Pamela Brown, an Emmy
nominated Sunday-evening anchor and special projects reporter with ABC7/WJLA-TV
and News Channel 8 in Washington D.C., spoke to Delta Women on working on Human
Trafficking. Besides being one of the few local journalists to travel to earthquake-ravaged
Haiti, Pamela has also reported on President Obama's signature healthcare
reform legislation, the end of the Iraq War and the East Coast Earthquake.
Committed in fighting against human sex trafficking, Pamela has generated
several reports on the widespread problem in the U.S. and abroad. In fact, federal
authorities credit one of Pamela's exclusive reports with helping to put a
child pornographer behind bars.
Pamela is on twitter as
@ABC7pamela.
What made you take to handling Human Sex Trafficking?
It was something that
happened a couple of years ago. I went to watch a movie, called Taken, which traces
the story of a father who sets about tracking down his daughter after she is
kidnapped by human traffickers while travelling in France. It was an
eye-opener, watching that film. When I came out of the theatre, I wanted to
know if it was real, or if they were just trying to sell a movie. So I began
digging and reading, and that was when I found that this isn’t something that
happens abroad, alone, but right in our own backyard. I found that all kinds of
girls were victims, hailing from all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds. It
was simply frightening, and I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing about it.
Take us through some of your experiences while
working on this issue.
In the most recent case I studied, which involves North Virginia, I
came to understand that gangs have turned to sex trade. It has become something
of a new line of business for these gangs, to traffic girls as young as 12! I
spoke to a girl who was 16. She told me her story – telling me how she was
lured into it all. She met a member of the gang at the Springfield Metro
Station, and said that he acted charming and used a lot of flattery to lure her
in. This young girl wound up servicing countless men, tolling nearly 40 men a
day, earning as much as $2,000 a day! It was unbelievable – how can this
happen, right? It is a terrible thing, the power of control that these gangs
have even over girls from the upper middle class!
Do you face any challenges or threats, while
working on this issue, being a woman?
I don’t think it has
anything to do with being a woman. In essence, it is a very, very difficult
topic. It took me 10 months to get all my information – victims obviously don’t
want to talk about it, they don’t want to relive their experiences. It needs a
lot of persistence and digging to get information. I have spoken to people on
the streets, I even spoke to the manager of a motel where girls were often
sold. I’ve spoken to people in Law Enforcement to study the issue from their perspective.
In my most recent story, I spoke to a convicted member of the gang, himself. He
gave me his side of the story, explaining the way would lure girls. He said
that they would force girls to lure other girls into prostitution. To me, the
way I see it, it is incredibly difficult to work on something like this issue.
But, it is ultimately rewarding when you inform and educate people about the
issue, and you can actually bring about change through awareness.
Having studied the field, what do you believe,
are the most common ‘tricks’ or ‘ways’ traffickers use, to lure girls?
They do not walk right
up to a girl and ask her directly. They lure the girls by making themselves
charming, special, and flattering the girls entirely. They are pretty clever in
targeting girls with a low self-esteem, and those that don’t have shelter. They
build relationships with these girls who are otherwise ostracised or not
accepted, or have a difficult life, and then make them feel cared. After a
point, they begin to take advantage of the girls, sometimes putting them on
drugs. It isn’t easy at this point for the girl to run away to get help – it is
a trap through and through.
Where in the USA does this happen more
frequently?
Everywhere, literally!
I did my last story on North Virginia – where it is pretty much rampant. The
thing is, it can happen in the most unsuspecting areas. In a nice
neighbourhood, there was no reason to believe that trafficking thrived. But one
of the folks on that street were running a trafficking circle right out of his
basement. It isn’t only girls within the USA that are vulnerable, there are
also a couple of girls who are brought in. For instance, there was a girl from
Ukraine who came to the USA with hopes of working and sending her family money,
and then perhaps get a student visa and go to school. But before she knew it,
she was taken by the touts into a circle of prostitution.
Delta Women has done some research on the issue
and has found Houston, Texas, to be a hub of much activity of this sort. Have
you perhaps had the chance to study this region, too?
While I haven’t worked
in depth on Texas, I do know that the phenomenon is rampant all across the
United States.
What would your advice be, to parents and girls
alike, and perhaps even to victims?
To a parent, my advice
is to be communicative and talk to their children about the issue. It is
important to be involved all the time. Get on social media, and monitor your
child. Invade your child’s life, literally, so you can be absolutely sure of
everything that is happening in their lives. As for the girls, I’d say that
they have to be aware of the issue, in turn. It is absolutely important that
they be aware and be strong enough to say no, and to nip such tendencies in the
bud. It is also important for girls to build their self-esteem. Girls bullied
at school have low self-esteem, and are often vulnerable to the showering of
attention and flattery by the trafficker. That needs to change. As for the
victims themselves, I think they need to take law enforcement into confidence. Law
enforcement actually wants victims to come out with their story and to speak
out. Victims are very afraid of law enforcement, and tend to believe that they
might face harder issues when they come out with it. But that’s not true – it
is crucial that victims reach out. There are so many services to help victims.
As told to Kirthi Jayakumar
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