Legacy

A man’s voice swirls with Momma’s sweet contralto while an 11-year-old girl sobs in the bedroom. Momma unlocks the door, the light casting a flickering triangle on her needle-pocked forearm and the money in her fist. When the man shuts the door, the little girl’s hope dissolves to terror.

While her child is raped, the opiates in Momma’s veins spread, drowning out her child’s cries. While the pedophile’s murmurs wash over the little girl, Momma counts the dollar bills and nurses fresh scars.

Salvaging her daughter’s childhood is as futile as assuaging her tears.

Sex trafficking is one of the many faces of modern slavery, and it is happening in our own community. Natalie LaBorde, second-year LSU law student and founder of Tigers Against Trafficking, fights daily to rescue human sex slaves in Baton Rouge and beyond. LaBorde said she believes student action is necessary in the effort to free these victims.

“I love Tiger Stadium, but there are more important things to rally 90,000 people around,” LaBorde said.

Baton Rouge is no stranger to sex slavery. Victims of domestic trafficking are people we see everyday — a mother, a teenager down the street or a child runaway. LaBorde said she believes it is difficult for students to find the time to care about the community’s needs while juggling work, school, friends and their futures.

“In the midst of all our own personal pursuits, we have to make a conscious decision to acknowledge that slavery still exists and that we have a part to play in helping those who are enslaved,” LaBorde said. “It’s a long-term commitment, much like that of so many heroes who initiated change in areas such as slave trade, universal suffrage and civil rights. No doubt their lives were busy, but they did it any way.”

LaBorde became attuned to global slavery while living in Sydney, Australia after her graduation from LSU in 2007. She attended events that highlighted human trafficking and eventually went on a research trip, visiting shelters, rehabilitation centers and brothel districts in Europe, Asia and North America. LaBorde said she encountered a 12 year-old girl rescued from a brothel in Phnom Pen, Cambodia. She was 11 years old and pregnant when authorities found her. When LaBorde met her, she was carrying the baby on her hip like a sibling — something LaBorde said she will never forget.

When LaBorde returned to Baton Rouge for law school, alumni Jeremy Beyt and Sarah Kaiser, two of her best friends from her undergrad years, partnered with LaBorde in her mission. Since then, the trio has aimed to mobilize students into local anti-trafficking programs and spread their vision around the United States.

This effort, called Tigers Against Trafficking, was born in October 2008 to raise funds for and connect with the A21 campaign — an anti-trafficking program out of Greece that seeks to “abolish injustice in the 21st century” by benefitting women and children victims. Annie Dollarhide, marketing and communications manager of the campaign, said funds provided by TAT have helped aid the construction of a new halfway house for women rescued from sex trafficking.

LaBorde said the release of the 2008 movie “Taken,” starring Liam Neelson, helped draw valuable attention to the human sex trade. The film recounts a teenager’s journey overseas and her consequent abduction — a realistic teaching tool for LaBorde’s message of awareness and action to combat trafficking.

In March 2009, TAT hosted a 5K walk and run. More than 360 students participated, raising $10,000. TAT raised an additional $7,000 at a benefit concert entitled “Be Their Freedom” in October 2009, which more than 400 students attended. All funds went directly to the A21 Campaign.

TAT has inspired similar organizations at other Louisiana campuses, including the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Cajuns Against Trafficking and Southeastern University’s Lions Against Trafficking.

“Ideally I would love to see this replicate all over the U.S.,” said Kaiser, one. “And I’m not just talking about awareness. That’s important, but what’s the point of making someone aware without doing anything about it?”

LaBorde said Baylor University, Kentucky University and the University of Toledo are following in LSU’s footsteps and creating their own anti-trafficking groups.

The Dream Center, located at Winbourne Baptist Church at 4829 Winbourne Ave., serves individuals and families within our city limits, many of whom have suffered exploitation. Members of TAT volunteer at the center’s primary outreach known as “Café,” which provides clothing, groceries, medical aid and other services to impoverished families and homeless members of the community on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Rescue and Restore outreach serves victims of many backgrounds, including ex-prostitutes, homeless teenagers who have traded sex for a safe place to sleep and single mothers who have sold themselves to support their children.

“There is such a broad definition of what trafficking is,” LaBorde said. “But at its roots, it is sexual exploitation.”

The mission of the Center overlaps that of TAT, according to LaBorde. Many of the women who pass through the doors have been victims of the sex trade. It is not uncommon to hear tales of women sold for sex by their husbands and lovers or kept in submission by local pimps. The outreach programs aim to provide victim assistance.

Charity Trahan oversees the homeless youth at the Dream Center and said she encounters women and children who have been coerced into the Baton Rouge sex trade. Although Trahan has never been trafficked herself, she said knowledge is the most valuable tool to reach out to victims.

“People think that if they have not been victims of trafficking, they cannot be someone that victims can relate to,” Trahan said. “But if you are educated about the topic and genuinely care, people are going to trust you. Anyone who is informed can make a difference.”

Trahan said she hopes the center will be recognized as an alternative to a life of prostitution — a safe location for homeless youth to gain job and education opportunities and consider a home. In the community’s low-income areas, Trahan said pimps and pedophiles flourish because there is more opportunity to exploit kids from unstable homes.

Trahan, who has worked with the center since October 2007, said child victims of trafficking are easy to spot in the homeless community: They are the majority, and affiliation with the sex industry is often inevitable. Trahan said sex trafficking is a business that caters to the sexual demands of the community. Although cases of female sexual abuse are more commonly reported in Baton Rouge, young boys are also victims of sex slavery, prostitution and exploitation.

“In a crowd of homeless youth, you think about one or two have been trafficked, but it’s actually the opposite,” Trahan said. “Those who have not been bought or sold for sex are the minority.”

Trahan said children raised in sex trafficking are either killed or eventually abandoned when they no longer make enough profit for their pimp. Sex is often all they know, and without any skills or proper education, many support themselves with prostitution. The center often sees women in their 20s who are seeking to pull themselves away from a life of sex, some of whom were sold by their parents as young as 8 years old.

In East Baton Rouge Parish, members of Trafficking Hope are currently aiding a female high school student allegedly being forced into prostitution by an ex-boyfriend – just one example of slavery in our midst.

“There’s no 40-year-old woman who wakes up and says, ‘I’m going to prostitute myself,” Trahan said. “They started at a young age. It’s a life they recognize as normal.”

LaBorde agreed that homeless children are especially susceptible to domestic trafficking, with reported cases of children forced into intercourse ranging from 12 to 14 years of age.

“The term ‘child prostitute’ does not exist,” LaBorde said. “I have always had preconceived notions of what a prostitute was, but that was before I became involved with this.”

As a part of the center’s Midnight Outreach, volunteers meet each month to bring roses to the women at four Baton Rouge strip clubs. The roses bear the center’s information and provide opportunities for groceries, clothing or further education, such as the center’s GED study sessions. LaBorde said one woman kept 13 roses as a reminder she could pursue a life without stripping.

LaBorde said she believes the program helps remind the women that they are cared for and respected within the community. However, the center also seeks to reach women who are potential victims of trafficking.

“You have to find an entry into the girls’ lives, to connect with them and develop a relationship.” LaBorde said. “You never know the situation someone is in. Anyone could be a victim.”

Trafficking Hope, a campaign funded by the federal grant Rescue and Restore, seeks to identify, rescue and restore victims of sex and labor trafficking in the cities spanning the I-10 corridor from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. TAT has partnered with Trafficking Hope, alongside several other organizations receiving the funds. Both programs aim to educate the public on sex trafficking in America and internationally, and provide outreach to communities where people are living at risk.

LaBorde talked about a recent interview with a teenager who came to the center. She was living on the streets, and after discussing the girl’s living situation, LaBorde asked if the girl had ever traded sex for shelter. She had. Trading sex for a dry, warm place to stay is something LaBorde said she believes the homeless community has accepted as a way of life.

“They do not label it by saying, ‘I am being trafficked,’” LaBorde said.

Charlene Merrill, a driver for the Dream Center’s homeless youth outreach, said prostitution is not a choice, but a matter of survival. Kids under the reign of a local pimp are initially attracted by the financial security, the attention they receive, whether negative or positive, and fear of not knowing how to survive the streets on their own.

Mass communications junior Jennie Armstrong became involved with TAT because of her desire to pursue a career in human rights law. Armstrong said she believes every effort she puts into TAT, however small, strengthens the crusade against human trafficking.

“We can’t just sit back and live life in our pretty little apartments when [trafficked] women are being beaten and raped,” Armstrong said. “Knowing what I know, I can’t live my life without helping.”

Beyt said his battle against sex trafficking is personal, as he fights on behalf of the victims as he would for his own loved ones.

“You think about a sister or a daughter and see the big numbers,” Beyt said. “If that was someone in your own family, then all of a sudden it would be a big issue.”

Freedom is our anthem as students – a chance to define lifestyles, decisions and the parties in between. But millions are enslaved on the planet, hundreds in our own backyard, and LaBorde believes it is our responsibility to combat this concern and embrace the millions who live in shackles.

“We all have something, whether it’s our time, our talents, or our finances, that we can use right now to play our part in combating human trafficking,” LaBorde said. “Get up off your asses, stop playing video games and make a difference.”