Things I Didn’t Want to Know.
Human Trafficking Definition:
The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means (such as force, abduction, fraud, or coercion) for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation.
I’ve always known about human trafficking – you know, over there in India or southeast Asia. Close enough for my heart to break, but far enough away to stay in my peripheral awareness. However, the truth is that human trafficking is happening in my own backyard. Traffickers don’t need to sneak people across borders—not when there are plenty of American children on hand.
At Risk Kids
In my 30’s, I worked with at-risk teens from Adams County Social Services, north of Denver. I partnered with social workers who brought groups of teens in the foster care system out to my arena. Some of the kids were preparing for emancipation, others were teen moms, the youngest of whom was 13. Together, we utilized horses as a medium for therapy, personal growth, and learning—taking therapy out of the office and into the arena. This method is called Equine Assisted Therapy.
The kids I worked with were tough. They’d already survived unimaginable lives. Many were one step away from prison if things didn’t change. This job was my passion. Therefore, I lived for the lightbulb moments like when a young woman suddenly realizes that if she can get a 1200 pound animal to respect her and adhere to her personal boundaries, she has the ability to set boundaries and ask for that same respect from the people in her life.
I look back now and wonder how could I have not known. At least some of these kids faced some version of human trafficking in their lives. I should have had at least an inkling.
My Path to Awareness
Around the same time, I heard that an organization called World Vision did great work around the world in the fight against human trafficking. Horrified by the thought of stolen children transported in cages to brothels to serve sick men with twisted perversions, I wanted to get involved. Still, on some subconscious level I was grateful that these things happened in a far-off land. That my own four children were safe, here in America.
Years later, after our kids were grown and gone, my husband and I moved to a small rural community. The kind where generations of families live and everyone knows their neighbor. I met a woman who volunteers for a group working to help kids escape from a life of sex trafficking. She told me of many trafficking incidences in nearby Parker, CO.
It wasn’t long after that my husband and I met a detective on a human trafficking task-force in Thornton. Then, another friend, who is an ex-cop, filled in even more blanks for me. He told me of situations and abductions he knew of that frequently happened at or near the Park Meadows Mall . This Mall is in an upper-income area—his stories are beyond sobering to me.
Human Trafficking in Fiction
I am a writer and I belong to a writer’s group called Sisters In Crime. One of the authors in that group wrote a book that as soon as I saw, I knew I had to read. The book is Trafficked, by Peg Brantley, and I highly recommend it.
Peg’s book is about two girls who are kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking. Uncomfortably, Peg placed the issue right at my feet, smashing many of my original assumptions. The girls in this story are from Colorado. One, a girl from a low-income family who lives in the city, and the other is the daughter of a wealthy man from Greenwood Village. Her book is fiction, but her research is accurate and proves that the horror in her story is terribly real—right here in my own back yard.
A Friendly Nudge
One weekend, some friends came to stay with us whom we hadn’t seen in a couple of years. I told them about how I felt drawn to write something about human trafficking. They looked at each other with raised eyebrows and I wondered if I’d offended them. My dear friend, Lynn, then told me that she and her husband work with an organization called Global Connection International. Their mission is to inform the public of the growing problem of human trafficking in Colorado. They gave me a whole bag full of books and pamphlets to study and learn from. It was an education I’d rather not have had, and now as a result, I must do something.
I am stunned. And convicted.
I can’t ignore the all signs I’ve been receiving. They continue to land in my lap in small ways and large. So, I too am writing a novel that is about human trafficking. I’ll be bringing you along with me in my writing process. My book’s title is Concealed Cargo: Children for Sale, and is the third book in my FBI-K9 Series. At this point, I have completed the first rough draft of the book and am working on the rewrites and edits. If you’re interested, pre-order the book now.
The more I learn, the more horrified I am. In 2018, over half (51.6%) of the criminal human trafficking cases active in the US were sex trafficking cases involving only children.
Children. American children—American citizens—are being abused in human trafficking: non-paid labor and sex trade. If nothing else, we need to let people know that this is going on all across our nation, in large cities, small towns, and even rural communities like mine. Awareness is the first step.
What can I do? How can I learn more?
Click these helpful links:
11 Facts About Human Trafficking
To learn more about me and my books, visit my website at Jodi-Burnett.com
