2011
The first time I saw trafficking that I can remember clearly was in 1998. It was shocking to say the least and I wish I'd known what to do as I watched a young girl in a gas station hiding in a corner with the look of terror in her eyes. I asked if I could help her, but didn't fully understand what was going on until later. She just shook her head and looked away. My heart broke, but it would be years before I realized what was happening.
By 2001, I was ready to do something about it and helped rescue a woman from trafficking. It was one of the hardest rescues I've taken part in. The life I was introducing her to was so unfamiliar that it was hard for her to stay and get help, but after repeating the process a few times, the pleasure of her calling one day to say she had made it through a life-changing program and was now living a completely different life, going to church, dating a good man, and starting to see some of her ten children that had been taken from her made all the struggle feel like nothing.
Not long after that I walked into a rather bizarre situation at a truck stop not far from my home when I stopped to get gas just off the freeway. I was dressed in a business dress, but was very nearly trafficked as truckers were cornering me and asking for services. I was stunned to say the least!! Not long after that, I ended up seeing an entire group of women of all ages lined up on the floor of a boarded up building at the truck stop as the door flew open and the beam of my headlights hit them full in the face. In shock and hardly knowing where to turn as the 1990's and early 2000's didn't have organizations raising awareness about human trafficking, I didn't know where to turn, but started asking how to help these women and what was going on. I found out it nearly landed me in the hottest water of my life, but felt it was worth it too as the police intervened. I rested easy not realizing that it was not as rare of a situation as I thought at that moment.
It was the summer of 2005 when I was nearly taken from a sidewalk in California to be trafficked. Men in a white van tried to take me when I threw away a candy wrapper in the trash while my friends walked on up the sidewalk ahead of me on a main street downtown. Thankfully my battle buddies from the Army turned and saw what was happening and prevented the situation from going any further. Close call, but I was safe...or at least I thought so.
Then in 2006 a government official from South America began to stalk me. Somehow he knew where I was all the time and showed up all over town with his friend. One day I realized the seriousness of the situation when they began searching for me in and out of shops and peering through restaurant windows. Intuition told me they were looking for me, which was confirmed when one of them spotted me and they both began an all-out sprint in my direction. By the time I'd taken to hiding under restaurant tables, I realized that I needed help with the situation. Just days later the military had an impromptu safety briefing in which they warned us to be on the look out for a man who was stalking another Soldier with intent to harm. When they flashed his picture across the screen, I realized that I needed to let them know what I knew...it was the same man that was stalking me! I'd managed to get his name, where he lived, his phone number (which I had because he got a hold of mine and was calling me multiple times a day), a description of his friends, and a guess at his nationality among other things. The very next day the moving trucks were at his house - he was being deported. I found out there was evidence that his intentions were to traffic me and the other tall redhead who was in the Army with me when he went to South America.
The very next year, 2007, I worked with a female Soldier who told me about how she'd been trafficked from down town Monterey and had been rescued two weeks later, but how she never feels safe anywhere now. I could almost see the scars on her heart through her pale blue eyes. Pale white skin and copper hair, she was so young with so much life ahead. My heart broke. Just weeks later, I heard that my battle (a female Soldier friend of mine) had been trafficked. After slipping a drug into her drink, a group of traffickers told her friends that she knew them once she was drugged. Then took her to Salinas where she was trafficked until she was rescued two weeks later. I never saw her after that, but heard she was never the same again. I remember her vibrant green eyes, silky black hair, beautiful face, her exquisite taste in clothes that she wore on her 5'10" frame, bubbly personality, and infectious smile. Whenever I think of her, I still hear her excitement over the champagne heels she found with just the right amount of class. I can still see her bright eyes as she stood tall in her uniform, waved and said she'd see me later in our last encounter.
I would experience more people's attempts to traffic and exploit me, which never ceased to alarm me knowing all that I had come to learn about that terrifying world. What about those who didn't escape? How could I ignore this horrific crime against humanity?? Human trafficking had become the second highest and fastest rising crime in the world, the nation, and my own backyard...literally. I went back to school the fall of 2010 to finish the degrees I started and began writing my school papers on human trafficking. That's when I first came across Sara Kruzan... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR7mno6p9iQ I realized that I could be looking a Sara in the eyes every day.
| (Linked - click picture "How to keep your child safe") |
After tons of research, I heard of an organization that was rescuing young girls from sex trafficking and could hardly wait to get involved!! In 2011, I signed up to be trained by the Sacramento Police Department Chaplaincy to help the organization Courage 2BU (which has become Courage Worldwide http://courageworldwide.org/ ). My husband was on board too! Every Saturday we woke up at the crack of dawn, traveled for three and a half hours to take an eight-hour training course, and drive three and a half hours back home for a month. It was grueling with our forty-hour work weeks, but so worth it. Getting to know Mindi Russell (head chaplain of the Sacramento Police Department Chaplaincy http://www.sacchaplains.com/chaplain-team/mindi-russell/ ) and Jenny Williamson (founder and CEO of Courage Worldwide http://courageworldwide.org/about/ ) was an incredible honor and being trained by these amazing women was beyond amazing and inspiring!
I set out with excitement to educate my community about human trafficking only to find out that it was easier for people to look the other way. No one returned phone calls about setting up a concert to raise funds, people denied there was such a thing as slavery going on today, very few wanted to hear how they could make a difference too. I was disappointed, but undaunted...I would never stop telling the truth about what is happening in our own backyard, throughout the county, in this state, across our nation, and around the world.
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http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Trafficking-in-human-beings/Trafficking-in-human-beings
If you think you see human trafficking anywhere, call 1-888-373-7888 and report it. You may save one life or many!
National Human Trafficking Resource Center
SMS: 233733 (Text "HELP" or "INFO")
Hours: 24 hours, 7 days a week
Languages: English, Spanish
Website: traffickingresourcecenter.org
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