Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

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Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Nisswa Tax Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at nisswatax.com Hello again friends.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Thanks for joining the conversation and thanks for your ongoing support of Lakeland Public TV.

We all do a really good job of highlighting our regional assets and attributes but we have a responsibility to do an equally good job having candid conversations about our most pressing and urgent issues and that's exactly what we're going to do today.

According to the Rising Hope Foundation someone becomes a victim of human sex trafficking every 30 seconds.

Here to help us better understand the sobering extent to which human trafficking is a problem in our region is Jessica Burkhamer, board chair of the Rising Hope Foundation, a non-profit based in park rapids that works to end human trafficking and support veterans.

Jessica, thank you for making time for our conversation.

Jessica: Well thank you for inviting me.

It's very exciting.

I appreciate it.

Jason: Absolutely.

Well first and foremost I suspect that our viewers will be as equally shocked as I was to learn about this issue and the extent to which it's present in our region so to what extent is human sex trafficking a problem in Minnesota?

Jessica: Specifically in Minnesota it's one of the largest around the country in our in the United States so we have primary cities like you know Washington DC, in Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Chicago, so most of your primary airports that have you know the big airports and stuff that people can fly in and out of, those are your primary places where, where girls are sex trafficked the most but they're also larger cities.

In Minneapolis, I''m sorry in Minnesota alone but down in the Twin Cities at least it was recorded when you hear that every 30 seconds, I mean that sounds like an outstanding number, it is an outstanding number and then another number came up just recently that Minnesota within the last two years had over 5000 adolescent females and didn't have statistics on males between the ages of 12 through 17 that were taken into sex trafficking so some people are like isn't 30 seconds like you know more than that when you average that out and I'm like I think we're missing the point here.

The point is when you think of 5,000 children 12 through 17 that's, that's well it's immense and it is you know it's out of your mind to even think like so a lot of times numbers, people don't actually think about the numbers until they start getting involved with understanding what sex trafficking is, what happens to people you know, what happens to these kids and it's just not girls?

Myself,we right at Rising Hope Foundation we are putting together a home for girls who have been rescued from sex trafficking but that's this is just our first home so from there we're going to learn to see what else we can do across the the rest of Minnesota and other places in the United States but the positive thing about what's going on that I have found since I've joined and it's been about four years is that when I first started people would say it doesn't happen here in it.

No, that happens somewhere else or really?

That was back in biblical times and it's like oh, not only is it's we're just talking sex trafficking today.

Human trafficking is by far even greater numbers and so one of the places in Minnesota that people were very shocked to hear about actually there's a couple but St.

Cloud is a training ground for pimps to train other in a sense people who are interested in earning money and so they get, it's almost like a pyramid scheme in some levels where they'll train people to go out and get girls like even their own so there's, there's so much information here Jason, probably could spend a week talking about this stuff, but what happens the training ground basically means you're going to go out, you're going to find we'll just say a girl for right now, you're going to find some girls and you're going to befriend them and so they might go to school with some kids.

They might, kidnapping is not as huge as people think it is but it's still very you know it's something to be aware of.

Generally sex traffickers will bring other people like what I'm talking about, say adolescents to go to school, befriend people, start buying them clothes.

It's generally kids who live in group homes, who are homeless, who are runaways, who maybe have single parents and they're not supervised and so what happens is they establish relationships.

It's usually a trusting type of relationship and then what happens is that the girls become 100% dependent on these people and then once they lure them in their whole world changes and that's the, that's the sadness because what say, what, what's, what they knew was you know oh man I've got a friend what's going on, so that's one scenario.

Yes, some kids do get kidnapped, absolutely.

The malls, just recently we Bemidji, I live up in Park Rapids but Bemidji some girls put out some signals to other girls on Snapchat, which I thought was great that says don't come to Bemidji or girls be careful.

There are five cars that have been identified as picking up girls today so Bemidji is a huge place for sex trafficking.

Then what most people don't understand is from there, where do we take these kids?

Where do they go?

If it's human trafficking, it usually means they're going out of port in Duluth and people are like well how would they even get them you know onto the ships?

Well I will tell you that money really speaks to a lot of people and at some points we know that girls have been or boys, whoever have been caged and sedated in these cages and then they're brought on to the ships and like cargo you know and then whatever, they sail away.

We don't know where they end up at but there are people in between who are getting paid to not say anything and to let them come in and you know people will say you know that's false, well no it's been proven.

The sadness about it all is many girls when they're rescued don't want to talk about it for fear that they're going to continue to be found, be hurt.

Again, there's just so many things that happen.

Other people who are often taken into sex trafficking or lured into it are Native Americans and are people who are also I was going to say the African-American females but not as much.

It's more Caucasian and then Native Americans and then African-Americans.

That doesn't mean we're leaving out Asians or any other type of ethnicity.

It depends so in Minnesota I'm going to come back to Minnesota, it was recorded and a lot of people are doing research which is fabulous but the most requested female is blonde and blue eyes and you get them from northern minnesota.

Jason: Well this raises so many questions and you're right.

We could certainly talk about this for quite some time.

You touched on something that I did want to ask you about which which is how is this issue of human sex trafficking related to another issue we see across the continent which is missing and murdered indigenous women?

Jessica: Yeah right, so number one I'm going to start with the Native Americans.

What is incredibly sad about the question you just asked is there are many, many, many Native American adolescents and female adult women who are missing but they don't know their names.

They don't have anything to track them.

I know right?

I'm seeing your face.

There's no tracking.

It's, it's they're on the reservations and they're taken and we don't, they don't even know.

Their no names are given so there's money being exchanged for these, these women and adolescents children.

I, I'm not leaving out children because when I said the adolescents who are female and blonde from northern Minnesota many children are also asked for as well, just not blonde but across the board and so you have a number amount of people who when you're looking at ethnic groups too what people want is they can go online, they can you know say to people what they want, there are so many ways to go out and ask for things and find it and I can't even tell you all those obviously if I did then we would put an end to sex trafficking.

That would be great, so when you're looking at different types of ethnic groups don't forget that we also have the, the, the bi, the you know lesbian the every it's, it's you know the transgender are huge and so we've got mass population in regards to how they identify themselves.

They are also a population in a sense that is picked uh predominantly for sex trafficking so it's kind of a hard question to answer Jason because it's, there's so much that goes with that question so I don't know if you want to find out a little bit more or what other thoughts are you know going through your head because the reservations are actually who I worry about the most because many, many, many women across the United States are missing so are they are they found dead?

No, so one of the things that we do know is the lifespan of a person generally female and I'll just stick with females right now.

Once they've been lured into sex trafficking and their, their lifespan is seven years from the time that they've been lured so generally yes they are found dead.

Usually it's drug overdoses.

Maybe they're shot and left to die someplace.

They're thrown out in the ocean.

Oh well I do know there's also times when they'll they're so, so I call them pimps.

I'm just going to call them pimps because some people will prefer nicer names.

I'm just going to call them what we know them as.

Pimps will what we call trade up or trade down and that means if they want somebody they'll maybe give two of their girls to somebody else and they'll take somebody else because that person is going to make more money for them or the girls are trained specifically to not look at other people when they're in a meeting with other pimps perhaps and they're trading up or down.

For instance if a girl looked at another pimp then she could get beaten and then she's thrown out of there for being disloyal and, and so she might be given to this other guy but there's there's so much physical and sexual abuse that occurs so when they're lured in like I said it doesn't occur right away for the most part.

There, there's a trust because then they mess with their minds emotionally and then because they've got all this trust, it's like I love you, I love you, I won't hit you again, you know I just need you to go service this person for us.

We need some money tonight and that's how it starts and it's like well why would you ask me that and then, then they'll get hit again and so then they'll do what it takes because they're in love with this person.

There are a lot of you know people who are very deceitful obviously and many girls are naive.

Boys too.

The ones that are, are we worry about also are the ones who are the runaways or in foster homes and so I can't give you the statistics you were looking for, for that because we don't always know.

Jason: Well the statistic about a seven year life expectancy after someone has been trafficked was probably one of the most stunning statistics from your website so thank you for sharing that.

Also on your website and some of your media you use the word enslave and I was wondering if you could tell us both how people are enslaved and how they remain enslaved?

Jessica: Okay, so enslaved basically means that they have no freedom.

They might have the ability to do a few things if they've been with a pimp for a long time and have gained their you know they're trustworthy in a sense but generally they have no money.

They have no cell phones and if they are given a cell phone it's generally they go out with other girls and they have for instance they're going to have a girl who's their, his the pimp's main person kind of like you know directing the other girls so there's going to be somebody with them so that they can't escape so they'll have a cell phone and you know they'll talk to the pimp or whatever something goes wrong so no phones, no money, sometimes they won't get fed.

A lot of times they're beaten and if they are abused they'll try not to hit him in the face because the face is what some of you know they're going to bring money in and so they have it all calculated as to being enslaved means is you are mine, I own you, you know you'll do whatever I tell you to do and it's because they give up after a while and then they oftentimes are given drugs and alcohol so then they become addicted.

These girls, young adult women, they don't get medical care.

Many times they'll have STDs and their dental work, you know, their teeth are missing.

They've been hit enough times.

Some of them have been shot, stabbed, you know there's just a variety of things that happen and it is true it does happen.

It happens in the small towns here so like in Park Rapids we know that we're a byway up to Duluth as far as going up through Walker and you know then up there so vehicles and other trucks, whatever you want to call it, whoever is transporting will take the back roads rather than the main highways a lot of times so you know because you can stop.

No one's going to question you and again I'm not a lot of people believe you.

What some people are like oh go ahead, what we're you going to say?

[Oh, please] No I was going to say so a lot of people say, well how do you know if you're going to come across somebody that might be trafficking, you know a girl, so we happen to have a meeting in a small town and I'm not going to name the town with actually I wasn't there, our board our executive director was there with some other people and they're like I don't believe it.

They're shop owners in a small town.

They're like it doesn't happen to us, you know what, I'm not even gonna stay here.

Well two weeks later we get a phone call and one of those ladies said I believe it happened in my store so we're like well what happened so she wanted to meet with me and Vicki again and we went back and met with her and she said this girl came in, she was you know her face was really like you know, down and out like down cast, she was thin.

She looked like she needed food, even water and she had two men beside her and they wanted her to have lingerie and what they did is she had to go and try the lingerie on and show them and the lady did not feel comfortable with that at all and then she started to hear what, what Vicki and the other people who had met with them prior, the two weeks prior, had said about clothing so they'll go in and they have no money, they have nothing and these men are buying them clothes.

Well that's not even close.

It's lingerie and so she said I didn't know what to do and now she knows what to do and it's like if you can take you know pictures of them, if you can take a picture of their, you know license plate.

Call it in immediately.

Tell them what you think.

The wonderful thing about your area in Brainerd and that whole area right now is that more and more awareness has come on.

I don't know if you remember but a few years back there were several men who were charged and you know sentenced because of sex trafficking and many of them were businessmen so it's across the board.

The average male who is wanting to have a female who's been sex trafficked or to pay for something is between the ages of 40 to 50 years old,generally a businessman and they'll travel up to 60 miles.

That's kind of one of you know people like how do you get that?

I'm like I don't know but those are the, the research, it's the research is out there right now and it's just getting better and better.

It's really about being aware and understanding and not be blind to the situation that's occurring.

Jason: There's a lot of research that suggests that large gatherings of people may exacerbate human trafficking so I'm curious do large infrastructure projects such as Line 3 or gatherings such as the Super Bowl actually contribute to a spike in human trafficking?

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely so I'll tell you a fantastic story.

There was a woman from Canada, when we had the Super Bowl in Minneapolis she was looking up pictures of children who were missing from Minnesota or across the United States.

When you have such a large gathering like that people are going to come in, they're going to party, they're going to drink, they're maybe away from their wives or they're just with other people and they're going to want sex and they're going to want sex like a fantasy sex that they haven't had before and this is how a lot of them will follow with the fantasy sex whether it's with a child.

I know I'm probably going to make a lot of people feel emotionally sick when I say that but it is it's the truth and I can't take the facts away.

It is what it is and so this lady put a book together of like 300 missing kids.

Well 13 of those kids were found when she came down to Minnesota.

Oh well it's Minneapolis, excuse me and went door-to-door to to liquor stores and all these places saying these kids are missing if you see them.

I mean she went everywhere.

Thirteen kids were found because of her efforts.

I mean I've got goosebumps running up and down my my body right now because she was from Canada and doing this.

I'm like that is phenomenal.

Yes the, the Super Bowl is huge and so the really positive things now with hotels and motels, those that are willing to train people you know who are working for them, that this happens because there is no training and many, many hotels don't even know that sex trafficking is coming in and out of their building and so that's one of the biggest places.

Yeah.

Jason: I didn't realize how pervasive this issue was until I started doing some research in preparation for our conversation.

[yeah] Do enough people know enough about this across the country?

Jessica: I think it's getting better but there are still people who don't want to know or don't understand.

Generally they tend to be older people and no offense because I'm getting older but it and I think sometimes we just don't want to address those things and then people don't really know what to do so if they don't know what to do then they're just not going to do anything and that's the saddest part because everybody can have a hand in and from the beginning to the end like our house.

I mean for instance, yeah.

Jason: Well speaking of doing something.

Let's talk about solutions.

I'd like to start with a question about law enforcement.

Is law enforcement doing enough and are they properly trained to know when to intervene or how to intervene?

Jessica: You know what's interesting?

I just got a phone call from a lady in Nevada yesterday.

I'm from Reno, Nevada originally having moved to Minnesota 14 years ago and being a psychotherapist this was a lady who remembered me and knows, she follows me still working with sex trafficking and she's like I just ran into police officers who are now understanding and they're being trained, yes but she said there's not enough therapists or they don't know how to get these women and or children help so she was calling to see if I had any information about a therapist who would be able to you know handle a person who's been sex trafficked and what do you do and I thought that was really good that they were able to say we need help.

You know coming from Nevada there's a good old boy system and so without saying I don't know much about Minnesota because I haven't been here that long I think Minnesota has really come far.

We here in Park Rapids, our team is phenomenal.

They have been trained.

They, we have a team.

There's a lot of in Minnesota.

You've got central what are called navigators, so the police are a lot more aware of and yes, I'm gonna say yes.

They have been trained a lot better.

Everybody can be trained and I mean everybody from the dispatch person you know to I don't know lead investigators.

They can be trained so that goes for anybody.

The, the wonderful thing about a system that came out was the no wrong door policy which means when girls are caught they're not called prostitutes.

They used to be referred to as prostitutes and then charged as a prostitute rather than being seen as a victim of sexual offense and so that has really changed the doors, that's why it's called no wrong door, even for girls up to 21[inaudible] to 24 will not be charged as prostitutes.

They're going to be you know seen as victims and then given help and generally that means we go to medical help.

Then we have what are called navigators and navigators are trained to help place and I'm just gonna stick with adolescents for right now but they there are more places for young adult to adult women to go to now which is really, really good but there's not enough places for adolescents.

One of our own, if did you see our on our website?

Did you hear you know our video?

Okay, so with that video at the time she was a, a navigator and one of the things that Naomi said is that she had to find places for kids to sleep.

Sometimes on her office floor trying to find even a foster home that has an emergency bed and many people are scared that if these kids are going to be placed that then their pimp is going to come after them, you know and I used to think like that as well and most research is now showing they're just going to go get some more girls unless there's a specific reason and relationship will that generally, they don't need to be scared.

The biggest issue is us not having enough placement for these kids once they are out of the medical, once they're medically released then what do we do, so yeah?

Law enforcement may be adequately trained but is this enough of a priority and why aren't more perpetrators being brought to justice?

Jessica: Like I said I don't think we have enough time to talk about our government itself because it starts from the top and we have a lot of people in our government who have actually are involved in using girls who have been sex trafficked you know and I'm not going to get into all those names.

You've probably seen a lot of you know information about certain you know rich or wealthy or political people over the last few years.

I do think it's becoming more and more.

The problem is they become sneakier and sneakier as to how they're going to market these girls or guys so as soon as we start to take action, I will say though we have come a long way to even get them charged and prosecuted.

Many of them don't get very long.

They might get probation.

I know I see your face and I'm like yes, yes so we need to work harder on catching more and you know placing them in a system.

Yeah and many times they're right back out on the street.

They have enough money to be bailed out.

I mean and that's one of the things so their lead person who's like oversees the girls will come and bail them out.

It happens a lot so the system is entirely broken.

Again for the amount of awareness that's going on now it is getting better.

I wish I had all the answers to tell you but I do know as soon as we start you know catching people it's amazing how much more underground people go and it's still happening more and more and more.

We only have about two minutes left Jessica and I want to ask you just a big picture question, which you kind of just touched on but nationally what is the long-term strategy?

How can we end trafficking?

Is it more law enforcement?

Is it more awareness?

What are the solutions?

Jessica: Exactly, exactly what you just said.

It is more teams that are dedicated to go out and more people being trained and being aware and helping and not being afraid to be involved.

That is, it's big.

It's like but I have to be honest with you I am I can't tell you how many people have reached out to myself and to other board members.

You're like what do I do?

I think this is going on so it's being available to explain okay, you know don't be scared.

This is what you can do.

Even if you give somebody a card that says call me if you need a safe place tonight.

Our executive director, Vicki and her husband, David were truckers and so they, he stopped trucking because that's actually what got him motivated to say here's a 12 year old coming to his door saying would you like, would you like to have some fun tonight you know and he's like no and you shoo them away but then it's like what did I just do?

I should have picked her up and said, yes let's go take her, you know but he's gonna get followed maybe, maybe not.

I don't know so it's about not being scared.

The less scared and the more knowledge we have to do something for these people will really be helpful and of course I specialize in children, in therapy and so my heart has always been to helping children, no matter what.

There's a lot more Jason.

We should do another episode down the road about how kids you know just not being trafficked but how it happens in your own home without you even knowing it.

I mean there's a lot of things so yeah.

Jason: We should and I would appreciate that and my last question for you is let us know more about your freedom centers and the solutions and the services you provide for victims.

Jessica: Very good.

I will send you an invitation to when we are open, hopefully the end of June or July.

Due to covid we've had a lot of setbacks with fundraising but we're still moving ahead.

We're almost there so you definitely look at it.

Jason: What is the freedom center?

Tell us just a little bit about it.

Jessica: Oh sure.

Yep, you bet, yep.

We have a home outside of the Brainerd area.

It's approximately 10 acres and we have a home that is almost built.

We've really tried to have no financial, we have financial freedom meaning that you know but with covid we couldn't market a lot so we've had to take out you know a little bit of a loan to finish it but we have been incredibly blessed with so many people.

It's gonna serve eight girls, two to a room.

We have an emergency bed.

We will be hiring soon and it's gonna take a lot of special people because this is a special job.

It's not going to be easy but if your heart's into helping people and you've been, you need you'll get training.

Yeah, so it's we're going to have equine therapy, trauma focused therapy.

We're just going to have a lot of things to try to, I don't like the word normalized but at this point it's bringing them back to a point of maybe before where they went, were lured into it or you know were brought into sex trafficking so that's basically the bottom line.

They're going to be offered things slowly and we expect to have a lot of behavioral issues.

Hopefully not but yeah it's really exciting times.

Jason: Well Jessica, thank you so much for your work at Rising Hope Foundation and thank you for joining me today.

Jessica: Thanks Jason.

I really appreciate you.

Jason: And thank all of you for joining us once again.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Be kind and be well.

We'll see you next week.