Sex Trafficking in Portland, Oregon

Collaboration: Blog Deliverable #8, Part 2

Change: Blog Deliverable #8, Part 1

Would you recognize a trafficked human being if they were right in front of you?

“The eye doesn’t see what the mind doesn’t know” - Kanani Titchen. In this TED talk by Kanani Titchen, she uses personal experiences to teach us three very important lessons to spotting victims.

The article “Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking in the United States,” by Kimberly Kotrla discusses the extent of the issue of child sex trafficking, who is most likely to become a victim of sex trafficking and the large culture of tolerance surrounding traffickers. Kotrla defines Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking as “modern-day slavery of children” and the forms of DMST include “prostitution, pornography, stripping, escort services, and other sexual services” (181 and 182). The author highlights that media has a lot to do with the “culture of tolerance” (2010). Kotrla states that the culture of tolerance is “fueled by glamorization of pimping, is embodied in multiple venues of daily life including, clothes, songs, television, video games, and other forms of entertainment” (183). Some of the examples Kotrla used were television shows such as “Pimp My Ride” or “P.I.M.P.” Glamorizing pimps allows people to think that pimping is acceptable and is something that one should desire to be.

The article “Sex Trafficking and the Exploitation of Adolescents,” by Natalie McClain and Stacy Garrity highlights the fact that women and young girls are the majority of people who are trafficked and it also discusses how nurses can help identify victims of sex trafficking. McClain and Garrity state that human trafficking “includes a wide variety of forced labor including commercial sex work (prostitution, pornography, and exotic dancing), personal service, forced labor, and manual labor” ( 2011). It is discussed a lot in this article that nurses play a large role in assisting victims of sex trafficking. In fact, “nurses are uniquely poised to assist in victim identification and possibly ending the sexual slavery if they are allowed to seek health care by their trafficker” (McClain and Garrity). McClain and Garrity make it clear that “identifying victims of sexual trafficking is the first step in providing assistance and advocacy” (2011). If the public is able to identify sex trafficking victims by certain cues/signs that the victim may be showing, it would help a lot in identifying victims and putting an end to trafficking.

These two articles both made sure to discuss that to be able to prevent sex trafficking, we need to advocate on behalf of victims. Both of these articles are very similar in the beliefs that they have about human and sex trafficking. Among these two bodies of research, it is agreed that sex trafficking is a major problem especially among vulnerable, underage girls. In both articles it is discussed how victims are seen as, or see themselves as criminals rather than victims. In the first article, Kotrla mentions that “one of the greatest challenges working with DMST victims may be changing the perception of these minors” from thinking that they are criminals to realizing that they are victims (182). In the second article, McClain and Garrity state that since prostitution is illegal in most of the United States, the adolescents may initially be labelled as criminals; yet, this label is not legally accurate” (2011). It is important to realize that these young girls are coerced into sex trafficking. These women and young girls are in no way criminals, they are victims. The terrible people who are forcing people into sex trafficking or any type of trafficking are the criminals.

References

Kotrla, Kimberly. (2010). Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking in the United States. Social Work, 55(2), 181-187.

Third-party exploiters (pimps)

The pimps interviewed generally are products of their environments, desensitized from the work they do. One third-party exploiter explained that he doesn’t view prostitution as anything other than a normal profession, saying, “The community I grew up in was full of prostitutes. My mom was a prostitute. I had a sister who was an erotic dancer and another was a prostitute” (Johnson). Prostitution in itself is not the problem -the problem is that third-party exploiters employ methods of coercion, fraud, and psychological and/or physical manipulation to take all profit from those they exploit, uncaring of their victims. Their main concerns are money, control over victims, and not getting caught. Sentences can range anywhere from 60 months-life.

Buyers

Buyers are “...otherwise ordinary men. They could be your co-worker, doctor, pastor or spouse” (Swarens). Buyers generally do not see anything wrong with purchasing sex, even from minors or those abused. When asked whether or not he cares about the conditions of those he buys sex from, one buyer replied, “I don’t want to know how the sausage is made.” In Portland, buyers are sentenced to buyers/john school ($1,000 and record expunged) or two days jail. USA Today journalist Tim Swarens writes, “state and local prosecutors are in a better position than the federal government to hold accountable those who pay to exploit children. Like the federal government, state and local jurisdictions tend to use sting operations in which undercover officers pose as exploited children to stop buyers. Although such operations net thousands of would-be sex buyers each year, most of the men arrested plead down to lesser crimes. And it’s rare for police and prosecutors to pursue buyers after they've paid to abuse children.”

Victims/survivors

Those exploited are lured into the life by promises of a better life, love, the need for basic necessities, or anything of value. At first they may be convinced they are in control; by the time they realize they aren’t, it’s already difficult to escape the life. While buyers and pimps are protected by a culture of impunity, victims have to live with trauma and the stigma. In the words of one survivor, “It’s hard to wake up every day and remember the people I had sex with.”

Works Cited:

Swarens, T. (2018, January 30). Who buys a trafficked child for sex? Otherwise ordinary men. Retrieved February 19, 2019, from USA Today website: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2018/01/30/sex-trafficking-column/1073459001/

Molly McDade Hood is Sergeant of Human Trafficking at the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.

“You’ll always have a job if you go into plumbing or law enforcement, cuz you either need to put the shit away, or flush the shit down the toilet”

What first got you interested in this career path?

Molly: Mainly because I recognized through intel gathering -just listening to jail call and mail, talking to individuals- that they continue to traffic from jail...so that started to peak my interest because I like to hold people accountable for their actions. And also if you think about it, this is a facility that’s county funded and we don’t want people to continue to commit crimes from it..so accountability I guess.

Tell us about the work you do to combat human trafficking here in Portland.

Molly: I sit on a number of boards and committees. One is the Sex Trafficking Executive Committee here with Multnomah County….we tend to be kind of the leaders within the state on anti-trafficking measures and how we collaborate, not just with the sheriff’s office but also with the city of Portland and outside agencies and with advocates. You need to actually have a well-rounded approach with collaboration and with non-gov organizations. Quite different than just regular law enforcement because you need to be victim centered if you want to build good cases. So what I do is intelligence and investigations from the jail...I do the data and analysis piece of it. I sit on a state-wide sex trafficking committee under the DOJ. I collaborate with a lot of other law enforcement entities...on other cases, not just sex trafficking, because it intersects with so much...I do a lot of presentations and trainings, forums, coffee meetings….I’ll meet with a lot of different organizations to see how we can collaborate and interface...I may talk to victims upstairs in housing, and find out information what’s going on, every case is unique. I may go to court with them. I might connect them with a PO...match people up I guess...I also talk to traffickers, I’ll take tattoo photos.

What are some misconceptions about sex trafficking and its root causes?

Molly: We still have all these generic images on the internet with chains and bar codes and things like that. I’ve yet to see a bar code on a girl...Misconception one is you don’t have to be kidnapped...it takes a 3rd party exploiter for the sale of sex. With a minor it’s a very easy definition. Minors don’t have the the ownership to be able to sell their sex. It’s not for currency in Oregon for the sale of sex, it’s anything of value -it could be drugs, a purse, Sephora gift cards, money, a roof over your head, food...basic needs, unfortunately. Many individuals are experiencing exploitation by someone who’s an intimate partner. A lot of these 3rd party exploiters are only after money, they don’t really care about the wake of disaster that they’re leaving with individuals….Individuals in the life...they don’t always die at the hands of traffickers; I would say that’s another misconception. In the last 60 days there have been 4 girls that I’ve had contact with that have died...one died from suicide...2 died from opioid overdoses...one died an accidental death...she was still in the life….I think the majority of the injury that they (traffickers) leave behind is mental scarring...some can be brutal...It is domestic violence on steroids with that 3rd party exploiter. It just takes that one act of force, or that fraud...they’re hooked into that life...grooming comes in many different forms…I hesitate to create this box of this is the profile of a victim, this is the profile of a trafficker, this is the profile of a purchaser...ANYONE..

I know that Portland’s location with I-84 and I-5 is frequently cited as a reason for why Portland is a hub.

Molly: People (shouldn’t) put that as a main reason. Are we a hub, or do we just recognize it more?...But electronic communications has a lot to do with it.

I know you were just down at the Super Bowl. Why do sporting events attract activity?

Molly: Any major event really...men without their significant others...The driving force is do you have people that enjoy sex? Do they have disposable income? And we’ve got the internet so that creates more anonymity. That’s gonna create more opportunity, so if there’s traffickers who are wanting to earn money they’re either going to send girls that way or they’re going to take them that way.

As for root causes, do you think that maybe if the victims had more awareness, or a more stable home life where all their emotional needs are fulfilled this would be less of a problem?

Molly: You need to go at it like a three pronged approach...The buyers...first off, is it appropriate to purchase sex? To me, the minute money is exchanged, it just makes it rancid.

-So the culture.

Molly: Yeah…And then there’s individuals, victims- there’s many ways they can get in it, but there are definite vulnerabilities...domestic violence, the foster care system, if you really look at the Adolescent Childhood Experiences….And then you’ve got the traffickers -you have to go after all 3. Provide the services -is it mentorship, education, prevention and awareness, is it empowering young women to make choices for themselves and feel good about themselves? If you don’t do each one independently it’s just going to continue. It’s not about rescuing, it’s about recovering and it’s about empowering individuals to want to live a safer life and get a good job and educate themselves, or even just be able to get by because they have been through so much that maybe just getting mental healthcare and being on public assistance is about just what they can do….There are a lot of people who have been very hurt and damaged. I always told my daughter that I didn’t want to raise a victim.

What are your solutions? What’s being done? How can we help?

Blog deliverable #4 part 2.

Music video: https://youtu.be/ZmWBrN7QV6Y

Blog Deliverable #4, Part 1

News Article 1:

Ballard, T. (2019). “Tim Ballard: I've fought sex trafficking at the border. This is why we need a wall”. Deseret News. Retrieved From: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900053896/tim-ballard-ive-fought-sex-trafficking-at-the-border-this-is-why-we-need-a-wall-border-wall-fox-news-child-trafficking.html

News Article 2:

Bump, P. (2019). “Trump claims a wall is needed to stop human trafficking. No data support his claim”. Retrieved From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/04/trump-claims-wall-is-needed-stop-human-trafficking-no-data-back-up-his-claim/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.611c8801b3a6

             In a recent interview with CBS News, president Trump, once more, hammered away at the idea of building a wall. This time he claimed that the wall would prevent human trafficking in the United States because of the extensive security it would bring in.

           Article 1 is written by a man named Tim Ballard who is the CEO of an anti-trafficking organization called “Operation Underground Railroad.” He defends the thought of building a wall because of his first-hand experience working with sex trafficking on the southern border. He states that building a wall would deter the malicious intent of traffickers trying to smuggle in women and children. Ballard uses a personal story of a girl he code-named “Liliana” to testify to his claim. Liliana shares her story about being kidnapped in Central America and being brought to the United States, and in regards to a wall, she says “my captors would have been forced to take me to a port of entry. A U.S. officer might have seen my distress. I might have yelled out to them (…) I think they would have rescued me at the port of entry.” (article 1). Ballard recognizes that entry ports already exist alongside the border, but he emphasizes that many people are still able to sneak past those ports. With a wall, he claims there would be less a chance of smuggling and more attentive control.

Common Purpose: Blog Deliverable #8, Part 3

Sex trafficking has been and currently is a huge problem in Portland, Oregon. In fact, “sex trafficking in the suburbs of Portland, police say is a reality they deal with everyday” (Bolduc). For a long time, sex trafficking has been something that locals have thought of as something that is not important. Or many people believe that it does not directly impact them or even happen here Portland. With the growing number of sex trafficking victims, it is important to be aware that it can impact your life and it is something that is very important. Over the last few years there has been tons of sex trafficking cases that prove the notions that it “does not happen here in Portland”, wrong. According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, there were a total of 524 cases reported in Portland in 2018.

During a “one night national sting involving 29 cities last February, law enforcement officers picked up seven underage girls involved in prostitution in Portland– more than any other city besides Seattle” (Jones). The fact that Portland has a lot of strip clubs certainly does not help when trying to stop sex trafficking. In fact, Portland has “more clubs per capita than any U.S. city” (Campbell). The state constitution “allows clubs to pop up almost anywhere unlike in other states where they can be heavily restricted by zoning regulations” (Campbell). The large abundance of strip clubs in Portland is a major factor as to why Portland is a hub for sex trafficking (Campbell). There are tons of men that go to strip clubs that are strictly looking for prostitutes because they know that there will be some at these clubs. In most cases the girls are under age and tell the potential buyers and people of authority in these strip clubs that they are older than their actual age because truthfully, there are minors. The pimps force the girls to lie about their identity which ultimately makes it more difficult for the police force to find these young girls. Since the “average age of entry into street prostitution is from 12 and 14 years old,” many children are robbed of their childhood and forced to grow up due to the situations they are put in by their pimp (Frundt).

To help bring awareness to sex trafficking and trying to prevent it from taking place, “police are trying to get ahead of the problem by going into schools and educating both potential victims and criminals. On the other hand, educators are teaching children as young as 13– the average age that prostitutes start as sex trafficking victims and to look out for signs of trafficking” (Campbell). There are many local organizations such as Youth Ending Slavery and Janus Youth that you can get ahold of to attend advocacy events and other fundraisers that directly help victims of sex trafficking. Hopefully talking about it and educating people of sex trafficking, we can stop it from happening or at least make it a lot easier for victims to find the help that they need. By speaking up and advocating, we can hopefully educate more people on sex trafficking so if they see it, they can intervene and get help.

Links to local organizations’ social media accounts:

Janus Youth

https://twitter.com/JanusYouth

This organization provides programs for run away youth, youth who live in poorer neighborhoods and youth who are victims of sex trafficking. By providing programs for these children, they are able to be in a safe place that will help them become successful. 

Youth Ending Slavery

https://www.instagram.com/youthendingslavery/

This organization is run by high school students. They help get their local communities involved in fundraisers and events that contribute to sex trafficking victims. 

References

Bolduc, Kaitlyn. (2017). Sex Trafficking becoming major problem throughout Portland metro area. Retrieved from https://www.kptv.com/archives/sex-trafficking-becoming-major-problem-throughout-portland-metro-area/article_b5299829-2079-5b65-b582-954b96f6bb54.html

Campbell, Andy. (2015). Where Strip Clubs Strive in Portland, So Does Child Sex Trafficking. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/25/child-sex-trafficking-strip-clubs-portland_n_7650778.html

Frundt, Tina. (2005). Enslaved in America: Sex Trafficking in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.womensfundingnetwork.org/enslaved-in-america-sex-trafficking-in-the-united-states/

Janus Youth. [Website] Retrieved January 23, 2019, from http://www.janusyouth.org

Jones, Nikole. (2010). Human Trafficking Industry Thrives in Portland Metro Area. Retrieved from https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/01/human_trafficking_industry_thr.html

National Human Trafficking Hotline. (n.d.). (2018). Retrieved from https://humantraffickinghotline.org/state/oregon

Slavery? Human Sex Trafficking?

Many people today are under the impression that slavery is a thing of the past, when this is far from the truth. Made possible by the complex trafficking networks throughout the world, slavery remains alive and well. Unicef defines human trafficking as, “A form of modern-day slavery that subjects children, women, and men to force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor. This horrific practice can include prostitution, pornography, and sex tourism as well as labor for domestic service, factory or construction work, and migrant farming” (Human Trafficking). To add to that, the non-profit organization Youth Ending Slavery specifies that “force” can mean anything from violence and/or the threat of violence to psychological coercion. Moreover, victims are paid “nothing beyond subsistence” (Youth Ending Slavery). It is important to know that human trafficking, specifically sex trafficking, is a multi-faceted issue, with many root causes that we will go into detail later on in our blog. There are systems in place that create victims/survivors, just like there are systems in place that create perpetrators. In order to crack the code, there needs to be collaboration within ALL members of society. By identifying underlying problems and pursuing solutions, everyone can dedicate his/ herself to the eradication of this injustice once and for all.

Why Do We Care?

There is estimated to be anywhere from 21 million (United Nations) to 40.3 million (International Labour Organization) victims being trafficked globally: 81% of them are trapped in forced labor, 25% of them are children, and 75% are women and girls. The industry as a whole is worth $150 billion globally, making it the second largest criminal activity in the world (Rosli).

Due to its geography (I-5, I-84), strip clubs, and high rates of homelessness, Portland is a known hotspot for human traffickers, especially sex traffickers. The average age of entry for sex trafficking is 19, but in Portland, that number is closer to 14-15 (Meschter). This happens right in our backyard, and it is rapidly expanding due to advancing technologies. If nothing is done to end this growing industry, more victims will continue to suffer from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Not only that, but they are denied access to an education, healthcare, or any way to gain for themselves a higher quality of life. They struggle with substance abuse, trauma, and thoughts of hopelessness and/ or suicide. They are separated from friends and family, and are denied their childhoods. Many of these victims come from at-risk communities and have no way of fending for themselves. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of these heinous crimes profit off the dehumanization of fellow human beings, developing new tactics and methodologies by which they victimize innocents. By helping to break this cycle of violence and abuse, we welcome victims and survivors as contributing members of society -offering them freedom, justice, allies, and the opportunity to speak. Law enforcement are doing their best to work with vulnerable communities, target root causes, offer resources and support to victims, and bring criminals to justice. However, if we, as members of society, do not do our part to engage with our community about this issue, society will continue to suffer injustice.

Works Cited:

Youth Ending Slavery. (n.d., January 25). Retrieved January 2019, from https://www.youthendingslavery.org/slavery-today.html

Human Trafficking. (n.d.). Retrieved January 25, 2019, from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime website: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html#What_is_Human_Trafficking

Meschter, A. (2018, May 29). A Modern Slavery; Human Trafficking in the Portland Area. Retrieved January 25, 2019, from The Dig website: https://theaardvarkdig.com/2018/05/29/a-modern-slavery-human-trafficking-in-the-portland-area/

The Facts. (2016). Retrieved January 25, 2019, from Polaris website: https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/facts