Thursday, April 29, 2010

Flesh For Sale
Sand Weekly Newspaper

Nola Theiss, executive director of HTAP (Human Trafficking Awareness Partnerships, Inc.) and Jennifer Dole Massie, President of the Board of HTAP, presented a human trafficking awareness event at Nervous Nellie's Crazy Waterfront Eatery on Friday evening from 5 till 9 p.m. The owner of the restaurant, Rob DeGennaro, graciously provided hors d'oeuvres for the occasion.

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery in which the victims are subjected to force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Lowell and Sally Senitz, Directors of Wings of Shelter Int'l, Inc.tell us that, " an estimated 27 million people are held in slavery worldwide, meaning there are more slaves in the world than were taken from Africa during 300 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. After drug trafficking, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms trade as the second largest criminal industry in the world, and it is the fastest growing." Sadly, "more than half of trafficked victims into the United States are thought to be children and the average price of individual slaves is less than a new cell phone or about $90."

This is shocking news to many! Some of you may wrongly think that this doesn't happen here in our own civilized communities but Nola Theiss and Human Trafficking Awareness Partnerships, Inc. report that "Florida has one of the highest incidences of human trafficking in the country. It affects all kinds of people: legal and illegal immigrants, American children, to include runaways and missing youth thought to be runaways, the homeless--anyone who is vulnerable." Victims, disproportionately female and children, are often tricked and lured by false promises of a better life or financial security for themselves and their families. Their traffickers often deceive them with feigned love and deceptive intimidation. They are then isolated and kept in bondage with threats and physical abuse, debt bondage, and forced drug use.

At the fundraising event Friday, a gift of either the DVD - Lucia's Letter and Resource guide, sponsored by the Zonta Club of Sanibel-Captiva, or four post cards - replicas of four important Human Trafficking art works, were offered. A package of 12 postcards could be purchased for a donation. The original artwork was created by 11 youth; some of whom were children of Guatemalan immigrants; some live in a group foster home; and some are from area high schools. The young artists worked in four sessions that were four hours long over a two-month time period to visualize their ideas on canvas. Their work was then produced and turned into post cards that could be shared with others.

Nola explained that the purpose was, "to expose people to the artwork that students did and the understanding that the students have about the issues you can see in them."

The second outreachart project presented came about through Nola Theiss's connection to Cypress Lake H.S. Center for the Arts, where her daughter, Joanna, had previously attended before going on to U of F law school. Nola got the idea to speak to a class about human trafficking and suggested that they write and perform a play. They became interested in the issue and decided to get involved in the abolitionist movement in this manner. The goal is to get others involved and to show them that we are all vulnerable. "It gives one more of a choice and having a choice is what prevents people from falling into human trafficking", Nola proclaims. "If you don't know the lures and tricks that can get you involved in this, you leave yourself vulnerable to predators."

Cypress Lake Theater Department students, Amanda Jaye, Jackie Benitez, Lauren Broad, and Michael O'Connor were on hand to present excerpts from "Selling Innocence", a script both written and performed by them. They seemed proud to have a part in fostering awareness and prevention of this travesty. The drama was both thought provoking and disturbing in its message. It will be performed in its entirety, free to the public, at Cypress Lake Center for the Arts on Friday, April 30 at 9:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. This is definitely a "must see!"

A Law Enforcement Perspective

Here in Lee County, Lieutenant Hamilton and Sergeant Chitwood head up the Intelligence Division of the Lee County Sheriff's Department and the Human Trafficking Unit. When we spoke to Sergeant Chitwood on Wednesday, he told us that ‘trafficking' puts too kind of a spin on it.

"The term ‘human trafficking' gets thrown around too loosely – ‘Modern Day Slavery' is actually what it is,” he said. "Here at the Sheriff's Office, we have two categories of victims. The first is International, where someone came to this country, is now here and is placed into a situation of indentured servitude – that could be sex or labor. Second is domestic, which is an American citizen who is stuck in a situation they can't get out of. Usually these folks are runaways and children.”

Chitwood told us that he has been in charge of the HTU since January, and even in that short of time he has had his ‘eyes opened' to a lot of things he never realized were going on before.

"Things like this have been going on for years and years – if prostitution is the ‘world's oldest profession', then this may one of the world's oldest crimes,” he said. "The reason you're seeing a lot more of these cases now isn't because they are increasing, it's because the awareness is increasing since there is more education among the deputies and the public.”

The sergeant told us about one of the first cases he encountered after becoming part of the HTU.

"There was this young lady – she wasn't a minor but she was young – and she had come down here from the north and gotten involved with some bad people,” he said. "They put her in a hotel room, gave her about $2 a day to feed herself from the vending machines, and sent 10-15 men in there a day for her to service. They told her if she tried to run, they would kill her and her whole family.”

"It's really amazing and heartbreaking the stuff that goes on.”

At the February 11th, 2010 meeting of the ‘Lee County Human Trafficking Task Force' - a group that includes Lee County Sheriff's Officers, Florida Gulf Coast University professors, medical personnel and partners with other non-government organizations - Hamilton and Chitwood reported that 20% of the national human trafficking cases are in Florida - they have investigated 23 cases of human trafficking in the past 7 months of the approximate 200 that were investigated nationally in 2009.

Last year Governor Crist appointed Sheriff Mike Scott to a statewide anti-trafficking task force following Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy's announcement of 10 active slavery investigations in the county.

Human trafficking occurs in many different forms, even in quiet neighborhoods. The Sand Paper found several news reports of incidents occuring within the last few months:

In March, 76-year-old Pine Island resident Chester O'Clair was arrested and charged with running a brothel.

According to the report, deputies say he was flying to and from South America to get women and force them into prostitution. The Lee County Human Trafficking Unit found at least three people were forced into prostitution against their will, and the investigation concluded that O'Clair funded the operation – investing $7,000 into an account.

The business wasn't a secret either, according to the report. Neighbors heard him talking about ‘crack whores' at a local restaurant, and another neighbor identified an ad for "Charley's Angels" in the January edition of the Lee County Shopper as Chester's service.

In another case from February, first reported by NBC News, two men were arrested in Bonita Springs and charged with forcing as many as 13 women to prostitute themselves, keeping their earnings and threatening to kill their families.

"Undercover deputies arranged sex for money with three different women, who all told them Derrick Ned and Naomi Vasquez had forced them into prostitution and had even threatened to kill them if they escaped,” the report stated.

"A federal affidavit stated that undercover detectives found the women on the website - "mygoddesscompanion.com" – and arranged to meet them for sex at locations - including a Fort Myers hotel.”

"According to the affidavit, Ned lured some of the women with drugs, others by promises of lingerie modeling.”

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, roughly 17,500 people are trafficked in the United States annually. Victims are forced into sex and slave labor. Florida is considered the number two state for this crime . Eighty percent of human trafficking is sex trafficking; essentially, "Rape for Profit” and 80% of the victims are children and women.

The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking revealed that 100,000- 300,000 minors a year are being forced into prostitution and the average age is 12–14 years old. There currently are less than 10 specialized restoration homes in the nation for these youth with less than 50 beds and only one with five beds in the state of Florida.

Chitwood told us that with more awareness and training will come more arrests.

"There's some mandated training being done by the Department of Justice, and then they come back and train other deputies as to what to look for,” he said. "We are working on getting the guys who work in narcotics and vice to know what the indicators are – for example, if you go into a house and there's one woman there with 14 men, and she never leaves, there's a real possibilty she's being kept there against her will.”

The sergeant said the fact that there's a lot of public interest in human trafficking right now helps, too.

"Along with the Human Trafficking Task Force, there are groups like the Southwest Florida Human Trafficking Coalition, which is more open to the public to get involved,” he said. "Whereas the Task Force is focused on getting the bad guys and helping the victims, it is mainly for Lee County. The Coalition is broader scoped, and offers more opportunities for people to get involved, as does the Esperanza Project – which was started by Professor Johnny McGahey from FGCU.”

The Esperanza Project, which was started in the summer of 2009 with $100,000 in seed money from a federal anti-trafficking grant given to the Lee County Sheriff's Office, is named after the pseudonym of the 11-year-old girl whose enslavement in Cape Coral became a galvanizing force as Lee county's first high-profile victim. Known as ‘Hope', the girl was discovered in Cape Coral in 2005 pregnant and bleeding. An investigation revealed that she was born in Guatemala, and sold to a man who brought her here and forced her into sexual and domestic slavery, where she was repeatedly raped and beaten during her two-year captivity.

State Attorney Doug Molloy eventually sent her captors to federal prison.

There is also the statewide task force that Sheriff Scott is part of.

"That group is focused on educating legislators and the public and determining what laws can be made to stop this,” said Chitwood. "It's to keep everyone in the state on the same page.”

The trouble with prosecuting some of the cases, he says, is that officers are dealing with a lot of different issues.

"Especially with the international cases, there are a lot of legal processes,” he said. "You have to make sure that someone doesn't get deported before you can bring them to trial, or sometimes the victims are suffering from a type of Stockholm Syndrome: you have a girl that was sold from her village in the mountains of Peru when she was 11, and now, at 18, slavery is all she knows so she thinks this man is her husband when he's really her pimp.”

According to the Lee County Task Force on Human Trafficking, "women and children are frequently trafficked for sexual exploitation. Trafficking also involves exploitation of agricultural and sweatshop workers, or workers in the hospitality industry, as well as individuals working as domestic servants." The Task Force works to identify victims, provide advocacy, and pursues justice for the victims. You can help by becoming a member of the Lee County Human Trafficking Task Force. The Task Force holds meetings, trainings, and programs to further education and involvement with the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking (FCAHT). To find out more about how you can participate, contact the Task Force Coordinator at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

"The good thing is that there's so much passion amongst Americans to put a stop to this,” said Chitwood.

"In a country where we put such a high value on freedom, what could be more anti-American than slavery?”

- Gigi Mezzio and Keri Hendry