By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—Thousands of children, both girls and boys, are being lured into prostitution and then kept as sexual slaves through intimidation and beatings. Some are lured across the United States-Mexico border with promises of jobs to help their families; others are recruited from San Diego County schools, parks, shopping malls and via the Internet with promises of friendship and nice clothing.  Although law enforcement task forces have been formed in San Diego County and elsewhere, the problem is growing, not diminishing.

Deputy Sheriff Rick Castro, coordinator of the law enforcement task force on human trafficking in San Diego County, and Marisa Ugarte, executive director of the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, delivered this message on Monday evening, April 18, at a meeting of the San Diego Chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women.  NCJW board member Nancy Woolman chaired the session that met in the sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El, attracting about 35 persons.

Ugarte, whose organization advocates for the protection of these youngsters on both sides of 
the U.S.-Mexico border and in other countries
Marisa Ugarte and Deputy Sheriff Rick Castro

around the world, laid much of the blame for the growing problem on the concept that prostitution is a "victimless crime."  She said society must realize that even if the sex between a prostitute and a customer is consensual, it is highly likely that the prostitute is being forced by a human trafficker to remain a prostitute.

Castro provided details of one such case, a 15-year-old girl who told the trafficker she planned to leave.  According to Castro, "the trafficker told the johns (male customer) that they had to leave,  then duct-taped her hands and feet, unraveled a wire clothes hangar and beat her for two hours in front of the other girls.  He did it on her back so that a future customer wouldn't see scars all over her while she was lying on her back."  The brutality not only punished the girl for considering leaving, it also intimidated the other girls from considering following her example.

The two panelists told the Jewish women's organization that local gangs and organized crime are increasing their activities in human trafficking, finding forced prostitution a far more economical route to illicit profits than even the illegal drug trade.  Whereas drugs are sold once, and then consumed, the prostitutes can be forced to have sex many times in a single day.  Furthermore, the girls can be trained through intimidation to lie to law enforcement about their ages, their circumstances, and about for whom they are working, Castro said.

The traffickers learn where the families of their victims live and threaten to kill or harm them, if the youngsters ever attempt to leave, the deputy sheriff added.

Besides in houses of prostitution, the girls are forced to work for "escort services," in migrant worker camps, even near high schools.  Ugarte said the school district to a large extent turns a blind eye to the dangers that students face, and expressed anger and frustration that officials of the San Diego Unified School District prohibited the National Council for Jewish Women from circulating a flyer for that evening's forum because, as one member explained, NCJW is an "outside organization."

"All the problems in the schools and we can't get in!" fumed Ugarte.  She said she was personally aware of girls working as prostitutes at both La Jolla High School and Hoover High School, in two widely separated portions of the City of San Diego. The NCJW had attempted unsuccessfully to circulate its information at Patrick Henry High School and at two feeder junior high schools, Lewis and Pershing, all in the San Carlos section of San Diego.

In the question-and-answer session, the questions came quickly.  How can parents recognize the signs if their children are engaged in prostitution while still living at home?  They should watch for the children having an unusual amount of cash, or gifts that the parents did not buy, responded Castro.  They should be alerted if their children are often going out without telling the parents where.  Furthermore, he said, 
   

Olga Worm                     Nancy Wollman

parents should check their children's computers to determine to whom  they are talking on such sites as "Craig's List" and "My Space."

How are the children recruited? Traffickers look for distraught girls who are sitting alone, or talking on their cell phone, girls who show a signs of vulnerability or emotional weakness, Castro said.  He said traffickers will strike up sympathetic conversations with the girls, offer to buy them dinner, find them a place to stay.  Sometimes they will give them such other presents as nice clothes.  But after a few days, the situation changes.  The girls are told they have to start "turning tricks" or else. In schools, the chief recruiters are other girls who are forced to lie about the attractions of prostitution.

One girl said from a back row that she had grown up in group homes and had known other girls who had gone into prostitution. She said when girls leave such facilities, they often have no place to go.  They can either go back to jail or go on the street. Ugarte responded that often the only person waiting to greet such a girl is the human trafficker. 

Ugarte said the message must be spread and implemented that "no child should be unprotected."  She called on the NCJW to back construction of shelters where victims can be protected, as opposed to "county group homes where they are recruited."  Castro said the NCJW should also demand that the crime of human trafficking be put high on law enforcement's priority list.  It should urge people not to confuse "victimless crimes" with the sexual bondage that children are being forced into.

At the beginning of the session, NCJW President Olga Worm commented that in the late 1800s and early 1900s, one of the first projects undertaken by the organization was to protect Jewish immigrant women "fresh off the boat from being sold into prostitution."  Castro said today there is no evidence that the Jewish community is a particular target of human trafficking—the problem being more rampant in non-English speaking immigrant communities, where victims can be more easily isolated.  But as recruiters in shopping malls know, children from all socio-economic strata can be—and are—preyed upon.