As the lights go off and Oklahomans head to bed safely in their homes, millions of children and women are being trafficked through Oklahoma highways.
Oklahoma has become the center of modern day slavery of women and children.
Modern Day Slavery
And the demand for young children and women continues to grow, Mark Elam, coalition director of Oklahomans Against Trafficking Humans, said.
O.A.T.H. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increase awareness of human trafficking, to identify victims and work with police department and professionals to service victims in Oklahoma.
“It does happen,” Elam said. “People see it on TV sProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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ws like CSI and read it on the news, and people still don’t believe it happens. It is out in the open in countries outside of the United States, but we are in the center of it all.”
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5 and Interstate 44 in Oklahoma is a center hub for human trafficking to the West and East Coast, Elam said. Victims of the sex trade have to cross highways to reach their next destination including San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Houston and throughout cities in the Midwest.
In 2009, a Tulsa man was charged with conspiracy to traffic women and children, operating out of Houston and in Oklahoma Cities, making it one of the largest child sex trafficking ring in the Southwest region. Many victims have reported they were recruited from Oklahoma City and traveled to truck stops and known prostitution areas in Denver, Colo.; Miami, Fla.; and Houston and Dallas, Texas. The same report by the FBI’s Oklahoma City Division conducted in 2004 identified a total of 48 pimps which 24 of them exploited minors. Sixteen children were recovered as a result of the case, many of them as young as 13, according to the FBI Congressional Testimony on June 2005.
“The average age is 12,” Elam said. “And the demand for younger children is increasing.”
Elam said that the media has sexualized children, and “the closest thing to the Barbie is young women.”
Annually, 2.2 million children are trafficked as reported by the United Nation in 2009, and in the U.S. alone, currently more than one million children are involved in the sex trade.
Elam said due to broken homes and poor inner city communities, young children and teenagers are easy prey for pimps and the sex trade.
“They run away from home,” he said. “They then go to survival mode, and the easiest thing they can trade for food or a ride is sex.”
It takes 48 hours until sex is propositioned to a runaway, and once they act on it for food, a place to sleep or a ride to the next stop, their freedom is lost, Elam said.
Once a pimp or predator takes their trust, they will just “rent” them for the highest bidder a night and continue to “rent” them as many times they can. Elam said for a child under 12, it can cost $1,000 for a night.
Human trafficking is a loss of freedom.
Migrant workers and illegal immigrants are also part of human trafficking. Human trafficking does not always involve sex; it sometimes means forcing someone to work to pay off a debt.
There are many cases of women, children and men who are illegally and legally in the country, but are forced into labor until they pay off the debt they owe to the person that helped them come to the country. Elam said you can see it everywhere; it is common in construction, nail salons, massage parlors, in restaurants and nanny positions.
“You expect everyone to be free,” Elam said. “But you don’t know what they had to go through to be here [U.S.] and the price they paid.”
Elam continues saying that threats are often made and physical abuse occurs to prevent them from escaping.
In 2007, trafficking laws have included U.S. citizens as a result of a large number of American women being trafficked throughout the United States.
Elam said with awareness and demanding stronger laws against the trafficking of women and children will help decrease the crisis. Currently in Oklahoma state law under Title 10, Chapter 71 Section 7115, it is only a misdemeanor for sexually exploiting a child under 18. Punishment can be a year of imprisonment in a county jail or a fine of $500 or up to $5,000.
Once the existence of trafficking is brought to the spotlight in the United States, it cannot be ignored.
Modern Day Slavery | uco360Source: uco360.com
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