Photo By Crystal Housman | Timothy B. Stack is a detective supervisor with the Los Angeles Police Department's...... read more read more
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All the teen wanted was some marijuana.
She asked a friend, and her friend called a guy.
The deal was set.
“Hey, I’m not dealing on the street,” the dealer told her. “Get in the car.”
Eager to score some drugs, she hopped in. Moments later his foot pushed the pedal.
“You’re mine now,” he told the 15-year-old Southern California girl as he drove off.
That quickly, she became one of an estimated 20.9 million people worldwide who the International Labour Organization says are trapped into a form of modern-day slavery. Victims of human trafficking are sexually exploited, forced to perform labor, or coerced into indentured servitude.
“Human trafficking is one of those things that people don’t realize is here,” said Timothy B. Stack of the Los Angeles Police Department.
“It’s everywhere,” he said.
Stack, who is also an Air National Guard Master Sgt. assigned to the 163d Attack Wing, joined LAPD’s human trafficking unit as a detective supervisor in November, 2015.
His unit rescued the 15-year-old from forced prostitution shortly after he took the position.
“It’s nice to know that at such an early onset of doing this position, I’ve already been part of getting this young lady back home,” Stack said.
Sexual exploitation is the most commonly identified form of human trafficking, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and it is the primary focus of Stack’s unit.
“A lot of our drive is to go out there and find and rescue those girls and boys,” he said.
Sex trafficking of minors is on the rise, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. In 2013, the center reported that one out of every seven endangered runaways could be sex trafficking victims. The figure rose to one out of every six in 2014.
The NCMEC stresses that while runaways are at a particular risk, anyone can become a victim.
Stack agreed.
“It could be anybody’s kid that gets scooped up and all of the sudden this gang member is intimidating and scaring them into doing this act,” Stack said.
Child sex trafficking could be happening in plain sight, he said.
“It is girls and boys that go to your high school who are being manipulated and put in this trade,” Stack said.
Victims are not quick to come forward and seek help, according to The National Human Trafficking Resource Center. Victims have a hard time building trust and are often directed by their traffickers how to behave around law enforcement or social services.
Fear also keeps victims from identifying themselves, Stack said.
“They don’t want their family to know they’re involved in this, so they don’t want to tell their family,” Stack said. “They’re scared to tell the police.”
There is no telling if Stack’s team changed the life of the 15-year-old girl they rescued, Stack said, but he’s happy she got a second chance.
“This 15-year-old girl may have a whole very successful life ahead of her,” Stack said. “We won’t know that if we never went out there to take her out of that situation and move her somewhere else that’s better.”
| Date Taken: | 01.08.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 04.22.2017 21:01 |
| Story ID: | 230143 |
| Location: | MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 23 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Citizen-Airman works to combat human trafficking, by Crystal Housman, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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