Gov. Martin O’Malley launched a two-day conference on Combating Human Sex Trafficking in Maryland, May 21, speaking to a group of four hundred federal, local, and state leaders and officials.
The conference focused on adopting a statewide approach to preventing and eliminating the trade, and offered workshops and forums on how to lobby on behalf of survivors, assist victims from abroad, and prosecute labor and sex trafficking cases. “There is no such thing as a ‘spare Marylander,’” said O’Malley, who cited Maryland’s proximity and easy access to other major cities like New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. as a pro for the economy, but a con in fighting human traffickers.
The conference was held at Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville, and was sponsored in part by the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention and the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force, which was created in 2007 in efforts to combat the issue in the state. “One in three children that run away will be recruited into prostitution within 48 hours,” said O’Malley. “On average, a young girl enters prostitution at the age of 14 – some girls enter prostitution at the age of nine.
Here in Maryland, we have set the overall goal of reducing crimes against women and children by 25 percent by the end of the upcoming year.” Whether for purposes of hard labor or sex, human trafficking in the United States has become a booming industry for those involved in the underground business. Around the globe, children, men and women are sold into a modern day slave trade that operates in all 50 states. In Maryland alone, since 2010, US attorneys have prosecuted 23 cases centered around the slave trade of the new millennium.
Studies from the Department of Justice show that 82 percent of all human trafficking is for sexual purposes. Eleven percent of all sales are for labor purposes, leaving seven percent for unknown sectors of the trade. Unlike victims sold into slavery for sexual purposes, 62 percent of those used for hard labor are over the age of 25. “I was 21 years old when I first got into the life,” said Shamere McKenzie, policy assistant for the Protected Innocence Initiative of Shared Hope International, which helps survivors of human trafficking After searching for a way to pay for college, McKenzie spent 18 months of her life in the sex slave trade with a violent pimp who sold her on dreams of earning tuition money by dancing.
For McKenzie, the vicious ordeal ended in an arrest, which also led to vital support for survivors. “Services were key,” said McKenzie, who says that a large part of her recover was “just being around other survivors of trafficking and being able to receive counseling.” McKenzie believes, and officials on all levels agree, that an important aspect of the recovery phase is having an adequate support system.
“One of the challenges is to change the mindset on the front lines when you come into contact with a prostitute. We tend to think of prostitutes as if they’re the criminals, but in reality, in the majority of the cases they’re the victims,” said U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Rod Rosenstein. “Sometimes they’re juveniles, sometimes they’re illegal aliens who are victimized. We need to treat them as victims, get them the kind of support that they need, and employ them as our witnesses to prosecute the pimps who put them on the streets.”
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, indicators of victimization in children include excessive absences from school or work, repeated mentions of regular out-of-city or out-of state travel and drug addiction, which many pimps use to control their victims. The Polaris Project, a national anti-human trafficking organization, also recommends watching for persons who have few personal belongings, little control over their day-to-day schedule and signs of physical and mental abuse.
