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Human Trafficking Exposed in Houston

More often than not, we stumble across things every week that seem 'fishy' or out of the ordinary... but how often do we actually take the time to look into it, do some homework and find out what's really going on? Most of the time, we shrug out shoulders, say, 'we live in a free country and people make their own choices,' and we move on with our daily lives.

That's not what filmmaker Ruth Villatoro did when she noticed an article on cantineras 5 years ago in the Houston Press. She read a story about a man that fell in love with a cantinera and wanted to do a story on it... thinking that it was about a girl who drank alot. What she discovered the more she dug for information, was not what she originally had in mind. 

In a story published in the Houston Press titled, 'The Cantinera' exposes niche of Human Trafficking, Villatoro explains how she started filming a story about a man falling in love with a cantinera who drank a lot and ended up discovering that this is actually a form of sex trafficking. 

“A recruiter is an expert at identifying vulnerability,” she said. “They sell a story to a family, saying we have a restaurant in the United States. Your daughter will work as a waitress. They end up sending their daughter, not knowing what’s going to happen. The minute the daughter is separated from her family is when the threats start.”

Throughout the making of the film, she along with Dottie Laster, a legal representative for human trafficking victims and Cat French, director of the Houston office of Exodus Cry, an international, anti-trafficking ministry, the trio visited more than 160 sexually oriented businesses in the Greater Houston areas and identified 600 to 700 unverified ones. 

While cantineras can work freelance or be employed by a cantina, most cantina owners know how to protect their business from being shut down. Owners usually have legitimate liquor licenses but are not considered a “sexually oriented business,” which are subject to additional regulations, she said. A few tricks include registering businesses under different names and guises.

Sadly, the girls (cantineras) are the ones who take the brunt of police raids and usually end up being the ones arrested.

The positive note to this story is that change is happening and this crime is being brought to light. Sex trafficking and human trafficking in Houston, Texas, is being exposed thanks to this one citizen who took the time to do her research and study what was truly happening behind the story she originally read. 

“The most important thing is that the community is aware of the problem now,” she said. “ Business owners need to learn the signs and watch the businesses around them. That can make a huge a difference. It can make a change.”

The first step to making a difference is learning the signs of human trafficking. Trafficking is modern day slavery and no human being deserves to live in bondage. 

To learn more about slavery, see facts and stats on human trafficking or see current 2012 statistics, click on the links and educate yourself. Join Force4Compassion in the fight to end slavery and learn how you can get involved.

Human trafficking is a large problem but every person can make a difference. Don’t be overwhelmed by the statistics. Join the fight and together we can change the world one life at a time.

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Stealth and Vulnerability

Often times people hear 'prostitution' and they automatically think that some girl has given up her dreams to exploit herself on the streets...

What people often don't know is what it actually took to coerce these young ladies into prostitution... many of the 'prostitutes' that are arrested, labeled, and thrown in jail, have been brain washed and trapped in the ring of human trafficking. Once they are in the cycle, they have no where to turn and go back to the 'pimps' who declare they can protect and provide for them. 

While this isn't always the case, it is true for more than the general public may think. In a story published by the Las Vegas Sun in November titled, Sex trafficking of children: Las Vegas' deep, dark secret, Andrea Swanson, the parent of a sex trafficking victim, shares her experiences and how her teenage daughter was convinced by a predator that

"worked his way into the family and stole its youngest member, a junior at Centennial High School in fall 2008 who fell for a boy."

This story is a prime example of how an innocent teenager with low self esteem was swept off her feet by a predator who appeared to care for her, but had alternative motives. Once he had gained the family's trust, he began to work with her insecurities to gain a recurring profit... which falls into the definition of human trafficking.

Human Trafficking Defined: Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

There are thousands of stories similar to this one, and we encourage you to read the whole story HERE. The family saw signs of rebellion and defiance in the teen girl, but automatically assumed that it was due to drugs, which they thought to be the worst option. What they didn't know is that their daughter was coerced by the one who appeared to 'care for her' and exploited to gain a profit at her expense. Even when the mother set rules and guidelines on their dating relationship, it continued to happen. 

It is important that the general public learn the signs of human trafficking and child sex trafficking which is modern day slavery. Domestic child sex trafficking is a major issue that is kept in the dark and behind closed doors. 

This story represents how stealthy traffickers are and how vulnerable our youth are.

Together, we can abolish modern day slavery. First step is learning the facts. Click a link below to learn more:

Learn about modern day slavery

Human Trafficking Facts & Stats

Human Trafficking Statistics Report

Survivor Stories

Get Involved & Take Action

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U.S. Midwest in crosshairs of child sex trafficking fight

By Deborah Feyerick & Sheila Steffen, CNN

Tamara Vandermoon is barely recognizable in the photo she holds up; her face is swollen and bruised, her eyes nearly battered shut. She was 19 at the time. "My pimp had beaten me and stomped my face," she says. "I was black and blue."

The Minnesota woman has seen a lot in her relatively short life. Abandoned by her father and angry at her mother, she ran away when she was 12, the same age she turned her first trick trading sex for money and gifts.

"I just wanted to be accepted and loved. I was told how beautiful I was and if you do this I'll get you this ... and I'll make you my girlfriend." Before she knew it she was prostituting herself up to 50 times a night, the money going to her pimp or to feed the drug habit she developed, she says, to "numb the pain" of her life.

Her eyes fill with tears as she remembers: "I was just a baby. I was 12 and they preyed on me. What would a grown man want with a twelve-year-old child?!" Now 31, she is finally getting out after nearly two decades in the sex-trade.

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Men account for more than two-fifths (41%) of adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales helped by the Salvation Army, contrary to the public perception that the crime almost exclusively affects women.

The finding comes in a survey by the charity, which provides specialist support for the adult victims of trafficking on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

The Salvation Army, which began the support service six months ago, also dealt with the first recorded case of an individual being trafficked to Britain to have their organs harvested. The case, involving an unnamed woman brought to the UK by an organised gang, is understood to be the subject of a police investigation, the Telegraph reports.

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NEW DELHI: Fatima, a victim of human trafficking, was married into a family in Forbesganj in Araria district in Bihar when she was only nine years old. Her mother-in-law allegedly ran a brothel in their house, something that was beyond her comprehension. She managed to run away to Nepal, where her parents lived, thrice, but there was no escaping her predicament. Each time she was sent back. "I cried because I wanted to play like other children. My aunt's advice might have been harsh but it was the stark truth. She told me that either I should fight my fate or simply die. That's when I stopped running away and started confronting reality," said Fatima in the first regional meeting of sex trafficking survivors that took place in Delhi on Tuesday.

Fatima now helps run the Kasturba Gandhi Girls Hostel in Araria funded by the Bihar government as part of their 'Education for all' programme. The hostel provides shelter to about 50 girls — daughters of scheduled caste farmers and human trafficking victims. The girls are vulnerable and run the risk of being forced into flesh trade. They are sent to school till class VIII.

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For seven years, the bars and shacks on the gritty east edge of Houston served as unsightly venues of serial sex crimes where a convicted human trafficker ruled with threats, and Mexican teens as young as 14 were battered, forced to live in sheds, and toil as cantina call girls after being smuggled to Houston.

But U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled Tuesday that five of the youngest victims in one of the city's most visible human trafficking rings will benefit from the sale of ringleader Maria "Nancy" Rojas and her husband's bars and the rest of their ramshackle real estate empire, according to instructions delivered to prosecutors.

It is the first time prosecutors have successfully pushed for forfeiture of assets for the benefit of sex trafficking victims in Houston - and among only a few cases nationally, said Edward Gallagher, a senior federal prosecutor who heads Houston's Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance(HTRA).

Valued at $602,000

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Marcus Choice Williams, 36, of Fort Worth, Texas, was sentenced this morning by U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey to 30 years in prison followed by 30 years of supervised release for various felony offenses related to a conspiracy to traffic women for prostitution, the Department of Justice announced. Williams was also ordered to pay $1,100 special assessment fee.

Court documents showed that Williams operated an interstate prostitution ring, including adult escort websites, headquartered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and operating in Boston and the Washington, D.C. metro area. Williams recruited vulnerable women—specifically, single mothers from troubled backgrounds—and, in some cases, used a combination of deception, fraud, coercion, threats, and physical violence to compel the women to engage in prostitution, requiring each young woman to secure a daily quota of money, and, if operating out of town, to wire the funds to him. Williams made thousands of dollars in profits, while the victims received next to nothing.

“The court’s sentence clearly reflects the seriousness of these awful sex trafficking crimes,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The victims suffered physical assaults, sexual abuse, and daily degradation all because of this defendant’s greed and callous disregard for them as individuals. We are committed to prosecuting sex traffickers and vindicating victims’ rights, as they were vindicated today.”

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Posted on February 14, 2012 by ssmith

In Patna, the capital of the Indian state of Bihar twenty five minor girls were rescued from child sex trafficking.  44 people were arrested on human trafficking charges after a police raid on Monday.  Shivdeep Lande, the Superintendent of Police said that the  minor girls were forced to dance naked not only for entertainment but to "attract good buyers" from outside the state.  The minor girls were who were rescued were sent to the district's children's welfare committee for rehabilitation.   It appears that human trafficking is rampant in various areas along the Indo Nepal border.  Patna according to City Mayors Foundation has been ranked as 21st fastest growing city in the world.  

Shelter houses play a vital role in the reintegration of human trafficking survivors.  The youths receive shelter, medical care, psychological counseling and an education.  Vital funds are needed in the states for victims of domestic minor sex trafficking.  Often, minors in the US are charged with prostitution and sent through the juvenile system.  There are less than 200 beds in America for domestic minor victims of sex trafficking.

Force 4 Compassion is a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to raising awareness on the crime of human trafficking and funding the shelter houses dedicated to minors.  You can learn more about us at www.f-4-c.org.  Force 4 Compassion is a division of Fashion4Compassion.   If you suspect someone is a victim on human trafficking the National Human Trafficking hotline is 1-888-3737-888.