Encouraging human trafficking victims to seek help

Click here to view original web page at www.dispatch.com

Feb 17, 2020 at 7:02 AM

Central Ohio has no shortage of services for homeless people, drug addicts and sex trafficking victims, but hundreds still fall through the cracks.

Lori Moyer spent three decades living on the street before seeking help for drug addiction, homelessness and abuse at the hands of sex traffickers.

But first she reached a point where she contemplated suicide.

"I’d lost everything," she said.

Moyer said she was sexually and emotionally abused as a child, which normalized her experience with traffickers who exploited her belief that she had no other options.

She once resided in abandoned houses and backyards on the Hilltop, but now has a permanent home Downtown. And in January she graduated from Amethyst, a substance abuse recovery program for women run by the Alvis House halfway house in Columbus.

The Dispatch highlighted the plight of West Side trafficking victims in its "Suffering on Sullivant" series in October. In response, Mayor Andrew J. Ginther announced during his State of the City address on Thursday an aid package that includes increased education on sex trafficking, an investment in a drop-in house, $10 million for neighborhood upgrades and a police substation that will double as a community center.

Rehab services and special court dockets serve drug addicts and trafficking victims, and homeless shelters abound, but reluctance to seek treatment is a high hurdle to clear.

Sister Nadine Buchanan, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Peace in Columbus, visits homeless camps on the West Side with food and messages of love and support. She also offers cards listing resources such as homeless shelters.

However, many camp residents aren’t interested, Buchanan said. A large portion of them experience lingering trauma from childhood abuse and don’t consider themselves worthy.

"They see themselves as damaged goods," Buchanan said.

Groups that work with trafficked women say only a tiny fraction seek help, even as 1,525 homeless people were in shelters and transitional housing in Franklin County and 382 remained on the streets, according to a January one-day count by the Community Shelter Board.

Compassion Outreach Ministries of Ohio provides warm meals, toiletries, clean clothes, laundry services and showers to homeless women and trafficking victims at a drop-in house on Sullivant Avenue in the West Side.

"Our goal is to love and accept the women as they come in," said Taylor Prusinski, Compassion’s director.

Medical professionals from Mount Carmel Health System also regularly visit the neighborhood to provide a full range of services, and the Columbus Department of Health provides testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

The number of trafficking victims in the area is hard to quantify, but drop-in houses say they see hundreds of women. The Compassion Outreach drop-in house alone has 80 to 100 regulars.

"Our goal is to get them the resources we can," Prusinski said. "If and when they decide to leave the streets, we have resources to make that happen immediately."

But if drop-in house workers tried to persuade women to enter rehab, most would stop coming, she said.

Hope, who asked to be identified by a nickname, spent much of her 20s homeless on the West Side, abusing drugs and prostituting herself. Drug use was common in her family when she was a child, and as a result, she saw little alternative to life on the streets.

Hope is now in recovery and helps out at a Sullivant Avenue drop-in house. But she doesn’t try to persuade the women who frequent the house to seek treatment, believing most of them aren’t ready to accept assistance.

"They think that way of life, selling your body for drugs, is just what everybody does," said Beth Tabor, founder and executive director of Compassion Outreach Ministries and Prusinski’s mother.

Drop-in houses often see women who were sold into prostitution as children.

"I think what people don’t often understand or appreciate is the amount of trauma these women experience," said Hannah Estabrook, executive director of the nonprofit Sanctuary Collective.

To make matters worse, traffickers are skilled at fostering a sense of dependence in their victims through drug addiction and emotional manipulation, Estabrook said.

Moyer said her traffickers instilled in her a belief that she was unwanted. She said she was repeatedly told, "Nobody is going to want you but me," "Look what you’ve become," and "You’re not worth anything to anyone but me."

Even when women choose treatment, escaping a life of forced prostitution and addiction can depend on how quickly help is available, Prusinski said. Columbus rehab clinics, while plentiful, are often full with wait times as long as two weeks.

"Within two weeks, they could be in jail, dead or change their minds," she said.

Activists like Estabrook remain upbeat, having seen women escape homelessness and forced prostitution.

"I’ve seen them transform their lives," she said. Helping them "is the right thing to do."

pcooley@dispatch.com

@PatrickACooley