Human trafficking a worldwide, and Wisconsin, problem

By Cara L. Dempski

GLENWOOD CITY — Did you know that 87 percent of the victims of human trafficking in the United States are citizens of this country?

Or, that the average age of children recruited for human trafficking and sexual exploitation is between 12 and 14 years? Were you aware traffickers recruit right here in Wisconsin?

These were some of the facts presented by Jodi Emerson, the Director of Public Policy and Community Relations for Eau Claire-based non-profit Fierce Freedom, during a November 17 program about human trafficking held in Glenwood City, and sponsored by Holy Cross Lutheran Church and the women of Glenwood United Methodist Church.

The presentation was held at Holy Cross, and featured Emerson’s presentation on what many people now refer to as “modern slavery.”

The organization

Founder Jenny Almquist, who resides in Colfax, started the non-profit, Fierce Freedom, in 2008.

The organization focuses on education and advocacy for victims and survivors of human trafficking. The group works with law enforcement and politicians to create awareness of the issue, educate communities on recognizing signs of trafficking, and advocate for statutory clarification of the rights of survivors.

Emerson stated the organization was named Fierce Freedom after Almquist’s beauty business, Fierce Beauty, and because they represent something other than ‘namby pamby’ freedom.

“We are willing to stand up to someone,” Emerson said.

Emerson’s story

Emerson said at the beginning of her presentation that she did not get involved with Fierce Freedom until about four years ago. Her children were reaching the age where they would graduate from high school and leave home, and Emerson wanted to focus the energy she used for family and school events on something else.

She went to see a movie about human trafficking in India and was wiping her eyes after becoming emotional in the theater. As she stepped out the doorway, someone handed her a sheet of paper, and Emerson initially thought it was a tissue to wipe her eyes and nose. When she looked more closely, it was a flyer inviting her to attend a meeting about human trafficking.

Curiosity got the better of her, and Emerson attended the meeting and volunteered to be Fierce Freedom’s voice and advocate at the state Capitol. Four years later, she has been involved in tightening the statutory language for human trafficking in Wisconsin, has given numerous presentations, and has heard the stories of many survivors.

What made the issue of human trafficking personal for Emerson was speaking to a young woman from Chippewa Falls who survived trafficking.

The young woman was 15 years old when she met a man older than she and became his girlfriend. The girl’s father had never been a part of her life, and her mother abandoned her when she was approximately 12 years old. Emerson said the young woman fell through every safety net and crack available to help children in her situation.

When the young woman’s older boyfriend met her, he told her she was smart, and pretty, and worthy of love – all things she had not heard from adults in a very long time. She slowly came to love and trust the man.

Eventually, the young woman’s boyfriend told her things would be better if she left the small town for a larger community where she could start over. The girl agreed, dropped out of school at the age of 16, and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota to be with her boyfriend.

“These were small conversations they had over many, many months,” Emerson said of the girl’s story. “She loved him. He was her person, he was on her side.”

Emerson said the young woman told her things changed shortly after she moved to Minnesota. Her boyfriend began telling her it was expensive for her to live with him. He told her she was not worth anything because she had no high school diploma and would not be able to get a job.

Then he started talking about not having enough money to pay for the car or the apartment rent, but did not want her to move back to Chippewa Falls because he loved her.

The young woman told Emerson that her boyfriend told her one day that one of his friends would pay him $300 if the boyfriend let the friend have sex with the young woman. The girl agreed to this, and was pimped for several years in this manner before getting away from the trafficker.

It is no coincidence that $300 was the exact amount the young woman’s boyfriend needed to make his rent payment.

Still, Emerson said things did not really hit home until the young woman started talking about other people she knew who were victims of human trafficking that had grown up in the Chippewa Valley. One of the names the young woman mentioned to Emerson was a name the Fierce Freedom worker knew well.

Emerson walked to school with her children every day for four years behind a girl who lived one block over and one block down the street from them and was now being trafficked. That was what made it personal for Emerson.

“That was when it was real, it wasn’t just an abstract idea.” Emerson stated. “This was happening in my town, in my neighborhood, under my watch, and I felt like I needed to do something.”

The crime

Human trafficking is not just sexual exploitation or prostitution, but is considered slave labor. Wisconsin state statute defines it as “recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining, or attempting to recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide or obtain an individual for the purposes of labor or services or a criminal sex act.”

Emerson translates the statute into “regular English” by telling people human trafficking is forcing another people to do something they do not want to do in order to make money off them.

Statistics indicate roughly 90 percent of prostitution in the United States is pimp-controlled, but Emerson indicated that when pimps are arrested, so are the prostitutes, even if the prostitute is a child.

Those who purchase the services of prostitutes are often allowed to go free. This leaves the young victims of traffickers “twice condemned:” they are condemned to an often dangerous life they do not want, and are condemned by the justice system as criminals.

Human trafficking is the fastest growing crime on the planet. The World Health Organization estimates there are 26 million slaves worldwide each year, which is nearly double the 15 million people diagnosed with cancer each year.

One of Fierce Freedom’s goals is helping law enforcement, medical staff, and even hospitality workers recognize and address human trafficking if, or when, it is seen.

Emerson said she works with medical professionals to identify the crime because at least 80 percent of the time, during active trafficking, victims have contact with medical staff for birth control, illness, or injuries.

Fierce Freedom was also awarded a $2,000 grant to help train hotel staff in the Chippewa Valley about what trafficking looks like and how to handle it when they see it.

“I have yet to talk to a survivor of human trafficking that hasn’t intercepted with the hospitality industry,” Emerson explained.

Happening at home

Emerson recalls a presentation at Eau Claire North High school where she was approached by a young girl asking if it was okay that her boyfriend asked her to perform a sex act on his friend so her boyfriend could use the friend’s car for the weekend.

Her answer to the girl was an emphatic “no.” Emerson said later it saddened her that the girl did not realize what her boyfriend asked was not appropriate.

The deer gun-hunting season is one of Wisconsin’s most active times for trafficking because of the number of hunters away from their homes and families who take advantage of the services being offered.

A veterinarian from Baldwin was recently charged with trafficking after he traveled to China to bring home young girls to work in massage parlors in the Twin Cities. He allegedly told the parents of the girls that he would give them an education, food to eat, a good home, and a good job but instead ended up working in a massage parlor.

Another young woman, who is a former Miss Teen Wisconsin, was contacted via Facebook by a man who said he was in Greece and wanted her to come work with him as a model. The man spoke with the girl and her parents via Skype, showing them pictures of where the girl would live, what she would be doing, and what kind of car she would drive, and even showed the family a contract for the girl to sign.

He told the girl and her family he would fly her to Europe to work with him. The mother felt the story needed more investigation, and contacted her brother, an employee of the FBI.

The girl was on her way to the airport in Minneapolis to fly to Europe when her uncle reached her via cell phone to tell her if she got on the plane, she might never see her home or family again. The girl did not believe her uncle and told him everything appeared to be legitimate.

The uncle then asked the girl if her plane ticket was to Las Vegas. She answered that it was. He then informed her when she, and the other girls recruited, got on the private jet in Las Vegas, supposedly bound to Europe, they would be given food and drink, all of which would be laced with drugs.

The girl’s uncle told her that when she finally woke up from the drugs, the plane would likely be somewhere in eastern Europe and she would have no way to get home and would never see her family again.

The rise of the Internet has made recruiting much less noticeable than a few decades ago. Even though recruiters are no longer pulling people from street corners, there are still recruiters and reports of trafficking in all 72 counties in Wisconsin.

People do not want to believe it is happening here, Emerson said. When she first started working with Fierce Freedom, the organization wanted to open a rescue home for survivors, but were forced to take a few steps back when they realized people believed “that only happens in places like Thailand.”

Emerson said there has been a societal shift in talking about trafficking, but there is still work to be done. There are only eight rescue home beds in Wisconsin available to trafficking survivors, and those are all for girls. Lutheran Social Services plans to open another 10 beds to survivors in central Wisconsin, but even then there is only one bed for every four counties in the state.

“We need to demand justice, we need to demand services,” Emerson told the assembled group. “If you guys are bothered by the fact that there are more slaves in the world today than when Lincoln was president, please join the fight.”

Emerson ended her presentation by reminding the assembled listeners “if you see something, say something.” She also provided a toll-free phone number for the National Human Trafficking Hotline if someone is in a situation where he or she witnesses trafficking and is not able to reach local law enforcement.

The number for the hotline is 888-373-7888.