Woman Knocks On Trucker's Door Looking For 'Company.' Then He Looks At Her Eyes And Sees It...:
Showing posts with label Truck stop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Truck stop. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Love’s partners with Truckers Against Trafficking | Fleet Management content from Fleet Owner
Source: Fleet Owners
Love’s Travel Stops has announced a partnership with Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) that includes a $10,000 donate to the nonprofit. TAT works to raise awareness among truck drivers and travel stop employees to fight human trafficking.
Continue
http://fleetowner.com/fleet-management/love-s-partners-truckers-against-trafficking
Love’s Travel Stops has announced a partnership with Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) that includes a $10,000 donate to the nonprofit. TAT works to raise awareness among truck drivers and travel stop employees to fight human trafficking.
Continue
http://fleetowner.com/fleet-management/love-s-partners-truckers-against-trafficking
Monday, September 2, 2013
Sex Trafficking Up Close: Can a Mama Bear Save the Truck-Stop Hooker? - ICTMN.com
Source: ICTMN.com
"I was on the high road to making my escape when I saw her standing next to the road just outside the truck stop. Way too thin and dirty from sleeping rough, her long red hair incongruously combed into long carefully flowing waves over her shoulders. She looked to be about 16. I watched her as I filled up the tank of my rental car. I was headed for the airport, headed far away from talk of predator economics, sex trafficking and polluting pipelines. All I wanted was a bit of escape, but there she was. I was disgusted and cussed under my breath because I knew I’d have to stop. My inner Ojibwe mama bear had been awakened and there was no turning back."
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/01/sex-trafficking-close-can-mama-bear-save-truck-stop-hooker-151119
September 01, 2013
"I was on the high road to making my escape when I saw her standing next to the road just outside the truck stop. Way too thin and dirty from sleeping rough, her long red hair incongruously combed into long carefully flowing waves over her shoulders. She looked to be about 16. I watched her as I filled up the tank of my rental car. I was headed for the airport, headed far away from talk of predator economics, sex trafficking and polluting pipelines. All I wanted was a bit of escape, but there she was. I was disgusted and cussed under my breath because I knew I’d have to stop. My inner Ojibwe mama bear had been awakened and there was no turning back."
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/01/sex-trafficking-close-can-mama-bear-save-truck-stop-hooker-151119
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Truckers Against Trafficking: AG enlists road warriors to battle illegal sex trade
Truckers Against Trafficking: AG enlists road warriors to battle illegal sex trade
Dylan Woolf Harris/Elko Daily Free Press
Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, left, listens as Paul Enos,
chief executive officer of the Nevada Trucking Association explains the
Truckers Against Trafficking campaign Wednesday at Western States
Propane for a forum against human trafficking.
7 hours ago •
Dylan Woolf Harris/Elko Daily Free Press
Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, left, listens as Paul Enos,
chief executive officer of the Nevada Trucking Association explains the
Truckers Against Trafficking campaign Wednesday at Western States
Propane for a forum against human trafficking.
7 hours ago •
ELKO — Joining police and prosecutors, a new group of Nevadans is stepping up the fight against sex trafficking: truckers.
The Nevada Trucking Association is asking its members to be the “eyes and ears of the road” in hopes of saving someone from captivity.
Truck drivers travel main freeways that connect commerce from city to city. Those same roads are traveled by criminals in illegal trades: trafficking drugs, weapons or humans held against their will.
Truck drivers are also propositioned directly; truck stops are known to be frequented by prostitutes, said Paul Enos, Nevada Trucking Association chief executive officer.
“A lot of our drivers thought that those people who were knocking on the door to their cabs were in a voluntary situation,” Enos said. “What came to our attention is that a lot of those people who are working the truck stops or working big events, they’re being forced into sex trafficking.
“Because our drivers are in their cabs, on the highways, out in the truck stops, they have the ability to see a lot of these things, so we felt it was incumbent on us to educate our members so they could educate their drivers on the signs of what to look for if they think somebody is being held against their will and being sex trafficked,” he said.
The Nevada Trucking Association is asking members to show a video during safety training or orientation that outlines the problem of sex trafficking and how they can help stop it.
Enos said the campaign might also give a truck driver pause before he decides to have sex with a prostitute.
In a forum hosted by local business Western States Propane, General Attorney Catherine Cortez Masto commended the association for its “Truckers Against Trafficking” campaign.
Masto, who stopped in Elko to participate in the forum and later spoke at the Soroptimist lunch on the topic of sex trafficking, sponsored a bill that passed the 2013 legislative session aimed at combating human trafficking.
The bill establishes sex trafficking as a criminal offense, makes victims eligible for assistance and allows victims to sue their traffickers.
Pandering — commonly referred to as pimping — is already illegal, as is prostitution outside of licensed brothels. Sex trafficking is more organized, Masto said, with force as an element of the crime.
“Our first step is the training that’s necessary,” she said. Her office is organizing a law enforcement and prosecution training.
Deputy District Attorney Tyler Ingram said young victims are unlike victims or witnesses in other cases. He said expert training would be beneficial in the event that a sex trafficking case makes it to a jury trial.
Training will also help law officers identify victims of a crime often “hidden in plain sight,” according to the attorney general’s office.
Signs that someone is a victim of sex trafficking include seemingly scripted or rehearsed responses in social interaction, lack of official identification, living at place of employment, or being forced to be quiet or kept separate from other people.
“I didn’t know that we had a problem with those issues,” Julie Kraus said after the forum. “I think it’s great that the attorney general is taking the time to educate the public so we can help stop it.”
Kraus owns Western States Propane with her husband Mike.
Police Chief Don Zumwalt said although the City of Elko doesn’t have a truck stop where prostitutes approach truckers, that doesn’t mean illegal prostitution isn’t an issue.
“We’ve talked a lot about human trafficking in our legal prostitution area,” he said.
In the past, he said, city councilmen expressed concern after a brothel worker came before the council. Because she didn’t speak English, the prostitute could not communicate her age or whether she was willfully employed as a prostitute.
A national human trafficking resource center hotline can be called toll-free to report suspected trafficking at 1-888-373-7888.
More information can be found on the attorney general’s website at ag.nv.gov.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
With A Phone Call, Truckers Can Fight Sex Trafficking | NCPR News from NPR
With A Phone Call, Truckers Can Fight Sex Trafficking | NCPR News from NPR
SOURCE: NPR
Oct 19, 2012 (Morning Edition) — The scores of truckers on America's roads see and hear a lot, so they're in a position to notice when something at a rest stop doesn't look right. That's why people who fight sex trafficking of underage kids are enlisting drivers to help.
"I pulled into a truck stop about midnight," Willis Wolfswinkel remembered. "Getting my log book done. Had two girls knock on my door. And I waved them on 'cause I knew what they were looking for."Eight years ago, a truck driver parked at a travel center near Detroit made a phone call that changed a life.
Sarah Jakiel started the hotline about five years ago. She has watched it go from 200 calls each month to close to 2,000.
Jakiel said some of the best calls come from truckers because they're at the center of things, in an "incredibly unique position to recognize and report sex trafficking of children in this country. They're seeing it at truck stops, travel plazas."
At a travel center near Baltimore in Jessup, Md., truckers chat as they fuel up.
David Hathcox, who has been driving for five years, just dropped off a load of sugar. He said he has seen trafficking in New Mexico, California and Texas.
"They come knock on the door of the trucks, or else they'll be hanging out up front or something like that," he said. "But as a rule I try to stay out of truck stops like that. I have my fiancee with me 'cause when you see that there's a lot of violence and stuff like that."
The travel center is huge. It has a restaurant, a shower and a laundromat, where William Heberling is doing laundry.
A former Army Ranger, Heberling said this place is patrolled, nice and quiet. But he has also seen some bad things on the road. In Kentucky, Heberling saw two girls who looked about 15 years old. He called the police.
"You have to watch out for stuff like that," he said. "And usually if you see somebody that's pretty young, it's something fishy."
A Phone Call That Can Change Lives
Every new employee at this TravelCenters of America stop in Maryland goes through training about human trafficking. Tom Liutkus, the director of nationwide marketing for the company, said it began doing a rollout last year.
"Humans are trafficked via virtually every form of transportation," Liutkus said. "And in some countries it may be boats or ships. In other countries it may be rail. In this country, it's more than likely to be by car."
That's a message employees hear, mostly by watching part of a 30-minute video produced by the group Truckers Against Trafficking.
A woman in the video, Sherry, says, "Thank God what saved me was that truck driver that called in and said, 'Hey, this is whoever at the TA truck stop, and we have some girls out here that look pretty young.' "
She's the girl who knocked on Willis Wolfswinkel's door that night eight years ago near Detroit. She and her cousin had been snatched by a pimp as they walked to Wendy's to get a Frosty treat. They were missing for months, until the police intervened after Wolfswinkel's phone calls.
Wolfswinkel said Sherry's mother called to thank him.
"Oh, yeah. That was very touching," Wolfswinkel said. "I got kids, and I can't even imagine what a parent would be or feel like if their kid disappeared like this."
If truck drivers say something when they see something strange, he said, maybe more parents won't have to go through that pain.
SOURCE: NPR
Errol Giwa, en route to Washington, D.C., fuels up and wipes down his windshield at the truck stop in Jessup, Md. He says in his 34 years as a truck driver, he has heard of many instances of human trafficking at truck stops but hasn't seen it with his own eyes. "If you are looking for that sort of thing, it's not hard to find on the road," Giwa says. (NPR)
Oct 19, 2012 (Morning Edition) — The scores of truckers on America's roads see and hear a lot, so they're in a position to notice when something at a rest stop doesn't look right. That's why people who fight sex trafficking of underage kids are enlisting drivers to help.
Something about those girls bothered Wolfswinkel. They looked young, so he called 911.
When the girls went inside another truck in the same lot, he called again. Wolfswinkel kept watching as the police arrived.
"Evidently this one phone call started a major investigation, because it turned out there were two girls that were, I don't know, 14 or 15, something like that, that were kidnapped out of Toledo, and they obviously, you know, in the end were rescued," said Wolfswinkel, who's now retired and living in a small town in Minnesota.
If You See Something, Say Something
The scores of truckers carrying freight across America see and hear a lot on the road, so they're in a position to notice when something at a rest stop doesn't look right. That's why people who fight sex trafficking of underage kids are enlisting drivers to help.
Kendis Paris, who runs the nonprofit group Truckers Against Trafficking, holds Wolfswinkel up as an example of someone who is "so representative of how many truckers out there who are really wanting to do the right thing, ready to go and just needing to know who to talk to about this."
Paris said her anti-trafficking group is reaching out to drivers to tell them about red flags — noticing girls who look too young, for example. Then, she says, there's "pimp control."
"It's that SUV that pulls onto the lot, and three or four girls all get out at the same time and they're scantily clothed, and they begin to go from truck to truck to truck," Paris said.
Paris hands out cards everywhere she goes. On them is a phone number for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, a 24-hour hotline. The hotline is operated by the Polaris Project, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.
At the organization's headquarters, a stately red-brick row house, nine young operators who wear headphones are waiting for calls to come in from all over the country.
Sarah Jakiel started the hotline about five years ago. She has watched it go from 200 calls each month to close to 2,000.
Jakiel said some of the best calls come from truckers because they're at the center of things, in an "incredibly unique position to recognize and report sex trafficking of children in this country. They're seeing it at truck stops, travel plazas."
At a travel center near Baltimore in Jessup, Md., truckers chat as they fuel up.
David Hathcox, who has been driving for five years, just dropped off a load of sugar. He said he has seen trafficking in New Mexico, California and Texas.
"They come knock on the door of the trucks, or else they'll be hanging out up front or something like that," he said. "But as a rule I try to stay out of truck stops like that. I have my fiancee with me 'cause when you see that there's a lot of violence and stuff like that."
The travel center is huge. It has a restaurant, a shower and a laundromat, where William Heberling is doing laundry.
A former Army Ranger, Heberling said this place is patrolled, nice and quiet. But he has also seen some bad things on the road. In Kentucky, Heberling saw two girls who looked about 15 years old. He called the police.
"You have to watch out for stuff like that," he said. "And usually if you see somebody that's pretty young, it's something fishy."
A Phone Call That Can Change Lives
Every new employee at this TravelCenters of America stop in Maryland goes through training about human trafficking. Tom Liutkus, the director of nationwide marketing for the company, said it began doing a rollout last year.
"Humans are trafficked via virtually every form of transportation," Liutkus said. "And in some countries it may be boats or ships. In other countries it may be rail. In this country, it's more than likely to be by car."
That's a message employees hear, mostly by watching part of a 30-minute video produced by the group Truckers Against Trafficking.
A woman in the video, Sherry, says, "Thank God what saved me was that truck driver that called in and said, 'Hey, this is whoever at the TA truck stop, and we have some girls out here that look pretty young.' "
She's the girl who knocked on Willis Wolfswinkel's door that night eight years ago near Detroit. She and her cousin had been snatched by a pimp as they walked to Wendy's to get a Frosty treat. They were missing for months, until the police intervened after Wolfswinkel's phone calls.
Wolfswinkel said Sherry's mother called to thank him.
"Oh, yeah. That was very touching," Wolfswinkel said. "I got kids, and I can't even imagine what a parent would be or feel like if their kid disappeared like this."
If truck drivers say something when they see something strange, he said, maybe more parents won't have to go through that pain.
Trafficking By The Numbers
The U.S. has outlawed human trafficking since the Civil War. Prostitution is outlawed in every state. But as President Obama pointed out in a speech in September, "For all the progress that we've made, the bitter truth is that trafficking also goes on right here, in the United States." A recent State Department report notes progress in recent years against human trafficking in the U.S. — which refers to a number of crimes including forced labor, debt bondage, involuntary servitude and coerced sex work — but says funding for anti-trafficking efforts declined last year and existing laws remain under-utilized. Here are a few numbers: 151: Number of federal trafficking convictions (2011) 11.8: Average prison sentence for federal trafficking crimes (2011) 1: Number of states without any specific anti-trafficking law (Wyoming) 112: Number of males younger than 18 arrested for prostitution or commercialized vice (2010) 542: Number of females younger than 18 arrested for prostitution or commercialized vice (2010) 29: Number of active federal anti-trafficking task forces (2011) 27,000: Number of people federal agencies trained to recognize and fight trafficking in 2011 -- Christopher Connelly Source: Trafficking in Persons Report 2012
Source: NPR
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Witnessing advocacy: transforming ideas into laws
Witnessing advocacy: transforming ideas into laws:
Truck stops and rest areas have become hotspots for human trafficking. Traffickers use freeways to transport victims from place to place. Stops along those routes often play host to sex trafficking, offering a steady stream of anonymous customers. From December of 2007 through August of 2011, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline received 141 hotline calls nationwide regarding truck stops. 95% of these cases involved sex trafficking, 61% of the victims being minors. In response, Polaris Project, in collaboration with Maryland Delegates Tom Hucker and Dana Stein, introduced HB 607 and HB 860. HB 607 the “Hotline Posting Bill,” would require owners of privately owned truck stops and bus stations as well as the 10 state- operated highway rest areas to post signs with the NHTRC hotline number in their restrooms. This number helps to protect minors from being exploited by people like Shelby Lewis, a Maryland pimp recently sentenced to twenty years in prison, and help them learn how to access to the services they need. HB 860 clarifies the definition of sexual abuse to explicitly state that allowing or encouraging a child to engage in prostitution or human trafficking is considered a form of sexual abuse.
In order to bring attention to this horrible crime and to get these crucial bills passed, we worked with partner organizations to engage our grassroots network and lobby state legislators. We participated in Shared Hope’s Maryland Lobby Day on February 15, 2012; we submitted written testimony in support of the bills; and eventually testified before the Maryland House Judiciary Committee and the House Economic Matters Committee. Getting the chance to stand up for something that we believe in was exhilarating and empowering.
Both of these bills ultimately passed through State Congress. A few weeks ago, we returned to Annapolis to attend the Governor’s bill signing ceremony for HB 860; and the signing ceremony for HB 607 was held on May 22. It is amazing to think that what was just an idea a few short months ago is now an actual state law which will helps protect victims of trafficking. For us, witnessing how hard work and dedicated advocates can implement lasting change and extend a lifeline to victims was a tremendously rewarding experience.
Truck stops and rest areas have become hotspots for human trafficking. Traffickers use freeways to transport victims from place to place. Stops along those routes often play host to sex trafficking, offering a steady stream of anonymous customers. From December of 2007 through August of 2011, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline received 141 hotline calls nationwide regarding truck stops. 95% of these cases involved sex trafficking, 61% of the victims being minors. In response, Polaris Project, in collaboration with Maryland Delegates Tom Hucker and Dana Stein, introduced HB 607 and HB 860. HB 607 the “Hotline Posting Bill,” would require owners of privately owned truck stops and bus stations as well as the 10 state- operated highway rest areas to post signs with the NHTRC hotline number in their restrooms. This number helps to protect minors from being exploited by people like Shelby Lewis, a Maryland pimp recently sentenced to twenty years in prison, and help them learn how to access to the services they need. HB 860 clarifies the definition of sexual abuse to explicitly state that allowing or encouraging a child to engage in prostitution or human trafficking is considered a form of sexual abuse.
In order to bring attention to this horrible crime and to get these crucial bills passed, we worked with partner organizations to engage our grassroots network and lobby state legislators. We participated in Shared Hope’s Maryland Lobby Day on February 15, 2012; we submitted written testimony in support of the bills; and eventually testified before the Maryland House Judiciary Committee and the House Economic Matters Committee. Getting the chance to stand up for something that we believe in was exhilarating and empowering.
Both of these bills ultimately passed through State Congress. A few weeks ago, we returned to Annapolis to attend the Governor’s bill signing ceremony for HB 860; and the signing ceremony for HB 607 was held on May 22. It is amazing to think that what was just an idea a few short months ago is now an actual state law which will helps protect victims of trafficking. For us, witnessing how hard work and dedicated advocates can implement lasting change and extend a lifeline to victims was a tremendously rewarding experience.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Howard County a 'Perfect Storm’ for Sex Slave Trafficking - Elkridge, MD Patch
Howard County a 'Perfect Storm’ for Sex Slave Trafficking - Elkridge, MD Patch
Source: Elkridge, MD Patch
Email the author
June 5, 2012
Source: Elkridge, MD Patch
Workshop Tuesday to help combat modern-day slavery.
[TRAFFICKING MONITOR: Check out this video:
"In this video Truckers Against Trafficking raise awareness of sex-slave human trafficking happening at truck stops all over USA - what they are doing about it - and how you can help."]
"They can never be in a place long enough to get help," said Jeanne Allert, chair of the Maryland Rescue and Restore Coalition. Traffickers keep subjects moving and disoriented, at places like the Jessup truck stop.
Truckers Against Trafficking, an organization within the trucking industry, created this video. At the 3:50 mark, one trucker mentions the Jessup truck stop, an alleged location for such activity.
A man approached a group of girls at the Mall in Columbia and told one he’d love to be her modeling agent. He handed her his business card and said he would sign her that day but needed to take her picture, and he’d left his camera in the car.
They walked to his car, and he pushed her inside.
As he drove away, the girl opened the door and rolled out, a maneuver she’d learned from Denene Yates, founder of Safe House of Hope in Baltimore, which provides support services for victims of human trafficking.
Yates speaks at schools around the area, and about a month ago she spoke at the Bain Center in Columbia to more than 100 people about a trade she said was right under their noses.
The girl didn’t want to report the incident, said Yates, but there are still substantial reports of trafficking nonetheless.
“The Department of Justice recognizes [that up to] 293,000 of our own teens” are involved in human trafficking, said Yates.
Human trafficking is a business built around forced labor, defined as a "commercial sex act induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age,” according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Currently, human trafficking is a misdemeanor.
“Abduction of a minor for the purposes of prostitution—and that’s a minor under 16—is a misdemeanor which is a $500 fine and up to a year in jail,” said Yates.
The practice is occurring across the country, and a local group called Howard County Advocacy Group Against Human Trafficking and Slavery (HoCoAGAST) is working to raise awareness locally.
“We believe that Maryland is the perfect storm of factors for human trafficking,” said Jeanne Allert, chair of the Maryland Rescue and Restore Coalition, during a workshop HoCoAGAST sponsored this spring. Allert will also speak at a meeting of HoCoAGAST on Tuesday, June 5, about ways citizens can help.
"We have a significant problem in this area," said Allert, who lives in Howard County. "We are not immune. We have issues with street prostitution and massage parlors."
She added that businesses may appear as a nail salon or cafe but "the true business going on behind those suspiciously shaded windows seems a little suspect."
She said she has been involved in research into sex trafficking at the state level.
"The number-one destination in the United States for child sex tourism is Atlanta," said Allert. "What we learned was they're in a large metropolitan area with major stadiums, major entertainment venues; they have a population in the suburbs that commutes into urban centers; they have affluence and poverty juxtaposed; they have a large drug trade....Is it starting to sound at all familiar to anyone?
Continued Allert: "With Baltimore being a major seaport and our location next to Washington, D.C., but also having slots going in Anne Arundel County, we have upped the ante."
On Tuesday, June 5, Howard County Advocacy Group Against Human Trafficking and Slavery will host a meeting for those interested in volunteering to combat human trafficking. The meeting will be at Owen Brown Interfaith Center (7246 Cradlerock Way) in Columbia from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Ontario truckers asked to watch for human trafficking - Ottawa - CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/02/24/ottawa-truck-drivers-human-trafficking.html
A new campaign targeting human trafficking is hitting Ontario highways, with the hopes that truckers and truck stop workers can help report suspicious activity.
The TruckSTOP campaign is an initiative from the Ottawa volunteer group Persons Against the Crime of Trafficking in humans, or PACT-Ottawa.
The program, funded in part by Public Safety Canada, is reaching out to transport truck drivers and people working at roadside stops to help them learn what to look for in cases of human trafficking and to report these instances.
"We think they can be a tremendous help in raising the observability and detection of the crime," said Duncan Baird, the director of the campaign. "There's first of all so many of them. And they're so well positioned to observe it. We really want to recruit them to the fight against human trafficking."
The pilot program, slated to launch in April, will include providing point-of-sale displays at stops from Windsor to Ottawa with tips for truckers on spotting human trafficking.
Truck-stop owner haunted by incident
Gail Cameron, the owner of Antrim Truck Stop in Arnprior, Ont., said she believes human trafficking is happening in the area and said she is haunted by an incident where she failed to act.
"I had an experience about 15 years ago where I had two young girls come into the truck stop," said Cameron.
"They were with a man and there was something wrong. And I never did anything about it. They looked really afraid. There was something wrong. It just wasn't right."
Truck driver Ron Thompson has been driving the highways for 30 years. He said he already calls in drunk drivers and traffic accidents.
Truckers welcome more information
"We're the eyes and the ears. We're out there too, along with the police officers. There's a lot more of us," he said.
"Law enforcement is trying to do the best they can. So if we can help...our industry can help. I'm all for it."
Joe Degier, a truck driver for 34 years, said the information would be welcome.
"I wouldn't know what to look for if I was driving down the road," said Degier.
The TruckSTOP information says truckers should watch for people who look like they are being controlled or watched, who are fearing for their safety, tired, hungry or showing signs of physical or emotional abuse and not in possession of identification or travel documents.
Christina Harrison-Baird, the chair of PACT-Ottawa and an International Human Rights Lawyer, said the idea is modelled after an American campaign, where one tip from a trucker helped break up a multi-state trafficking ring based in Ohio.
"There is both sexual exploitation and labour trafficking going on," said Harrison-Baird.
Related articles
Friday, February 17, 2012
The new Christian abolition movement – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/05/the-new-christian-abolition-movement/
Source: CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs
By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
Greensboro, North Carolina (CNN) —The truck-stop hooker is no Julia Roberts, the trucker in the cab with her no Richard Gere, and this truck stop off the highway could not be any farther from Beverly Hills, the staging ground for “Pretty Woman.”
The woman sports baggy shorts, a white T-shirt and frizzy hair. Her fat middle-aged pimp sits in a beat up red Honda, watching as his “lot lizard” moves from truck to truck, in broad daylight. If this pimp has a cane it is for substance, not style.
She moves through the parking lot, occasionally opening a cab’s passenger-side door and climbing in.
The trucker and hooker disappear in the back for 10 minutes.
Danielle Mitchell watches from the other end of the parking lot and shakes her head.
“We know from talking to other victims and other agencies that girls are taken to truck stops and they’re actually traded,” she says, sitting in her car, a shiny silver sport utility vehicle, keeping a healthy 50-yard distance from the pimp.
CNN's Belief Blog – all the faith angles to the day's top stories
Mitchell is North Carolina human trafficking manager for World Relief. World Relief is a Christian nonprofit attached to the National Association of Evangelicals and is best known for its efforts to combat global hunger and respond to disasters around the world.
Mitchell is trying to tackle a disaster in her home state. And she is not alone.
Motivated in large part by their religious traditions of protecting the vulnerable and serving “the least of these,” as Jesus instructed his followers to do in the Gospel of Matthew, World Relief and other Christian agencies like the Salvation Army are stepping up efforts and working with law enforcement to stem the flow of human trafficking, which includes sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
“Jesus didn’t just go around telling people about himself. He also healed the blind and healed the brokenhearted, he freed captives, and I think that it would be ridiculous to walk up to someone who is hurting and tell them, ‘Let me tell you about the Gospel,’ and then walk away while they’re still hurting,” Mitchell says.
In North Carolina, the result of those efforts can be seen in the number of victims of human trafficking being referred to World Relief for services, up 700% in 2011, Mitchell says.
“It’s not that North Carolina is all of a sudden trafficking more people,” Mitchell says. “It’s that we know what to look for and we’re actually identifying and rescuing them.”
Truck stops and sweet potatoes
North Carolina’s rich soil makes it an agricultural hub. It produces more sweet potatoes than anywhere else in the country. The state acts as a crossroads for three major interstate highways. The mix of accessibility and low-paying farm jobs make a good working environment for traffickers, Mitchell says.
This truck stop is the type you think twice about. It’s grimy and run down.
How badly do I really have to use the bathroom? I bet I could hold out for another 12 miles. That kind of place.
Mitchell walks in and politely asks the women behind the register if they have tape.
“Over there, honey,” the cashier says, pointing to a dimly lit portion of the store.
After paying for a roll of industrial packing tape, she tucks it in her purse and heads for the restroom.
In a stall on the far end, she shuts the door behind her and pulls out the tape and a poster with words in English and Spanish.
“Need help?” the poster asks. “Are you being forced to do something you don’t want to do?” There’s a toll free number, 888-373-7888, for the National Human Trafficking Hotline, run by the nonprofit Polaris Project.
More on the fight against modern-day slavery at the CNN Freedom Project
“A lot of times when girls are being trafficked they’re being controlled,” Mitchell says. “They’re often not allowed to get very far from their trafficker. And we’ve found one of the very few times girls are alone is when they’re in the bathroom.”
She used to ask if she could hang posters in truck stop restrooms. Now she just hangs them.
That toll free hot line number is plastered on combs, lip balms and nail files that Mitchell and other anti-trafficking workers can slip discreetly to men and women they suspect might be victims. Slipping a potential client an anti-trafficking business card could be dangerous, even deadly, they say.
A comb, nail file and lip balm feature the number for the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
But it’s not the only way Mitchell gets in touch with victims. Law enforcement is reaching out to her more and more.
When North Carolina law enforcement breaks up a trafficking ring, they call her.
She helps the victims get safe places to live, food and job training, along with just being a conversation partner.
Since 2010, North Carolina has had a statewide coalition to fight human trafficking. Law enforcement officers are now trained in what to look for. The program includes rapid response teams made up of representatives from law enforcement, service providers, hospitals and charities. When a potential victim comes into a hospital or is discovered through an arrest, the team springs into action.
“Victims are not going to self-identify,” says Mitchell, who has since left World Relief and is considering going back to school after a lack of funding threatened to cut her hours to part time. “ They’re not going to say ‘I’m a victim of human trafficking.’ So the burden is really on the service providers and law enforcement and the community."
In North Carolina, the partnerships between those groups, she says, “have helped to rescue victims.”
Church and state in an unlikely coalition
Christian groups working to combat trafficking are providing law enforcement with some much-needed relief.
“Because of the limitations of our work, we like to partner with organizations that can provide services,” says Kory Williford, a victim specialist with the FBI based in North Carolina.
“Human trafficking isn’t the only victim population we work with, so to have organizations who can provide care to our victims on a longer term basis than we are able to is huge,” she says.
“A lot of sex trafficking is occurring in this state” and labor trafficking is on the upswing, Williford says.
The FBI in North Carolina has been partnering with World Relief for several years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Anand P. Ramaswamy, who focuses on human trafficking cases across the state from the federal prosecutors office in Greensboro, says he has been collaborating with local law enforcement on human trafficking.
“Those kind of cases have only recently been on the uptick,” he says. “As officers become more trained in what to look for, the number of cases goes up.”
The nation and the state are still working to catch up with the reality of trafficking, he says.
“Sometimes the victim was treated as part of the problem,” he says. “In one instance a 16-year-old girl was charged with prostitution by local authorities. So we have to go and sort of undo that. That’s also the case where the person may have done something wrong, so they’re reluctant to come forward.”
Ramaswamy is keenly aware that his office and religious groups do not always have the same interests. His is in upholding and enforcing the law, while religious groups are interested in practicing their religion.
But the assistant U.S. attorney still believes in the partnership between church and state.
“On one hand the fact they’re a religious organization is not directly relevant,” he says. “However, if you look at the history of the abolitionist movement, it has always been religious communities and those are the people who are concerned enough to be active in it.
“And today with modern-day slavery the same is the case.”
The new Underground Railroad
Westover Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, is imagining what fighting modern-day slavery could look like. The nondenominational suburban church is cut from an evangelical cloth and has 5,000 members and a sprawling campus.
In 2011, the church started a ministry called “Abolition!” to fight human trafficking. It focuses on prayer, awareness and resources.
“In truth we didn’t know what we were going to do. We just knew we had a really strong passion for it,” says Dianne Stone, an "Abolition!" member. “We didn’t want to be a group that got together and said, ‘Oh we feel so bad for this.’ We wanted to do something and we wanted to make a difference.”
In a bright room off the sanctuary, Stone, Cambre Weller and Jennifer Craver, all members the group, explain why they got involved. They seem unlikely fighters against trafficking.
They could easily pass for a women’s Bible study group as they casually chat about their children and church activities before turning their attention to trafficking concerns in their area.
“It’s another thing to realize this is in your backyard and that’s our responsibility to address that and protect those who are being exploited,” Craver says.
What's the role of faith in fighting slavery?
Craver says the things they have learned about trafficking are horrible and keep her up at night. “I don’t want to know about trafficking, but I do know about it and as a Christian, I feel like I have to respond to that,” she says. “That is part of my calling.”
The group screens documentaries about human trafficking at other churches and sends out speakers to the Christian circuit. They also prepare emergency bags: canvas totes with a comb, brush, journal, pajamas, clean towels and other basics they learned that most trafficked women don’t have.
They keep a ready stash of bags for World Relief to distribute to victims, particularly those who are rescued during raids.
Mitchell says her faith has played a large role in her work to help victims of trafficking. “I don’t think I’m any different than anyone I work with, in vulnerability or dignity,” she says. “And man, I really believe that Christ saw everyone equally.”
Danielle Mitchell views her faith as integral to her work in fighting human trafficking.
“I could have been born in a brothel in India,” she says.
But there is a limit to how much personal faith she shares with clients.
“We’re completely client centered,” she says. “That means we’re not going to force our faith on anyone. And I don’t talk to the clients about what I believe, unless they ask me.”
“If a client asks me and they want to go to a Buddhist temple, then I’m going to take them because that’s what they want.”
Prostituted not prostitute
Back at the truck stop, Mitchell explains that she hates the term “prostitute” and despises the phrase “lot lizard.” She says it strips people of their dignity.
Instead, she refers to a “woman or man who is being prostituted.” It is a slight change in wording that reveals a starkly different viewpoint.
“A lot of people think of sex trafficking or prostitution, they think it’s glamorous and that you can pinpoint someone who is selling sex or being sold for sex,” she says. “Usually it’s just average people who maybe aren’t taking care of themselves."
The prostitute, or woman being prostituted, or potential human trafficking victim, gets back into the beat up red Honda with the overweight pimp, who drives off, maybe after catching a glimpse of a journalist and activist watching them from a safe distance.
Mitchell calls the police to report what she just saw.
A few hours later, they call back and say the alleged pimp and alleged prostitute are long gone.
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