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Health & Fitness

Human trafficking, silent epidemic in our community and world

 Human trafficking, the trade of humans for the purpose of sexual or labor slavery, is an uncomfortably big problem in southeast Michigan.

According to a report by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, from January 1, 2013, to June 30, 2013, there were 262 calls were made to the organization from Michigan, many in the Metro-Detroit area. Sixty-three of the calls made to the hotline were classified as a potential human trafficking case.

Deena Policicchio has spent 19 years working with female victims of trafficking, 14 of those years she has served as the director of outreach and education services of Alternatives for Girls, a non-profit based in Detroit that serves at-risk women.

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Policicchio said that human trafficking is very prevalent in Michigan and around the world, but there is no way to determine how many incidents occur.

"Some people's stories are not paid attention to," Policicchio said. "Girls and women we have been rescuing for years from the sex industry will disappear and nobody knows or cares."

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The Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking estimates that 2.5 million people are forced into labor and sexual exploitation as a result of trafficking around the world with 10.8% of incidents occurring in industrialized countries. The majority of victims are ages 18 to 24.

"Every couple of years, we do a survey asking women how they got into the life," Policicchio said. "Many times, we get a story similar to on their thirteenth birthday, they got a crack pipe and revealing outfit and told that it was time they start making a living."   

Kurt Heise, state representative and the chairman of the criminal justice of committee, has recently proposed over 20 bills to strengthen human trafficking laws including harsher punishments for offenders, increasing public awareness and changing how the legal system treats survivors.

"We have never treated the victims of human trafficking as victims," Heise said. "We treated them as criminals and prostitutes. They would be charged criminally and that is really not the answer to the problem."

Heise said that his eyes open to the prevalence of human trafficking in southeast Michigan in the summer of 2013 when he learned Detroit ranked second of 76 cities that successful recovered juveniles after a three-day operation conducted by the FBI to rescue underage prostitutes.

During that three day operation, 59 arrests were made in Macomb, Oakland, Wayne and Genesee counties, 10 juveniles were rescued and 18 pimps were arrested.

“Child prostitution remains a persistent threat to children across America. This operation serves as a reminder that these abhorrent crimes can happen anywhere and that law enforcement remains committed to stopping this cycle of victimization and holding the criminals who profit from this exploitation accountable,”  Ron Hosko, FBI assistant director said in a prepared statement.

Curbing human trafficking may seem like a daunting task, but Policicchio said that there are many actions the average citizen can do to help including attending awareness-building workshops, sharing information, discussing morals with children and volunteering.

"Not everyone is cut-out to go on the street and to look for girls and women, but a lot of people are cut-out to be literacy mentors for children who are vulnerable to this kind of thing," Policicchio said.

Policicchio also recommends using slaveryfootprint.org, a website that shows users how much their lifestyle contributes to human trafficking.

"Understand that trafficking is something that we contribute to," Policicchio said.  "And we need to understand how we can minimize our impact."

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