True Crime Tuesday April 21, from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m., Frank Weber discusses the development of Last Call on Facebook live. www.facebook.com/frankweberauthor *Win a chance to be a True Crime Star! During the 4 weeks of presentations, people who make comments during the presentation will have their name put into a drawing with the winner receiving 1 of 3 choices. I will either use your name as a character, have you make a brief appearance, or use your business name somewhere in the book. You can gift this award to a friend if you wish. Sex Trafficking In the United States, Sex trafficking is most prolific in America’s multibillion-dollar illicit massage industry. The arrest of New England Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, and of hundreds of others who solicited sex in Florida spas brought the issue to the forefront. Raids on illicit spas are often well-publicized. What isn’t given the same attention is that in many cases, these sex spas return to normal business within months of the raid. Below is the front window of the Florida spa revealed in the Kraft case. Our best evidence suggests that the lucrative illicit massage business is growing. (Modern day slavery in my opinion.) While prostitution has been illegal, the trafficking of sex workers wasn’t made illegal in the U.S. until George Bush Jr. signed it into law in 2000. The United States, along with Mexico and the Philippines, was ranked one of the world's worst places for human trafficking in 2018. In the US, there is no official number of human trafficking victims. Estimates place it in the hundreds of thousands. About 150 calls come into the human trafficking hotline in the U.S. every day. While most of the human trafficking cases have been reported in California, Texas, and Florida, Las Vegas is also a hot spot due to the city's culture and high rates of homelessness. Every state, including Minnesota, has reports of human trafficking. An organization called Telebinth Refuge in St. Cloud is currently helping about 50 women recover from trafficking. While all sexes can be victimized, 99% are women and girls. In Minnesota the majority are white, with Mexican immigrants and African American workers also existing in high numbers. (I’ll talk about the U.S. below.) Globally, about half of the females are Asian, with the greatest number coming from the Fujian province in Southeast China. The second highest percentage comes from South Korea. Of sex traffickers in the U.S., 71% entered legally. New York, and Queens in particular, is a documented destination for trafficking, because of its location on the eastern corridor. As Homeland Security assistant special agent Akil Baldwin stated, "New York is the epicenter of everything, legitimate and illegitimate." Approximately 20,000 individuals are sex trafficked every year in the U.S. This comes to 54 new people every day. The potential victims are targeted by slimeball opportunists who look for kids coming out of problematic families. Children raised in foster care have a greater chance of becoming victims. In 2013, 60% of child victims recovered by the FBI were from foster care. It’s estimated that 1 in 7 runaways in the U.S. ends up in sex trafficking. Native American women are at particular risk, because of the high percentage living in poverty. In Phoenix, another of the top trafficking jurisdictions in the US, it was estimated that 40% of sex trafficking victims in 2015 were Native American. The smallest Mexican state, Tlaxcala, has been identified as the biggest source of sex slaves to the US. In 2015, 5 out of 10 of Homeland Security's "most wanted" sex traffickers were from Tenancingo, in Tlaxcala. There are estimates that 1 in 10 people from Tenancingo are involved in trafficking. I will share the story below, as this is the most typical scenario. You hear of girls being kidnapped for sex trafficking, but it isn’t the typical scenario. For example, that specific scenario happened once in Minnesota last year. Most often, poor desperate girls are talked into it, and then made to stay, out of fear the people they care about will be murdered if they don’t. María Méndez shared her story. She was a live-in domestic worker when she met Ricardo López on her way to the supermarket. She was 15, from a poor family. She had had been cleaning houses since the age of 8. He was a cocky, charming 16-year-old from Tenancingo. He courted her, promising marriage and a home. She desperately wanted it to be true, and within a fortnight (2 weeks or “14 nights”) moved with him to Tenancingo. At first López and his family treated her well, but it quickly turned violent. “He sent me to work as a prostitute– all over the country-- to make money selling my body. He said the money was to buy land so we could build a little house, but it was all false, even the name he’d given me was false. He made me live a very sad, ugly, desperate life. I was so ashamed.” Tenancingo only has a population of 11,000, but the presence of organized crime is breathtaking. Huge, tawdry houses are scattered among rows of modest homes. Everyone knows who owns the big houses, but there is no public land registry. This helps keep the proceeds from sex trafficking off paper. The mansions look like fancy multilayered wedding cakes adorned with sculptured eagles, lions and swans. The grandiosity continues into the cemetery, where tombs are ornate and extravagant, similar to those seen in the northern state of Sinaloa, from where many of the drug cartel leaders hail. Maria spoke of the pimps, “They go to other states looking for vulnerable girls to trick – that’s their role in the family business. Everyone knows who the padrotes are, it’s no secret, and it’s the same families who sponsor religious festivals. They operate with almost complete impunity. Trafficking has become so normalized and profitable that young people look up to them.” Federal prosecution for the sex trafficking of children increased until 2016, and has decreased every year since. Some suggest the same incentives are no longer available to law enforcement, and others suggest the risk of deportation keeps sex trafficked females from coming forward. Is the porn industry related to sex trafficking? Not all porn is nonconsensual, and porn is alluring. There’s a reason billions of people access it. But what’s alluring isn’t always good for us. The porn industry fuels people being sexually exploited at the hands of people who should care for them, and at other times exploited by traffickers, and pimps who blatantly abuse them. Porn directly fuels the demand for sex traffickers to make money by selling videos of their sex slaves to porn sites. Major porn studios and porn sites are not immune from this. I’d encourage you to look at the site, Fight the New Drug, for more information. What’s ironic about helping people out of prostitution, or sex trafficking, is that they are typically not welcoming the intervention with elation. Most often, help is presented when their “John” is being arrested. The workers fear for their lives and do everything they can to avoid being “rescued.” Very often, if not most of the time, the sex worker has developed a drug addiction and desires a reprieve from withdrawal more than help. As a therapist that helps people with sexual issues, I can tell you that prostitutes and strippers are some of the most mentally ill people I see. Think of the dissociation you need to create to let people you hate, violate your body, over and over again. In most cases, their problems started with being sexually abused as they were experiencing puberty and they have amplified the problems since. They’ve burned bridges with the few healthy relatives they’ve had, and lack resources. How is the girl brought here from Tencaningo going to get legal work? She has no papers. She sees her sexual availability as her only resource. Fortunately, there are places, like Terebinth in St. Cloud, that help. The task is on all of us to reduce the demand! The Terebinth (pistacia) tree is referenced in the Old Testament. The terebinth tree develops a very large deep and extensive root system and therefore remains green in years of drought. It often sprouts from the stump after being cut. Because of its large size and great age, terebinth trees were places of significance in the scripture. They were also seen as a resting place of shelter and shade. To me, a large tree is an example of resilience. Thanks for listening, Frank
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AuthorFrank F. Weber is a forensic psychologist specializing in homicide and sexual and physical assault cases. He uses his unique understanding of how predator’s think, knowledge of victim trauma, actual court cases, and passion for writing true crime thrillers. His Award Winning books include "Murder Book" (2017) "The I-94 Murders" (2018) "Last Call" (2019) and "Lying Close" (September 2020). Archives
April 2024
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