In the well-to-do suburbs of Birmingham, it can be difficult to imagine something criminal taking place on the streets. However, for the then 15-year-old Theresa Flores, that was not the reality. She fell victim to human trafficking.
"It was February of my sophomore year of high school. I had a crush on this guy, and he said, 'Would you like a ride home from school?' I was so naive; I really thought he was going to take me home," Flores said in a biopic about her experience. "He gave me a pop that was laced with drugs, and then I got raped. He said they took these pictures, 'We're going to show these to your dad. We're going to show these to his boss. And you have to earn them back.'"
For the next two years, under the cover of her trafficker being her friend, Flores was forced regularly into sex work around Detroit. She told no one in her family about her secret. She credits her father's promotion at work with saving her life.
"My dad was transferred 1,000 miles away, we were able to move and I didn't tell anybody we were leaving," Flores said. "I don't think I'd be alive today if they hadn't moved."
Today, Flores works to fight against what she fell victim to, with the S.O.A.P. project, which stands for Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution. And the name isn't a random acronym, six years ago, Flores realized that hotel bathrooms were a good way to reach out to victims.
"Because they usually clean up after each man that they have to be with, and they're in the bathrooms alone," Flores said. "So, every hotel has different kinds of items, so it's really an opportunity to get them alone, and they're going to see that number."
Now, S.O.A.P. has spread to 13 states and is in over 25 cities nationwide.
Although Flores' story might seem like a rare occurence, human trafficking can occur anywhere and to anyone, and, especially, to members of the LGBTQ population — who are considered to be at higher risk.
January is the annual, Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and though it is over, there are still many steps one can take to avoid falling victim to it, or help someone who has. Between the Lines spoke with Kimberly A. Hogan, who is the research project director at the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research in Phoenix, Arizona, to understand the issue further, and how it relates specifically to the LGBTQ population.
What are some common pitfalls for LGBTQ youth to watch out for, to avoid getting involved in human trafficking?
Traffickers meet the needs of an LGBTQ youth by manipulating and exploiting their vulnerabilities. According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, sex trafficking is defined as a situation "in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age." It is always sex trafficking when under age 18 if there is an exchange. Males, females and transgender persons can be victims of sex trafficking.
Common recruitment methods used by traffickers include forms of deception like seduction and romance, false job advertisements and lies about educational or travel opportunities.
Can social media play a part in trafficking?
What I have seen in our research is an older male offering a younger male a place to stay. They meet up on a social media app and what the younger male believes to be a safe place to stay for the night, turns into being brought into the life of sex trafficking. The young male has to engage in a sex act for a place to stay.
Why is the LGBTQ population particularly susceptible to falling victim to this crime?
The understanding of the intersectionality between LGBTQ homeless/runaway youth is an emerging field of knowledge. What we do know is that LGBTQ youth account for a disproportionate rate of the runaway and homeless youth population, and experience disproportionately high rates of victimization.
In a three-year analysis, from 2014-2016, the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research completed a longitudinal study titled the Youth Experiences Survey (YES): Exploring the Sex Trafficking Experiences of Homeless Young Adults in Arizona.
(The study) … explores the sexual exploitation experiences of homeless youth and young adults, including LGBTQ youth. LGBTQ participants were increasingly likely over the three years to report being a sex trafficking victim and went from being 38.4 percent in 2014 of the sex trafficked group, to 54.4 percent in 2016.
Research from the True Colors Fund, from the Serving Our Youth Study in 2015, indicated that the number one reason for LGBTQ youth homelessness is they were forced out or ran away from their homes. This was for both LGBQ and Transgender youth.
What are some of the impacts that sex trafficking has on its victims?
In our most recent 2016 YES Survey, when comparing the life experiences of sex-trafficked LGBTQ youth vs. non-sex trafficked LGBTQ youth, the sex trafficked LGBTQ youth were significantly more likely to report a history of meth use, and a health history of PTSD, asthma and chronic pain.
The sex trafficked LGBTQ youth were significantly more likely to report a history of self-harm, characterized by cutting, drinking alcohol excessively, using drugs, not eating for long periods of time and vomiting. Furthermore, LGBTQ youth who had been sex trafficked were significantly more likely to report negative lifetime experiences of physical abuse and emotional abuse by a parent or guardian, sexual abuse (both in childhood and young adult years), harassment by peers and dating violence.
Hogan also provided a list of warning signs that include poor physical health, a lack of control of one's possessions or money, poor mental health or abnormal behavior and a restrictive work environment.
A full list of these warning signs can be found online at humantraffickinghotline.org. For more information about S.O.A.P., please visit soapproject.org, or call (614) 216-1619. The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-(888) 3737-888.
