PRESENTATION
Human Trafficking
Dave Tedeschi, A.G. District 7890
Dave Tedeschi is our Assistant District Governor. He graduated from the University of Miami and was a reporter for a number of years. He worked at the Newington Children's Hospital in public relations and for the state banking association. He originally joined Rotary in 1980 but had to reesign due to work obligations. He has now rejoined the Newington club and is obviously quite involved. He lives in Newington with his wife Barbara. He congratulated our club for our golf tournament, for the recent senior luncheon, and for participating in the Rotary Million Mask effort.
Dave spoke on a presentation put together by his club on the subject of human Trafficking. Making people aware of the pervasiveness of human trafficking even in our own communities has been a big effort for the Newington club. They paid $4,500 to have two billboards on the Berlin Turnpike for one month to make people aware of this hidden crime.
We tend to think of human trafficking in terms of sex, but there is also trafficking for labor or services. It's anything which involves one person working to control the actions of another by force or coercion.
The red areas on the above slide show where trafficking is most prevalent. It's not surprising that many of these areas are on the coasts, where traffickers can take advantage of immigrants for forced labor or forced sexual acts. Note that the entry age for a trafficking victim is 14-16. Runaway children are especially vulnerable. One in six are probably victims of sex trafficking.
Often the expected victim of sex trafficking is a young girl. However, many young boys are also trafficked. It's harder to determine and/or convict such crimes because of the shame of the victim. It is estimated that somewhere between 100K and 300K U.S. children are trafficking victims and that there are approximately 40 million victims worldwide. The first U.S. law to protect victims was only passed in 2000. Under this law child under 18 is not classified as a prostitute but as a victim. Young people are especially vulnerable because their brains are not fully developed, and they can be manipulated into a relationship with the trafficker. They are also recruited through the internet.
Certainly there are often ongoing psychological problems when a victim is rescued from trafficking. However, there are also physical problems which may persist throughout the victim's life.
One group took the name Love146 after seeing a young girl being offered in a brothel in Southeast Asia. She had disappeared before the brothel was raided, but the group began to work to provide survivor care and recovery to rescued victims in Asia, the Philippines, and in the United States.
The problem of human trafficking will continue to be addressed by the Newington Rotary and others willing to work with them. They are appealing to other clubs in the area and work with the Salvation Army who sees much of the same problem. They are also interested in presenting material in the schools to make adults and young people aware of the problem and of the part they can play to address and reduce the problem.
Dave's presentation made us aware that we can all play a part in reducing human trafficking in the communities around us.
