President Lynn Walton presided over today’s meeting. Gene Owens provided the opening prayer. Joe Meador led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Lynn led us in the Four Way Test. The meeting was held at the Holiday Inn North and on Zoom.
Bill MacLauchlan thanked those who helped with today’s meeting. There were no guests.
Lynn Walton then introduced today’s guest speaker, Phillip Hendricks, Chief Investigator in the Human Trafficking & Drug Enforcement Administration. Phillip originally wanted to become a therapist and started working as a dispatcher at the sheriff’s dept as a side job. He was soon bit by the law enforcement bug. He asked Sheriff McGee to put him through the police academy.
After being a sheriff’s deputy for years, he eventually attended a Preventative Violence class. That led to his position as a Chief Investigator for the Human Trafficking taskforce.
In 2018, they cracked down on prostitution in areas off Hwy 49/59 and on Hwy 42 bypass. Known for prostitution and drug trafficking, it was commonly referred to as "the track." Although most of the prostitution has been cleaned up, there is always more.
Human trafficking earns global profits of roughly $150 billion a year for traffickers, $99 billion of which comes from commercial sexual exploitation. Globally, an estimated 71% of enslaved people are women and girls, while men and boys account for 29%.
Human trafficking can happen to people of all ages and genders and any race or religious background. Women are often used for sexual exploitation, while men are usually used for forced labor. It is believed that one in five human trafficking victims is children, exploited for begging, child pornography, or child labor. Victims frequently do not seek help due to language barriers, fear of their traffickers, or fear of law enforcement.
The United States is ranked as one of the worst countries globally for human trafficking. It is estimated that 199,000 incidents occur within the United States every year.
The top 5 risk factors for being targeted for prostitution are substance abuse concerns, runways or the homeless, unstable homes, mental health concerns, and migration/location.
A lot of the men attract these girls by being the “Romeo Pimp.” In these instances, they romance the victim by telling them how beautiful they are. They may also buy them gifts and act like boyfriends. Once they believe they are in a relationship, then they start pimping them out. Some of these pimps have a circuit they take the girls on. They travel a south circuit going from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and back again.
Back in the day, the pimps would read the want ads in the newspapers and locate girls that way. They would also put “dates” in the paper to attract customers “johns”. Now it is so much easier with social media and the internet. They can track the girls, make dates for the girls and solicit the girls.
Reports indicate that many child sex trafficking survivors in the US were at one time in the foster care system
Websites are going up by the thousands every day. In 2019 the Trafficking Hotline saw a nearly 20 percent increase in the number of victims and survivors who contacted them directly about their own situations.
Traffickers once convicted can receive anywhere from 10 years to life in prison. California has the most trafficking reported, followed by Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Georgia. Every year traffickers earn approximately $39 billion on the exploitation of children alone. Seventy-one percent of modern slavery victims are women and girls.
The ways to help these victims are to educate yourself on the issue, explore options for getting involved, and become a human rights advocate.
Contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline to connect with services and support for human trafficking survivors, or to report a tip: call 1-888-373-7888, text 233733.
Lucy Sanguinetti recommends we make Advocates for Freedom one of our quarterly donation associations.
Matt Rumph reminded everyone of the 8th Annual Addison McKinley Memorial Golf Tournament on August 28, at the Shadow Ridge Golf Club. If you are interested contact him. He would like to put a team together.
There being no further business to come before the club, Lynn adjourned the meeting with our motto: “Service Above Self.”