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Trafficked: life on the margins
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Content
TRAFFICKED: LIFE ON THE MARGINS
by
Megan O’Neil
___________________________________________________________________
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)
August 2013
Copyright 2013 Megan O’Neil
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements iii
Abstract iv
Trafficked: Life on the Margins 1
References 19
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to thesis committee members Gabe Kahn and Hannah Garry for their
professionalism and support. And an extra special thanks to my mentor and committee
chair Michael Parks, who made my year at USC Annenberg possible.
Lastly, I want to recognize the subjects of this reporting project, who gave
generously of their time to speak about what is a tremendously complex and sensitive
topic.
iv
ABSTRACT
Human trafficking is a global, multibillion-dollar industry on par with the
international weapons and drugs trades. The International Labor Organization estimates
that there are as many as 20.9 million trafficking victims worldwide, 78 percent victims
of forced labor and 22 percent victims of sexual exploitation. Yet the shadowy nature of
the crime – victims languish on the extreme fringes of society – make prevention,
intervention, prosecution and restitution a difficult formula to achieve. And while the
term human trafficking is closely associated with foreign-born victims and transnational
networks, in many places, including California, it is entirely homegrown. This reporting
project focuses on U.S.-born children who are trafficked for commercial sex, including
the various iterations of physical abuse, coercion and fraud used by traffickers to recruit
and exploit their victims. It also attempts to highlight a maturing understanding by law
enforcement officials, victim service providers and the general public about the nature of
the crime.
1
TRAFFICKED: LIFE ON THE MARGINS
It was supposed to be a one-time thing. A couple of days at most. They just
needed enough cash to flee their Long Beach neighborhood, Nicole’s girlfriend told her.
So in 2011, the then-16-year-old runaway began working the streets in various Southern
California neighborhoods, selling sex (Nicole 2013a).
The original plan quickly evaporated. So too did the words of affection from
Playboy, as Nicole referred to the 24-year-old woman with whom she initially considered
herself to be romantically involved. Talk of love was replaced by verbal threats and
beatings. She was forced to meet nightly quotas of hundreds of dollars, engaging
customers in cars and motel rooms.
“Sometimes I would tell her, ‘I’m done with this. I am not going out there,’” said
Nicole, who asked that only her middle name be used. “She would be like, ‘You’re my
bitch. You’re my ho,’ and slap me or choke me to the point where I am just like, ‘Okay, I
do this or this is what is going to happen’” (Nicole 2013a).
The teenager absorbed the rules of the life, lying about her age and picking out
unmarked police cars. When she was uneasy about a customer, or john, Nicole asked that
he expose himself to her knowing that law enforcement was legally barred from doing so.
If Playboy suspected vice units might be conducting sting operations at a “track,” or
prostitution corridor, the girlfriend-turned-pimp kept Nicole in their motel room (Nicole
2013a).
The teenager was given the basics – a place to sleep for a few hours each morning
and food to eat – but otherwise didn’t see a dime. Playboy kept all of the money, using it
2
to purchase clothes, alcohol and drugs. She also kept the teenager well beyond the reach
of family members.
“My mom came looking for me all the time, but I was way far gone,” Nicole said.
“I was out in the Valley, or out in Pasadena or out somewhere in Pomona. She [Playboy]
was careful” (Nicole 2013a).
Nicole’s case is grim, but hardly unique. While the term human trafficking
conjures up images of foreign victims being ferried across international borders, she is
one of what is believed to be thousands of domestic-born children trafficked within the
United States (CDOJ 2012b). Defined as exploitation by “force, coercion, fraud or
deception”, human trafficking involves the recruitment, abduction, transport, sale and
receipt of persons for prostitution, domestic servitude, agricultural work and other kinds
of forced labor (CDOJ 2012b). The crime is drawing neck and neck with the drug trade in
its violence and profitability, according to some experts working in the field (CDOJ
2012b; Dawson 2013). It is also increasingly facilitated by 21
st
Century communications
tools such as cell phones and social networking sites.
The International Labor Organization estimates that there are as many as 20.9
million trafficking victims worldwide, 78 percent victims of forced labor and 22 percent
victims of sexual exploitation (CDOJ 2012b). California is recognized as a trafficking
hub, although the shadowy nature of the crime makes concrete data hard to come by. In
November, California Attorney General Kamala Harris released an in-depth report
highlighting both the gravity of the issue and the work being done by the state’s nine
regional anti-human trafficking task forces. Between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2012,
California law enforcement identified 1,277 victims, but because trafficking is badly
3
underreported, that figure is likely a part of a much larger reality, according to the report
(CDOJ 2012b). In addition, more than half were victims of sexual trafficking and seven
in ten were U.S.-born, raising major questions about the nature of trafficking in the state,
whether law enforcement officials are sufficiently trained to identify foreign-born labor
trafficking victims and the voracity of current data collection techniques (CDOJ 2012b).
Trafficking victims – forced into domestic servitude, sweatshop labor and
agricultural work, among others – cut across categories of nationality and race. In the
case of domestic minor sex trafficking victims, or U.S.-born children who are exploited
on the commercial sex market, almost all experienced some type of abuse in the home
(B. Hernandez 2013). Many are impoverished, and most are female, according to law
enforcement officials and victim service providers (B. Hernandez 2013; Dawson 2013).
These factors leave them especially vulnerable to criminals who prey on youth with weak
support networks and even weaker self-esteem.
Nicole fit the profile. Her childhood stretched between Los Angeles, Riverside,
Long Beach, Las Vegas and El Monte. Her father was absent and her mother distant. She
spent significant amounts of time with her grandparents until her grandmother’s death
when Nicole was eight years old (Nicole 2013a).
Two years later, Nicole watched her mother get arrested after police discovered
150 kilos of marijuana stashed in their South Los Angeles home. The drugs belonged to
the father of Nicole’s then-10-month-old brother.
The siblings moved between foster families and relatives for the next four years.
They were briefly reunited with their mother only for her to be arrested a second time for
4
attempting to cash fraudulent checks. While living in Las Vegas, Nicole was molested by
four adult males, all of them extended family members (Nicole 2013a).
In 2011, Nicole was again living with her mom in Long Beach, but the
relationship was badly strained. It was after a particularly bad fight that she ran away to
her girlfriend Playboy’s house, and she was subsequently coerced into the life.
“I guess I felt like I needed to be loved by somebody,” Nicole said. “It was
[Playboy] at that point and time. I was just so angry at my mom at that time and it was
just whatever to piss mom off” (Nicole 2013a).
Still, she knew how vulnerable she was trolling the streets at night for customers.
Nicole crossed paths with girls as young as 12 years old. Once, while turning a trick in a
motel, the john became incensed. He brandished a Taser as Nicole fled to the bathroom
praying the flimsy lock on the door would hold. Her screams drew motel staff, and she
was able to escape.
“It is like playing Russian roulette with your life,” Nicole said of her time on the
street (Nicole 2013a).
“It’s a Sealed Deal”
Lt. Andre Dawson, a 30-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department and
head of its dedicated human trafficking unit, occasionally fields interview requests from
producers looking to do a show that highlights the crime.
He shows them photos of teenage girls with pimps’ names tattooed across their
torsos. He describes the menu of recruiting techniques, which range from romancing to
kidnapping. He pulls out a two-feet-long tangle of wire used by a pimp to beat his victims
into submission (Dawson 2013).
5
But even documentaries fail to capture the gravity of crime, he said.
“At the end of the story, it certainly appears that these victims are okay,” Dawson
said. “They have whatever their challenges are, but they have moved on. The reality of it
is, particularly in dealing with our minors, these girls are not okay” (Dawson 2013).
Established in 2009, Dawson’s five-person human trafficking unit takes on many
of the most complicated cases in the city, while also providing training to the LAPD’s 21
vice units. It functions in conjunction with the Los Angeles Innocence Lost Task Force,
one link in an FBI-led network of 47 local, state and federal law enforcement bodies
focused on combating the crime.
Dawson and others describe the trafficking of minors for commercial sex as a
highly sophisticated business with an established set of rules. In some cases victims are
kidnapped. More typically, the process begins with the recruitment of a victim, either by
the pimp (usually, but not always, a man), or by the top-ranking woman in his cohort,
known as the “bottom.” Recruitment occurs in schools, group homes and parks, among
other settings. (CDOJ 2012b; Dawson 2013).
“It can be something as simple as going to the mall when school is suppose to be
in session,” Dawson said. “If she [a school-age girl] is hanging out at the mall then
obviously something is wrong. He will approach her, or the bottom will approach her,
and it’s ‘Hey, come hang out with us for the day’” (Dawson 2013).
Traffickers make flashy promises about nice houses, new clothes and
relationships, highly attractive to young people with weak family ties and little financial
means. They buy meals and smalls gifts, and provide rides to and from school, blurring
6
the distinction between parent and boyfriend. Eventually, the pimp initiates sex with the
victim.
“[He becomes] the perfect person - the loving person, the sexual person, all
wrapped up with the parental figure you never had,” said Barbara Hernandez, a
psychologist at Crittenton Services, a residential treatment center contracted by the
County of Los Angeles that works extensively with domestic minors trafficked for sex.
“It’s a sealed deal from there” (B. Hernandez 2013).
Once the victim is trapped, the tone of the relationship changes dramatically.
Some are plied into engaging customers with promises that it will be a one-time deal or
that it is an act of loyalty, while others are physically forced to participate.
Some victims remain with traffickers because they are physically barred from
leaving. Others have nowhere else to go. And then there is the fear.
“If you got three other girls in the house, and [the victim] sees the pimp beat up
one of these other girls, you don’t have to beat her because she don’t want that to happen
to her,” Dawson said. “Clearly she has seen he can do it. She ain’t going nowhere”
(Dawson 2013).
The recruitment process includes collecting detailed information about victims –
such as where family members live and where siblings attend school – that is then
leveraged.
“[Traffickers] start recording this in their minds because they later use it in the
coercion and threatening phases,” Hernandez said. “So, ‘If you leave me, I will find your
2-year-old brother at Reilly Elementary and I will wait for him at 2:20 p.m. when he gets
out of school and I am going to slit his throat in the bathroom right by the entrance.’
7
There is such level of detail that it becomes even more real for them” (B. Hernandez
2013).
Escape can seem impossible for victims.
“The biggest misconception is that it is a choice. It is said to us time and time
again – ‘She is 16. She chose that life. She likes that life,’” Hernandez said. “She can’t
leave” (B. Hernandez 2013).
Another misconception about the crime is who benefits financially, experts said.
Victims are forced to meet quotas of hundreds of dollars a night, which typically
translates to more than a dozen customers. All of the money is handed over to the
traffickers, who provide basic shelter and food. This can consist of as little as a car or
motel room and a cheeseburger from a fast food restaurant. Some traffickers pay for
victims to get their hair and nails done, considered necessary for the girls to attract
customers as well as a lifestyle perk that keeps them from running away.
That the LAPD human trafficking unit even exists is evidence of a maturing
understanding about the dynamics of the crime. Traditionally, there was little distinction
between autonomous prostitutes and trafficking victims. Individuals involved in the
lifestyle made a choice, the thinking went. Commercial sex was regarded as a victimless
crime, involving only willing participants, Dawson said (Dawson 2013). Today, targeted
efforts including law enforcement training and public education campaigns are changing
that. A clearer definition of human trafficking means a better understanding that many,
particularly minor victims, are not selling sex voluntarily but rather under extreme duress.
Plenty remains to be done, law enforcement officials and service providers said.
In many states, including California, adults who prostitute themselves and minor
8
trafficking victims forced into the life are treated similarly under the law – as criminals
(Dawson 2013). This can make rehabilitation and recovery difficult. Trafficking victims
face not only with the physical and psychological repercussions, but legal ones as well
(B. Hernandez 2013; Wheat 2013).
There has been some progress. In 2008, the New York legislature passed the Safe
Harbour for Exploited Children Act, which meant sexually exploited youth would no
longer be prosecuted but instead providing with specialized services (New York
Assembly 2008). Similar legislation followed in states including Illinois, Massachusetts,
Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Vermont and Washington (Polaris Project 2013; ECPAT
2013).
The LAPD human trafficking unit has played a central role in a number of major
cases. The former owner of the wire whip that Dawson keeps in his drawer was convicted
in September 2012 of pimping and pandering, assault with a deadly weapon and human
trafficking of a minor and is now in prison. In April, another of the unit’s arrestees was
sentenced to 17 years in prison after he attempted to dissuade his 16-year-old victim from
testifying against him.
There is nothing more rewarding than returning a trafficking victim to her family,
Dawson said. Still, even those rare instances are usually just the start of hard work by the
victim and her support network. And the psychological hold that traffickers have on their
victims undoes even months of good police work. On numerous occasions Dawson and
his colleagues have built cases only to have victims refuse to cooperate.
“We are done,” Dawson said. “There is nothing we can do.” (Dawson 2013).
9
“You Really Need to Quit That”
During nearly six years on the bench at Compton Juvenile Court, Commissioner
Catherine Pratt saw scores of children facing prostitution charges. She made little
progress on the cases – they came from impoverished, dysfunctional families and cycled
through again and again (Pratt 2013a).
“It was very disheartening and frankly, I wasn’t looking at it the right way at the
time,” Pratt said. “I was frustrated with them. I kept saying, ‘Why are you doing this to
yourself? It is a really bad choice’” (Pratt 2013a).
Then, two years ago, an adolescent came into Pratt’s courtroom with a
particularly harrowing account. She had been kidnapped and held against her will. Long
Beach police officers found her locked in a room where she was being sold to paying
customers (Pratt 2013a).
It was an eye opener.
Pratt immediately began researching. She soon realized that she was seeing a sort
of modern slavery – human trafficking cases in which children were being exploited
under extreme coercion and force.
“If you ask them – and I had asked them – that is not what they say,” Pratt said.
“They say they are with their boyfriend, they say they are doing it because they want to.
Frankly, the first five or six times you interview them that is what they will say. I took it
at face value” (Pratt 2013a).
About the same time, Michelle Guymon, director of special enforcement
operations with the Los Angeles County Probation Department, was working with
10
colleagues to conduct their own assessment of children passing through their doors on
prostitution charges (Guymon 2013).
An experienced social worker, Guymon had spent three years early in her career
as a therapist at Dorothy Kirby Center, a secured facility for minors on probation.
“[I] always had girls that were arrested for prostitution and always had somewhat
of a judgment about, ‘You know, you really need to quit that. It really isn’t a good thing
to be doing,’” Guymon said. “I just really never made the connection that these kids were
being sexually exploited except for these kids were doing this by choice” (Guymon
2013).
Her data showed that in 2010, 174 children were processed by the Probation
Department on prostitution charges, 59 percent with prior involvement with the
Department of Children and Family Services. Some 92 percent were African American,
and 84 percent came from South Los Angeles, Long Beach, Compton, Inglewood and
Hawthorne.
Brought together via a county-level committee on domestic minor sex trafficking,
Pratt and Guymon wrote a federal grant proposal, and in 2012 were awarded $900,000
and $1.05 million respectively to expand and integrate services tailored for the
population.
For the commissioner, the three-year grant enabled her to establish the STAR
Court – Succeeding through Achievement and Resilience – where she presides every
Tuesday in South Central Los Angeles. The court and accompanying namesake program
are dedicated entirely to trafficking cases. Objectives include reducing the amount of
11
time the children spend in custody, reducing the number of runaways, and reducing the
number of repeat offenses (Pratt 2013b).
The federal grant also allowed Pratt to hire a team of court advocates to sit with
the children through hearings and trials, help with living arrangements, and facilitate
activities and outings. In some ways, they function as stand-in parents, offering support in
the absence of family.
There are currently about 75 participants in her voluntary program, Pratt said,
likely a small representation of children victimized in a crime that is increasingly
facilitated by the Internet.
Meanwhile, the county probation office Guymon started retooling how her
department handles minors at risk for or already involved in trafficking. Changes have
included everything from the types of questions asked during intake – if a girl arrives at
juvenile hall having had sex 11 times in the last four hours the doctor needs to know,
Guymon said – to the timing of releases from secured probation facilities (Guymon
2013).
“There is so much pressure,” Guymon said. “We hear all the time from our kids
that one of the traffickers’ rules is, ‘If they put you anywhere you can get out of you best
be back to me within 24 hours or there will be consequences,’ and consequences usually
mean gang rapes and beatings” (Guymon 2013).
One successful initiative has been a prevention and early intervention class that is
now being taught both in probation facilities and off site. Titled “My Life, My Choice,”
the 10-week course is taught jointly by a social worker and a human trafficking survivor.
12
D’Lita Miller, who started in the lifestyle at 15 and who is also the mother of a
trafficking victim, began teaching the class last year.
“By the second week, the girls are opening up,” said Miller, 38. “They are
expressing things they hadn’t told their therapist. They are bonding. I am mom. [It] is
great because it brings awareness and it gives prevention but it also allows girls to
express and connect on different levels” (Miller 2013).
Participants are walked through the recruiting tricks traffickers use to lure their
victims, right down to exact pick-up lines, Guymon said.
“Prevention is key,” Guymon said. “A lot of what we hear is, ‘I had no idea it was
going to be like this.’ The sales and recruiting pitch is not ‘You will be raped, and beaten,
and pregnant and aborted,’ and all this other stuff. It is about all the good things that these
kids crave and need” (Guymon 2013).
They are also taught not to share detailed family information. Organizers bring in
police officers to talk about the issue from the perspective of law enforcement and to
build trust. Some of those ordered to attend the class resist, Guymon acknowledged. But
built-in incentives, including gift certificates, sweeten the deal.
“We had one girl that hated the class and came reluctantly every week,” Guymon
said. “[She] went home and six weeks later came into a family session with her [social
worker] and said, ‘Me and some friends were just out on Friday night, and this guy drove
up and he said the exact same things the survivor said he was going to say’” (Guymon
2013).
There are other indications that the collaborative approach by probation and the
courts is paying off. More minors are identifying themselves as trafficking victims. About
13
18 months ago, she had just two girls testifying against their traffickers, Guymon said.
Now, she has 24 (Guymon 2013). In addition, Pratt is starting to get cases referred to her
by judges and lawyers who are becoming better at recognizing the crime.
Still, the cases remain tremendously complex. Some of the children are addicted
to drugs. Others have been tattooed on their faces, necks and torsos, an act of branding
used by some Los Angeles traffickers.
The violence and manipulation is acute – there have been occasions in which
pimps have attended hearings or waited outside the courtroom to collect girls upon their
release from custody, Pratt said.
The psychological imprint is not unlike addiction, said Briana Wheat, program
director at Crittenton Services. Some victims will endure almost anything in the hope of
clawing back to the high point of the relationship with their traffickers.
“It is a lot like a domestic violence relationship in that during that seduction phase
you do feel loved, you do feel like they care,” Wheat said. “So it is, ‘What do I need to do
to get back to that place? What have I done wrong that we are no longer there?’ It is
constantly remembering” (Wheat 2013).
And the criminalization of minor sex trafficking victims in California and
elsewhere complicates efforts by professionals to help, according to some.
“What is hard for some of our girls is that when we are trying to treat them as a
victim it is contradictory because they are placed with us through probation,” said Briana
Wheat, program director at Crittenton Services, “They all come straight from juvenile
hall and yet we are like, ‘You are a victim.’”
14
This is particularly disorienting for young people already deeply traumatized, said
Hernandez.
“You bring them [to Crittenton] and it’s like, ‘You’re a victim. And after your
mental health appointments for victimization your probation officer is waiting for you
because guess what? You are a criminal.’”
The contradiction is perhaps no more visible than when minor victims appear in
court to testify against their traffickers. In California and elsewhere, they are handled like
criminals, ferried to court in jail garb (Guymon 2013).
“When we transport kids to court to be a witness, we transport them like we
would transport any probationer,” Guymon said. “We realize we have got to fix that. It
even challenges your internal policies sometimes” (Guymon 2013).
Back Out in the Life
In early January, Eric Ball got a telephone call from a local television news
program. A segment filmed two months earlier about the runaway outreach unit at the
Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, headed by Ball, would
run later that week (Ball 2013).
It featured one of his success stories (M. Hernandez 2012), a teenage girl
trafficked for sex starting at the age of 14. She freed herself from her pimp and was living
in transitional housing, enrolled in school and otherwise flourishing.
“The day that they aired the dang thing, my worker who was actually working
with her was going through this magazine and saw an ad for the girl we just highlighted,”
Ball said, adding that a quick Internet search turned up additional, explicit photos. “She is
back out in the life. It was just so disheartening” (Ball 2013).
15
Relapse and running away are not only common among domestic minor sex
trafficking victims, it’s expected. Finding appropriate housing for minors who have been
trafficked or are vulnerable to trafficking, and getting them to stay put, is a critical part of
prevention and intervention.
“Statistically speaking, a kid will be approached in about 48 hours from running
away from whatever care they are in to be solicited for sex trafficking, selling drugs or
gang involvement,” Ball said (Ball 2013).
Many family members and group homes are ill prepared to help victims manage
the psychological trauma and the difficult behavior that results from their abuse. Daily
life can be a minefield of psychological triggers – something as simple as seeing a pair of
high heels can send a victim mentally tumbling back into her old world. Some struggle
during the evening and early morning hours, typically when they were forced to work
(Octave 2013).
Sometimes, recruitment takes place in groups homes themselves (Ball 2013;
CDOJ 2012b). A girl already tied to a pimp will invite another to run away with her.
In recent years, Ball and his colleagues have turned to the Internet and social
networking platforms to track down runaways. Even if children are homeless, they
usually have a cell phone and a Facebook account, he said. But it is not unusual for them
to run up against traffickers on social networking sites.
“We’ve seen them shut down [accounts],” Ball said. “We’ve been threatened.
They send messages for the kids sometimes, ‘Don’t even contact her again’” (Ball 2013).
In the human trafficking sphere, even knowing a child’s physical location is not
always enough. In 2010, Anyika Sholes, a children’s social worker with the Department
16
of Children and Family Services, spotted a 14-year-old client on a stretch of Long Beach
Boulevard known as a “track,” or corridor for prostitution.
“I went to try and rescue her, and she told me, ‘Do not come to me for your safety
and for mine. Don’t come near,’” Sholes said. “A lot of our foster youth are put on this
track, and then we see them. That hits the heart. To see a kid that you provide services to
out there on the street and really not be able to do anything about it” (Sholes 2013).
Two days after Sholes spotted her, the 14-year-old was arrested and transported to
Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. It took several hours, but eventually she began talking.
Sholes hustled to assemble a team of professionals to handle her case. They provided the
victim with small but significant requests, including a pair of footsie pajamas and a
specific brand of hair gel, which they now believe was critical in building rapport.
“We were able to get that for her,” Sholes said. “And her birthday was coming up.
One thing that was real significant was she had never had a birthday party. We actually
came together as a team to meet with her where she was at her birthday” (Sholes 2013).
After a couple of false starts, the teenager is now stable, living with a relative and
attending high school.
An Arrest, and a Fresh Start
Despite her trafficker’s efforts to elude detection, Nicole was eventually picked
up by the police – twice in August 2011 and then again in February 2012. In hindsight,
getting arrested was the best thing that could have happened to her (Nicole 2013b).
“It was scary, and I was upset by it, but then I asked myself if I didn’t get arrested
where I would have been?” said Nicole, now 18. “Would I have still been with her? Or
would I have been strong enough to say ‘I am done with this’ by myself?” (Nicole 2013a)
17
She went through two cycles of house arrest and probation, landing, in the second
go around, in Pratt’s courtroom. It was there that Nicole began to find her footing.
Playboy abandoned her, and she returned to live with her mom and now 8-year-old
brother. She was assigned a court advocate. When a detective working Nicole’s case
brought her a photo line up-and asked her to identify those complicit in her trafficking
she refused, a decision she now regrets. But she did testify against three of the men who
molested her when she was a child, and attended their sentencing in a Las Vegas court
last month (Nicole 2013a).
There is no easy path forward for trafficking victims. The experiences stay with
victims their entire lives, shaping relationships and professional opportunities.
“There’s no normal life – the embarrassment, the shame, the trust, the fear of
retaliation if the pimp isn’t caught, just the memories,” said Miller, the survivor and
mentor with the probation department. “Life isn’t the same” (Miller 2013).
Nicole got off probation in September. She briefly flirted with the idea of
returning to the life, but has instead painted new vision for the future. She recently earned
her high school diploma through a home schooling program and is working at Subway.
She plans to enroll in a community college and pursue a career as a probation officer
(Nicole 2013a).
Nicole is one of several young victims that Pratt mentors beyond the confines of
the courtroom. It is not unusual for the commissioner to take phone calls late at night or
during the weekend when a child is stranded somewhere, or hospitalized. Occasionally,
she finds herself seated at a table in restaurant with one of her case subjects, an attorney
18
and a probation officer. It’s on odd way to celebrate a 15
th
, or a 17
th,
or a 18
th
birthday,
Pratt conceded, but it is better than no celebration at all (Pratt 2013a).
While minor trafficking victims continue to be handled as criminals under
California state law, there have been some other recent changes. California voters in
November overwhelmingly passed Prop. 35. The ballot measure increased prison
sentences and fines for human trafficking convictions and requires convicted traffickers
to register as sex offenders.
Federal grant in hand, the Los Angeles County Probation Department continues to
wrestle with its internal policies so as to better manage sex trafficking victims, Guymon
said. One is the handling of those who opt to testify against their traffickers.
But more than anything, she and her colleagues are focused on building
relationships that can serve as a new foundation for victims accustomed to rejection.
“When they run, you take them back,” Guymon said. “When they run again you
take them back. When they run for the fifth time, you take them back. You don’t shut the
door. You don’t say we are done. You take them back” (Guymon 2013).
19
REFERENCES
Ball, Eric (social worker, County of Los Angeles Department of Children and Family
Services). Interview with author. January 25, 2013, Los Angeles, CA.
Belser, Patrick. “Forced Labour and Human Trafficking: Estimating the Profits.” Geneva:
International Labour Office, 2005. ISBN 92-2-117304-6.
http://ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@declaration/documents/publicat
ion/wcms_081971.pdf.
CDOJ (California Department of Justice). California Penal Code § 236.1 (2012a). See
also “What is Human Trafficking?” California Department of Justice. Accessed
October 26, 2012. http://oag.ca.gov/human-trafficking/what-is.
———. “The State of Human Trafficking in California 2012,” special report prepared by
the Human Trafficking Work Group at the request of Attorney General Kamala
Harris, November 2012b. California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney
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2013, Los Angeles, CA.
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11, 2013. http://ecpatusa.org/what-we-do/helping-children-in-america/law-
project/state-law-project/.
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Angeles Probation Department). Interview with author. January 31, 2013,
Downey, CA.
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Interview with author. January 18, 2013, Fullerton, CA.
Hernandez, Miriam. “Outreach program successfully rescues runaway teens.” Los
Angeles, KABC-TV, January 4, 2013.
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Methodology.” Geneva: International Labour Office, 2012. ISBN:
9789221264125; 9789221264132. http://ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---
ed_norm/---declaration/documents/publication/wcms_182004.pdf.
20
Latonero, Mark. “Human Trafficking Online: The Role of Social Networking Sites and
Online Classifieds (2011).” Los Angeles: USC Annenberg School for
Communication & Journalism, Center on Communication Leadership & Policy,
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———. “The Rise of Mobile and the Diffusion of Technology-Facilitated Trafficking.”
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———. “Pimp Convicted for Human Trafficking and the Sexual Exploitation of a Child
NR13120sm.” Los Angeles Police Department, April 11, 2013.
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———. “Human Trafficking Conviction NR13148necn.” Los Angeles Police
Department, May 3, 2013.
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———. Telephone interview with author. May 22, 2013b.
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Family Services). Interview with author. January 23, 2013, Hawthorne, CA.
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February 3, 2013a, Long Beach, CA.
———. Interview with author. February 5, 2013b, Los Angeles, CA.
21
Sholes, Anyika (social worker, County of Los Angeles Department of Children and
Family Services). Interview with author. January 23, 2013, Hawthorne, CA.
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of State, June 2004. http://state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/.
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Wheat, Briana (director, residential treatment center, Crittenton Services for Children and
Families). Interview with author. January 18, 2013, Fullerton, CA.
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Human trafficking is a global, multibillion-dollar industry on par with the international weapons and drugs trades. The International Labor Organization estimates that there are as many as 20.9 million trafficking victims worldwide, 78 percent victims of forced labor and 22 percent victims of sexual exploitation. Yet the shadowy nature of the crime – victims languish on the extreme fringes of society – make prevention, intervention, prosecution and restitution a difficult formula to achieve. And while the term human trafficking is closely associated with foreign-born victims and transnational networks, in many places, including California, it is entirely homegrown. This reporting project focuses on U.S.-born children who are trafficked for commercial sex, including the various iterations of physical abuse, coercion and fraud used by traffickers to recruit and exploit their victims. It also attempts to highlight a maturing understanding by law enforcement officials, victim service providers and the general public about the nature of the crime.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
O'Neil, Megan
(author)
Core Title
Trafficked: life on the margins
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism
Publication Date
07/13/2013
Defense Date
07/13/2013
Publisher
University of Southern California
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Tag
human rights,human trafficking,OAI-PMH Harvest,pimps,prostitution,rape,sexual exploitation,Women
Format
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Language
English
Contributor
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Advisor
Parks, Michael (
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), Garry, Hannah (
committee member
), Kahn, Gabriel (
committee member
)
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megan.oneil.06@gmail.com,meganone@usc.edu
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O'Neil, Megan
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Tags
human trafficking
pimps
rape
sexual exploitation