The speakers presented slideshows that included anecdotes from anonymous victims about their experiences in brothels and with pimps.
Almost all the victims were women and children.
“I was able to protect my virginity for two months,” read one of the stories— this one a quote from Papia, an anonymous 13-year-old child and victim of sex trafficking. “I was beaten [un]mercifully when I refused customers… Finally, I was beaten so severely, I allowed myself to be raped by customers.”
The Long Beach Community Improvement League (LBCIL), a nonprofit and community-based social-service organization, partnered with the Los Angeles County Psychological Association (LACPA) and the Iranian Psychological Association of America (IPAA) to present the lecture at the LBCIL’s Signal Hill Center.
The event took place after the passing of SB 1322 last week— a state bill that aims to decriminalize prostitution for kids under the age of 18.
The discussion included presentations by: Sgt. Eric Hooker, who serves in the Long Beach Police Department’s vice field—investigations section; Reuben Vaisman-Tzachor, Ph.D., psychotherapist at the Counseling Center of Santa Monica; and Indhushree Rajan, Ph.D., psychological assistant at a private practice firm, who spoke about Papia’s experience.
Rajan mentioned other victims of the crime, such as Isha, an adolescent girl who was routinely beaten as punishment and witnessed the death of an infant at the hands of a pimp.
She said girls are often threatened at a young age in order to facilitate compliance.
“People have everything used against them: ‘I’ll kill your family; I will make sure you’ll lose everything you have; I’ll kill you,'” Rajan said. “All of these different things, these threats, are used.”
Hooker gave insight as to how the police department approaches these types of cases and how pimps operate.
He said victims agree to a life of prostitution due to various factors, including homelessness, drug and alcohol addictions, emotional trauma and lack of resources.
“The most common denominator is the relationship,” Hooker said. “It’s the inability to recognize what an unhealthy relationship with a man is, and it’s particularly helpful for the man when the girl is younger. We’ve had girls as simple as, ‘He took me to McDonalds once, and he told me he loved me… and now I will be fiercely loyal to you.’ We’ve seen that emotional connection with their pimp.”
Hooker described “today’s human trafficker” as cold and violent— a person who uses coercion and fear to get his victims to commit prostitution, adding that there’s always “someone behind the prostitution” manipulating minors and vulnerable people to participate and make him money.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-01-at-4.19.41-PM.png” credit=”Denny Cristales | Signal Tribune ” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”Sgt. Eric Hooker, with the Long Beach Police Department, gave a presentation last Saturday at the Long Beach Community Improvement League Center on “Health Trafficking 101,” in which he debunked misconceptions about the crime and detailed the violent methods and lifestyles of those involved. ” captionposition=”right”] “For them, the best victim is the victim who doesn’t know they’re a victim,” he said.
He explained that pimps assemble stables and assign the most trusted prostitute as a “bottom [lady],” who will serve as a figure of authority in the trafficker’s absence and be in charge of disciplining the other prostitutes.
But, if police arrive and arrest the bottom lady, “then there is a belief that she is the pimp when she really isn’t,” Hooker added.
“It’s a source of contention right now between nonprofit organizations and police departments,” he said. “She tells her story of, ‘No, I have a pimp. I’m afraid of him; he’s going to kill me.’ And if she never confides this to me, and I don’t know about the structure, then I still may charge her as a trafficker because I never learned about this next tier up.”
A woman in the audience pointed out that a pimp could be male or female. Hooker acknowledged the input and mentioned that the police department has arrested female pimps in the past.
A distinction with human trafficking in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East, are honor killings, Rajan said. Victims are rescued from the trafficking trade, but they are often seen as sources of shame and humiliation, and so the families elect to kill them in order to “preserve the family name.”
Rajan added that there is a “market for everything.” Traffickers tend to have certain fetishes, such as an affinity for victims with Down syndrome or who are disabled.
“You name it, and it is out there,” she said. “If I were to sit down and come up with the most evil, sick portrait of what I think happens out there, [I] probably won’t even come close to what does happen out there.”
Vaisman-Tzachor further illustrated the complexity of the issue. When analyzing cases of human trafficking, he said a crucial detail that’s noted is a person’s mannerisms.
“It’s a difference of what they tell you, and how they present it,” he said, adding that a part of a person’s body language and voice should correlate with his or her narrative.
Vaisman-Tzachor also brought up the example of Elizabeth “The Dealer,” a young girl who was born to a poor family with an abusive father. She eventually moved in with her uncle, who ran a drug-distribution ring in a home he owned in Hollywood.
She periodically became involved with prostitution and got addicted to illicit drugs, according to Vaisman-Tzachor.
“Victims can appear like everyone,” he said. “And you may not even be aware that they are victims of trafficking because they appear like everybody else… they may be in all kinds of places that you may not necessarily assume.”
Rajan, who concluded the event with her presentation, provided a glaring statistic— 71 percent of minors involved in human trafficking display suicidal tendencies.
However, she said the victims who manage to resist the urge to take their own lives have courage if they are able to endure the horrors of sex crimes.
“One of the beauties of working with children is how resilient they are and how incredible their spirit is,” she said, “and what it says that 71 percent of these children want to end their lives just tells you how evil this practice is.”
