Trafficked.
Catherine* dropped out of high school to swing on a pole; it was all she ever thought she could do. Dancing for strange men in strange bars paid more than a minimum-wage job would have, but when the strange bars turned into strange rooms at night, her “only hope… was that [she] would live and not die.” In those rooms, she began her ten-year journey in the sex trade.
Listen to more of her story and her struggle within the sex trade here.
Sex Trafficking in the United States
Catherine is one of roughly 27 million men, women, and children enslaved in human trafficking throughout the world today, more so than there have ever been before in the history of humanity. An estimated five million of those victims are trafficked for the purpose of sex; namely, women and children. Ranked among the worst cities in the world for the prevalence of this epidemic? Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta is no stranger to the presence of sex trafficking. With the busiest airport in the country, capable of flying individuals in and out of the city in less than 45 minutes, the city serves as a billboard for sex trafficking in the United States. Atlanta, however, is not alone in the incorporation and proliferation. There is another city within Georgia that houses the state’s largest public institution, but is also a hub of human trafficking: Athens, Georgia, home to the University of Georgia. It was in this small town, one more familiar with the weekly statistics of football than to the selling of bodies for profit, that Catherine’s journey in the sex trade first began.
She eventually escaped those rooms only to find herself confined yet again; this time, to a man who left bruises not only on her body, but on her soul. However, if anything positive had come out of a marriage to domestic abuse, it had been the birth of her children. She had one in particular, though she loved them all equally: her daughter, Faith.* Catherine loved that 17-year-old daughter of hers, wild and reckless in spirit, and was attentive to her every need. And so, because she had once been involved in the same trade, she recognized the early signs of sex trafficking incorporating itself into Faith’s life. But not before she was long gone.
Fighting Back: A City Against Sex Trafficking
Her story is not exclusive to Athens-Clarke County. In 2016, a 16-year-old-runaway from New York was trafficked out of a Days Inn motel. Later that same year, five were arrested on child sex trafficking charges in Operation Cross Country X, a statewide initiative to combat internal child exploitation. But with a strong police presence working against sex trafficking, and several initiatives taken by both individual organizations and students at the University of Georgia, the Athens community is saying enough is enough.
The Cottage
Located among Athens-Clarke County Police Department headquarters, surrounded by police cars, SWAT trucks, and the looming jail down the road, is a little home with a red door. The Cottage Sexual Assault Center and Child Advocacy Center is nonprofit providing help and resources to victims of sexual assault. At times, this includes victims of sex trafficking.
Kacey Long is the sex trafficking and LGBTQ coordinator at The Cottage. Having worked with victims of sexual assault and trafficking for seven years, she says that sex trafficking in Atlanta and Athens are far different that anything she has seen before.
“It was always Atlanta. Always Atlanta,” Long said. “You would hear about it all the time and then I got here, and I was like ‘oh, I get it now.’”
However, despite being such an epidemic within the city of Atlanta and in Athens, Long says that, in Athens, the method through which sex trafficking is being tackled is positive.
“I’ve unfortunately seen a lot of really negative experiences that have chosen to report before, but I can say with a lot of confidence that Athens is a lot different than that,” she said.
The Cottage is also a part of the STAR Task Force in Athens-Clarke County. First started by an ex-ACCPD detective, STAR is comprised of several organizations, including The Cottage, as well as members of the FBI, GBI, and ACCPD. With monthly meetings, The Cottage serves as the forefront in Athens for individuals involved in sex trafficking.
On a Sunday morning at 9:27 a.m., a detective at the Federal Bureau of Investigation called Catherine to tell her that they had found her 17-year-old daughter and were surrounding the car where her traffickers were holding her. Wearing only gym shorts and a t-shirt, her traffickers had kept the rest. She was rescued, assigned a “knapsack” for clothing, and was placed into federal care. It took several days before she was returned to her mother and fifteen months before she even returned to the state of Georgia. She never did return to that high school though, just outside of Athens, that she was first trafficked out of by another girl she thought was her friend.
Athens-Clarke County Police Department
ACCPD has been consistently noted to be understaffed, particularly within its Family Protection Center and Special Victims Unit. Currently, only one detective is authorized to investigate cases involving sex trafficking. With a growing distrust in the police, Lieutenant Derek K. Scott of the Family Protection Center and Special Victims Unit says that their job as police officers has only gotten harder in the realm of sex trafficking.
“People don’t get that cops are people too, and we’re just trying to help. But with everything that’s going on, you know, in the media and in the news, it doesn’t make us look good. So if people already have this thought about police offers, and then they have a really, you know, deep, deep trauma, it just makes it difficult to help,” said Scott.
Having worked for several years with ACCPD in relation to cases of sexual assault and trafficking, Scott notes that sex trafficking is often difficult to fight against. Victims of sex trafficking often are no stranger to sexual violence, whether during childhood or adult years, and fail to understand that their involvement in the sex trade is, in actuality, sex trafficking.
“It’s so hard to really tackle this problem. So often, victims don’t really get that they’re involved in sex trafficking,” he said. “They’ve usually experienced trauma from an early age, so when you’ve got these incidents where someone is obviously being trafficked, sometimes they don’t even know that they’re being trafficked. They’ll spend all day telling you that you’re wasting your time.”
ACCPD is hoping to continue in their attempts to create positive relationships with the public, not only to provide increased support to all members of the community, but to, hopefully, eliminate sex trafficking in Athens-Clarke County.
In the Fight
Although Athens-Clarke County is its own entity and community, the young adults that flock the streets to the tune of “walk sign is on for all crossings” nine months out of the year contribute to the culture of the college town. Among the nearly 45,000 students that make up the University of Georgia, a small group of students are actively contributing time away from their studies to join against sex trafficking.
Formerly Free the Girls, In the Fight is a student-led organization on campus comprised of undergraduate students. With meetings every month, as well as various events held to promote the organization, In the Fight utilizes aspects of sex trafficking seldom thought of to broaden the understanding behind the industry.
“I think a lot of people think of Taken when they think sex trafficking which is, you know, just not how it is at all. And what we try to do with In the Fight is talk about all the ways sex trafficking shows up and how it affects groups like, you know, minorities and kids that have run away from home. And people can’t even believe it’s like that,” says Katie Shivers, Co-President of In the Fight.
Her daughter, Faith*, is still recovering from her experience. She doesn’t talk much about it, and her mom says that that’s okay. She may never talk about it, but if that is how she heals, then so be it. Catherine is recovering as well. She has decided to stay celibate, to take this sacred time to heal herself so that she may heal others. She is now 22 years free from the sex trade and 10 years free from drug abuse, and she plans to stay that way. It is a story of resilience, unending strength, and beautiful freedom.
*Catherine and Faith are pseudonyms and have been used to maintain confidentiality and protection.
