(dramatic music)
- When you're with a pimp they name you.
Each one names you a different name.
You can't say, "My name is Tina."
My name's not Tina.
I don't even pick my name.
They pick your name for you.
They say, "Your name is Sunshine."
One of my names was Sunshine.
They pick your name.
So each one renames you.
Very similar to slavery
when they named them
and made them call
themselves a different name.
- I didn't have a choice.
Did I wanna eat?
Did I wanna pay my rent?
Did I want to be able to get
transportation in the city?
I'm selling my body for
money so I could take a bus.
You know, that doesn't
sound like a choice.
- She lost her glasses several days
into her trafficking situation,
and her prescription was quite strong.
So she couldn't see who was coming
in the room to have sex with her.
(somber music)
- People are judging you,
so you can't go to them because
they're talking about you.
They think this is a choice.
So now I have to pretend
that this is what I wanna do.
Now I have to say, "I don't care.
"It's just about the money.
I have to make up these things to fit in
so you won't think bad about me.
So what does that do to
someone's mental state?
Well, you lose hope.
(somber music)
I think when we think about
sex trafficking in D.C.,
all our minds go internationally at first
or it goes to the posters that we've seen
with people with their hands up,
with barcodes on the ground,
a misinterpretation of what
trafficking actually is.
- Trafficking occurs when youth exchange
anything of value for sex.
So it could be a cellphone.
It could be a ride.
It could be a place to sleep.
It could be drugs.
- Under the federal law,
any minor engaged in a commercial sex act
is considered a victim
of human trafficking,
and so most often that looks like children
being exploited through
the system of prostitution.
But it's not limited to that.
So when you see young people
who are being exploited in strip clubs
through pornography,
through massage parlors,
all of that constitutes sex trafficking,
child sex trafficking under the law.
- So some people may not be aware,
but there are four paradigms
of sex trafficking:
family controlled, survival sex,
gang controlled, and pimp controlled.
- Families who may
sexually exploit children
within the family, sometimes
parents or extended relatives,
as a means of supporting a family need.
Addiction may play a role in that.
- Familial exploitation, I
think, works because children
rely on their families
to have their needs met,
and their families are often
the most important people in their lives.
And so if your family
member has expressed to you
that, "You know, I need you to do this,
"so that we can pay the rent,"
or, "I need you to do this,
"so that we can buy
your sister's medicine,"
things like that make it really difficult
for the child to feel like,
A, that they would tell
anybody that it's happening,
and B, like, there's any other
option that the family has.
- A current case that's up right now
of a young girl that we
have that's 10-years-old,
and it was definitely her mother.
And she was selling her on the street
and online on Instagram as well.
Did the people know her age?
Well, they knew that she
was 10-years-old knowingly,
and it was the mother who
would make the dates for her.
So that is definitely
family controlled situation.
She was removed from her home,
and the mother is being charged.
- And it is especially difficult, I think,
for kids to feel like there's a way out.
Because if they do report
anything to anyone,
kids kind of know a bit
about what might happen
if they raise information to an authority
or even to a teacher who would
likely call an authority.
And for that child the worst case scenario
might be being removed from their home.
- I think the level of betrayal
in those particular cases
that the youth feels is profound,
to be trafficked by a family member.
- We don't want youth
to live in a world where
they're already so used to
their body being violated,
perhaps by a loved one or
family member or a teacher,
that it doesn't feel so strange
to then actually be in a
position where they're using
survival sex to get needs met.
Because survival sex it
might sound confusing,
but for some youth they
feel more sense of control
engaging in survival
sex than staying at home
and experiencing serial
rape by a loved one.
And sometimes those feel like
the options that kids have.
- Survival sex, which is where they
don't have a trafficker necessarily,
but they have a buyer who's willing
to exploit their vulnerabilities.
Instead of maybe providing them with money
is instead providing them
with food or shelter.
(somber piano music)
- Survival sex essentially
is any sort of a sexual act
that people would participate in
in order to get their needs met.
So for example, I have a client.
Now she's 20,
and she has a child.
At various points during
her time in foster care,
she hasn't felt comfortable
staying where she was supposed to stay.
She didn't feel like she had a way
to feed herself or her son.
So she'd find herself in situations
where she might sleep with someone
to make sure that she and her son
had somewhere to stay that night.
- Your environment is not giving
you a stable place to live.
Your environment is not
giving you food and clothing.
Your environment is lacking,
and so while you don't have a trafficker
who may hit you with hangers
or lock you in a closet,
you're having to still survive
through the exchange of sex for money.
And you know what's worse is that
the community looks at
you with a different lens.
If you were considered
having been trafficked, you are a victim.
If you engaged in survival sex
or have been environmentally trafficked,
you did it on your own.
You wanted that life.
It's so unfortunate that the
community does not often see
the victimization that individuals
who engage in that lifestyle
go through every day
or went through prior to
having to enter that life.
- The next piece is gang control.
So mostly in our area that's
our Latino population,
who is not over the age of 15,
and that can be MC-13 gangs,
18th Street Los Locos.
So usually the youth think
they're actively in a gang,
and you may think that
they're actively in this gang,
but they're actually just being sold
and used as a commodity inside the gang.
- We've been seeing an
increase in sexual exploitation
in gangs for many years now.
Historically gangs have used drugs
or weapons as a means of business,
and they have discovered
that selling children
and women is more financially lucrative.
Where there's one weapon or one drug
and that gets sold one time,
a child or a woman can be sold many times.
- We had a youth that
came from Latin America.
Her family had come to
the U.S. without her.
Left her in Latin America.
She was incredibly hurt by that.
She had abandonment and
trust issues as a result,
and when they finally
were able to bring her
to the United States, she
had a language barrier,
and she was angry at the
only people she knew,
which were her parents.
And so she lashed out,
and she sought that attention
and trust in the community.
Unfortunately, who she ran
into were MS-13 gang members.
And they started off as her friends.
They recognized she didn't
have anybody else to speak to.
She didn't sit with anybody at school.
She didn't have any friends.
She didn't seem to wanna go home,
and they slowly groomed her into being,
"Oh, let me be your boyfriend.
"Let me be your best friend."
Before she knew it, she
was being gang raped
as an initiation procedure for the gang.
She stayed in that
because she truly believed
the gang was her only family.
Then she believed at that point
that her family would
not accept her anymore
because she had been tainted by the gang.
- So the most form that everyone really
knows the most of is pimp control.
That pimp is a trafficker.
Trafficker and pimp is
one in the same thing.
A pimp can be a male or a female
who is taking all the money
profiting off of the person,
whether they're an adult or a minor.
- In recent studies, only 12% of victims
identified their trafficker as a pimp.
The vast majority identified
them as a family member,
an intimate partner, a romantic
interest, a father figure.
So, understanding that
statistic goes a long way
in understanding how effective
the grooming process is
in maintaining the victimization
and maintaining her silence.
- In general when we think
of like pimps or exploiters,
we think people who
come on and really hard.
They beat you into submission,
and that's how they get
your loyalty out of fear.
Love is just as much a
motivator as fear is,
and so most of my clients
they don't start off being physically
or otherwise abused by whoever
becomes their exploiter.
They've been what you termed as groomed.
So they are building a trusting,
loving relationship with
somebody, usually somebody older,
but it can start off with
somebody around their age
who's already been exploited themselves
and who's then bringing
them into the life.
And so this is their friend,
or this is their boyfriend,
or girlfriend or whoever it
may be a mentor, or a coach,
and it's somebody who's
shown them what it feels like
to be valued, to be loved,
and who's told them,
"Nobody else understands
you like I understand you.
"Nobody else cares about
you like I care about you."
- Grooming is a process
that allows a trafficker
to start very slowly to build
a relationship with a child,
and then escalates that relationship
and that access and that
control so slowly and gradually
that the child might not really notice
exactly when it became exploitative,
exactly when they no longer
felt like it was safe to leave,
exactly when it stopped feeling
good and nice and special,
and started feeling a bit scary,
or a bit like they didn't
have another option.
And so traffickers will often invest weeks
or months into building
relationships with youths,
weeks or months into building
a sense in that child
that this person loves me
and understands me better
than I feel like anyone ever has.
And part of that is
because the trafficker's
not necessarily saying what's true, right?
They're saying whatever it is
they think that specific child
needs to hear to start depending on them
and trusting them and
feeling safe with them,
and then they're looking
for ways to control.
- Example I can use is a young lady.
She was walking to her middle school,
and for a few months there was a guy
who followed her to and from school.
She was targeted first.
So the person following her
knew already that she
walked to school alone.
He knew who she lived with already.
She was living with her grandparent,
which made her a lot more vulnerable
than other children who walked
to school with other kids
or had a bigger support system at home.
Throughout the time that
she would walk to school,
he would offer her things like gifts.
He would offer her a ride to school,
anything to make her life easier
from the time she left home
to the time she arrived to school.
After about four, five, six
months of this happening
she decided to speak up
about what was happening.
She didn't necessarily
think she was in danger.
However, she didn't necessarily understand
how that was the first
part of being groomed.
- In a lot of the cases it
was someone they had met
either online or briefly in person,
but then continued the
relationship online.
Usually young men were
contacting our clients
on various social networking websites
and building trust with them
to the point where they
saw them as a support
and as someone to go to
in a time of hardship
just long enough that they
could then exploit that trust
when the opportunity arose.
- It's actually super easy
to manipulate children.
We do it every day to manipulate kids.
We tell them to clean they room,
and we give them a lollipop or a dollar.
We manipulate it.
It's easy because youth don't think
they're being manipulated.
They don't think.
They know everything.
Have you ever talked to a teenager?
You know everything and that
is what traffickers prey on.
- I think the role in
children being vulnerable
to be manipulated by
traffickers and others
is really trying to identify what gaps,
what vulnerability those children may have
in terms of their needs being
met, whether it be food,
shelter, clothing, companionship.
And traffickers are very sophisticated
in identifying children who are exposed,
and, therefore, it
makes it easier for them
to feel like they have found someone
who is going to listen to them,
who's going to provide for them,
who's going to support them,
and makes it so that it feels authentic.
By the time they have bought
into that gap being filled,
they've made themselves
even more vulnerable
to being harmed and being trafficked.
- I think it is important
to consider language
when we're talking to a young person
who we have concerns about.
They're likely not going
to be thinking that
they've been sexually
exploited or trafficked.
So we shouldn't use those words for them.
Rather, they're going to be thinking
they're in a romantic relationship
with somebody who cares about them.
And because there may be
a trauma bond at play,
they may even rationalize
or deny that abuse is happening
or that there's anything wrong at all.
- Yes, this person is their
friend, quote on unquote,
but the young person
doesn't really acknowledge
that their relationship is harmful.
Because, initially in the beginning,
yes, they were their friend,
and some of them that might have been
their boyfriend or their girlfriend.
So that bond is created
between the trafficker
and the trafficked.
So if we do get them to help,
sometimes what we see
is that they may go back
to the trafficker based
off of that relationship.
- And some of the things that
are unique to trafficking
that reinforces the trauma
bond is oftentimes the youth
feels a lot of shame
about what they are doing
or what they have been forced to do,
and they also feel at times
like it's a unique subculture.
Other people wouldn't
necessarily understand,
which further isolates the youth
and strengthens the bond
with the trafficker as well.
- So it's important to
note that traffickers
will exploit children who are vulnerable
and who do not have a protector factor.
Traffickers will seek out children
who have fallen through the cracks,
and will groom them for
sexual exploitation.
- I mean, I think the thing
that is the most surprising
is that it's not surprising.
You meet these girls or boys,
and after you hear
where they've come from,
I'm more surprised when my clients
are not being exploited in some way.
- One of the most
heartbreaking things that I see
is that youth that I've done
a sexual abuse evaluation
on when they were in elementary school,
I then saw again when they were 12 and 13,
and we did a sexual
assault evaluation on them.
And now they know me because
they've seen me previously,
but they're in my exam room again now
because they're being trafficked.
- I think people tend to think
of human trafficking as only
the vulnerable populations
who fall into circumstances
where they're taken
advantage of by predators.
But as we see with the
expansive use of technology,
there are more and more
potential victims to be targeted,
and that can take place through
a host of technological
avenues or social media apps.
We do see situations
where predators will use
what are innocent social media apps
or technology for their own
ill intent to lure children
or young adults into human trafficking.
- A lot of the clients that I worked with
when they were being trafficked it was
they were being trafficked online mostly.
They were doing less of
the street trafficking.
But the people who were
buying, as far as I know,
I mean the feeling I got was that
they were mostly middle-aged men.
- The being sold is
not what people expect.
The individuals that are being sold
it's vast majority are American citizens,
and the vast majority are
from communities of color.
- On a national level 70% of the people
who are trafficked are African Americans,
and I think that's important
because the posters you see
and the people you see on the news
don't look like the statistic
and the reality of what
I have to see every day.
- I know there are male
survivors of trafficking.
I've seen a couple.
I know there are more out there.
I just don't think
they're being identified.
- Racism is a big factor,
and we certainly see in D.C.
that children of color are more vulnerable
and are being exploited more regularly.
- Well, I think, for us we talk
about the sex trade in terms
of the legacy of sexual
exploitation in this country.
Prostitution and sex trafficking
are directly related to
systems of oppression
that have long existed in this country.
So we can directly trace them back
to things like colonization,
where native American women
and girls were commodified
and exploited for the
benefit of white settlers.
You can also trace this all the way back
to the African American slave trade,
where black and brown women's bodies
were rendered property for
male profit and pleasure.
And so the normalization
of the sexual exploitation
over centuries has come to
impact sex trafficking today.
- So we can't talk about
the black commodification
of black women and girls' bodies
without historically talking about
how black women and girls how their bodies
have been used to build
white wealth in this country.
Historically and culturally,
we saw during slavery,
there were a couple of
specific terms that were used.
The Jezebel and the Sapphire,
and those images were defined as the over
sexual exploitation of
black women's bodies.
We see how they continue to
be used in today's society.
You see it in music videos.
We see it in TV shows and movies.
We see it in magazines.
So it's a myriad of ways that shows up.
When you look at that
imagery in today's culture,
what that also tells us is
that we're still continuing
to see this paradigm that
we saw during slavery times
where black women and girls' bodies
are continuing to be used to
build wealth in this country,
specifically for white men.
As well as their bodies are being used
for the sexual gratification of men.
- Men are paying to rape
black and brown girls,
and that does not mean that boys
are not being sex trafficked as well.
Boys and gender nonconforming youth
are also being bought and sold for sex,
and it's a big problem here in D.C.
- Found that our clients
were at the intersection
of multiple risk factors
including institutional racism,
intergenerational poverty,
housing and food insecurity,
and as young as 13 and up until 21.
- All children in foster
care are more vulnerable
than other children because in general,
you have kids who have an army of people
who are responsible for
various parts of their lives
as opposed to a child who might grow up
within a two-parent household
or even a one-parent household.
But there's one person or two people
who are responsible for
knowing who their friends are,
where they spend their time,
what activities they're
supposed to be involved in,
who are noticing day-to-day
changes in behavior.
My clients don't have the benefit of that.
So they might change foster
homes several times in a year.
- Homelessness is a big one.
There are many youth who end up
out on the street for different reasons.
There could be abuse in their home,
or other safety concerns that
lead them to leave the home.
- We know that children who are homeless
are at a huge risk to be exploited,
and we also know that in the district
homeless youth are
disproportionately LGBTQ youth
who may have been displaced
from their families
or their communities because
they've been rejected
or they feel like they'll be rejected
or they're trying to find ways
to explore their identities
that aren't allowed or permissed at home.
So homophobia is a big part of it as well.
- What's interesting is when you
look at the demographics of the buyers,
they tend to have very
different demographics.
So from the work that we've done,
again in D.C. and throughout the country,
we've come to see that the gender
and racial disparities among sex buyers
tend to be white,
middle-aged men with means,
and so when you look at that
and you compare that to the fact that
the vast majority of child
sex trafficking victims
are in fact young women and girls of color
in D.C. predominantly African
American and Afro Latina
young girls and gender
nonconforming and trans youth,
it paints a really startling
picture of the power
and control dynamics that are at play
when we look at sex trafficking
and the power and privilege
that sex buyers possess.
- Well, they may have been rich,
but they weren't all rich.
They may have been nice as
they thought they were nice,
but they weren't really nice.
They didn't care about me.
They didn't care about my wellbeing.
They didn't care that
I was hurting inside.
They didn't care that
every day after I left them
I went and drank a lot of
whiskey and smoked crack
as a way to leave my body
because of the trauma
I was putting myself through.
They didn't care if they
were the first, second,
or third John of the evening
and what I was going through
as a result of having to spend
an hour and a half with them.
- The good that you used
to think that was probably
out there turns into it's
probably not out there
because all you see is evil.
People who you would never
think in your life bought sex
definitely buying sex and
doing some crazy stuff, right?
Or you find out that the person
who buys you on a
regular basis is a judge.
- What we know from our
local service providers
who help and provide services for youth
who've been sex trafficked is that
boys are having their first time
being bought and sold for sex
between the ages of 11 and 13,
and girls are experiencing
that for the first time
between the ages of 12 and 14.
- I didn't know that I was
a victim of trafficking.
Even though I was 13 when I started,
I thought that it was my choice.
- Now, is it possible for someone
to not be aware of how old someone is?
Sure, but if you are buying sex,
then it's your responsibility
to know how old someone is,
and it's your responsibility
to take accountability
for the fact that you've raped a child,
if that's what you've done.
It's not the child's responsibility.
It's not anyone else's responsibility
to make sure that person
is of age and can consent.
- Let's be very clear.
Children cannot consent to sex work.
There is no such thing
as child prostitution,
and the bottom line is it's rape.
- So you have these predominantly
Caucasian men from Virginia Tech
and sometimes Maryland as well,
coming into certain populations
and area to buy people.
We don't pay attention to that.
That always amazes me.
That we can only pay attention
to persons in the life,
but not all of these techs
and different people coming in and out.
And that's what actually fuels this.
It's normally not even the people
in the community buying sex
in that previous community.
It's the other people coming
from other communities
knowing about that
community bringing it in.
Also, the most important
part about that is the areas.
Because also the buyers know that there
no one's calling the police on them.
They're not gonna get in trouble.
- I think the people
who are buying the sex,
I think, we need to look more at that.
I could surmise that we have issues
as a society of respecting
women and children.
Our society children
are overly sexualized.
There's sort of a glorification of sex
and pimp culture in the
media, in music, video.
Men, in particular who were doing
a large part of the
buying of the children,
need to be holding each other accountable
for respecting women and children
and treating them with
equality in that respect.
- There's a lot of reasons why we see this
continued demand for sex
and illegal sex, right?
So I think where we're seeing
a growing demand for sex
with underage girls, I think,
is absolutely connected
to trends that we're
seeing in pornography.
Right now one of the most
searched terms in pornography is teen.
I think even when you
just look at the titles,
you'll see that a lot of it is really
fetishizing sex with underage girls,
stepdaughters, teen girls,
cheerleaders, high school girls.
I think understanding
that these are children,
and when we are promoting
and normalizing sex with underage girls,
it creates more of a
demand with underage girls.
- The majority of its creation
and consumption is demonstrated
in a type of sexuality that is
inauthentic to who we are as human beings.
It is a performance.
It never speaks about intimacy.
It never speaks about
love, caring, gentleness,
and all of the other aspects
of a healthy sexual relationship.
It doesn't create a space for consent.
It doesn't create a space for
an evolution in our sexuality.
It literally, again,
is the opposite of what
we'd wanna be teaching any
young person about sex.
- We live in a world where
objectification of women
and girls is common,
objectification of
anyone for sex is common,
and that applies to children as well.
I think the racism and
sexism intersect in that way,
in that black and brown children
are often sexualized at earlier ages.
- So whether it's shows
like the "Kardashians"
or "Toddlers and Tiaras",
or going to Victoria Secret
and seeing them market pushup
bras or thongs for tweens,
all of these types of conditions
are really normalizing
the objectification of
children and young girls.
And I think that our
failure to recognize that
and to call that out is
really fueling this demand
in so many ways.
- I remember when girls my age
were on TV looking like girls my age,
and now with increasing frequency,
we're seeing sexualized
images of 12-year-olds.
So of course my clients
and other girls that age
are going to try to resemble that,
that idea of what they should be,
and that ideal of perfection.
How people are making money
on Instagram for posting
inappropriate or extremely
provocative photos
even though they're under age,
but men are gobbling that up.
They are eating it up,
and they are asking for
more and more and more.
- Supply and demand and
so that's the issue.
The issue is there unfortunately
is a demand of children
because we get about seven
to eight referrals per week.
- From what we know about
various legal approaches to
the sex industry is that there's
three primary approaches.
There is legalization, decriminalization
and partial decriminalization.
- I think everyone can
agree that human trafficking
should not be decriminalized,
and I think most people would
agree on the selling of sex.
It's everything else in
between where there are issues.
- The problem is historically
what demand strategies
look like are prostitution enforcement.
So going out and arresting
prostitutes on the street,
which we know can and are often victims.
- We're setting up the same
dynamic in our criminal justice
system that the pimps
use with the victims.
We are telling them,
"Yes, we will offer you
services but only if you do X.
"You can come and get a bed to sleep in.
"But only if you promise
never to go back,"
which is probably not gonna
happen the first time.
It might take a few times before a victim
is willing to leave that life.
That's all that they've
known for a period of time,
and due to the trauma bonding that occurs
between a victim and a trafficker
they're just not ready.
And so when we set up all of these rules,
we're setting them up for failure.
But for me what I find most offensive
is these prosecutors
using the criminal charges
that are usually a result
of a sting operation
because the police always go after
the victims instead of the Johns.
I say always but it's the
majority of what we've seen.
And as a result, then they say,
"Okay, well, now that we have
you with this criminal charge,
"we won't let that criminal charge go
"until you give us what we need,"
which is the information to
prosecute this trafficker.
And sometimes if that
information isn't good enough,
well then, "We're still gonna
keep those criminal charges."
So we're re-victimizing these survivors.
- Partial decriminalization model
has been adopted in a number of countries.
It's actually gaining a lot
of momentum internationally.
It was first started in Sweden in 1999.
Since then not a single
woman in prostitution
has been murdered in
Sweden from a sex buyer
as opposed to places like
Germany where there's been
tons upon tons of deaths
every year in brothels.
And so what we know about that approach
is that it's actually made Sweden
and countries that have adopted this model
less attractive to organized crime,
less attractive to traffickers.
Buyers are not as willing
to engage in solicitation
because they know they
can be held accountable.
But in those countries what they've done
is decriminalize the sale,
and then keep all of the other
legal prohibitions in place
against purchasing, pandering,
pimping, brothel keeping.
- Some of the things our youth talk about
that means a lot to them
is not decriminalizing prostitution.
Yes, they shouldn't go to jail
but not letting buyers off.
- One of the questions I
ask my middle schoolers is,
"Raise your hand if you are friends with
"someone older than you,
10 years older than you."
People raise their hand,
"20 years older than you."
People raise your hand,
"30 years older than you."
People raise their hand.
So, okay, "You're
friends with them online.
"Why are you friends with them?"
- So, I think, it's important
for concerned parents,
concerned adults, concerned peers
to consider three major factors
that could impact that child in terms
of exploitation or human trafficking.
They involve their behavior, technology,
and the individuals that
are surrounding them.
- Warning signs that we see a lot
are missing school all of a sudden.
Older boyfriends.
- If you see them having
a lot more material things
they typically don't
have the first semester
you might see a girl or
boy or anyone may come in
with one style of clothing,
one style of shoe or jewelry.
And then by the last semester,
they may have all these name brands
and more jewelry, more shoes,
different outfit every day
or different shoes every day.
Where did they get that from?
- Are not at home when they should be.
They may be out and about with the person
who is exploiting them,
and we often see tattoos.
And so I know that young people
like to get tattoos these days.
I think it's important to
ask them about the tattoo.
Can they explain why they
got it, how they got it?
That's really important.
Gangs use branding tattoos.
Pimps use branding tattoos.
And so if the young
person can't explain it,
that would be a concern as well.
- If a child were suddenly to revert back
to infantile behavior
such as thumb sucking,
excessive crying, that
should raise red flag
for the parent or a teacher
or another friend who becomes aware of it.
- Any unexplained bruising or signs of
just physical abuse could
be another sign or symptom.
Running away or missing
youth is typically a concern,
especially if when they come back,
they can't tell you where they've been,
or they allude to the fact that
they couldn't leave where they were.
Owing somebody money is also a sign
or a concern that someone may be involved.
- These are a bases, a template,
of what signs may look like
but they can be different things.
More importantly what I
always tell everybody is
please take they phone to look at it.
Don't take their phone though,
because as a parent, you
can do amazing things.
You can track the phone.
You can set up email alerts.
You can see all their
Instagram post if you wanna.
There is so many things that we can do.
I say do that.
That's very important because 100%
of all of our youth
have met people online.
- We have to listen to children, right?
That's not just allowing them
to be babysat by technology,
whether it be a video game
or social media or online.
We have to really be willing
to listen to what's going on,
how they're interacting with it,
ask questions about their experiences,
so that we can offer some
intergenerational guidance and support.
So that technology and the traffickers
are not the only ones trying to engage
our young people with
the use of technology.
- So anything that a parent would have
limited knowledge to is a
point of concern for us.
Any type of social media app or technology
where that they're unfamiliar with.
So we encourage parents
to familiarize themselves
with any type of technology
or social media use that their children
are engaging in that they
are not familiar with.
So I know there's some technology
where videos can be sent and then deleted.
That's something that
a parent should be very
diligently monitoring to make sure that
their children are not
sharing information,
their personal private information.
- The first thing I always
say it starts at home.
Educating the parents means that we have
a greater chance of educating the youth.
Having a healthier home, communicating,
addressing generational
trauma within the home
and within our communities.
- I think the most important
thing is to listen to them.
It's not that difficult to figure out
who is part of the most
marginalized group.
As policy makers, as voters, as people
who support policy makers and legislators,
I think we really need to
push forward to identify
people and policies that are going to show
our young people that they have value
and that they have potential,
and that they are worth the investment
that we can make in them as a community.
My clients are all women
or all girls actually,
but it happens to boys too,
and I think that we're
setting up generations
of hurt people who might
hurt people down the line.
- Anybody who can vote in D.C. can do
is to really reach out
to their council members,
and explain to them that
they think that this
is a really important
issue and want to see D.C.
make some concrete and
longstanding investments into
providing services that both
prevent child sex trafficking
and also work to help heal
children from the trauma
of being commercial
and sexually exploited,
- Coming together as a society
and making clear that this
isn't socially acceptable,
that this is another form
of gender-based violence
is really critical to
combating this issue long term.
I think that's one of the issues
around sexual exploitation
that has been very frustrating
is that we know survivors experience
much of the same forms of trauma
that other survivors of
sexual violence experience.
But we fail to see sex trafficking,
prostitution, sexual exploitation
as forms of violence
against women and girls.
- We're really clear that it's men
who are perpetrating these crimes,
who's perpetrating this violence.
But more importantly than that,
it's going to be men who are
the solutions to resolving it
and preventing it in all
forms in our community.
And so for us we wanna always lift up
what we think men can do,
the best of who we are as men,
and that we're all in this together.
If we're really going to
role model for our boys
and our girls in our community
what healthy masculinity
is about, men have to be
involved in our daily lives,
and we have to see this as central
to our own identity as men.
So we just wanna invite all
of the men in our community
to live up and step up to
be in their best selves
and demonstrate that
we're not going to accept
child sex trafficking in Washington D.C.
- I think, one of the
prevention techniques
that we promote as a form
of violence prevention
is curbing the demand
for sex and paid sex.
Because I think especially now as we are
grappling with issues of gender equality,
of male privilege and male entitlement
this is something that we
really have to look at.
I know there's been a lot of work
on the part of our
colleagues to really promote
what's known as healthy masculinity
and really combat toxic
forms of masculinity.
And I think this fits right
into that understanding
that it's not enough not
to beat and rape women
but understanding the ways in which
you are complicit in the exploitation
and denigration of women
and girls by purchasing sex,
by engaging in sexual exploitation.
That this isn't harmless behavior.
And I think that by doing
education around that
and taking steps to curb the demand,
particularly the demand fueled by
who are known as high-frequency buyers.
Because I think that's another
important thing to realize.
The vast majority of men
aren't contributing to this,
but the handful that are,
are fueling the market,
and they are being very
successful at arguing
that this is normal, "Boys
will be boys behavior,"
and that it ought to
be socially acceptable.
- So for the community a few things.
Let's not make assumptions.
When we see people standing
outside on the street,
it actually amazes me how
many times they're like,
"Oh, I see them.
"I know they're on 14th and K."
"Did you see the guy next to them?"
And they're like, "Oh,
yeah, that's right."
And we don't pay attention
to the long line of men
that's the lined down the street.
So if you're paying attention to the girl,
I need you to look around her
and see who she keeps staring back at,
where she's looking,
follow her gaze, and see,
and then pay attention
to all the cars lined up
because she didn't stand outside
probably longer than two minutes.
Take their tag numbers.
We're calling them into the police, right?
- When you decriminalize purchasing sex
is you're basically signaling to society
that this is socially acceptable behavior.
It's not worthy of enforcement.
And so what happens is now you have
more men entering the market,
not just from D.C. or the DMV area,
but throughout the country
and even internationally.
It's similar to the sex
tourism that we see in Nevada.
It's similar to how people go to Amsterdam
to access the red light district.
And so what you would be doing is inviting
more men into the market here in D.C.
And the reality of the sex industry
is that you're never gonna have
as many willing participants
as an unchecked unfettered
demand requires.
And so traffickers will always
seek to meet that demand.
- We have a 24-hour operational
command information center.
The telephone number is 202-727-9099.
And any citizen can call in
and speak to one of our
officers or a supervisor
and provide key information
if they become aware
of any type of human trafficking,
any type of behavior that
they see in their neighborhood
that they think could be crime related,
specifically with children,
if they come across any technological
use where children are exploited,
such as something on the internet
or if a shared computer at a school
or a library for example.
If they become aware
of something on there,
they can call that number and we can have
the proper investigative
unit, in this case,
Internet Crimes Against Children Unit,
go and handle that investigation
and find out as much as possible
about the digital evidence
or the information that was provided.
There is also a way to text tips
to our command information center.
The text number is 50411.
So one helpful way to remember that
is to text the 5-0 the 4-1-1.
Get us the information,
and we will follow up on that tip
and make sure that the proper
investigative unit is handling the tip.
- As a regular person that's not connected
to any type of human trafficking education
and you see something that
you may be suspicious of
or that just doesn't look
right, say something.
Call the National Human
Trafficking Hotline and report it,
or reach out to somebody that you think
that may be able to do something about it,
whether it's a community leader
or another social service provider
that has the tools to
address the situation.
- I think D.C.'s response to trafficking
is way ahead of most
jurisdictions that I have
either worked with or heard about.
There's really a coordinated
approach in the district
with all of the different agencies
involved with these youths.
- Our motto is, "We are here to help,"
and that's something
that we want all parents,
all adults, teachers, mentors to know
and to feel when they encounter
us and when they leave.
We want them if there's behavior
that they see as alarming
and they notify us,
even if it turns out to be nothing,
we want them to know that,
"Hey, we are here to help."
- We think of it just like seatbelt law.
People would not get into a car now
and not buckle the seatbelt.
It has not always been that way.
And so for us we believe it's
the same kind of social norm
that we're trying to apply to people
who purchase children for sex.
We wanna make it so that
no one in our community
believes that it is
acceptable, appropriate,
or the right thing to do
to purchase a child for sex
the same way no one would
get in a car nowadays
and not buckle their seat.
- I think compassion goes a
long way and it's undervalued.
We don't recognize that
human-to-human element.
What a smile can do, what a hello can do,
that makes someone feel
like they're human again.
I'm not asking that
people in the community
invite individuals off the street
into their home for a shower,
but they can be aware of what
local organizations are nearby.
Where can they go get a shower?
Where can they go get something to eat?
What do they need?
And if nothing else,
ask them what they need.
Go make a phone call, 3-1-1.
Where can I send someone to get a shower?
- People have a rescue fantasy
with youth who've been trafficked
that you're gonna identify them.
You're gonna rescue them,
and their life is gonna be better.
I think it's really important
to meet youth where they are,
and to understand that they may not think
or recognize that they're
being trafficked right now.
And my job is just to make sure
that you're safe and healthy.
My job is to minimize any risks
to your health and safety right now.
And so I'm going to address all of that,
and also recognize your autonomy.
- I think most people wanna know,
"How long does it take
to get a good place?"
It took me 10 years to
get out of the life,
so I don't think that we
should expect a person
who's nine or 10 to be done,
completely out the life,
when they get services
at 15 for six months.
This is a long-term process
to change a whole entire mindset.
So rescuing a person isn't really a rescue
if you rescue a body and not the mind.
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