, where dental staff need HT awareness training for license or re-license in the state of MI.

It was so rewarding to hear that the State Police had picked up on what SHI had given them and are now using it to help educate citizens as well as professionals.

Just had to share this good news.

Butch

Learn more about our Ambassador of Hope program today, including how you can become our newest Ambassador!

January 23, 2020 by SHI Staff

Shared Hope International Releases Sex Trafficking Victim-Offender Intersectionality Report, Promoting Just Responses to Victims in the Criminal Justice System

The collaboration with the Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation at Villanova Law follows a three-year study of the phenomenon of treating sex trafficking victims as criminals

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Shared Hope International, a non-profit leader in the fight to eradicate domestic minor sex trafficking, today announced the release of “Responding to Sex Trafficking Victim-Offender Intersectionality: A Guide for Criminal Justice Stakeholders”. A collaboration of Shared Hope’s JuST Response Council and the Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE Institute) at Villanova Law, the report will serve as a field guide for criminal justice stakeholders, supporting an overall shift toward a victim-centered approach that recognizes a survivor’s underlying victimization when facing sex trafficking charges.

Shared Hope unveiled the report during a presentation and panel discussion at its Institute for Justice & Advocacy, a Washington, D.C.-based education, research and training center, which opened today.

The report provides resources for anyone who interacts with a sex trafficking victim-offender within the criminal justice system, including law enforcement, judges, defense attorneys, probation officers and victim witness advocates. It seeks to mitigate the risk of injustice when the control exerted by sex traffickers and the influence of trauma on a victim’s decision-making and behavior are not considered.

“A sea change is still needed in how our world looks at, responds to and cares for sex trafficking victims,” said Linda Smith, Shared Hope’s founder and president, and a former U.S. Congresswoman. “This report is a long-overdue resource for understanding and addressing the circumstances that result in treating victims as criminals.”

The CSE Institute educates and provides technical assistance to those who respond to commercial sexual exploitation, promoting victim-centered, trauma-informed multidisciplinary collaboration.

“As a former prosecutor who now routinely educates prosecutors and engages in policy and legislative reforms, I consistently remind prosecutors that the most powerful tool they have is the one of discretion,” said Shea Rhodes, director and co-founder of the CSE Institute. “When making decisions about which cases to charge and bring to trial, it is critical that prosecutors investigate trafficking cases using victim-centered trauma-informed strategies to ensure that the outcomes are fair and just for all involved.”

For the last decade, Shared Hope has graded states on the strength of their child sex trafficking laws through its Protected Innocence Challenge. While the national average grade rose from an F to a B since the Challenge began, the grade for victim protection laws is barely a C at 71.2 percent.

“While we recognize the challenges that arise when trafficking victims are alleged to have engaged in trafficking conduct, approaches such as charging victims as co-conspirators, which effectively deny their underlying victimization and prevent access to comprehensive services, harm victims as well as the effort to bring their exploiters to justice,” said Christine Raino, Shared Hope’s senior director of public policy. “The progress made crafting new legislation that properly punishes sex traffickers is undermined when the laws are implemented in a way that is not victim-centered and trauma-informed.”

The field guidance focuses on three primary objectives:

To improve identification of sex trafficking victim-offenders who have come into contact with the criminal justice system
To enhance understanding of victim-offenders’ conduct through a sex trafficking- and trauma-informed lens
To identify alternative responses to victim-offenders that take into account the impact of their own victimization on their potential involvement in sex trafficking conduct

Shared Hope’s JuST Response Council comprises policy advocates, government officials, medical professionals, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, academics and service providers. Several members are survivor leaders. Members share the goals of preventing juveniles from becoming sex trafficking victims and ensuring that youth who have been trafficked have access to the tools and support necessary to heal from the trauma they have endured and the skills to create and sustain a life away from trafficking.

To read the “Responding to Sex Trafficking Victim-Offender Intersectionality: A Guide for Criminal Justice Stakeholders” report, visit https://sharedhope.org/what-we-do/bring-justice/just-response-council/

ABOUT SHARED HOPE INTERNATIONAL
Founded in 1998 by then U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith, Shared Hope International strives to prevent the conditions that foster sex trafficking, restore victims of sex slavery, and bring justice to vulnerable women and children. A non-profit Christian organization, Shared Hope engages in diverse activities that confront sex trafficking in communities throughout America. Our efforts include training first responders and community members to identify warning signs of trafficking and employ intervention techniques to rescue child trafficking victims; providing restorative services to affected children and women; and offering legislative support to those focused on strengthening laws that fight child sex trafficking. Our vision is to coordinate a national U.S. network of protection to improve the response to victims of trafficking. We believe we can create a world where every survivor is surrounded by trained professionals, an alert community, just law and policy, knowledgeable service providers and appropriate shelter options.

MEDIA CONTACT: Rosemary Ostmann, RoseComm for Shared Hope International, rostmann@rosecomm.com, 201-615-7751.