Utah Church Helps Free Victims of Human Trafficking

Utah church helps free victims of human trafficking

By Kassi Cox

Deseret News

Published: Friday, Jan. 14, 2011 10:54 p.m. MST

WEST JORDAN — On a recent December day, in a modest West Jordan chapel, the members of the Summit Adventure Church exchange hugs, sing songs of praise and bow their heads to pray. At a pulpit made of pine, the assistant pastor rises to offer a simple reminder. His topic isn't the grace of Jesus, or sin and redemption, although in a way, it is about all those things. Instead, on this cold gray morning, he speaks of a growing plague spreading across the United States: human trafficking.

The congregation is reminded of the desperate call for the food and clothing needed on behalf of the enslaved victims in Utah.

This is the mission of the Summit Adventure Church, which has created a local nonprofit, called Operation 61, to help the victims of modern slavery. Together, they work with law enforcement to locate victims of human trafficking, and through donations and volunteer work, help those who are rescued rebuild their lives.

Because human trafficking is confined to the shadows and margins, definitive numbers of victims are hard to come by, making it difficult to get an idea of how big the problem is in Utah.

The Salt Lake Police Department estimates that 10 percent of all prostitutes in Utah are minors controlled by traffickers. Since 2006, there have been over 100 human trafficking cases in Utah, and an estimated 150 children have been rescued from traffickers.

People are trafficked for a wide variety of purposes, such as commercial sex and labor, which can include agricultural work, housekeeping or working in an office setting. In both categories, victims are forced to perform labor and/or services in conditions of involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery — via force, fraud or coercion.

In August of last year, for example, the Deseret News profiled four Thai men who worked on a Milford pig farm to pay off debts they owed to an international trafficking ring. During their stay in the United States, which included two years in Utah, their employer controlled their movements, and if they failed to work long and hard, the employer could ensure that their families back home would lose everything. Housing lacked enough heat in freezing winters and air conditioning in scorching summers. They repeatedly went hungry and even trapped wild birds to subsist.

"Once you get into it, it's a lot different than looking at it from the outside," said Brad Manuel, director of Operation 61. "Listening to what these women and children have gone through is a different story."

The federal government estimates there are anywhere from 80,000 to 2 million people being trafficked internationally, although human rights organizations put the number much higher. As many as 14,000 live in the U.S. An estimated 80 percent of victims globally are women and 50 percent are children.

Human trafficking breaks down into three major categories in the United States: foreign victims 18 or older who have been bought and sold for sex or labor across borders; U.S. citizens aged 18 or older who are bought and sold within the borders of the U.S. and are passed around U.S. cities and neighborhoods; and children that have been bought and sold for labor and sex within the U.S. and across country borders.

Summit Adventure Church and Operation 61 have partnered with the two biggest agencies in Utah that fight slavery — Utah Health and Human Rights (UHHR) and Child Rescue — to raise awareness. Operation 61 also helps trafficking victims by smuggling them survival necessities, such as iodine tablets to farm workers who are forced to drink from the same source used by animals. In the winter, Operation 61 gathers canned soup, coats and scarves and gloves for victims of slave labor.

After the snow melts and spring arrives, Operation 61 will begin working toward its long-term goal of building a safe house in Utah, which will shelter women and children trafficking victims. Manuel said it's difficult to find volunteers to work in the safehouse because many people with good intentions start the training, but can't handle the real-life nightmares victims have survived.

Alicia Holdaway, member of Operation 61, is currently going through the training to work in the safehouse.

"I was just like a lot of people who didn't really know it existed, through a series of events like seeing the movie "Taken" and reading local stories, I realized it's not just a Third World issue," said Holdaway, "It's a real issue in our society today."

The training includes tips on how to spot victims of trafficking, and how to protect children from perpetrators. "Follow your gut. If something feels wrong, call your local law enforcement, let them do the apologizing if you're wrong," said Lindsay Hadley, executive director for Child Rescue, a local anti-trafficking group.

An 11-year-old boy was rescued from his enslavement, for example, because a neighbor noticed him doing dishes at 1 a.m. She thought something looked odd about the situation so she made a call to local police, which saved the boy from his traffickers.

Two young girls were rescued from the commercial sex trade after community members called police after noticing that only men entered a salon in the area. After investigations, the girls were freed from their life of sex-for-hire.

But getting the victims out of the vicious cycle of trafficking is only half of the problem. The other half is preventing human trafficking from occurring in the first place. Holdaway said the best way to prevent sex trafficking is to help build up young women and to teach boys and young men how to treat young women.

"We see celebrities on TV that portray what young women should look like, which turns into low self-confidence. This creates a breeding ground for human trafficking," said Operation 61's Holdaway.

A runaway child or young teenagers with no self-confidence seeking love will find that attention from pimps, Holdaway said. Before the victim can realize it, they're stuck.

"It may sound surface level, but confidence we build in our young women in our society can make a huge difference," said Holdaway. "The platform for human trafficking is vulnerability."

Gina Bellazetin, project coordinator at UHHR, said traffickers recruit young boys and girls, who later recruit their friends. These traffickers then prey on these victims by exploiting their weaknesses, giving them love they don't feel at home and blinding them with gifts. Before the victims realize it, they are being forced into prostitution, dancing at strip clubs or working 20-hour workdays for no pay. These victims usually remain products bought and sold until a third-party gets involved, which most likely will be law enforcement.

"Drugs you can sell once, a human you can sell over and over and over again," said Bellazetin, "you get more out of a slave than you do an ounce of coke."

Other ways to prevent labor and sex victims from enslavement is to just be aware of signs that point to a victim of trafficking. Look for abuse, older men with younger girls, a person who does not hold their own documentation or a situation where the victim cannot speak or answer questions about themselves.

There is no one consistent face of a trafficker. Traffickers include a wide range of criminal operators, including individual pimps, small families or businesses, loose-knit decentralized criminal networks and international organized criminal syndicates.

There are many ways individuals within communities can help victims of human trafficking. The first step would be to contact organizations like Operation 61, who know what is needed and where it can go. Food and clothing donations are always needed by Operation 61, Child Rescue and UHHR. Victims who escape from their captors have little or no possessions of their own.

"This is really happening in Utah," said Manuel. "We want to mobilize the public, get people outraged over it and get active."

To learn more about Operation 61 visit the website ww.operation61.org. To learn more about the Summit Adventure Church, visit Services are held Sunday's at 10:30 at 6671 Redwood Road, West Jordan.

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Poll shows relationship between voters, religion

By Kassi Cox

Deseret News

Published: Monday, Nov. 8, 2010 11:03 p.m. MST

When it came to the midterm elections for the U.S. House of Representatives, two of the country's largest religious groups followed their usual voting patterns: Protestant voters were overwhelmingly Republican, while the religiously unaffiliated voted for Democrats. But Catholic voters, who have favored Democratic candidates by double-digit margins in the last two congressional elections, this time around supported the GOP, according to Pew Forum exit poll data.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life analysis compares Republican gain with religious affiliation among voters, tracking the voting patterns of Protestants — including those who describe themselves as Protestant, Mormon and other Christians — alongside those of Catholic voters and those described as "religiously unaffiliated." It also compared the most recent election with past votes.

Within all three of these major religious groups, support for the Republican Party increased when compared with the 2006 election. All three religious groups matched or exceeded their levels of support for the GOP since recent past elections. Republican gains among religious groups parallel the party's broad-based growth among the overall electorate.

The poll shows that white Protestants voted for Republicans over Democrats by a 69-29 percent margin — an increase of six points in Republicans' share among the white Protestant vote since 2008. And an eight-point gain for Republicans since 2006.

On the Democratic side, religiously unaffiliated voters supported Democrats over Republicans in the 2010 election by a margin of 66-32 percent. However, the exit polls also show that Republicans made gains even within this staunchly Democratic group, picking up 10 points when compared with the 2006 election. This increase is comparable in size to the GOP's gains among white Protestants.

Among Catholic voters, 54 percent voted for Republican congressional candidates in 2010, a 12-point increase compared to the 2008 election. Of the white Catholic voters, nearly 59 percent voted Republican in 2010 compared to the 52 percent that voted Republican in 2008 and 49 percent who voted Republican in 2006.

Correspondingly, voters who attend religious services on a regular basis continued to support Republicans at a much higher rate in 2010 than voters who attend worship services less often. Six-in-ten voters who attend religious services at least once a week voted for the Republican candidate in their district. Previous analyses show that frequency of worship attendance has been a remarkably strong and consistent predictor of the party vote.

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Once upon a time ... Utah group plays fairy godmother to girls who need prom dress

By: Kassi Cox

Published: Sunday, Feb. 20, 2011 10:55 p.m. MST

The black stage created a perfect ambiance for the great spotlights that lit the backdrop of dresses. Their luminous glow danced off the sequins and diamonds to ruffles and bows. Girls glided in and out of dressing rooms lined with mirrors as they tried on dress after dress. They were all there for one reason, preparing for a night to remember, their high school prom.

The Cinderella Boutique is exactly what it sounds like. The fairy god mothers and fairy god fathers of Utah, the Young Lawyers Division (YLD), got together and decided to create a free boutique that would dress girls who can't afford the costly experience of high school prom. New and gently used prom dresses were donated to give every girl the opportunity to dress up and go to a ball.

"I wouldn't be able to go to prom without this," said Angela Hess, a senior at Cottonwood, as she walked out of the dressing room wearing an elegant black prom dress trimmed with a smile. She was shopping at the boutique with her sister-in-law, Alix, who graduated from Cottonwood in 2010. Alix talked about how she never went to her senior prom because she had nothing to wear.

"It's amazing," said Alix as she was giving her two cents about a pair of metallic heels Angela had just tried on, "it's simply amazing."

This is the second year the Cinderella Boutique has been put on by the YLD of Utah. Last year the boutique was held at Jordan High School with a turnout of over 300 girls, over 100 of those girls walked away with dresses to the prom. This year the boutique was held at Cottonwood High School and will also appear in Taylorsville High School come mid March when the Taylorsville students will be preparing for their prom.

Kate Conyers, member of YLD, was in charge of putting together this years boutique where planning started back in October. Conyers has big plans to expand the boutique next year to at least double the schools. Her targets: West High School and Kearns High School.

"They don't know it yet but we're coming," said Conyers.

As she walked around answering questions and assisting anyone who needed helped Conyers couldn't help but smile when she heard girls whispering to their friends, "this is all free." In a world where nothing is free, Conyers feels blessed to show these girls the kinder side of life.

Conyers see's the big picture for the boutique turning into an event that could be held in one central location where girls from all over the valley can come and shop for whatever they need to complete their desired prom attire.

The YLD had help with dress donations for this years boutique when Cottonwood student, Samantha Furden, heard about the project and wanted to help out as part of her 10 hour service project for Young Womens. Furden held a donation drive for three weeks and received 170 dresses that she donated to the Cinderella project.

The boutique this year had more flare than the previous year when the boutique only supplied dresses. Donations expanded to over 90 pairs of shoes, hundreds of pieces of jewelry, scarves in every color and dresses in every size, color, make and model. There was also a plethora of various scents of perfume samples, new makeup and different shades of nail polish for girls to find the perfect color that matched their dress. Everything was made available for the girls to take home so they could have a complete head to toe prom experience.

Volunteer Kathryn Samuel heard about the boutique through word of mouth and immediately volunteered to help and become the boutiques personal beauty consultant. As Samuels ruffled through the baskets full of mascara, eye shadow and eyeliner she could be heard saying, "All right, we have your eyes taken care of, now what about this nail polish, it will look great with your dress."

The Cinderella Boutique could not have been put on without the help from some local sponsors. Downeast Outfitters donated clothing racks to help with the boutiques set-up. The Zions Bank corporate office supplied a storage facility for the dresses during the off season and Henries Dry Cleaners cleaned all 460 dresses, skirts and tops as they were donated or came out of storage. The boutique is held at two different times after school so the girls can feel comfortable in a no-stigma atmosphere and parents can have the opportunity to shop with their daughters. Conyers said she tries to hold the boutique two and half weeks before prom so a free option could be the first option. For questions or inquiries about the Cinderella Boutique feel free to contact Kate Conyers at 801-953-4010

"I think it's cool," said volunteer Spencer Alston, "they get shorter and they get longer but other than that prom styles never go out of style."

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