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And welcome to
a conversation on human trafficking in Florida. Our guest for our first panel
tonight
are David McSwane, who is the Sarasota Herald Tribune reporter --
the reporter for The Stolen Ones-- which was a special report on child sex
trafficking
as Diane referenced. Scott Carroll is also with the Sarasota
Sarasota Herald Tribune. He was the project editor
and as the city editor for the paper. Elisabeth
Fisher is the president of Selah Freedom House in Sarasota.
And also with us for our first discussion is Connie Rose,
a survivor of child sex trafficking. So welcome to all of you thank you for joining
us.
And the way we will begin this segment is we're going to actually hear from
Heather K
who is a woman who is featured in the stolen ones and
she talks about her experiences
on the street and her effort now to save
other young women. So let's take a look at the video clip.
Heather: Hi, I'm Heather. Just to tell you a little bit about myself,
I was I would got into prostitution at age 11 I was forced
kinda forced into prostitution at 11. I've been out now ten years
a prostitution.
We're out riding around showing where the girls are what they go through on a daily basis.
Turn down this street up here to the right, this is a really prostitution area
that trick traffic was running through here constantly.
I'm good. How are you, babe?
It's just us girls. No, looking for your pretty self.
You're so pretty! Really, really?
I just wanna share something with you. I used to be out here
Yeah, OK, I'm almost done.
"My man is taking me away from this s***. I haven't taken a shower in like, two days."
"And I haven't changed my clothes in like, two days"
I didn't think about the consequences I
just knew I had to survive
and that's what a lot of these girls they're doing it to survive, they're not doing
it because they want to
In their brain they're brainwashed, thinking they want to, but then deep down in
their heart they don't want to be out here selling their bodies.
And people who have no idea what these girls go through on a daily basis, well
they think, "they want to be out there? Let them stay out there."
You know, these girls don't choose to be out here. Circumstances in
life, and evilness,
has them out here.
And we know that shot national child advocacy groups estimate that 100,000 children per year
are exploited, and Heather,
I think, puts it well in terms of the reality of what it's like on the streets
and David and Scott,
you had the opportunity to see that firsthand. And David you especially
when you were with Heather and she was talking to these girls.
She talks about constant trick traffic. Sarasota is a beautiful town
and it's right there. What did you learn
as you went through this experience in telling the story what surprised you
about what was happening on the streets where you live?
I'd spent quite a few months reporting on this issue for a while, and met
survivors all over the state and then I met Heather,
was amazed by her immediately, and what she was able to show us
was a different side I mean it's easy to go out to right along with
with police but we felt that put a barrier between us and our subjects and
she was
she was somebody who had the wherewithal and experience to take us out there and
show us
at street level work and I was amazed to see how she
can approach these women and talk with them with such compassion
and understanding and we found that valuable
for the story. And ultimately, you know, we were
we had known sort of academically that this was an issue w'ed seen it
we drive past that stretch of road every day and she was able to show us
a different side of it. It was illuminating on almost the soul level
being able to see not only Heather
talk with them but Heather understand you know where they are it's not
something most of us
can say. And Scott, your thoughts on that? You have probably seen it from a distance as well
until you started telling the story. What was that experience like for you?
As an editor,
my experience often is akin to that of a reader
I kind of come into it cold, the reporter has some background knowledge
my first reaction was 'can't be.'
we see it here on on the strip, but
the enormity of the problem
and the fact that we're talking about eleven-year-olds, twelve-year-olds,
I didn't believe it at first.
I went through their journey as an editor,
that I think readers went through too,
in learning about the issue and for me and I think hopefully for readers
it was a matter of changing perception
we look at these women and think of them as
as criminals and faceless and we learned that
through David's reporting, you know it goes back to
early child abuse often there are
physiological changes in the brains. There's a whole stream
that puts these people where they are there was incredibly insightful
and powerful to me and that was our goal
try and help people understand what's really going on
from the ground up. And, Elizabeth, was Heather at one point was
or she is a survivor and now she's
an advocate and trying to help other women
and the Selah House helps women who have been through that experience
tell us about Selah
Selah is a home that is a place for women to finally come
when they've come off the streets. We started a couple years ago
just sorta learning what was needed and what the truth was
like you guys, I have moved here from Chicago and I was thinking
"Sarasota, what?" When you start talking to these girls and realizing that
they don't have any place to go like people are starting to understand the issue but
where did they go
and when it come to our home, they're not only able to get
that trauma counseling, we work with a clinical doctor that
literally does trama on resetting up their brain
So they're able to come in and one of the first things that we do with them is
go through this process with him, it's called rapid resolution, so that he can literally
clear that part of their brain and help that reset
so that then, when all these other services are coming toward them,
like the life skills, and education, many of them don't have an education they've
been on the street since they're 11 or 12 years old, you're still at that 12 year old level
in so many ways, emotionally developmentally
psychological, educationally. We provide all those different life skills they need
some girl come in, one woman said that I once got, said they get arrested so often
they were, like he said, mistaken for being criminals.
rather than victimized from childhood someone they know, sexually abused them.
on the streets, thinking they were coming into safety and re-victimized.
So one program this girl was in was like 'make your bed and
be at breakfast at seven'
And she was like, ' make a bed? I don't even know what that means'
All the things we take for granted we give back to them.
like restoring childhood, piece by piece
giving them all of the skills, the education and the fun
returning just some good old outings, you know, crafts and art and things like that.
Right, and Connie, you're smiling at that and
I'm very lucky I get to spend a lot of time with the girls, the women actually,
watching them blossom
and kind of get reconnected with the inner child. Because they really had their childhood stolen.
so it's about connecting back again to being
a little kid. Being a little girl, frolicking around with no worry
And that's not, that's not a quick process,
the recovery process
can you tell us a little bit about that Connie what that was like for you
or what it has been like for you It's a journey, I mean
for myself it's been over forty years
and really depends on who your perpetrator was, mine was my dad.
which is very common. 35 percent of
victims that are out there its by someone that they know. And usually by a family member,.
so that process, first you have to mourn.
You have to mourn the loss of your childhood. To mourn the loss of your family
basically and then once you get past that, and it
depends on, I was lucky, and I know that sounds odd,
but at nineteen years old I was able to leave the life
I was able to get married and literally be able to move on from that point
doesn't mean that everything stopped It just meant
that I didn't have to have sex with 10, 20, 30 people
a day, and whatever the circumstance was out of my own home.
And that journey is lifelong. There are so many victims that are addicted to drugs,
because that's how their perpetrator holds them, that tie on them.
just because you went through court and just because you're a witness
you appear to be okay
and you're starting to live life, you gotta carry this addiction around with you.
You didn't ask to be addicted to drugs. You didn't ask to be addicted to alcohol.
you didn't ask for any of those things to happen, to have a record.
and so, thankfully,
were in the state of Florida that has some wonderful laws that need a little more backbone
and kick to them
in support, but they're a start, you know, they're a start. We have safe houses
you know we have laws so the women and young girls that
and boys, they have records can have those records
eradicated, expunged, and they don't have to worry about carrying
that burden on with them anymore. But it's a lifelong journey
it doesn't just stop the minute you're rescued. It doesn't stop the minute
you've testified. It doesn't stop. It's a journey.
Elizabeth: When we started learning about this and decided we're going to
do something for it, we would attend conferences, just to learn, national conferences
talk to FBI national rescue agencies and what we were told was there's two
organizations in the country that have been doing this well
and have sustainability and if you want to align and learn from someone
So we did. We got into a relationship with them. One's in atlanta, ones in Iowa
so the program, when the girls come to use, we could walk alongside them for two and a
half years
so it's really really rebuilding & fully walking them back into the community
do you feel like you have all the resources you need
well we have a amazing start well beyond
what we could have ever thought we'd have and have a matching gift right now of $250
thousand
that will help with housing a lot. We're only $85 thousand away from completing
we already have the first home and that will help us to increase and add beds
because now that it's out there and law enforcement is learning how to identify
it, the calls that you get for the girls needing beds is quite high.
and David let me ask you this as you went through this process and
looked into the resources that were available, funding,
maybe what wasn't available. Were there any surprises for you in terms of
"Oh this is how this works?"
Well, I'm not surprised by the lack of resources because I've
covered government
but what I found was, the complaint across the board
you know, the FBI agent Greg Christopher in Tampa,
whose fantastic says you know, I',
sweeping up these girls and I got nowhere to put them.
it's no wonder that we have to we have to Baker Act, that we have to put them in jail
sometimes. We don't want to do that
we have to. And you start to realize that's the narrative across the
state with local law enforcement those local law enforcement agencies they
recognize this is an issue
there some that don't and and
you know that's throughout the country and those safe houses that do exist,
you know primarily I think for for adult women and maybe Elizabeth can tell you more, but
the way the law's written doesn't really encourage that
right now and the funding mechanism that is in place
isn't quite working yet So if you as a reporter you report it as a system
and try to understand its weaknesses you really
you may see that it's from all angles and you know what is that root cause its
a lack of data and understanding it's a lack of
perspective. People aren't looking for the problem so we decided to focus
more on that and we probably would with another story we have established
systems and
and funding goals and all that. If I could just add something, part of the issue, too, is that
how this is looked at. Still a lot of
law enforcement considered even if it's a minor crime
and so why heather was a relevant, in my mind anyways, was
she got at the issue of choice, which was
which is one of the things that we really tried accomplish in this story
was show that
which she said, was she had been abused as a child by a
family member, repeatedly
and then when she was 11
in order to
get food, she hadn't eaten, she agreed or
she had sex with somebody else that her father selected
she never had a choice and this is what we came across a repeatedly is
that there's still and assumption, and thats part of the reason that the resource
aren't as free-flowing as they should be is that, this is the choice that people make
a poor life choice and I
I'm convinced and I think we show to a large extent
that that's simply not true that you have
its survival and in these are decisions that
that are are understandable if you
consider the circumstances these people are in. And if you impact that
concept of choice, you're then asking law enforcement
has for decades treated a certain group of people as criminals and not as victims
and that is not easily done especially when you've got a
you know bifurcated state and federal it
really is quite a task
When we talk about choice we talk about survival we had a lot of victims running
around walking around
right next to you they can be sitting in this room for all we know
they don't realize they're a victim because of survival sex
that's what it's called because since the number is so large
children that are being sexually abused usually at home
unfortunately what they're doing is they're running away
they're saying this is happening me home this is my safe place, my house,
and I can't live here anymore I can't put my head down at night, so I'm gonna run
away
and whatever happens to me on the street is gonna happen to me but it's gotta be
better than this
so then what happens is law enforcement sees them
and they say "oh, she's a chronic runaway. We pick her up all the
time and she just runs again.
forget about her. Then we found out that she was having sex with a bunch of
people
so just put her over here, we're not going to deal with it.
so it's law enforcement has to have a mind change and a mind set
every single person audience the one that's gonna listen
has to have a different mindset and stop looking at
kid as throwaways and oh you're just
dirt and *** because you chose to run away. That's why I think their piece was
brilliant. Because it educated. It helped people stop and pause
and reexamine the issue, it's beautiful. And Elizabeth, that mindset has to go beyond
the the process itself for rescuing these girls
it also goes to the assimilation process which
we have a couple minutes left for this segment and I wanted to ask you
about that specifically
Ssociety might not welcome back these young women even when they're
ready to say I'm ready to find a new life.
What's interesting, since we started back when we started this journey there was one guy
in our area had a passion for this population
worked at Goodwill and was like "I can get any felon a job"
and since then, I mean I applaud the state, we passed a law to expunge their
records. And every three prostitution arrests equals a felony
some of these girls come into our care with twenty felonies all over the place
but now that those records can be vacated, someone's not going to be as easily able to
to look at their past
and identify them so , just a blanket statement over them
and so I do think especially with know what's happening with pieces like
this
and with education, like law enforcement in our area has been so open to be educated
people once they realize, oh there's a back story
Oh, I thought that was just a ***. When they're realizing this was child that
was abused their whole lives, compassion is coming.
when compassion comes someone is no longer labeled and I think it's a whole
different point
someone coming back into the education world or the job force, they're gonna be
looked at differently. I believe they'll be received how
Connie's received. She walks into a room and she's applauded.
and that's the good news that may be the easy part of the story compared to some
of the legal challenges
which will be talking about next thank you for this part of the conversation
Thank you