IACP 2014 – October 25th – 28th, Orlando, FL – Day 2 – Child Sex Trafficking Session
The next session I attended was On The Front Lines of Child Sex Trafficking. I somewhat dreaded this subject matter. As a parent, I cannot imagine a situation where my daughter would be kidnapped, trafficked as a prostitute, and maybe never seen again. It sounds just like the story from the movie Taken, but the reality is out there and all around us. We don’t see it, but that disgusting, murky world is out there.
This session was only 45 minutes long, but it was just enough to get us through some sobering facts, and a couple of videos to give us an idea of this crime.
Kelly Burke, IACP Program Manager for Child Protection and Juvenile Justice introduced us to the panel, and spoke of her work. The first video showed us how mothers subject their children to sex crimes, how pimps lure young teenage girls into prostitution, and how these victims are around us, sadly unnoticed.
We were told that Police Officers are taught the 3 R’s.
- Recognize – perpetrators or indicators.
- Rethink – change your mindset and look at the clues around; and
- Respond – refer to the proper Child Sex Trafficking expertise, phone someone who is an authority and can advise you of the situation.
There are six training videos available, and we were shown the first one which involved a situation on a Texas highway. An officer stops a car which is speeding. There is a male driver, a female front seat passenger and a young teenage girl in the back. The officer is suspicious, checks the drivers license, and all seems well, he asks a few questions, then lets them go.
Using the 3 R’s, we are shown the scene again, but this time the officer approaches it quite differently. He again checks the male drivers license, then asks the female front seat passenger a few questions, and this time he looks around as she is answering, and he takes in some clues that are around.
- A very nervous young girl in the back seat, who will not make eye contact on answering questions;
- The reluctance of the female front seat passenger to hand over her phone for the officer to check;
- Small packages in the back seat; and
- Spider tattoos on all three passengers in the car.
He asks the male to stand outside and go away from the car, then he questions the two females separately. On talking to the nervous girl in the back, he rings his unit and gives her name, it turns out she is a missing teenager, on further inspection in the car, he finds various sex paraphernalia and a bunch of hotel receipts. With this information he contacts a person who works with young people who have been rescued from forced prostitution. This person advises him on the next step, and will send someone over to take the girl to safety.
Part of this video also shows an interview with a young woman who was saved from this life. She said that you are beaten over and over again, and raped many times, until you are broken, and completely at the mercy of your captors.
Michael Harpster, FBI Section Chief for Violent Crimes Against Children spoke about working with Kelly over the last eighteen month; since then about 4,100 children have been recovered. Michael also strongly recommended that in the event of a situation where you see a suspicious situation with a child or chidren that may be involved in Sex Trafficking, to call someone with Child Sex Trafficking expertise. These people will understand the situation and can handle the individual involved.
Steven McCraw, Director of the Texas Dept. of Public Safety reminded folks that although ‘We are doing a great job!”…. still there are signs out there that we are missing. Most girls are looking for an opportunity to escape, and we have to recognize signs of this. There has been great success in rescuing children from prostitution, and a good success rate of taking the ‘assholes’ of the street (Steven’s word, but quite appropriate). The youngest girl that he knew of who was rescued was 13. These young girls live in fear, but the traffickers like to get young girls because they can manipulate them and fill them with fear. It is still a sad situation, but Steven is very happy that results are being made.
This session left me happy and sad – happy for the rescued young people, but sad because they have had such a traumatic time, which will no doubt scar them. It lso bothers me that this is still going on; all around us. And all for what…..greedy people who just want to use them for their own personal monetary gain – what a grim side of the human race. I really really hope that the tables are turned on the evil that causes this. Because basically, no human is born bad, and no human is born to be enslaved.
Speakers:
- Kelly Burke, Program Manager, Child Protection and Juvenile Justice, IACP, burkek@theiacp.org
- Michael Harpster, Section Chief, Violent Crimes Against Children, FBI, US Dept. of Justice, Washington DC
- Steven McCraw, Director, Texas Dept. of Public Safety, Austin TX
- Nazmia E.A. Comrie, Program Analyst, Research & Development Division, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, US Dept. of Justice, Washington DC
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