Generate Hope Helps Victims of Sex Trafficking

My Newcomers group organized a most interesting lecture in late January.  It was put on by Generate Hope, a 9 year old organization based in San Diego, who's mission is to help San Diego survivors of sex trafficking a safe home and all the resources needed for recovery and healing.  What I discovered after listening to about an hour of statistics and horror stories, is that so much more is needed both here, and around the nation.  Gangs who traffic young girls, create over $800 million per year just here in San Diego.

You probably are thinking like I did, that the gangs involved in sex trafficking are Mexican and Black.  Not true.  The perpetrators of sex trafficking cross all ethnic lines.  California is #1 on the FBI list for trafficking of American girls.  80% of the victims are US born, 85%of traffickers are affiliated with gangs.

Sex trafficking is modern day slavery.  It is forced, it is fraud, and it is coersion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.  Americans are buying and selling Americans.  Average age of a victim is 15.  It usually takes three years for intervention by authorities  in a sex trafficking case.

The three most lucrative forms of revenue for gangs are drugs, girls and guns.  Girls are becoming the #1 way for gangs to make their money.  Here's an example of how they operate:  Gang members hang around places teenage girls  frequent.  It may be a middle or senior high school, the mall, a park, the beach, etc.  The gang members are usually a little older than the girls they are targeting.  They could be in their early 20's but will often tell the girls they a little younger.  They lure them by promising them gifts, love and affection and security.  Most of the girls targeted are vulnerable.  They may come from single family homes and may not receive much love and affection at home.  What ultimately happens is the gang member asks the girl to have sex with a friend of his as a favor.  What might actually happens is the girl is be taken to a motel and raped, pictures of her performing sex acts are taken, and she becomes psychologically attached to the gang member.  Actually, he's a pimp, and she is forced to have sex with up to 10 men per night.

Generate hope offers a safe place for victims of sex trafficking.  They can earn their GED, learn job skills, and get the emotional support they desperately need.  It will take so much more to get this epidemic under control than is currently being done.  Let's hope that local district attorneys aggressively prosecute traffickers.  There is no place, except jail, in our society for these low lifes.