A study conducted by Shared Hope International to assess in the Independence/ Kansas City area the services available to victims of domestic minor sex trafficking found a severe lack of protective shelter for victims. However, the same study, released Tuesday, found a diverse coalition of groups and individuals in the area aggressively tackling the DMST issue.
“Missouri has in place really good legislation,” said Shared Hope International founder and President Linda Smith. “It is very close to paralleling the (federal) Trafficking Victims Protection Act.”
Smith said although the state’s anti-human trafficking law aligns with the TVPA in recognition of DMST victims as a separate victim population, the state statute has not yet been used to apply to DMST victims.
TVPA legislation, Smith said, has been used by the United States Attorney’s Office for Western District of Missouri.
The federal law was used to prosecute Don L. Elbert II, sentenced earlier this year to eight years in federal prison for putting three girls to work on the street as prostitutes.
“Because of the work of the (U.S. Attorney’s office) and the Kansas City Police Department, three innocent lives were rescued,” Smith said, adding since the study concluded federal prosecutors have also charged a former Blue Springs couple with grooming a 12-year-old girl to work as a professional dominatrix.
The study was funded by the United States Justice Department. It also revealed a lack of training and identifying methods on the part of first responders – often police officers – to find a secure place to protect children who are victims of sex trafficking.
“How can you develop services for them if you don’t identify them,” Smith said. “They are the ones arrested on the streets. That’s what we found here (in the area). Men are not arrested on the street for buying children.”
Smith said society has dictated that a child selling themselves on the street is the choice of the child, and the child is generally not perceived as a victim, but rather a criminal.
“There is a belief that prostitution by the child is worse than a man buying a child,” she said. “It’s a cultural issue.”
The study also found just one organization in the area that offers programs specifically designed to address sex-trafficking and the exploitation experienced by trafficked children. Since 2000, the study concluded, Veronica’s Voice in Kansas City has provided assistance to 799 victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Of the 255 victims who disclosed their age when they were first exploited, 140 were identified as either former or current DMST victims.
A study conducted by Shared Hope International to assess in the Independence/ Kansas City area the services available to victims of domestic minor sex trafficking found a severe lack of protective shelter for victims. However, the same study, released Tuesday, found a diverse coalition of groups and individuals in the area aggressively tackling the DMST issue.
“Missouri has in place really good legislation,” said Shared Hope International founder and President Linda Smith. “It is very close to paralleling the (federal) Trafficking Victims Protection Act.”
Smith said although the state’s anti-human trafficking law aligns with the TVPA in recognition of DMST victims as a separate victim population, the state statute has not yet been used to apply to DMST victims.
TVPA legislation, Smith said, has been used by the United States Attorney’s Office for Western District of Missouri.
The federal law was used to prosecute Don L. Elbert II, sentenced earlier this year to eight years in federal prison for putting three girls to work on the street as prostitutes.
“Because of the work of the (U.S. Attorney’s office) and the Kansas City Police Department, three innocent lives were rescued,” Smith said, adding since the study concluded federal prosecutors have also charged a former Blue Springs couple with grooming a 12-year-old girl to work as a professional dominatrix.
The study was funded by the United States Justice Department. It also revealed a lack of training and identifying methods on the part of first responders – often police officers – to find a secure place to protect children who are victims of sex trafficking.
“How can you develop services for them if you don’t identify them,” Smith said. “They are the ones arrested on the streets. That’s what we found here (in the area). Men are not arrested on the street for buying children.”
Smith said society has dictated that a child selling themselves on the street is the choice of the child, and the child is generally not perceived as a victim, but rather a criminal.
“There is a belief that prostitution by the child is worse than a man buying a child,” she said. “It’s a cultural issue.”
The study also found just one organization in the area that offers programs specifically designed to address sex-trafficking and the exploitation experienced by trafficked children. Since 2000, the study concluded, Veronica’s Voice in Kansas City has provided assistance to 799 victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Of the 255 victims who disclosed their age when they were first exploited, 140 were identified as either former or current DMST victims.
Shared Hope International partnered with Veronica’s Voice to help the organization move into a better facility in Kansas City, set up a hot line and collect data.
“We have worked with several underage girls,” said Veronica’s Voice Director Kristi Childs. “The women we work with most often started as children.”
Childs said as the general public, law enforcement officials and legislators start realizing that a child or a woman is a victim of sex trafficking instead of a criminal, there may be a shift in logic with the onus falling on the perpetrators and buyers.
“I think what will happen is people will start seeing we have in America women trafficking sex who started as children,” Childs said. “With pimp control, you are looking at someone who is a victim of domestic violence and brainwashing. We have to separate the person from the commodity.”
Smith said the work of Childs and Veronica’s Voice could be a template for future organizations aimed at eliminating sex trafficking of children and women.
“They are really smart on the streets,” Smith said of the victim- and survivor-run organization. Childs herself was a former prostitute before starting Veronica’s Voice. “What they lacked (in administrative detail) they more than made up for with street savvy. They have one of the better programs we have in the nation. I think (Veronica’s Voice) is what we are looking for. We need more Kristi Childs.”
The year long study of the Independence/Kansas City area was just one of 10 locations studied throughout the nation. The findings were based on qualitative and quantitative information provided during interviews with a wide range of professionals who interact with DMST victims. For more information on the study, visit www.sharedhope.org. To view testimony from former sex trafficking women, visit The Examiner Web site at www.examiner.net.
Study findings
• Since 2000, Child Protective Services in Kansas City estimates that at least one domestic minor sex trafficking victim each month is identified through substantiated sexual abuse and neglect allegations, totaling a minimum of 84 victims who have been identified by a single agency in Jackson County alone.
• There is a severe lack of protective shelter for victims of DMST in the Independence/Kansas City area. Most of the available placements are short term and lack the protection necessary to keep victims safe from revictimization.
• The lack of protective shelter has caused inappropriate placement of DMST victims in juvenile detention facilities. Of the 214 beds available throughout the juvenile court system, only 25 of those beds are available for girls.
• Only one organization in the Independence/Kansas City area, Veronica’s Voice, offers programming specifically designed to address sex trafficking and the exploitation experienced by trafficked American children.
n Since 2000, Veronica’s Voice has provided assistance to a total of 799 victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Of the 255 victims who disclosed their age when they were first exploited, 140 were identified as either former or current DMST victims.
• In Missouri, a buyer of sex with a 16- and 17-year-old child can assert an affirmative defense that he reasonably believed the child to be 18 years of age or older and that the minor consented.
• If someone is arrested for prostitution acts, once her minor status is discovered she is considered a victim. However, the youth may be charged with other offenses (e.g. drug possession) that occurred as a result of her enslavement in prostitution.
• The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Missouri has utilized the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act to prosecute a trafficker for the intrastate pimping of American children in Kansas City.
• To testify against their pimp/trafficker, child victims are required to be physically present at trial. This can result in revictimization and recanting of their statements.
• The Missouri state anti-human trafficking law is comprehensive and aligns with the federal TVPA in the recognition of DMST victims as a separate victim population which provides for access to services and shelter.
