The State of Alabama and a coalition of law enforcement and non-profit support groups have issued a new report on human trafficking. The study breaks down the issue into vulnerabilities and efforts at combating the crime, which includes sex trafficking and labor trafficking. The Alabama Public Radio newsroom spent fourteen months investigating this problem in the state. The first of eight invitations from the U.S. State Department for APR to address foreign delegations was about the newsroom's human trafficking report.
Ten Alabama counties were ranked as being the most vulnerable for human trafficking. The list started with the southwest part of the state with Houston and Dale counties listed as number and two. Mobile came in third, followed by Calhoun, Montgomery, Lee, Jefferson, Franklin, Talladega, Barbour, Etowah, and Russell Counties. Issues that were used to formulate this ranking start with poverty.
APR’s investigation into human trafficking focused on “familial” trafficking where adult family members, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. are the “seller” of sexual services and younger family members were victimized. Sources in APR investigation pointed to poverty and drug addiction as the driving factors prompting some families to sell their own children.
Beyond poverty— homelessness, hunger, gang activity and children in foster care also point to opportunities where trafficking can apply psychological tricks to ensnare their victims. During APR’s investigation “Selling Kids: Human Trafficking in Alabama,” listeners met “Ace” and Sharon Robbins.
"Ace" was sixteen was she was trafficking in 2014, Robbins was seventeen when was victimized in the 1970’s. They represented two different generations, who described “how it happened to them.”
“Ace” and her trafficker met online.
“You can post something, and people can start a chat with you over it,” she said during APR’s investigation. “I’d posted I really needed someone to talk to because I was so depressed, and I felt like I didn’t have anyone at home to talk to."
"Ace" said someone who seemed sympathetic started chatting offline. Then he suggested a face to face meeting. "ACE" was 16 at the time. One of her family saw her trying to sneak out and stopped her. More chatting followed. Then, the second time, "ACE" got away and met this person in the parking lot of a big box store.
“He kept asking if I had any siblings, and I wouldn’t give that answer,” Ace said. “I didn’t think it was bad at the time, but looking back now on our conversation. I should’ve known something wasn’t right.”
"Ace" was rescued by her parents.
Sharon Robbins, who founded the advocacy group Jubilee Havens Ministry, which works with survivors of trafficking Robbins is referring to how traffickers draw in their intended victims.
“A trafficker or pimp will actually find out your weaknesses by the way you’re dressed, or the way your personality is,” Robbins said. “Like if you’re insecure, or you need approval, or you seem needy.”
Robbins’ expertise is no theory. She was trafficked herself in the late 1970s.
“So, me being already abused as a child, I had insecurities, I was an introvert, and they…picked up on that,” she said.
Robbins was also rescued and escaped what’s known as “the life.”
The new State report on human trafficking in Alabama also breaks down the problem by listing counties with resources to combat human trafficking and “next steps” to further address the crime, which the FBI defines as one where the victim is exploited by coercion, fraud, or force into providing illegal sexual services or labor. During APR’s investigation, the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force said that seventy five percent of the people arrested for sex crimes showed signs of being trafficked.
The full state report can be found here.
