Letter: Recognizing and Responding to Human Trafficking in the US

In a recent training session sponsored by the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SCCADVASA), and held at the the Department of Juvenile Justice, the audience of professionals, care givers and community leaders heard a spell-binding report of hidden human trafficking that goes on in South Caroina and the United States. Unforgettable, for those who attended.

Kelly Hall, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, working in the South Carolina Office of Attorney General Alan Wilson, mesmerized her attentive audience with such statistics that involve thousands of young girls and boys — some as young as 9 — through the teenage years. Assisted by Olga Phoenix, Outreach Advocacy Coordinator of SCCADVVASA, sex trafficking was given an overview in a presentation on sex trafficking areas which function through Asian massage parlors, Latino residential brothels, and domestic sex trafficking which exploits vulnerable young, homeless people with the promise of jobs and security, and seduces them into prostitution that invariably causes additional alienation, disease threats and the weakening of the bond of a cohesive society.

Refugees and immigrants are targets for this exploitation and Maja Hasic, the last of the three exceptional speakers heads an anti-traffic program with Tapestri Inc., a non-profit social service agency that assists survivors of violence in immigrant and refugee communities and helps deal with human trafficking issues on a local, state, and and national basis. This can also be a global challenge as well whenever there is economic uncertainty or instability. There are thousands of young girls and boys who are exploited in this nefarious wicked system.

What is even worse is the marginalia of this human trafficking issue by decision makers, politicians, opinion leaders, and perhaps unwittingly, even by faith community leaders who are either unaware or indifferent to the problem.

The President has stated that human trafficking must be addressed in one of his early policy speeches, and if outlined with the appropriate facts, and the relationship to gun violence in this country, improvements, discussions, and national conversation could possibly indent this vicious program which all of us heard on that January 11 day.

Some of the statistics and facts are appalling and devastating in material and human costs. When one considers that 360 million gave victims of this exploitation, and according to the speakers, amounts to 33 victims a day, then it ought to be part of President Obama's speeches — for the marginalizing of sexual violence in the media (fun and entertainment), and the greed which puts profits over people, and which makes such deception and duplicity possible.  A conspiracy of silence could be laid at the door of some of our leadership.

Having been blessed with global travels, I have seen poverty that is wrenching; I have see such desperate places, where one can see where little girls and boys be seduced into prostitution, but in a wealthy nation as the United States, and other first-world nations, this stench of human depravity and its connection with other kinds of violence needs to be addressed by leadership in the Oval Office,  Governor Nikki Haley's Office, and the entire S.C. Delegation. As Christians, we have the responsibility to pray for President Obama, to use the powers of his office, in a wise and just way; but we also have the responsibility to defend the young girls and boys caught up in this modern slavery and to motivate the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of our government to move against this cancerous curse afflicting our society. 

Dr. Albert E.Jabs

Lexington, SC