I am teaching Intro to Social Work at Atlantic Cape Community College. I assigned my class to investigate Human Trafficking in hotbed regions in Asia/Africa/Eastern Europe, and to investigate human trafficking locally. It seems that Southern New Jersey and Long Island are two of the most predominant areas for human trafficking in the country.

I was extremely excited about the wonderful presentations and powerful information my class presented, and then I learned....

One of my students is a vicitim of human trafficking. Pimped out by her father. She was doing "yum yum" on the streets of Trenton at the age of 10.

The problem is everywhere!!!!

The Canadian government is virtually sanctioning human trafficking, although they won't come out and say so. Instead, they call the victims "temporary foreign workers".

Each and every one of those workers has a ticket home in their pocket, Sid. I don't think the temporary worker program is in anyway comparable to what Kath is talking about.

It still doesn't justify the ill-considered policy. Also... those TFW's have to PAY to be hired and are literally indentured to their employer.

The video is chilling and horrifying ~ I'm thinking it will help perspective if you retell the timeline of your student's story, kath ~ and the class and your own reactions to it ~

Sooz

About 2 years ago I went to Stockton College's Symposium on Human Trafficking. I did not think of it as a signature issue for me then. It opened my eyes WIDELY!!! There are a lot of immigrants in the NJ/Long Island corridor and that is one reason the problem seems to be so widespread here!!!!

Anyway I noted in the paper that there was a local man arrested for human trafficking boys for sexual purposes and that one of the area activitists was recruited from our local mall. When I started this semester, I thought I would include a Human Trafficking component. I showed the students a different film and introduced them to the subject. They were assigned to work in groups to select a section of the world that is a hotbed of trafficking activity and research what they are doing to combat trafficking. Then research what we are doing locally. All of the students seemed to be engaged. One of them stated she never even heard of human trafficking before.

The groups reported on; the John (Prince) Allen case in Newark, Thailand, Eastern Europe, Western Africa, and the Native American culture.

The class consists of 17 students studying Human Services. At the conclusion of the Native American culture presentation one of the students announced she was a victim of human trafficking herself. She stated that she'd always been abused. Her mother entered a lesbian relationship so she and her brother went to live with her dad at the age of 8. The father put her to work in the streets providing oral sex for old men. She was pregnant at age 10 from a client and lost the baby. Her brother was not a support and assisted the father in selling her.

She became pregnant at age 12 to her father. The baby was five months along and she doesn't think they fought hard to save it when she went into labor, but the silver lining to this is that Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) got involved. She was taken from her father and sent to live with "wonderful foster parents who saved my life." They provided intensive counseling and medical screens/services. I was dumbfounded because I had no clue whatsoever. I sat there with tears welling in my eyes. Ricki asked the presenter, "Where is your Mother?" She replied, "In hell." She went on to say she is now 19 and got married at age 16. While we spend a lot of time downgrading DYFS, they really helped her and she was living proof that trafficked humans with a lot of support can recover and lead productive lives.

I am actually still reeling at how close it all really is.