Akers: Human trafficking plagues Nebraska’s thrown-away children

I looked across the table at the disheveled young girl, her hair sticking up in surprising places with yesterday's mascara ringing her eyes.

"I'm 15," she said, drawing her lips back in what looked more like a snarl than a smile.

She didn't look a day over 13, I thought.

"What d'ya wanna know?" she asked, tapping out a little rhythm with her straw.

"Why are you on the street?" I asked.

"Got kicked outta the house," she shrugged.

When I met her in November of last year, Polly was living on the streets of Omaha, running with a group of kids who sort of watched out for her. "Baby," they called her. Like other thrown-away kids, Polly survived by having sex with men.

"Can't get money no other way" she whispered.

"Where do you sleep?"  I asked.

She named a culvert downtown where lots of street kids crash.

"Do you go to school?"

She just stared at me.

"I used to like school," she said. "But then things got real bad at home, and we didn't have no money so I couldn't go no more.'"

"How far did you get?"

"Sixth grade."

For the past two years, I have been involved as an activist and scholar in the fight against human trafficking, a terrible modern-day form of slavery. It's the fastest growing international crime, right behind drugs and guns. A majority of people who are trafficked are women and children, primarily forced into prostitution against their will.

Most are transported hundreds or thousands of miles away from their homes, forced to perform sex with dozens of strangers every night. They're held captive and are sold, over and over, until they're no longer useful. They're often forced to have sex without protection, so many become HIV positive and develop full-blown AIDS. The women are rarely, if ever, allowed outside the place where they "work" and are frequently physically and sexually abused.

Congress also includes the crime of "Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking" (DMST) under the criminal statutes on human trafficking. The crime of DMST is defined as recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, or providing or obtaining by any means a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, under the age of 18, to engage in a sex act for which anything of value is exchanged (i.e. money, a place to stay, food, etc.) So, according to U.S. law, any minor engaged in prostitution is a victim of trafficking.

Some of my students have asked, "What is the difference between domestic minor sex trafficking and juvenile prostitution?"

There is none, according to the FBI.

As in the crime abroad, the victims are confined closely, watched constantly and forced to engage in sexual acts with strangers. Most or all the money earned from these transactions are kept by the victims' exploiters – usually pimps – who regularly abuse the victims in order to intimidate and keep them under control.  Domestic sex trafficking often takes place across state lines, since criminals like to move "their" girls from place to place to avoid cops and to go where major sporting events and conventions are taking place.

Research shows that a majority of the victims of DMST are runaways or thrown-away children who were sexually abused in their own homes. They flee to the mean streets of the cities when they can no longer bear the abuse in their homes. Within 48 hours, many are unknowingly lured into prostitution by a pimp, who then traps them, beats them and forces them into a "stable." If they try to run away or contact law enforcement, they face the distinct possibility of dying from the predictable beating they will get at the hands of their pimp.

Did you know that Lancaster, Douglas and Sarpy counties in Nebraska received nearly 20,000 reports in 2008 of child abuse or neglect? That's an average of more than 54 calls every single day of the year. Only a small number of these calls are actually investigated, and far fewer are taken to court. How many of these calls would have saved an abused child if the state had the money and the will to put children first? What happens to the girls who are being sexually molested or abused, have contacted authorities and then nothing happens? No one comes to the rescue. Instead, they are ignored, disbelieved and left in the hands of their abusers.

Or, of course, they can run away. What a choice!

If you were one of these girls, what would you do? Can you imagine a life where every night you were raped or molested in your own home? Can you picture how terrifying it would be to be all alone on the streets of Lincoln or Omaha?

I've heard some guys argue with a straight face that "prostitution" should be legalized.

It's the "oldest profession in the world," they say.

Really? Do you really think some little girls dream of the day they can prostitute themselves? "Prostitution is a victimless crime," these guys might reply, "a harmless transaction between two consenting people."

I guess if you are the perpetrator instead of the victim, it might seem so. "It's her choice," they say.

Now, maybe I'm slow or something, but explain to me how this is a choice. Did someone offer to send Polly to graduate school? Did she turn down a "career" opportunity? How about even a job at McDonald's?

If you were a 12-year-old girl on the streets, exactly where would you go for work that paid enough to feed, house and clothe yourself – or for any work at all for that matter? What would your "choices" be?

When I met Polly, she was only 12 years old – not 15. She just had her birthday. She came from a small town in Nebraska and had a child-like lisp that softened the bad-ass attitude she tried desperately to pull off.  She was the fourth and youngest child in a family where children had no childhood. Her brother was in prison, and her sisters had run off—nobody knew where. Nobody seemed to care.