Toledo program pushes for education, legislation on sex trafficking |
 |
 |
|
Written by LAURIE STEVENS BERTKE, Chronicle Writer
|
|
Friday, 03 October 2008 01:00 |
TOLEDO—Interviewing women involved in prostitution on the streets of Toledo led Celia Williamson to stumble onto a hidden world of child sex trafficking more than 15 years ago.
What she found was underage girls were being forced, coerced and manipulated into prostitution by adults, and often being arrested and punished as criminals.
After months of research, Dr. Williamson started Second Chance in 1993 to serve women victimized by prostitution, girls victimized by sex trafficking and girls at risk of being victims. Since then she and others involved with the program, which is now part of Toledo Area Ministries, have advocated for victims and educated the community about the connection between prostitution and child abuse.
"We know through research that without intervention, that 77 percent of the kids will go on into adult prostitution," she adds. "So you have to catch them when they’re underage if you want to stop this lifelong pattern of destruction, which starts at the hands of other people."
Programming run by Second Chance includes a weekly education and prevention group for girls at the Lucas County Juvenile Detention Center. It is also developing prevention videos specific to Toledo with a curriculum for use in schools. The first is to be complete this fall.
Mary Schmidbauer, program coordinator for Second Chance, cites several factors that make Toledo an easy recruiting ground for child sex trafficking: high concentration of poverty in the central city, limited educational and career opportunities and geography that makes it easy for traffickers to quickly transport victims across the country via I-75 and I-80/90.
Prostitution can be familial and generational, says Ms. Schmidbauer, who notes the average age when sex trafficking victims are first exploited is 13.
Poverty is only one of many factors that can make children vulnerable, adds Dr. Williamson. "Traffickers are everywhere that kids are, and particularly in the places where we think our kids are safe — that’s where they’re going to be."
Some pimps kidnap and force their victims into prostitution, but most prefer more subtle tactics of manipulation, according to Dr. Williamson. Often a pimp gradually coerces a vulnerable girl into working for him by acting as a boyfriend who loves and ìtakes care ofî her.
Walking with survivors
Second Chance offers comprehensive services to survivors recovering from the trauma of prostitution and sex trafficking.
"It’s literally walking beside as people discover and rediscover their selves and reclaim them, because they’ve been manipulated into not recognizing that they have that capacity," says Ms. Schmidbauer.
Leeann, a victim who asked her last name not be used, says her entry into the world of prostitution at age 15 was preceded by a decade of sexual abuse by a relative, and nobody ever told her she was worthy of anything better.
She dropped out of high school, and the next 16 years she spent in the sex trade led her into a spiral of drug abuse.
"It was just trying to find something to cover the pain," she relates. "Constantly medicating myself with either more sex, more drugs, more pills, more anything. It was like constantly trying to die everyday."
Two-and-a-half years ago, child protective services took away her five children and the court referred Leeann to Second Chance.
There she was told nothing she had done was "out of the norm for what I knew, and what I was taught I was," but she could change if she wanted.
The support she received at Second Chance "gave me the strength to want to look in that mirror and be somebody," says Leeann, 34. She became sober and regained custody of her children.
Leeann now assists with outreach at Second Chance, walking the streets late at night to pass out safety kits and talk to women who are still out there.
"I’m not there to judge them," she says. "I’m just letting them know that when they are ready to turn the corner, that there’s somebody there waiting for them."
Ms. Schmidbauer says Second Chance draws on the wisdom of survivors like Leeann. Feedback from clients recently led the staff to develop a work training and experience program to help women transition into mainstream employment. The training is part of the Women’s Empowerment Project, which has received grants from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development the past two years.
Second Chance is also working to open a safe house to provide 24/7 care to underage victims of sex trafficking.
Supporting state legislation
Dr. Williamson says education is still necessary to sensitize more people to the fact that "this is modern-day slavery — that these kids are victimized and that these women are the kids we missed."
Many area residents were shocked at the end of 2005 when a federal investigation targeting child prostitution rings in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Michigan exposed Toledo as a hub for child sex trafficking.
The crackdown was part of the Innocence Lost initiative the FBI, in conjunction with the Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, launched five years ago to address the growing problem of domestic child sex trafficking. Toledo now has an FBI task force working to build federal cases against traffickers.
Second Chance is one of many groups in Ohio advocating state legislation to protect victims and prosecute traffickers.
There are currently three proposed bills on human trafficking in Ohio: Senate Bill 205, House Bill 15 and Senate Bill 23.
|
|
Last Updated on Monday, 22 December 2008 11:14 |
