Uber driver helps rescue girl out of sex trafficking.
How to identify (and Rescue) a Victim of Sex Trafficking
Posted January 2, 2017 by Danell Glade
Header Image From KETV7.
Police are crediting Northern California Uber
driver Keith Avila for helping rescue a teenage girl out of sex
trafficking—a girl he gave a ride to in his car, along with her two
suspected female pimps on Monday night, according to a report by ABC7.
“They started like talking, like saying everything that was going on.
Like what they’re doing, child sex trafficking,” Avila said.
Avila says he had just picked up the two women and a 16-year-old girl
and brought them to the Holiday Inn, where the two women allegedly
pimped the girl out to a man for sex. Minutes after dropping them off at
the hotel, he called the police to alert them of what was going on.
“Police arrived fast. They don’t play. They do not play. Not when you’re doing child sex trafficking,” he said.
Police arrested the two women, Destiny Pettway and Maria Westly, for various charges relating to pimping and pandering. KTXL reports that the man who was purchasing the teenage girl, identified as Disney Vang, was arrested for sex with a minor.
When asked if he was afraid and why he made it a point to alert the authorities, Avila answered simply:
“I can’t just drive away. I’m mean, of course not. That’s not even an
option. Honestly, I didn’t think about it. They said what they said,
and it’s one of those things that you just do.”
Avila says it was the conversation between the adult women and the
girl who tipped him off to the suspected crime that was about to go
down.
“‘You’re gonna hug them, you’re gonna pat them down, make sure they
don’t have no weapons. You ask him, ‘Do you have any weapons?’ And then
ask for the donations. Say ‘Do you have my donation?’ Get the donation
first. And then before you go in and do anything, get the donation
first.’”
And all the while, Avila says the victim was obviously just a kid.
“I looked at her in the eyes. She had this face of innocence, and like insecure,” he said.
Police are grateful to Avila for getting involved and making a difference.
“He could’ve said nothing. Went on his way, collected his fare. And
then that 16-year-old victim could’ve been victimized again by who knows
how many different people over the next couple of days, weeks, months,”
Elk Grove police Officer Chris Trim said.
This is the reality of what we’re fighting against. Prostitution, sex
trafficking, and porn are more closely linked than society would
believe, and it’s time we spread the facts. The truth is that sex
trafficking is a global issue, and it is only made worse by
pornography. Any form of sexual exploitation only fuels the demand for
the sex trade as a whole.
Obviously, human trafficking is an underground business, making firm
statistics hard to come by. But the facts in cases that come to light
are chilling. For example, in 2011, two Miami men were found guilty of
spending five years luring women into a human trafficking trap. They
would advertise modeling roles, then when women came to try out, they
would drug them, kidnap them, rape them, videotape the abuse, and sell
it as pornography.
Research shows
that men who go to prostitutes are twice as likely to have watched a
porn film in the last year compared to the general population. It’s also
not surprising that when these customers show up, many come ready with
porn images in hand to show the women they’re exploiting what they want
to do.
And they’re not the only ones using porn as an illustration. “Pimps
and traffickers use pornography to initiate their … victims into their
new life of sexual slavery,” says Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, a former UN
representative and a senior fellow at the Beverley LaHaye Institute.
Through exposure to porn, these victims “get hardened to accept the
inevitable and learn what is expected of them.”
Also, in study done
in 2007 of 854 women in prostitution across nine countries, 49% said
that porn had been made of them while they were in prostitution, and 47%
said they had been harmed by men who had either forced or tried to
force their victims to do things the men had seen in porn.
We fight to bring awareness to the fact that porn isn’t harmless
entertainment, and the porn industry wouldn’t be where it is today
without sex trafficking and prostitution.
Porn is commonly made of victims of sex trafficking and put online or
sold to distributors. These sex slaves are forced, coerced, and abused
into doing porn. For porn viewers at home, there is no way to know the
dark origins of where the porn comes from. Stopping the demand starts
with us.
Three Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW To Help Fight Sex Trafficking
1) The facts show that porn and sex trafficking are inseparably connected. SHARE this article to raise awareness on how to spot a victim and how to get help for them.
2) Stop the demand, rep the movement. Shop here:
3) Check out the following nonprofit organizations to learn more
about how you can get directly involved in the fight against sex
trafficking:
Polaris Project
This Washington D.C.-based nonprofit is one of the most
recognized organizations in the global fight to eradicate modern
slavery. Named after the North Star that guided slaves to freedom in the
U.S., Polaris systemically disrupts the human trafficking networks by
helping survivors restore their freedom, preventing more victims, and
leveraging data and technology to pursue traffickers wherever they
operate.
Rescue: Freedom International
Based in Seattle, Washington, this nonprofit has partner sites
in 8 countries, that support sex trafficking victims and gives them
“anything and everything a survivor needs to experience long-term
healing and restoration.” While local partners are working on the
ground, Rescue:Freedom is the supply line for that work by providing
operational funding, scholarships, training, best practices,
infrastructure, and other essential resources.
Operation Underground Railroad
O.U.R. takes a boots-on-the-ground approach to combatting sex
trafficking by gathering trained extraction operations specialists to
bring an end to child slavery. O.U.R.’s Underground Jump Team consists
of former CIA, Navy SEALs, and Special Ops operatives that lead
coordinated identification and extraction efforts. These operations are
always in conjunction with law enforcement throughout the world.
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