Backpacks’ basic necessities help sex-trafficking victims
Fifteen-year-old C.G. told investigators Weylin Rodriguez kidnapped her, took her belongings and forced her to prostitute in Orlando.
Fourteen-year- old G.E. told detectives the Bloods street gang forced her into prostitution and kept all the proceeds.
Sex-trafficking victims who come into contact with law enforcement and social
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Tomas Lares of Orlando’s human-trafficking task force tells howbackpacks help: OrlandoSentinel.com workers in Central Florida— normally in prostitution stings — often have no money, no phone and few other items.
“They almost have nothing but the clothes on their back,” said Tomas Lares, chairman of Orlando’s human-trafficking task force andfounderof Florida Abolitionist.
To help meet some of the needs of Orlando’s sex-trafficking victims, Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation agents, child-welfare advocates and Lares’ crisis-intervention group give backpacks full of toiletries and clothes to these teens and youngwomen.
The gesture has brought some young women — who are generally part of a population that mistrusts authorities— to tears.
“These girls aren’t really used to getting something without having to give something in return,” said MBI Agent Patrick Guckian.
In many instances, the girls and young women being traffickedwere homeless or runaways before they encountered their pimp.
Authorities say pimps
often take their prostitute’s belongings— including their drivers license— as a formof psychological control.
Pimps also take material possessions from their prostitutes as a form of punishment, according to a recently published Urban Institute study on the underground commercial- sex economy.
One pimp told researchers in that study:“Theydon’t get fined because I get all their money anyway. Sometimes when they don’t followrules, it depends on how severe the rule is that they broke, they get stuff taken away from them. Their car, they might have to take cabs.”
The backpack programin Central Florida began roughly two years ago but gained momentum within the last year when the Central FloridaHotel and Lodging Association donated dozens of bags.
Authorities hope the backpacks show sex-trafficking victims they don’t have to depend on a pimp to provide. From shampoo to toothpaste to deodorant, the girls are given items they otherwise may not have access to. The young women used to wearing stripper clothes are given more modest attire, such as cotton shirts, shorts and socks.
“We’re givingthemsomething that empowers them and try to break the cycle,” Guckian said.
Hundreds of backpacks with toiletries — valued at $120 per set— have been donated in the past two years by various people and groups. Lares said about200 backpackshavebeendistributed so far in Central Florida.
“It’s been a huge success,” Lares said.
Even Lareswas surprised at the impact the backpacks have on sex-trafficking victims he encounters. “They love the backpack,” he said.
Though the bags may meet immediate needs, authorities hope the items will also have long-term effects, such as giving the young women confidence to leave the lifestyle, and also to trust police and socialworkers.
“Itmay seem simple to us — a backpack and these essential items— but tothemit is really a gesture … that we care and that we are really looking out for them,” Lares said.