(Special thanks to David Sinclair, managing editor of The
Pilot newspaper in Southern Pines NC for some information in this article.)
“Human Trafficking is the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons. Acts include
prostitution of others, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery or similar
practices, and the removal of organs.”
Sandy Stewart stepped to a microphone and welcomed a crowd of around 250 people (which included speakers and vendors) to the “Break Every Chain” event held at 7:00 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013, at Sandhills Community College’s Owens Auditorium in Pinehurst (Moore County), N.C.
The event, sponsored by Changing Destinies Ministry (www.changingdestinies.org) of Seven Lakes, was designed “to create awareness of sex trafficking, a fast-growing crime.”
Changing Destinies was co-founded by Kym Nixon, president, and Sandy Stewart, vice president.
Kym Nixon (pictured)
Nixon, a wife, mother of four daughters
and grandmother of four grandchildren, has a Masters degree in education. She is
a 24-year U.S. Navy veteran who now works as a civilian “contract instructor”
for the army. In October 2012, she began to feel a profound
calling on her life to be involved with the “abolition movement,” she says.
Sandy Stewart (pictured) speaks at the Break Every Chain event.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
Sandy Stewart, a wife
and a mother of a son and a daughter, has a business degree and is owner/broker of Sandhill Realty. She also serves
as corporate secretary and marketing Director for Stewart Construction &
Development. She says her passion and commitment to help educate and raise awareness
in the fight against sex trafficking “grew out of maternal love and
involvement.” She watched her daughter and two of her daughter’s friends
initiate a campaign to raise awareness on the college campus of Queens
University of Charlotte, N.C., she says.
Stewart welcomed “abolition
partners” to the event. (A list of those partners is included at the end of
this article.) She thanked Seven Lakes Baptist Church of West End, N.C., for
sponsoring the “Break Every Chain” event.
Sheriff Neil Godfrey (pictured) speaks at the Break Every Chain event.
Neil Godfrey, sheriff
of Moore County, N.C., spoke to the gathering.
“It
really can happen anywhere,” Godfrey said. “As your sheriff, let me express my
appreciation for the work you are doing. I assure you we will support you in
your efforts.”
The Seven Lakes Freedom Band led by Rachel Stewart presented worship songs interspersed throughout the evening’s program.
The band sang choruses such
as one containing these words: “Chains be broken / Lives be healed / Eyes be
opened / Christ revealed. . . . ”
The audience viewed “Does
Anybody Hear Her?” a music video featuring Casting Crowns, a Christian rock
band. John Hall, a singer for that
group, wrote that song, which contains these words that seem to reflect the
profile of a young lady who could fall prey to a sex trafficker:
“She is running / A hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction / She is trying but the canyon's ever widening / In the depths of her cold heart / So she sets out on another misadventure just to find / She's another two years older / And she's three more steps behind.”
(Chorus): “Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see? / Or does anybody even know she's going down today? / Under the shadow of our steeple / With all the lost and lonely people / Searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me / Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
“She is yearning for shelter and affection / That she never found at home / She is searching for a hero to ride in / To ride in and save the day / And in walks her prince charming / And he knows just what to say / Momentary lapse of reason / And she gives herself away.
“If judgment looms under every steeple / If lofty glances from lofty people / Can't see past her scarlet letter / And we've never even met her. . . . Under the shadow of our steeple / With all the lost and lonely people / Searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me / Does anybody hear her? Does anybody see? / She is running a hundred miles an hour / In the wrong direction.”
Michele Dudley stands at a table with items offered for sale by Fashion & Compassion, her non-profit organization.
Michele
Dudley of Charlotte spoke to attendees. She founded Fashion & Compassion (www.fashionandcompassion.com)
with Celeste Bundy in 2012 after working with “indigenous artisans” for several
years. The group “connects caring
consumers with vulnerable women artisans to bring dignity through economic
opportunity.”
“It
is a business,” Dudley said about sex trafficking, which she described as 32-
billion-dollar-a-year business based on “commercial sexual exploitation.” She
noted that the term “human trafficking” is no different from the word “prostitution.”
Antonia
"Neet" Childs was scheduled to speak at the meeting, but couldn’t
attend. She sent a recently released video that told about her life and
business, Neet’s Sweets (www.neetssweets.com).
Childs
dreamed of having her own bakery. Her Aunt Koona owned a catering business, and
Childs loved to watch her passion for making dishes. Childs’ dreams for owning a
bakery faded after she fell victim to a life of human
trafficking. She was manipulated by a handsome 38-year-old man, a
well-dressed graduate of a North Carolina college, she said.
“I was
exploited before I was trafficked,” she said. “It’s not just something [that
happens] overseas.”
A male
friend challenged her to market her mind instead of her body.
“It was through
the kindness and support of a friend that I began a cake decorating class,” she
said.
She funneled
this passion into a business idea and became “a baking entrepreneur in 2008 in
the Queen City, better known as Charlotte, N.C.”
“Neet's
Sweets has become more than just a business to me though,” she says on her
website. “It's a movement – a movement to save other young women from a life of
commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. Proceeds from Neet's Sweets,
Inc. help to provide support to
women survivors, including counseling, housing referrals, and
mentoring. We also offer employment as a way to help our women gain work skills
in order to begin their own journey towards personal growth, empowerment, and
success.”
Jillian Mourning (right) talks with Michele Dudley during the seminar.
Jillian
Mourning, a 26-year-old Charlotte resident and a survivor of human trafficking,
addressed the audience. She grew up in a broken home, but she excelled in
school – she was also a cheerleader – and went to college to prove herself.
She said she was a 19-year-old student at
UNC-Charlotte and a part-time model when her agent, a man she had come to see
as a father figure, and two other men raped her one night. They recorded the
attack. The next morning, the agent told Mourning he would publish the video
online if she reported what had happened.
“It is literally slavery without bars and chains,” Mourning said of sex trafficking.
She was afraid her friends and family would see the video and that some people would think she brought the rape upon herself. Mourning remained silent. Over the next six months, she entered the arena of sexual servitude.
“Men in business suits would pay to sleep with a 19-year-old,” she said.
The agent raped her many times and recorded the ordeals. Mourning didn’t know it, but he sold the videos online. Six years ago she was trafficked from Charlotte to several states, she noted.
After her agent was convicted of criminal charges, Mourning was freed from that bondage. She graduated from college after majoring in “international studies and German.” She minored in “the Holocaust, genocide and human rights” and spent some time in Germany during her studies.
As a survivor of human trafficking, Mourning started a nonprofit group in Charlotte called All We Want Is LOVE, which helps victims; see www.AllWeWantIsLove.org for information.
“Today, I have the most amazing friends and church family,” she said. “From what I’ve been through, I’ve been able to save a lot of girls.”
Michele Dudley (left) and Jillian Mourning
Mourning walked across the stage to join Michele Dudley for an interview. The two sat and talked as a videographer recorded their conversation.
“When people are in bad situations, they feel there is no way out,” Mourning said.
She talked about her group, All We Want Is LOVE.
“We do a lot of educating in high schools and colleges,” she said. She noted that age 13 is the average entry age for a girl who is trafficked. “[That’s the age] you think the world is flowers and rainbows.”
She said health care workers and people who work at gas stations and truck stops and those who enter homes (such as cable TV technicians) as part of their work need to report signs of sex trafficking.
Mourning said money given to young women involved in trafficking may not be “going to the girls.”
“She gives the money to someone who’ll beat the crap out of her if she doesn’t,” Mourning said. “All you need is one thing that is exploitable to become a victim. If you trust the wrong person, you can be exploited. You can’t look at somebody and say, ‘She’s the typical girl.’”
She said that sex traffickers, “exploiters,” are trained to find girls who can be manipulated.
“They are business men trained to pick up on girls’ vulnerabilities,” Mourning said.
Seventy percent of pornography is tied into sex trafficking, she noted.
Some people may think that women are involved in prostitution because they wish to be, Mourning said, but she added that unseen pressures may have forced many women into lifestyles they normally wouldn’t have chosen.
“Perception is not always reality,” she said.
She wants to help other sex trafficking victims, she says.
“I want to give them hope; all they want is love,” she said. “We can change the world one girl at a time. There is that light at the end of the tunnel. You will get through it. It doesn’t have to be my life forever. You feel like there is no way out. They need to see those who do make it out.”
As far as what the public can do to help victims of sex trafficking, Mourning suggested the following:
1.
Change the wrong mindset that “she [a sex
trafficking victim] wants to be there.”
2.
Become educated about the problem and be
willing to talk to people in your communities.
3.
Get involved with funding the cause – for
example: selling crafts and donating funds.
4.
Educate others.
5.
Take time to do something about sex
trafficking.
Emily Fitchpatrick, 36, founder of an Asheville-based nonprofit organization called On Eagles Wings Ministries (www.oewm.net) spoke next. (She also is involved with Rahab’s Hope, Youth4Abolition and Fields of Hope ministries.)
Fitchpatrick, originally from West Virginia, said that God “got a hold” of her when she was 22 years of age and saved her from a life of drugs and alcohol. She went to work for Billy Graham Ministries, but in 2008, she “felt called” to found On Eagles Wings in order to help girls working at strip clubs.
“We started going to strip clubs,” she said. “We saw some minors and some girls [that appeared to be] under pimp control.”
She and her helpers took gift bags to the girls.
“We tried to share hope with them,” she said.
This work opened Fitchpatrick’s eyes to the sex trafficking world. She said her previous image of a prostitute was “a 30-year-old addicted to meth [methamphetamine].” She learned that the average age of girls going into prostitution was 13.
“Some people said, ‘We don’t have that problem in N.C.’” she noted, adding that those people were wrong.
Fitchpatrick, who majored in hotel management in college and once worked as a wedding planner, said one of her favorite quotations is this: “Visionaries without perseverance are only dreamers.”
“I have perseverance,” she said.
She discovered that few agencies were helping get girls out of sex trafficking. She said that N.C. has lots of “runaway shelters” but not many groups focusing on sex trafficking. She indicated that some people tend to label sex-in-exchange-for-something as “survival sex” when it involves a young girl “trying to make it through the day.” A young person practicing “survival sex” may be labeled a “delinquent,” but Fitchpatrick indicated that such behavior often falls under the sex trafficking umbrella. She said that one lady who worked with DSS told her, “I don’t think it’s our issue.”
With the help of many people, Fitchpatrick started the Hope House shelter in Asheville in 2009. The first girl to come there was 14 at the time and had been trafficked since she was 12. That girl is now in college on a full scholarship.
“One hundred percent of our girls have PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder],” Fitchpatrick said. “They’ve had multiple traumas . . . much to deal with. . . . The bulk of the girls we’ve worked with in five years have been runaways.”
Fitchpatrick said this problem “is happening everywhere.” She referred to a website that listed over 230 ads that could be interpreted as ads involving sex trafficking in the Fayetteville, N.C., area (not far from Pinehurst, N.C.).
“Every city has hundreds of ads,” she said. “It’s huge. The Internet is a huge tool in trafficking.”
Fitchpatrick said the misconceptions about prostitution must be changed in order to get the public involved.
“They may look like they want to be there – they don’t,” she said. “Prostitution is not a choice. Circumstances of life land them there. I want to challenge you about the way you look at prostitution. The level of guilt and shame these girls carry is so heavy, so hard. We need to keep these issues in your prayers and in the forefront.”
Fitchpatrick said that sex trafficking is “everybody’s issue” and that we “can’t keep pawning these kids off.”
“God has a heart for injustice, and he calls us for this,” she said.
Fitchpatrick praised the work done by Changing Destinies, which hopes someday to open a safe house in Moore County, N.C.
“It’s hard work,” she said. “Across the USA, we’re scrambling for beds. It’s so hard to find nice places that can keep them [victims of sex trafficking].”
“God sent loving people to help me,” she said. “I want the same thing for Changing Destinies. . . . Every two seconds somewhere in the world, a child is sold. . . . I want to see if y’all step up. We [in N.C.] are constantly in the top ten states, as far as calls to the national hotline.”
Calls can be made to the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or Text to BeFree (233733).
“We need better protections in the laws for children,” Fitchpatrick said. “We have to think of it ‘one life at a time.’ Don’t leave here discouraged or overwhelmed. . . . Leave here filled with hope. There is something you can do.”
Chris Hrabosky, senior pastor of Seven Lakes Baptist Church, prayed at the close of the meeting: “It’s a sin issue . . . happening right here in our backyard,” he prayed. “God . . . help us be doers of the Word and not hearers, only. . . . Help us not to forget about what we’ve heard about. . . . Help us to do something. . . . Lord, I thank you so much for the opportunity to hear from these ladies. . . . in Jesus’ name, amen.”
Vendor participants in the “Break Every Chain” event manned tables set up in the lobby of Owens Auditorium. Attendees lingered to talk with program participants and vendors.
The “Break Every Chain” program listed “Supporting Information / Vendor Participants as follows”:
1000 Shillings, Durham NC, Rebecca Calderara, www.1000shillings.com.
All We Want Is LOVE (Liberation of Victims Everywhere), Charlotte NC, Jillian Mourning, www.AllWeWantIsLove.org.
Pictured are Jillian Mourning (left) and Ashley Harkrader of All We Want Is LOVE. Harkrader is Mourning's organizational partner. Harkrader majored in business administration and minored in public relations and marketing.
Changing Destinies, Moore County NC, www.ChangingDestinies.org.
Fashion & Compassion, Charlotte NC, Michele Dudley, www.fashionandcompassion.com.
Justice Ministries, Charlotte NC, Mark Blackwell, www.justice-ministries.org.
Neet’s Sweets, Charlotte NC, Antonia “Neet”
Childs, www.neetssweets.com.
On Eagles Wings Ministries & Hope House Shelter, Asheville NC, Emily Fitchpatrick, www.oewm.net and www.hopehousenc.com.
Partners Against Trafficking Humans in NC (PATH), Raleigh NC, Pat Witt, www.pathnconline.wordpress.com.
Rise Up Ministries, Charlotte NC, Aimee Johnson, www.riseup52.com.
The Defender Foundation/NC Chapter, Fayetteville NC, Eric Wong, www.ncdefender.org.
Transforming Hope Ministries & Emma’s Home, Durham NC, Abbi Tenaglia, www.transforminghopeministries.org.
Financial sponsors for the Break Every Chain event included Rebecca Calderara, Far Ridgeline Engagements, Matt and Paige Harris, Kym Nixon, Seven Lakes Baptist Church, Sandhills Realty, and Stewart Construction & Development.
“You may choose to look the other way,
but you can never say again that you did not know.” –William Wilberforce,
leading 19th century abolitionist.
