By Susan Klemond | OSV News
LAKEVILLE, Minn. (OSV News) — When Flora Whitfield was 14, a man she’d met in Minneapolis took her out of state without her family’s knowledge.
For the next two weeks, the boyfriend/trafficker sold her for sex. When he brought her back to Minnesota, he beat her, giving her a black eye and several concussions, said Whitfield, now 32, who told her story at an event at All Saints Church in Lakeville titled “Human Trafficking: From Darkness into the Light.”
Until his arrest several years later, the trafficker continued to control Whitfield and forced her into sex work. She didn’t feel leaving was an option.
Not until her 20s — when she attended an education program at Breaking Free, a nonprofit in St. Paul, Minnesota — did Whitfield fully understand what had happened to her. “I didn’t even know that I was a victim,” she said. “I didn’t know that it was not my choice.”
Now associate program director at the organization, which provides housing and social services to victims of sex trafficking and prostitution, Whitfield said she’s learned who she is as a person and about boundaries.
Sharing personal and law enforcement perspectives at the event — which drew nearly 200 parishioners and members of other Catholic parishes and Christian denominations — Whitfield and Lakeville Police Detective Jim Dronen talked about several aspects of human trafficking, including the internet’s role in sex trafficking and ways parents can protect their children.
Minnesota also is a hub for drug trafficking, “so it would kind of make sense along the same lines that human trafficking would follow that path,” he said.
The parish event during National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, observed every January, came about a month before the Feb. 12 Super Bowl being played in Glendale, Arizona — which as a large, public event provides numerous opportunities for commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking, said Chris Kuhn, All Saints adult faith formation director.
Organizers of the All Saints event — and a follow-up planned for March — hope the meeting might lead to faith communities and others in the area forming relationships to help mitigate human trafficking, Kuhn said.
All Saints Parish has a human trafficking committee, which assists community partners through education, prayer services and speakers.
Minnesota law defines human trafficking as the sale of a person for the purpose of sexual acts or forced labor. Dronen said that when he began handling one or two sex trafficking cases a month in 2018, he worked with federal agents posing as minors on social media who encountered people seeking sex. When the customers came to Lakeville to meet a minor — “contact,” Dronen and another officer arrested them.
Dronen’s department no longer has officers dedicated to sex trafficking cases, but other area law enforcement agencies do, he said.
Prostitutes often are victims of their “pimps,” or those controlling them, Dronen said. While law enforcement targets pimps and customers, Minnesota’s Safe Harbor program for youths caught up in prostitution provides victim-centered, trauma-informed services and safe housing, he said.
One third of teenagers on the street are approached by a pimp within 48 hours of leaving home, Dronen said. Even more concerning are traffickers on social media who encourage children to run away, he said. Dronen suggested that parents purchasing phones for their children set up parental monitoring of the devices. Also important, he said, is to obtain names and telephone numbers of their children’s friends and keep track of their activities.
Valerie Beck, 51, a member of evangelical Trinity Church in Lakeville, said she wanted to connect with others working on trafficking issues. In the next two years, she plans to open a transitional home for women who have experienced sexual exploitation. They need to know there is hope, she said.
“I want them to know that life can be transformed, that Jesus loves them, regardless of what has happened to them, and that they can have a new, different life than what they’ve experienced,” Beck said.