Mai Lyn Ngo
mngo@smu.edu
Theresa Flores’s body was sold hundreds of times in two years to earn back the humiliating pictures taken of her rape in 1979.
Given Kachepa was promised an education. He was promised money to send back to his family in Zambia. He was promised a new life but he never saw a dime and his family never heard from him. Instead he spent two years touring the United States as part of the Zambian Acappella Boys Choir.
Forced to work and earn their captors lots of money, Flores and Kachepa are two of the many victims of human trafficking in the U.S. Both are speaking out about their experiences, hoping to educate people about the horrors of human trafficking.
“It is important for people to hear about it. I want it to become a household word like domestic violence,” said Flores. She currently lives in Columbus, Ohio and has ties with human rights advocates in Dallas.
Human trafficking is very real and close to home. Defined as modern day slavery, Mosaic Family Services has dealt with several cases in Dallas and Fort Worth. Human trafficking refers to anyone put to work, whether as a prostitute or as a low- or no-wage worker. Victims come in all forms, ranging from a sex slave for a house of prostitution to a worker in a laundry mat.
“This is not what people see in the movies,” Bill Bernstein, director of Mosaic Family Services said. “People get trapped in a situation that they find harder and harder to get out.”
Many victims are from other countries, usually unaware of their own rights as trafficked victims, unable to speak English and unable to get out of their predicament. They are enticed by lucrative opportunities in America, hoping to make money and provide for their families. When victims find themselves in desperate financial situations, they become primary targets for traffickers.
The number of trafficked victims across the country is an estimate at best. That’s because most victims will not speak out, said Berstein.
According to FreetheSlaves.net, an organization that attempts to put a number on the victims, estimations are that 14,500- 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. every year. Berstein was unable to give an estimate of trafficked victims in Dallas due to so few uncovered cases.
“People need to know that we aren’t even scratching the surface,” said Berstein.
Mosaic has worked to resettle over 200 victims that currently reside in the Dallas area.
“If it is hard for U.S. rape victims to come forward, imagine what it is like for a trafficked victim to come forward,” said Rick Halperin, SMU’s Director of the Human Rights Educational Program.
Flores was only 16 years old when she became a victim. Her story is a reminder that this does not just happen to the poor from other countries. Moving from city to city because of her father’s executive career, Flores was a high school student in Birmingham, Michigan just trying to fit in. Her run in with the school’s bad boy changed her life after he lured her into his house and drugged her soda. After being raped, threats were made to her family if she did not do as her captors said. In order to avoid having her family see the humiliating photographers of her rape, Flores would have to sneak out of her house several times a week to have her body auctioned off and passed around a room to different men. At the same time, she had to pretend everything was normal at home. She was only able to escape when her family needed to move again.
Flores remained quiet about her torture for many years. She pushed back the memories of her victimization, not knowing there was a name for what had happened to her. It was not until she attended a conference about trafficking did she then realize she was not alone. That realization was devastating and Flores finally understood what she was to her captors, a commodity.
Flores completed her education at Ball State University and received a masters in counseling education at the University of Dayton. She is now 43 and travels all over the U.S. speaking about her experiences. She recently went back to the city where it all took place for the first time to speak. Flores has also published her story in her book, “The Sacred Bath: An American Teen Story about Modern Day Slavery.”
All trafficking is not just sex trafficking and can be as small as one person or grow into large scale operations. The root cause for most cases is economic.
Kachepa, orphaned with five other siblings, found life difficult in Zambia. Living with his aunt and her own full house of children, often times there was not enough food to feed the entire family. After joining the church choir, he received an offer to come to America. The chance to earn money singing and receive a better education seemed to be the opportunity of a lifetime.
None of those promises were ever fulfilled. Kachepa worked with 12 other choir boys, traveling all over the U.S. and performing at churches for almost two years starting in 1994 with no pay before he was rescued by his now legal guardian Sandy Shephard, who currently lives in Colleyville.
Shepherd helped find homes for most of the boys in choir, but some were not as fortunate as Kachepa.
“Some of those boys are still ruined. They had a chance at an American dream only to be sent back to nothing with nothing,” said Shepherd.
Kachepa just received his bachelors in biology from the University of North Texas and will attend dental school at Baylor in the fall. He went back to Zambia for the first time since his enslavement to visit his remaining family.
Human trafficking is the second largest crime in the world and many people are still unaware of its activity here in the U.S.
“Most people have remained unaware of this topic, who these people are and where they are from,” said Halperin.
There are trafficking rings even in the Dallas Fort-Worth area. Berstein describes a case in Fort Worth where about 70 to 80 Honduran women worked in a nightclub. Men would buy tickets to dance with these women and sometimes even take them home. After the raid, 25 were considered trafficking victims and that’s where Mosaic stepped in to provide a variety of services.
“This [trafficking] happens in all forms. It happens in a normal neighborhood. Could have been anyone’s neighbor,” said Berstein. “The fact that we don’t see it does not mean it is not there.”
The problem is well hidden in the U.S. because people think it’s an international issue.
“I knew it was a problem, but I didn’t think it was as big a problem in the United States,” said Hanna Nelson, an SMU student.
Her advice for students who want to learn more about human trafficking is to create a “google alerts”.
“I get 30 hits a day,” said Nelson.
Human trafficking is an all-encompassing crime that ranges from rape, sexual servitude, violence against women, drugs, HIV/STD transmission and so much more. Victims are usually women and children.
“They took everything from me,” said Flores.
Both Flores and Kachepa held on to their faith in order to survive their servitude.
“It was the unity in the group that kept us going. Every night we’d pray,” said Kachepa.
“I hung on to my faith and hoped the next time would be the last time and I would get the pictures back,” said Flores.
Trafficked in The U.S. : SMU Daily Mustang
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