Sex trafficking: A local, state and national problem

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is the first in a three-part series on sex trafficking. Blanchard Valley Hospital nurse Michelle Stratton sees the tip of the iceberg: women injured by sexual assault or drugs; a broken nose or bone fracture around the eye. These patients, typically in their 20s or 30s, don't talk about how it happened. They don't identify themselves as sex trafficking victims. But after Stratton, forensic nurse coordinator for the hospital, asks the right questions, the truth starts to emerge. Most were in their early to mid-teens when first prostituted by an adult, and they have been trapped in the trafficking life ever since, according to Shared Hope International. Children become entrapped in sex trafficking in many different ways. But at greater risk are those in foster care, runaways and those in the LGBTQ community, said Christine Raino, senior director of public policy for Shared Hope International, in Washington, D.C. Kids bullied at school also are at greater risk, said Sidney E. McCoy, policy counsel for Shared Hope International. In some cases, human trafficking victims were used by an addicted family member to get money for drugs. Victims also include the homeless, drug addicted, mothers struggling to afford shelter and food for their child, immigrants, the disabled and others, said Lara Wilken, co-chair of the Human Trafficking Public Awareness Committee, part of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost's Human Trafficking Initiative. A child's innocence Stratton talked of a survivor she knows who was first trafficked as an adolescent. "She never knew that she was trafficked. ... These were her family members and this is what she was supposed to do," said Stratton, who also is chair of the Hancock County Chapter of Northwest Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition, which seeks to end human trafficking. "They were selling her for sex ... to all kinds of people. And in her situation she was traveling up and down the interstate and being sold for sex." "A child, they don't know it's wrong, because they have no perception on that. 'My mom is asking me to do it,'" said Ryan Fausnaugh, executive director of The Center for Safe & Healthy Children, in Findlay. "I'd say anywhere that there's any sort of drug issue, there's a potential for that," Fausnaugh said. "We've had a lot of substance abuse concerns here as a community." Oftentimes, a teenage girl gets manipulated and trapped into the trafficking life by an older boyfriend, said state Sen. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo, who has been fighting trafficking and helping victims for 17 years. 'Oldest oppression' Using youth as commodities for sex or labor trade — human trafficking — is a problem not only in Findlay-Hancock County, but across Ohio, the United States and the world. Local statistics are not available. But human trafficking is big business. "You're selling, exchanging a monetary purchase, organized by a third party, to do something to the victim," Fedor said. "It's a three-party act. There's a seller, there's a buyer and then there's the merchandise. It's a business. And (the traffickers) see it as a business. They don't see it as humans. It's a business. They're selling it." Human trafficking is underreported and largely misunderstood. "'Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world' is how a lot of people thought about this and blamed the victim," Fedor said. "But it's the oldest oppression in the world and always has been because it really focuses on people who are most vulnerable to be entrapped, enticed, coerced — the whole definition of human trafficking." "No one grows up and says, 'I'm going to be a prostitute. That's my career path,'" said Maile Doyle, member and past president of Zonta Club of Findlay. "Nobody." "They're used like an old pair of tennis shoes. They're drug overdosed. They're drugged to begin with to control them," Fedor said. Traffickers "just use their body as a host for buyers." "They are victims and we have to see them as victims of being sold to be raped," Fedor said. Victims typically become entrapped in their early teens. "Who's not vulnerable at 13?" Fedor said. "Tell me." Once a victim is entrapped, their life expectancy is only another seven years, Fedor said. Victims die from any number of things. "They have huge PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), heart problems, blood pressure, schizophrenia, all of that," she said. To be trapped in a life of trafficking is to suffer trauma multiple times a day every day of your life, Wilken said. Many ways There are many ways girls — and boys — get entrapped in trafficking. Sometimes it occurs through sextortion: the victim is raped and then the offender threatens to tell the victim's family and friends it was consensual. More often the victim is brought into the life through a more subtle grooming. What makes many victims already vulnerable to traffickers is that they already are starved for love, belonging, safety and security. Then along comes someone who fills that void. A relationship develops. They may become a boyfriend or girlfriend, or even spouses. But it's a subtle manipulation. At some point, the trafficker exploits that relationship and the victim's vulnerability and sense of obligation, even love. Youths become entrapped in other ways. "A lot of times there are girls that are called 'the bottoms' and they identify and groom girls for the pimp. They befriend them," Fedor said. "They take them places. It's great, and then one day, 'You have to do this.' "It is absolutely a criminal enterprise that can happen so many different ways." Kids can fall prey to people online, Fausnaugh said. A child who is lonely, or perhaps has a troubled home life, or even a mere recent quarrel with his or her parents, can be vulnerable. A girl could meet an older boyfriend online who lies to her, "supports" her or even lavishes her with gifts. "That's always an issue, is just kids getting bamboozled by somebody into doing that," Fausnaugh said. Even a kid with a good home life can be vulnerable. "You could be doing everything right as a parent. But there's this new app that you know nothing about," Fausnaugh said. "Before the internet and before the cellphones, kids would sneak out and meet up with people. They don't even need to sneak out any more to talk to people. They can do it sitting in their rooms." Parents can try to monitor who their kids are talking to online. But kids can hide or block conversations on their phones with apps, he said. Some apps can make messages to disappear seconds after they are sent, making it more difficult for parents to monitor. Wilin: 419-427-8413 Coming Monday: Traffickers prey on most vulnerable