Chicago is a High Intensity Child Prostitution Location
Law enforcement officials call it an “escalating threat” as children,”, some as young as nine, are lured and kidnapped into sex trafficking, the illegal trade of human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor, often referred to as modern slavery.
According to a 2012 news article from the University of Illinois at Springfield, human trafficking has become a global epidemic that plagues almost every country and is one of the world’s fastest-growing crimes in Chicago, according to the FBI, labeled as one of 13 locations of “High Intensity Child Prostitution,”
Community Activist Andrew Holmes is on a “personal mission” to end the violence that runs rampant on Chicago’s streets. Holmes who was shot and nearly died 20 years ago, calls sex trafficking the second largest illegal operation next to drug trafficking. The Chicago Citizen Newspaper recently spoke with him about the insidious crime.
Chicago Citizen Newspaper: Describe your work with Human Trafficking.
Holmes: When we get a missing person call, we take the information and call the Special Victims Unit of the Chicago Police Department. We work on the cases and they involve both female and male victims. We’ve found kids in abandoned buildings or what they call “trap houses.” We hear the stories all the time of people trying to kidnap children and teens.
Chicago Citizen Newspaper: Can you describe what takes place?
Holmes: Often times, when they’re kidnapped, they’re drugged with what’s called Molly or Ecstasy and taken to a trap house.
Chicago Citizen Newspaper: What was the age of the youngest child you’ve rescued?
Holmes: She was an 11-year-old girl here in Chicago who had been reported missing and it was on the news. We found her working the streets at 87th and Commercial (Streets) but we never found the individuals who had her working there.
Chicago Citizen Newspaper: What condition are the children in when you find them?
Holmes: We find they’ve been badly beaten and they’re disoriented from the drugs….traumatized.
Chicago Citizen Newspaper: How are the victims being controlled?
Holmes: We found a victim chained by the ankle in room with a pit bull guarding her. They’re only fed potato chips when they’re addicted to drugs because they don’t want food…all they want are the drugs.
Chicago Citizen Newspaper: What can people do to protect their children?
Holmes: I can share the story of a 14-year-old girl who went to a party on the South Side of Chicago and had a drink of soda and a wine cooler and someone at the party shouted something under false pretenses, so that people would run out of the building and they were forced into a waiting van and she ended up in a dark room in a building on the West Side of Chicago. So people need to know to be careful about where they go, who they go with and what they drink, because something was put in the drink she had.
Chicago Citizen Newspaper: What else can the public do?
Holmes: Sometimes, kids who are victims are beaten into submission so badly and are fully under the trafficker’s control to the point where they are allowed to go home sometimes and they go to school and they go back to the trafficker on their own. So what people need to look for are bruises and odd behavior. One year, there were four females from Harper High School, reported missing. Not all of the victims are kidnapped, they get them hooked on drugs and are forced to work on the streets. Another thing is when you hear on the news about a van following a child or someone showing up at the same place more than once trying to get a child, it’s because they are more than likely trying to get them for sex trafficking.
Holmes, who also works with Morrison Security Corporation in Alsip, added that traffickers use social media to advertise victims and to lure them.
In addition to Holmes’ effort to raise awareness about human trafficking, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, and the Cook County Commission on Women’s Issues, on Sept. 19, sponsored a public hearing, “Ending the Exploitation of Women & Girls” with featured speakers, Marian Hatcher and Brenda Myers-Powell, local survivors of the sex trafficking trade and now leaders of anti-trafficking efforts in Cook County.
Below is an excerpt from the question and answer session with Hatcher and Myers-Powell, and Alvarez, where they discuss the problem of sex trafficking, progress made over the past few years, and what we need to focus on as we continue to combat this problem.
What is the nature of the problem of human trafficking in Cook County?
Hatcher: Sex trafficking is a human rights issue, an illegal economy thriving on underserved and vulnerable populations in our community. It feeds upon temporary or life-long traumatic events in an individual’s journey to acquire and maintain basic resources for survival. The intersection of supply, demand and a prime location has made Cook County a hunting ground for sex traffickers and solicitors.
Alvarez: Both sex and labor trafficking are a very real problem in Cook County. Chicago has been identified by the FBI as a hub, because we are a convention city, a transportation hub and a tourist destination. In particular, we have seen a large amount of domestic sex trafficking. However, we know labor trafficking is thriving here as well.
What should be our main focus as we continue to fight to end human trafficking in Cook County?
Hatcher: Combating demand should be the paramount focus. Men must hold each other accountable and communities must continue to work with law enforcement and legislators to increase criminal penalties for purchasers of sex and ensure they also receive much need services to address what drives this behavior. We need to educate our community that this is not a victimless crime and that it should be taken as seriously as domestic violence.
Alvarez: The unprecedented partnership between law enforcement and service providers continues to be an integral part of the response. Funding, of course, is always a need as is specialized training for law enforcement and the judiciary. We have made some great progress in these areas that should be built on.
Please share with us one of your personal experiences/connections with human trafficking.
Hatcher: As a survivor of human trafficking, I have been kidnapped, raped and beaten. The only saving grace from these experiences is that they have provided me with the ability to relate with young women going through similar experiences today. The emergency interventions we conduct allow them to emerge from their circumstances to become safe and stable through treatment, eventually returning to their families prepared to live out their potential and carry on productive lives. These profound experiences remind me that this is God’s work. I believe He saved me so that I could in turn help save others.
Myers-Powell: I am a survivor of human trafficking. At the age of fifteen I was kidnapped by two pimps, thrown in a trunk and forced to prostitute for months on the street and at truck stops. That was 39 years ago in 1973 and now in 2013 I hear the same horror stories from young girls and women with whom I work.
Alvarez: As a prosecutor, it just didn’t make sense that we were not addressing a crime that is so prevalent and so destructive to our communities, particularly women and children. As a mother, I know that children are not out there on the streets as entrepreneurs, choosing to engage in prostitution. That is why passing the Safe Children’s Act here in Illinois was so imperative. Those have been my biggest connections.
Looking back, what was the single most helpful thing/person/program that helped you get back on your feet and ‘Leave the life’?
Hatcher: Sheriff Tom Dart’s vision afforded me the multidisciplinary integrated treatment program at the Cook County Jail I so badly needed at that point in my life. The program addressed underlying stressors and un-addressed issues that brought me to jail (and nearly prison) in the first place. In the short term, it provided me a safe haven rather than being on the street, where I would suffer daily abuse and torment. In the long term, Sheriff Dart’s program offered me the physical and mental safety that saved me from myself. It taught me coping and life skills, allowing me to live a healthy life. I became a productive member of society again and developed the sense of family and teamwork that I had been missing for so many years.
Myers-Powell: Being afforded the privilege of working with these women has actually served as an integral part of my lifelong recovery process. I spent 39 years being victimized. I was shot five times and stabbed over 13 times, always under pimp control because I saw no way out. I connect with these women and girls because I was once them.
State’s Attorney Alvarez, what has been your most successful accomplishment/achievement since you have been fighting to end human trafficking in Cook County?
Alvarez: I am so proud of the work that has been done here in Cook County, not just by my office, but all of those that we partner with. For me, the biggest accomplishments have been the creation of our entire human trafficking initiative, the passage of legislation to support our efforts and that as of now, we have charged 78 defendants in Illinois with human trafficking and related charges.
Anyone with information about child trafficking or prostitution should call the Chicago Violent Crimes Against Children Task Force at 312 746 7510. The hotline is open 24 hours or 1-800-UTELLUS, 883-5587.
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