Human Trafficking

They traveled to the super bowl with no intention of watching the game to have their bodies sold for sexual pleasure.

In 2011, while media airways pre-Super Bowl echoed with disgust over the #DeflateGate controversy, the post-Super Bowl hot topic was, no doubt, the Seahawks’ final play call that resulted in the game-losing interception.

But the story most likely to be absent from the headlines, are the stories of those men, women, and children who traveled to the Super Bowl with no intention of watching the game. They were brought to have their bodies sold for sexual pleasure. Each year, thousands of girls, boys, and adults are bussed into the hosting Super Bowl city and sold for sex like part of the festivities. Experts say the Super Bowl is one of the most popular events for sex trafficking with an estimated 10,000 women, men and children trafficked into Miami for the 2011 Super Bowl alone.

Girls and boys are kidnapped from their homes around the world or are lured in with lies and forced into sex slavery. According to the FBI, approximately 293,000 children are forced into sex slavery in the United States. The average age a child enters the sex industry is 12-14 years old. The victims are expected by their pimp to have sex with between 10 – 30 tricks (people who pay for sex) per day.

“Modern [sex] slavery has reached historic levels,” said Liz Yore, an expert on rescuing sex-trafficked children and an international child advocate who formerly worked for Oprah Winfrey at Harpo Studios.

Yore spoke on Super Bowl Saturday at an educational conference called SpeakOut Illinois, which is hosted by 43 Illinois pro-life organizations. Yore attributed a main factor in sex trafficking’s thriving business to legalized abortion.

200,000 million baby girls are missing in Asia due to sex-selective abortion,” she said. As a result of the rapidly declining female population, girls, boys, and adults are sex trafficked into Asia and forced into sexual slavery. “Abortion becomes the one-size-fits-all solution. It creates the demand and then eliminates the evidence of the crime. The younger the child, the higher the price….Abortion on demand has…hardened hearts,” Yore continued.

The sex trafficking industry makes approximately $87 million per dayThe average pimp makes between $150,000 and $200,000 per year off of selling 3-4 victims. Yore says Chicago is ranked 10th as a hub for sex-trafficked children with approximately 27,854 registered sex offenders in Illinois. Chicago, a city plagued by a robust abortion industry as well as easily accessible public and interstate transportation has approximately 16,000 – 25,000 sex trafficked victims every year.

 

Abortion, Planned Parenthood, and Human Trafficking: THE CONNECTION

According to the ECPTAT-USA100,000 children are trafficked every year in America.

recent study, reported that 55% of the women surveyed, who were sex-trafficking victims, had at least one abortion, and over half of them reported being forced into the abortion. It shows that in many cases, abortion is a forced, fast, and go-to method for sex-traffickers to cover up their crime.

For Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States, abortion is a primary source of business. At the same time, Planned Parenthood says that it has a “commitment to protect women’s health.”

Does this commitment to women’s health and safety take precedence over profit?

In 2011, Planned Parenthood – the largest abortion provider in the United States – was caught on tape aiding and abetting sex-traffickers in an undercover investigation conducted by Live Action. The investigation was organized much like police stings and 60 Minutes investigations. You can read more about the investigation, and watch the videos here.

The Live Action videos were profoundly disturbing: Planned Parenthood was caught advising pimps on how to secretly obtain abortions even though the staff knew the prospective patients were involved in sex work. Three years later, former Boston Planned Parenthood staffer Catherine Adair came forward to affirm what Live Action’s undercover investigations found:

“I was present when young girls came in with their abusers and Planned Parenthood performed their abortions,” said Adair. “When Live Action came out with their videos, I felt vindicated. I knew it to be true, and they showed it to be true. That allowed me, for the first time, to tell others what I had experienced.”

But there’s more…

In March of 2015, Planned Parenthood, with the help of Senate Democrats, filibustered SB 178, the “Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act,” intended to help victims of human trafficking. According to this bill, federal funds would not be used to pay for abortions given to victims of sex-trafficking, which would abet the trafficking industry itself. Essentially, the bill implied that Planned Parenthood could not receive taxpayer dollars for the abortions of sex-trafficking victims. The bill passed in May of that same year, but only after an amendment was made to fund these abortions with criminal fines and money previously appropriated by Congress.

In addition, the report, “Health Consequences of Sex Trafficking,” published by the Annals of Health Law, analyzed the testimonies of several sex-trafficking victims. According to the report, the victims who were open to answering questions about their healthcare claimed “significant contact with clinical treatment facilities, most notable Planned Parenthood.” The report states that more than a quarter of the sex-trafficking survivors surveyed had visited Planned Parenthood facilities, but had not be rescued out of the sex-trafficking business by staff.

 

Pregnancy Resource Centers and the Fight against Human Trafficking

One pregnancy resource center director asked donors for funds to buy a “door between the lobby and the hallway.” Why?

“Traffickers bring girls in here for pregnancy tests and ultrasounds,” she said. “They carry guns. They look down the hallway when we take the girls into one of our rooms. If we try to sneak them out the back door, they will see it. We’ve got to block their line of sight if we are going to help these girls.”

While Planned Parenthood has shown that it is willing to give these poor women abortions and look the other way, our pregnancy resource centers are on the front lines when it comes to protecting women from human trafficking.

In fact, Heartbeat International, a global network of over 2,600 affiliated pregnancy resource centers, has developed the first-ever anti-human trafficking course, now available online, for Pregnancy Resource Centers.

The course, called How to Identify and Assist Victims of Human Trafficking, was created with the help of human trafficking experts, Laura Lederer and Cindy Collins. Laura Lederer, who is also president of Global Centurion, a non-profit organization fighting against human trafficking, explains:

“While there are other trainings available, Heartbeat International’s training is the first one tailored for pregnancy resource centers and pregnancy helping organizations. It uses actual case studies from PRCs in the U.S. where trafficking victims have been identified and assisted, and tailors the training for PRCs. This is important work that saves two lives: the life of the mother (who is saved from trafficking) and her child.”

Betty McDowell, LAS, senior director of ministry services for Heartbeat International, reinforces this startling but important truth:

Pregnancy help centers are vital first responders to this modern slavery. Drawing on expert research and stories from pregnancy centers with hands-on experience, this course equips centers to appropriately respond to this dangerous and dehumanizing practice, and to affirm the lives and dignity of victims in need.”

 

Conclusion

According to the International Labor Organization, there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally – 55% of them are female and 5.5 million of them children.

Sex trafficked girls, boys, women and men are hidden in plain sight and, for this reason, Yore implored the public to remember missing children crimes are most often solved only with the help of the public. She said you identify victims by noticing signs of depression, avoiding eye contact, and very submissive personalities. If you notice a neighborhood girl or boy with bruises, working long unusual hours, or can’t freely come then say something. You can make an anonymous tip to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center by calling 1-888-373-7888 or by calling 911. If you see something, say something. You just may save someone’s life.

So while Americans watch and celebrate over the Super Bowl each year, don’t be too distracted to notice the trafficked children and adults who might be hiding in plain sight. They silently scream for your help. In our work to end legalized abortion, let us remember our efforts are not only for the child abortion eliminates and the parents abortion scars for life. Let us also work to make abortion illegal by remembering the monsters abortion protects and the girls and women abortion forces back into sex slavery after permanently destroying the evidence.