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(bright music) - The Sheridan-based nonprofit called Uprising has become a leader in fighting human trafficking.

In part two with key figures in Wyoming's trafficking fight, we'll hear more from the two founders of Uprising, from the state cop who specializes in these crimes, and from participants in a US regional conference taking dead aim at the problem.

I'm Steve Peck of WyomingPBS.

"Uprising Part 2."

This is "Wyoming Chronicle."

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities, thinkwy.org, and by the members of the WyomingPBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.

- Terri Markham and Alexandra Stevenson, the founders of Uprising in Sheridan, hosted a multi-state conference this year on combating human trafficking.

They blame the rise in trafficking across Wyoming in part on a familiar enemy.

I'm asking something about a, on a topic that it is very common for my interviews so far this year.

Has the coronavirus pandemic played into this in some way that has made it more complicated?

- Certainly, I think it created a lot more vulnerabilities for people.

Some people couldn't work, some people were stuck in homes with abusers.

Like all just kinds of different situations that lent itself to people being extremely vulnerable.

And there are predators out there who are ready to capitalize on that.

- [Steve] Special agent Chris McDonald of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation agrees that the Covid pandemic heightened children's trafficking risks.

But he said online technology might play a positive role in the trafficking fight as well.

- The easy answer I think is well, Covid happened, and more people were at home, including more children at home, also more predators at home for a longer time.

That is, I think, at least a part of the problem.

But I think even more so, I think platforms or social media platforms who report these do a much better job or they can do a better job of finding this type of material on their servers and reporting it.

So I think it might be a combination of both.

- So with the Covid pandemic, you have an increase in online presence with an increase in vulnerability.

That is a perfect storm.

Predators know, and those vulnerabilities can be financial.

What the Covid pandemic did was shine a light on everybody's vulnerabilities and everybody has them.

So it made it so much easier for a predator to kind of just ask the right questions and figure out how people respond, and then pinpoint what their vulnerability is.

Because we were all kind of wearing them more on the outside.

We were all more vulnerable to so many things because we were under so much stress.

And that's one of the big things as well, that we all have to realize that we all have vulnerabilities.

It doesn't mean someone is weak or bad or easily manipulated if they become a victim of trafficking.

It means that their vulnerability was exploited.

- [Steve] In law enforcement of trafficking, DCI's Chris McDonald's says his team focuses particular energy on a hideous topic, child pornography.

- When we talk about child pornography, we can think about the possession of child pornography, the distribution of child pornography or the production of child pornography.

Those are the realms we really work in both in state court and in federal court.

And those are fairly self-explanatory, but, you know, the ones that generate the most concern for us are especially like distribution and production.

When we talk about production, we mean kids being actively assaulted, and then that activity being recorded and traded many times on the internet.

So kids in Wyoming.

- We are a prevention-based program.

We like to do prevention.

We wanna reach, especially youth, at younger and younger ages more often.

And a lot of people assume that we're trying to prevent new victims, which absolutely we wanna prevent new victims of trafficking, but we also wanna prevent new exploiters.

We wanna prevent new buyers of sex.

So sometimes that's having conversations with young people about the dangers of pornography, because 100% of sex buyers are addicted to pornography.

- You know, I think it's a bit of a misnomer.

Some people think about what we see every day.

We're not talking about the trading of innocuous nude images between kids.

We're talking about the violent rape of infants, toddlers, and prepubescent kids.

So that's what we're really talking about.

It really takes a special type of investigator to work those crimes.

You not only have to really be a traditional investigator that can get out and kind of wear out some shoe leather, but you also have to be able to acquire an account, write search warrants for accounts, then go through hundreds of gigabytes of data.

So it's a challenge.

- And just like any other addiction, you begin to need harder and harder stuff to get the same high.

And eventually, a certain percentage of those are gonna make the leap from, you know, consuming pornography to, "I actually wanna purchase sex in person with a real person."

And that's where a lot of these problems start.

So it's, again, it's, for us, it's we wanna get really upstream of the issue.

We're like, we don't wanna be working down here where it's already happening, 'cause that's a really hard space and there's that service is so needed but that's not our lane.

And then you can try to get a little bit further upstream where maybe we're working with a lot of teenagers and stuff, but now we are working with kids as young as elementary school even, just trying to put some base concepts into play that we'll be able to build upon as they grow.

- Is it difficult to find the resources to support the work you're doing?

Or do you find it (indistinct)- - It can be.

Yes.

(Alexandra laughs) We find that there's actually a lot of like federal grants and money out there to combat trafficking.

But the vast majority of it, almost all of it, it feels like, is usually based for programs who are serving identified victims.

But for us, we wanna, like I said, get way upstream of that.

And it feels like the nation hasn't quite come around to realizing the importance of prevention.

And so we find it difficult to find some of those same funding streams that a lot of other people in the anti-trafficking field take advantage of.

- We really have partnered with Terri Markham and her organization, which I can't say enough good about.

We met, so I'm also part of this, the governor's human trafficking task force.

And there's a bit of, not confusion, but some people will say that, you know, child pornography and human trafficking, they might be at odds for dollars sometimes, but I would, I always, Terri and I are both of the same opinion that child pornography, internet crimes against children is really a form of trafficking.

There's hardly ever any type of child trafficking, especially sex trafficking that doesn't involve the internet, especially posting online.

And I believe that every time an image is traded, a video is traded or produced, you're sexually trafficking that child.

So where we fit in with Uprising, we actually partner, Terri and I have partnered together.

I just spoke at one of her events in Casper.

We trade information back and forth.

I just, I can't say enough about her organization and what they do.

She is on the prevention side and education side.

And even though we also, DCI do a lot of education stuff, we are on the enforcement side.

So we're kind of complementary to each other.

I don't know how unique we are in that realm, but, you know, I think we make a pretty good team.

- Is there a typical profile for a trafficking victim or is it just so widespread that that angle doesn't really work?

- We know victims.

There's a higher representation of the LGBTQIA community.

There is a higher representation of the Indigenous communities, women versus men.

But while it's important to recognize that people with obvious vulnerabilities, like some of those I just mentioned, are more likely or potentially more vulnerable to trafficking, it doesn't mean that that is the only people who are vulnerable to trafficking.

If you are human with a vulnerability, which we all have, then that means you are potentially vulnerable to trafficking or to exploitation or to predation.

So the goal is to just have everybody understand what that looks like so they can recognize it if it happens to them or someone they love.

- I'll flip the question and point it at the traffickers themselves.

Is there a typical trafficker or is that not as obvious as we might think?

- No, it's, there's really no good victim profile for a trafficker.

It could be men, women, old, young.

I mean, we've seen youth who are even trafficking.

And so there's, (indistinct) yeah, we play a game, we play a game with the youth actually called Guess the Trafficker.

And we throw up a bunch of photos of people, and it's like a teen cheerleader, and then like, they'll be like a guy in a business suit.

There'll be a person in a military uniform, there'll be a person - Grandmother.

- who looks like a grandma.

And we're like, "Which one do you think is the trafficker?

And, you know, they all make their guesses.

And then in the end, of course, they were all traffickers.

They're all convicted, real cases that we used in that.

So there's really no profile.

But I will say it's, I don't think ever surprising to us in the field when it turns out to be that person in your community who everyone's like, "There's no way!

Everyone loves him."

Or that's, you know, our city councilman, or, you know, whatever position of esteem that they hold.

- Because you've, at this point by now, you've seen it all.

- Yeah.

- Or at least you're no longer surprised.

- And I mean, these kinds of relationships for the trafficker, they thrive on that uneven balance of power and control.

And so, naturally, they're gonna be drawn to positions where they get to have a lot of power and control.

So it's never surprising when we see the news, you know, so-and-so, you know, like a senator or something was the person taking part in this.

We're like- - Your raising your eyebrows phase is over - Yeah, we're like, - at this point.

- well, all right, there's another one.

- And I think the other thing that is, hits home for people is the grooming that happens.

A predator doesn't really just groom their victim.

Predators can groom everybody around them.

That's why you have reactions from people being like, "Oh, Joe, but he's so nice.

He's the soccer coach and the hockey coach."

And they're, because they're getting people around them to believe what they want believed about them.

Because if they are, if they insert themselves into the community as someone to be trusted and someone you can leave your kids alone with, and someone who you would always believe the best of, they have groomed you for them to basically shadow walk among us, right?

So that I think for me, when I learned that, that relieved some of that internal shame I had about my own situation because there was, you know, there was questions I would ask like, "Why was I groomed?

I'm a smart, I was a smart kid, I'm a smart person.

Like how could that have happened to me?

How come I didn't see it?"

And, you know, there's so much of like, well, other people didn't see it either.

And how did, you know, how did someone so evil walk amongst us without anybody knowing?

Well, because they're able to groom not just their victims but everyone around them so they have access to the victims.

- You've talked about parents, you've talked a little bit about schools.

There's almost no area that it, that you're not working in.

- You haven't talked about buyers yet.

(laughs) - Buyers.

Well, let's talk about that one.

- Sometimes that's kind of the other key piece.

- There's a market for this.

- Yeah, I mean- - And if there weren't, - Exactly.

- it would be easy.

- We'd have no problem, right?

There would be no trafficking if there was no demand to purchase sex from people.

So really, the problem all comes down to demand.

And we have, you know, tons of buyers.

Actually, one of the things that we like to do at the law enforcement trainings, first thing in the morning at a law enforcement training, sometimes we'll post a fake ad selling sex online.

This is like on what they would call the dark web.

And it'll be like 8:00 AM on a random Tuesday.

And by lunchtime, we'll have just tons of people messaging our burner phones wanting to connect, wanting to come and meet our buyer.

By the end of a two-day training, like we did one in Sheridan, and by the end of the two-day training, it was something like 24 men had actually drove to the hotel we're at right now to meet our fake person and try to purchase sex from them.

And so, I mean, this is Sheridan, Wyoming.

It's a tiny community.

You wouldn't think that there'd be people trolling the dark web at 8:00 AM looking to purchase sex.

But they're always, always out there.

And that's how whole circuits are built, of people who are being trafficked.

They go where the demand is.

And like, I know survivors who had circuits completely through Wyoming, they'd hit every single one of our major towns.

They'd never stay in one place more than two nights to avoid detection.

And one of my close friends actually worked her Wyoming circuit for four years straight before she got out of the life.

- [Steve] At the big Great Rockies Immersive Training Conference in Sheridan, the growing demands faced by Uprising were in full view over two days of assembly, speeches, facilitation, and education, and some new helpers were coming aboard.

- Every single nonprofit has the same struggles starting out, which is building strategic plan, developing their programs, building relationships in our field.

It's a small but also large field.

And so relationships are everything.

And being able to network and establish credibility for yourself, especially when you come from a more rural state, is really critical in building that national reach that can leverage resources from other locations to develop your own state resources.

Trafficking, of course, is not confined to borders by any means.

So anyone, any resident of the state of Wyoming can become a trafficking victim or trafficking perpetrator.

And then the state of Wyoming can receive trafficking victims from other locations, whether they're passing through or whether they've moved here or been lured to the state for other nefarious purposes.

- [Steve] As requests increase for the expertise and services that Uprising provides, support is coming from national, state, and local levels.

- I've been working in the anti-trafficking field for 13 years now.

And my entire career has been working for nonprofits just like Terri's.

And a couple years ago, I branched out on my own because there's a need in our field for small and mighty nonprofits who are new to our field to have some support in building their momentum.

And so, my passion is supporting the existing missions of nonprofits worldwide.

- Since I've been in office, I've kind of thrust myself into the issue of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

It's something I'm passionate about and wanted to learn more.

And this conference is such a great opportunity to get everybody in the same room together, whether it's law enforcement, social workers, everybody in the community, lawmakers, law enforcement, and to get the best ideas, the best practices, and to figure this thing out.

- I have been consulting with GRIT for the last two years.

Terri's a client of mine, and we collaborate to develop trainings, conferences, and initiatives for her organization that will elevate this issue in the state of Wyoming.

- Terri, actually, I've gotten to know Terri over the last few years, and she asked me if I would be interested.

She knew I started, once I got to know her, I took a great interest in what Uprising is all about, and how we can make an impact and bring awareness and prevention of human trafficking to, not only locally to Sheridan, but hopefully nationwide at some point.

And just keep broadening our horizons.

I love it.

It's heartwarming to know that we are making an impact and that little by little, the more we need this, not just here, but we need it everywhere.

Human trafficking is an issue, it happens everywhere.

And to be a part of that and to help, even just help one person, I think is extremely important.

I'm a mom myself of a little boy, and, you know, growing up and teaching him the same thing as teaching little girls everything you need to let, you know, let them know what's okay, what's not okay.

And I wanna be a part of that.

I wanna be a part of the change.

I wanna be a part of trying to end this.

- What role do the public schools have in this effort?

- As much as they're willing to take on.

- I think once we can get into them, it's incredible.

I think especially on the level of like when I am in a classroom with teachers, they have so much buy-in, and I just hear over and over, this is so needed.

- And that's one of the major things we really try to combat in our educational presentations is just telling kids there's, at no time ever is it appropriate for an adult to have a romantic interest in a kid.

- When we first started working, for instance, in the high school here in Sheridan, we would go in, and for one year, we did one presentation a semester at the ninth grade health class level.

This year we increased that to two days in a row that we go because there was so much content we were covering and the kids wanted to know so much more.

And then now we're also doing two days in the middle school here.

And we are just about to launch doing a week-long awareness online safety awareness campaign in the elementary school now.

So those relationships we find, once we get a good in and we start doing the work, then they recognize this is good, we need more of this.

And suddenly, we're asked to be in all of the schools at multi-levels.

And so that's been fantastic.

Now it's tackling, and that's actually what a lot of this year, we're planning to work a lot with the schools.

We receive funding to work in six key counties to try to train educators in those counties.

And then hopefully, we'll get the funding we've applied for to actually get in front of youth directly and start laying that prevention foundation, and building that capacity to sustain it going forward.

- Human trafficking is a harsh subject.

And even a tough, experienced, dispassionate law enforcement officer can find it difficult to avoid making an emotional connection.

- I've been in DCI for 17 years.

I started as an undercover narcotics investigator.

I moved on to violent, major crimes like homicides, officer-involved shootings, all those things.

So when I came to this unit, I, in fact, I said it to several people, I don't really think I can be bothered by anything 'cause I, we've all seen, by the time we get, we've all seen the worst of the worst.

But I was wrong, quite frankly, I was wrong.

It does bother me every day.

So I see every cyber tip in the state of Wyoming that comes across my desk.

So I view, and my agents view even more 'cause we get into the accounts.

So we are bombarded with that every day.

And it does bother us, to a man and woman, it does.

Anger, it could get ahold of you for sure, but it's more, my unit anyway, it's really a lot easier to focus on the kids and what we can kind of interject into there.

So we try to focus instead of the anger, just kind of go on the other side.

But it is very, or at least for me, it's very hard not to get emotional about these cases just because they're, I mean, we all, most of us have kids.

I have children and it's difficult.

- I don't know what people would expect to see as sort of an atmosphere at a conference like this.

I mean, it's an incredibly serious topic with ramifications that reach everywhere.

But in terms of the activity of getting together, working together, you enjoy this, right?

- Absolutely.

And I love that you brought that up.

It's not all doom and gloom.

You know, I now work under my brand of The Laughing Survivor.

And part of that is because that's one way I found to heal is that it can't all be doom and gloom.

It gets, this topic is heavy.

And when you work in this topic, you work in the darkness of humanity, and you see and hear about these horrible things that people are doing to each other and to children.

And if you sit in that dark space, you will burn out so quickly.

And someone who is burnt out is not affecting change.

So if we find a way to balance that weightiness with a little bit of light, a little bit of laughter, you know, a little bit of wry humor, gallows humor, whatever is necessary, people are not only more able to continue engaging in the topic and learn more, and become more active, and take the information they get back to their communities with passion and excitement to share it, instead of, you know, watching them walk out of here like, "Oh, my goodness, I can't believe all of this."

It also sparks change in community members who feel like they don't have any part to play.

And I think that's part of that sustainability piece.

Like we know law enforcement, and victim advocates, and public schools, you have these people who you kind of assume are players in this.

But at the end of the day, we're all influencers.

We can all influence each other.

We can all change our language just a little bit or learn how to approach this topic that feels so big, and scary, and dark and gloomy in a way like those bite-size pieces we were talking about that feels more approachable.

And I think by doing that, that's how you get people who want to come to conferences, who enjoy the work that they do, who get together and laugh, and have the passion to continue doing it.

And that's how you're gonna create that lasting change.

- Are there certain things that you're more optimistic about making a difference and certain things that you just accept with resignation such as the marketplace?

- Just the way our society is, the demand for commercial sex is going to be really hard to completely diminish.

I mean, everything's over-sexualized now, and it's just setting you up for failure almost.

But where I see a lot of hope is what's at our core at Uprising is we are prevention-based program.

We like to do prevention.

We wanna reach, especially youth, at younger and younger ages more often.

- There's always crime.

There's always, there's been crime since people started living together.

So to say we can eliminate it, I don't know if that's realistic, but I think a big part of it is education, just to protect, to have kids protect not only themselves but the people they care about online.

And I would say that, you know, kids overwhelmingly know how to protect themselves already online.

It just, sometimes those situations get ahold of 'em.

So, I think education, you know, technology is an arms race.

Every time we figure out how to do something, you know, a criminal element can figure out how to do, to get around that, and then it goes so on and so forth.

So I would like to think that through educational initiatives, I feel like we can at least help protect more kids in a better way.

- Doing prevention work of course, you're never going to know how many people you've prevented from being trafficked.

We'll never know the ripple effects.

So that part's all on faith.

I think we'll see the results of that ten years down the road.

- Part of that is awareness.

'Cause you have a lot of buyers who are like, but they want to be there.

"I'm just helping, you know, they're providing a service, I'm paying for it.

It's no big deal."

But the thing is, there's no way to know as a buyer whether the person you're purchasing is a trafficked human or someone who is choosing to engage in commercial sex if they're an adult at least.

- I don't shy away from a challenge.

Like, probably definitely not gonna see trafficking completely end in any sort of lifetime coming up.

But we can make the difference for people and it's worth doing the work.

- You two are really good at talking about this, and you've added immeasurably to our "Wyoming Chronicle" profile.

I want to thank you both, Alexander Stevenson, Terri Markham of Uprising, thanks for being with us on "Wyoming Chronicle."

(upbeat music) - Thank you.

- Thank you.

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities, thinkwy.org, and by the members of the WyomingPBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.