“The fastest growing crime in the world and one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States is sex trafficking,” said Inger Andress to the Cook County commissioners at the board’s July 14 meeting.
Unbelievable as it sounds, it’s true. Statistics to back this up are found in many places, and a good place to search is the Polaris Project, which sponsors the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC). The Center recently released a report citing an increase of 259 percent in calls reporting human trafficking, and of those, 64 percent involved sex trafficking and another 3 percent involved both sex and labor trafficking.
According to the FBI, the average age of a girl that is first sexually exploited is between 12 and 14, and some 293,000 American youths are at risk of becoming victims of sex trafficking.
Young girls, many who are poor and very vulnerable, are recruited; first befriended to build their trust, and then later physically and emotionally abused to break them down in what is called trauma bonding. The last step is training for commercial sex. Often the girls are beaten and kept drugged and locked up when they aren’t working.
It is this backdrop of sadness and despair that tugged at Andress’s heart, and she felt a need to start a program in Cook County to ward off these types of crimes here.
As her interest grew and she studied this problem, Andress said she went before various groups in the county and discovered that while there was interest, “No one was going to head this up at this time.” So she took it on herself.
With Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliasen’s blessing, she asked the board to pass a motion so the county would become the fiscal agent for a Department of Public Safety grant that will help fund a program aimed primarily at addressing the need for serving geographical areas with a high concentration of economically disadvantaged youth.
Andress said she hopes to create a program to encourage all youth, especially economically disadvantaged youth, to know that they will be protected from various exploitive forces and to be empowered to act in trust in the established programs designed for their safety.
“Kids 17 and younger need to be viewed as victims rather than criminals,” Andress said.
Another goal is to establish an Expert Workgroup Response to the sexual exploitation of youth in the county. She also wants to engage, educate, and bring awareness to Cook County about the new Safe Harbor Laws, which focus on rescuing and protecting prostituted minors and focus on protecting them from the criminal and juvenile justice system (detention is traumatic and harmful).
Once a team is in place, girls can be mentored and receive training and be educated about exploitation. “There is a very successful program in Silver Bay,” said Andress, adding that the people in charge there have agreed to help her set up a similar program in the county. “For this to work, it will take bringing the community on board in a very positive way,” said Andress.
With that the board passed a motion of support for the county to act as the fiscal agent for the grant. Andress hopes to have the beginnings of a program started in August.
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