Ten years ago, Linda Smith founded Shared Hope International to rescue and restore women and children in crisis. The Department of Justice recently granted funding to Shared Hope to assess the sex trafficking industry in 10 U.S. cities.
Smith, a former congresswoman from Washington state, recently visited Focus on the Family and shared her passion.
1. Linda, you’re combating global sex trafficking. Many people might be surprised to hear there are similar things happening right here in the United States. Tell us about the domestic problem we have with sex trafficking.
Sex trafficking is a multibillion-dollar industry. It needs a product, it needs a buyer, and somebody’s all too happy to get a "product" and take it to market. And that’s what we call the trafficker or pimp.
2. There is a lot of that happening with minors. What are you uncovering with regard to boys and girls being taken into this?
We’re just about two-thirds through the investigation of major cities throughout the United States and the trafficking of children for commercial sex. What we’re finding is shown by the story of a 12-year-old. She was snatched going to school. The man had been walking alongside of her as she went to school. Come along six months, he had built a relationship. She was a gifted, smart, little girl, and that’s why she was walking the extra blocks to a special school. She got in the car with him and disappeared.
She was arrested twice, taken home, and they couldn’t understand why he’d get her again. She was arrested 19 more times before she was 16, in about that many states. Once a child, kidnapped, lured, deceived, six magic words will control her: "I know where I got you." And those controlling words say, “I know how to get your mother. I can beat you again. There’s no safe place in the world for you.” We just prosecuted the pimp. I’ll go to the prison in a couple of weeks and interview him. He was part of a network selling girls (from) Louisiana to Toledo, clear over to Kansas, all the way to Seattle, and they had a pimp network of our little girls — just snatched and lured for "product" to men all over the United States (who) are pretty common, pretty ordinary, buying them because they’re labeled "prostitute."
3. How does the American culture contribute to the problem of sex trafficking?
The American culture has started to tolerate commercial sex. "What happens here stays here" means thousands of little girls have been brought into Las Vegas, sold to tourists as well as local men. You don’t find any of the buyers being arrested because, in the man’s mind, she’s a prostitute. In society’s mind, she’s a prostitute. The man is perceived as just using a prostitute, no matter what the age. The age is going younger and younger, as men are visualizing something young. They’re seeing young porn. They’re seeing young bodies, no stretch marks. And when you come to actualization from visualization, that actualization has to replicate something similar. It's going younger and younger as porn is going younger. We found 1 out of 5 images online are of children.
4. Many people say that posing for porn or stripping is a choice a woman makes. Do you agree?
I’ve spent 10 years of my life restoring little girls and young women who have been in the commercial sex industry, and this is all over the world. I found one who made an "adult choice." The average age a child is put into commercial sex, around the world as well as here in the United States, is 11 to 14. So a 12-year-old is the common product. She’s a child, she’s innocent and she should be protected.
5. What can the average person do to help with the fight?
We have to change our language. We have to stop calling anyone a prostitute and call them a prostituted person, especially a prostituted child.
Be aware and become involved in your community. There are groups that fight what would be called child prostitution. We’re asking you to call your prosecutors, call your sheriffs, and say, “Do we arrest girls, under 18, who are really traffic victims, and you’re calling them prostitutes?”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Visit the Shared Hope Web site.
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