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Hawaii's Hidden Crisis: Human Trafficking
- 1. HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN HAWAII Courtney Ibarra
- 2. How prevalent in Hawaii is sex trafficking? What is being done in the government about this problem? How are victims obtained?
- 3. How prevalent is this problem in hawaii? “Hidden behind the pristine image of this Pacific paradise is a thriving sex tourism industry”
- 4. The number of girls trafficked in Hawaii each year is in the thousands.
- 5. These girls can be as young as 11 years old. They come from a variety of backgrounds, from homelessness to stable families.
- 6. In Honolulu, the rate is 15 minutes for $100. It is so sad to me that this is so frequent and casual, that Honolulu has a “rate”.
- 7. These girls are tricked into the trade through a “boyfriend” routine. Others are beaten or drugged until they agree to be sex trafficked.
- 8. What is the government doing about it? “Hawaii has become the last state in the nation to explicitly ban sex trafficking.”
- 9. After a law had been vetoed, the leader of the organization that made the law said she had hoped it would bring Hawaii up to speed with the rest of the US. Hawaii remains the only state in the US with no comprehensive law specifically criminalising sex trafficking while protecting victims from prosecution, she said.
- 10. However, a year later, Gov. David Ige did sign a bill making sex trafficking a violent crime and a class A felony.
- 11. Because of this bill, victims of sex trafficking are given support and treated as victims, not criminals
- 12. Ige also signed a bill that provides funds for law enforcement agencies to test untested sex assault evidence kits. The Honolulu Police Department had about 1,500 rape kits that had not been tested earlier this year.
- 13. In what way do predators convince their prey to participate in sex trafficking? Internet luring, sparse parental supervision, and smuggling.
- 14. Internet luring- a trafficker will browse the internet and social media for girls who seem to have no friends or lack of self-esteem. They are after the vulnerable.
- 15. Sparse parental supervision- traffickers will tell parents that they are going to make their kid “rich and famous” as a model.
- 16. Smuggling- the girls are often taken, then quickly smuggled to a different location. Traffickers will often take them where there is “demand”, often american tourist locations.
- 17. As you can see, human trafficking in Hawaii is a serious problem, and is more alive today than we know.
- 19. Pictures http://lithub.com/hard-truth-and-deep-trauma-behind-bars/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/474637248212281282/ http://longwallpapers.com/sad-girl-wallpapers-phone/ http://newamericamedia.org/2011/05/behind-bars-for-black-girls-acting-out-is-a-crime.php http://www.photos4travel.com/travel-guides/hawaii https://www.pinterest.com/pin/736268239051851026/ https://wordcounter.net/blog/2016/09/21/102367_tens-of-thousands.html http://www.blossy.com/this-is-how-you-really-deal-with-a-breakup/ https://www.westernseminary.edu/transformedblog/2013/04/12/do-you-remember-your-first-childhood-loss https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-4962956-stock-footage-sad-girl-near-window-thinking-about-something.html https://www.pinterest.co.uk/explore/sad-girl-photography/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thrillist/the-most-beautiful-buildi_b_9052158.html http://www.servicewearapparel.com/national-ipa/statutes/index.php?state=hawaii http://governor.hawaii.gov/newsroom/governors-office-news-release-governors-office-goes-paperless/ https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/newsheadlines/archive/2015/06/11/are-feds-stalling-detention-deal-to-keep-refugee-moms-kids-behind-bars.aspx?Redirected=true http://www.imaginelifestyles.com/luxuryliving/2011/11/hawaii-police-hitting-streets-hybrid-patrol-cars http://rustusovka.com/content/sad-girl-wallpaper-background.html http://www.jsums.edu/socialmedia/strategy-and-guidelines/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mgpvNB3H2w
Editor's Notes
- Honolulu, Hawaii - "It doesn't seem like there's any action today," Tammy Bitanga says, pointing out all the possible prostitutes in Honolulu's Chinatown. For the uninitiated, she breaks the city down into two zones. The area around Waikiki beach, lined with posh hotels and boutiques, is, she says, for "high-class street walkers". "This area - drug addicts, low-class streetwalkers," she adds. This is not your typical Hawaiian holiday tour. Those tend to involve snorkelling adventures or biking down sooty volcanoes. But hidden behind the pristine image of this Pacific paradise is a thriving sex tourism industry.
- "It is hard to quantify but, by our estimates, the number of females trafficked for sex in Hawaii each year is most likely in the thousands," says Kathryn Xian, the founder and head of Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, an anti-trafficking pressure group. "There are about 150 brothels on Oahu alone that we know about [not including those in private homes]. For each brothel, there are between three to 15 girls, mostly from Asia and some youth victims. This doesn't include the street prostitution and online scene." Most of the girls are from China, Japan, Korea and Thailand, Xian says. There are also girls from Russia and parts of Eastern Europe. A large number of the women are taken to or through Honolulu, Oahu, a centre for tourism and conventions and home to a large transient military population.
- There is no particular victim profile, Munoz explains. The girls can be as young as 11 or 12, she says. Some are runaways who have ended up homeless, others come from stable, supportive families but continue to be prostituted even as they live under their parents' roofs. Once they are in the trade, the girls are often afraid of what their pimp might do to their families, she says
- They must meet a quota of $1,000 to $1,500 per day, Munoz says, explaining that the rate for 15 minutes with a child prostitute in Honolulu is $100. At that rate, they must serve between 10 to 15, but sometimes even 20, men a day. The fees for children are much higher, Xian says. "At minimum, $250 for a half an hour, if not more." She remembers a victim she met two years ago, whose pimp was paid $10,000 for one night. She was 16 then.
- The victims are pushed into the first encounter in several ways, Xian says. Sometimes they are gang-raped and beaten into submission. Other times they are drugged into compliance. But the typical way they are brought into the sex trade is different from what the public might think. These are not "snatch and grab" abductions, like in the movies, Munoz says. Instead, girls are lured through "boyfriending", as she calls it, or, as Xian says, the "lover boy" approach. The victims are pushed into the first encounter in several ways, Xian says. Sometimes they are gang-raped and beaten into submission. Other times they are drugged into compliance. "Less abusive" pimps, she says, will entice them by appealing to their desire to please him and earn or cement his love.
- Hawaii has become the last state in the nation to explicitly ban sex trafficking.
- Xian, whose organisation had drafted the new law, said she had hoped it would bring Hawaii up to speed with the rest of the US. Hawaii remains the only state in the US with no comprehensive law specifically criminalising sex trafficking while protecting victims from prosecution, she said.
- Gov. David Ige signed the bill into law Tuesday. It makes sex trafficking a violent crime and class A felony, expands the statewide witness protection program to include sex trafficking and provides victims access to criminal injury compensation.
- “The most direct benefit for victims is that now, instead of being criminalized and put in a jail cell, and facing prosecution, they’ll be placed in a support services network and treated as victims of violent crimes instead of accomplices to their own exploitation.”
- Ige also signed a bill that provides funds for law enforcement agencies to test untested sex assault evidence kits. The Honolulu Police Department had about 1,500 rape kits that had not been tested earlier this year.
- Predators will groom children through the internet, seeking after the most vulnerable. Those who seem to have low self esteem or lack of friends may be looking for attention and they may get it from a trafficker. Ask your kids if they have ever received a request from someone that they don’t know- it’s a very common thing. A predator could easily be posing as an attractive man, but you do not know who really is behind the screen. They then begin the stages of trafficking.
- In foreign countries, traffickers will sometimes lure young girls into their industry by offering them a spot in a modeling school. The parents, often in poverty, agree that it would put their child in a better place than where they are at home. Unfortunately, these “modeling” opportunities end up pushing these young girls into the trafficking industry.
- The Polaris Project pointed out that traffickers often understand the vulnerabilities of their victims because they make sure to seek victims that share their ethnic or cultural background. This principle is also true with Americans, which is why it is important to be aware how the traffickers find these kids. With Americans, it is mostly online. Americans are the number one consumer and producer of child porn in the world. This is both a national and international Problem because often Americans will travel out of the country to exploit young children in other countries. If these predators hear of opportunities in other countries, they will respond to the ad online and begin to travel over there. The police get them in the airport on the way out.