Transcripts For ALJAZAM Inside Story 20160113

Welcome to inside story, im ray suarez. The details are horrifying enough. The nature of the crimes, forces a pretty depressing conclusion about human nature, yet it goes on, people using children to create pornography, moving them, selling them, forcing them into prostitution. The networks are national and range world wide. In a world where so many children are sold, abused and forced into armies, this is only one more version of the chronic and widespread mistreatment is of kids. Al jazeera america, Roxana Saberi takes a closer book. Polysmith was 14 when she ran away from home. I met someone at the mall. Problem. Reporter he said he promised her work as a model. Within hours i was on the streets of atlantic city, having men forced on me. Last year a Nonprofit Group received about 3500 reports of sex trafficking, 1300 involved children, most cases were in california texas, florida, and new jersey. Reporter they are particularly vulnerable to be forced into prostitution, because they have run away from possible bad family situation, and then get forced into drugsor cushion. These children are too young to content to having sex. Reporter the fbi says many children are trapped and too afraid to even try to escape. Every year the bureau runs a nationwide sting called operation cross country. Monitoring hotel rooms then raiding them and arresting suspects. This year they jailed 150 suspected pimps and others involved in selling children for sex. Nearly 150 children were freed. The youngest only 12. Cheryl runs a nonprofit. She listened to taped phone calls between customers and courted. How are you . I turned 16 a couple of days ago. I would like you to be 12. Well have here and ill tell you what, didnt you say you had a 16 year older black girl too . Well take them both. Reporter polyis now advocate hoping to help other girls not repeat her past. Were joined by the chief of the Violent Crimes against Children Department at the fbi. A terrible and inhumane crime, but how widespread is it . Its widespread not only in the United States but throughout the world. Program. Does the ability of the fbi to identify and capture people extend beyond the borders of the United States . If you know this is going on in moldova, lets say, what is the fbi do about it . There are actually two parts to that question. We primarily focus on the threat of the United States, however, we work nationally with our partners using some of our best practices and lessons learned. And we look at through our child sex initiative, targeting those who travel overseas to have sex with children. Has the world of come suitors made it easier to Assembly People who have this interest, who want to commit these kinds of crimes, has it made it easier for them to find each other . Absolutely. Not only has it made it easier to find each other, but also facilitates their activity. So where you might use video streaming to communicate with friends or family around the world, these individuals can use that same technology to exploit children through live streaming. When we talk about minors involved in these various kinds of exploitation, is there that much difference between a 17yearold and a 19yearold . Because it probably changes in the law in those 18 months between one girl and a another. Absolutely. We look at all of these individuals as victims. Obviously when you talk about the laws of the United States, how we deal with minors, certainly we have an investigative interest, but we look at all of these individuals as victims. And they may not understand that. They may be brainwashed into believing they are part of a family or a group, when they are being exploited for financial gain. But a 19yearold may have some agency and saying no, im going commercial sex work because i want to, but a 17yearold cant say because i want to. In law they dont have that call, do they . Thats right. Thats why they are victims. And thats how reapproach minors, we look at them at victims and not offenders. When you have a suspicion that people are moving minors around inside the country, what what laws are triggered by that . And are states really on your side . Are they allies in this fight . Absolutely. Contrary to what you may see on television and the movies, in fbi does not work dentally. It is critical to work across the country. We have 71 Child Exploitation task forces we work hand to hand shoulder to shoulder combatting this threat. We see the sharing of intelligence, sometimes covering multiple jurisdictions is the best way to combat this threat. I any from the beginning we have been talking as if we both understand what it is were talking about. What kinds of crimes fall under the ambit of your task force . Actually we cover a number of things. When we talk about Violent Crimes against children thats everything from child abductions to the distribution of pornography. Sextortion, what is that . Its essentially when you have a subject that tries to extort usually a juvenile or minor into something the minor wants to keep private. So once the subject has, say, a photograph, they will intern continue to request other things from these minors to include other sexually explicit images, videos or recruiting additional children to be exploited. Children around the world are being moved around not just for sex, but for illicit adoption, some for the use as a labor force in countries where it is very lightly regulated, children are sold as workers. Is it the same people, when we visit these countries, are these networks sometimes involving the same people who are trading for sex but also for work and also for illicit adoptions. The primary purpose of what we do at the fbi in this arena, focused on exploitation of children. For the program that i work specifically, that were targeting children who are being exploited. Calvin is the chief of the Violent Crimes against children at the fbi. Thank you so much for joining me. Stopping traffic, stay with us, its inside story. On hard earned, down, but not out, im in recovery, ive been in recovery for 23 years. Last shot, at a better life. This is the one. This is the one. We havent got it yet. Its all or nothing. Ive told walgreens i quit. Hard earned pride. Hard earned respect. Hard earned future. A real look at the American Dream hard earned only on Al Jazeera America you are watching inside story. Im ray suarez. The trafficking of children for various forms of exploitation this time on the program, to continue our conversation, im joined by a human rights attorney and the executive director of rights for girls, and lexy, trafficked herself as a young girl, now trying to shut down the trafficking networks. I know theres not one single profile, but what are the commonalities, when you look at all of the girls who are being found in this kind of life . So one of the surprising commonalities is the girls tend to be american born. When we think about the issue of child trafficking, which of other countries. In truth, most of the kids who are bought and sold for sex in this country are from this country, and many of them are from our foster care system. So many of the girls who are bought and sold are girls who have been in foster care who have run away from abusive foster care placement, and many have been put into multiple placements, so they are experienced abuse, dislocation, and because of that are traffickers. Many of the back stories of these girls, involves moving them from one place to another. Why is that important . Because it uproots the girl. Because a trafficker wants to create a trauma bond to the girl. And that means assuring that any protective family member, any ways in which the girl is claimed or loved or taken care of, that those connections are severed, and the trafficker becomes the only person that she can rely on for food, shelter, or any form of protection. When we understand the behavior of the trafficker, it really is a predatory behavior. When you listen to her run down the profile of the victims and perpetrators, sound familiar to you . Yeah, it does. My story is a lot like the kids trafficked out of faster care. I grew up in a little opposite of a foster care home. A great middle class home. They did everything that they could that they now to protect me, but i was sexually abused at a young age, and that set me up for a trafficker. When a trafficker came into my life at the age of 10, he was 17, and started grooming me, selling me to his friends and selling me to people in the community it wasnt that hard of a transition. And you didnt realize, im guessing a crime was being help . Not at all, i didnt hear the words Human Trafficking until 2009 when i was in college. So what happened at the end of the story . What is the road out of this. For me i became unmarkable. At the age of 12 pedophiles become disinterested. And it just ended for me. And now are their residual problems . Is this a long tail story that you still have to live with now . Yeah, absolutely. I didnt begin talking about it until i was 20 years old, and really seeking help. Because i knew i wanted to help other people in this situation, but i had to help myself first, and i dealt with eating disorders, depression, anxiety, you name it, i was dealing it to die. Do a lot of people in this life not even help. The most popular porn i haves are the movies about underage girls. There is a name in which renormalize the purchasing of the female body for sex. So when individuals buy children for sex, they are not called pedophiles, they are called johns, and they are rarely arrested for statutory rape. So it makes sense the children being exploited dont understand themselves to be trafficked. Because they exist in a culture of normalizing the sexualization of a child. There is impunity for purchasing child for sex. The sexual abuse and exploitation of minors requires not only cruelty from the perpetrators but an entire ecosystem of enablers which allow it to condition. When we return well look at tempts to stop the various forms of exploitation. Welcome back to inside story. Im ray suarez. Were looking at the present, but hidden world of trafficking minors for sexual exploitation, all kinds of activity operates in a context, sellers and buyers on people of all sides of the transaction understanding the rules of the game. Including those who know something illegal is happening. Who are the people who look the other way, who make this cruel and depraved trade possible. Are there people who see this poster in an airport looking for tips and just walk on buy, or can you really hide in plain site on the internet . My guests are still with me. And you mention that this happened in a conduct of still living at home, family members who are aware of where you were and so on, there was nobody who realized unthwart was going on. Not at all. What happened to me is what is called familiar al trafficking. My family had no idea i was told to come over when i saw cars and pretended i was riding my bike. They pretended i was riding my bike around the neighborhood. Thing. When you work with girls trying to get out of that life, are some of them almost resistant because think, in fact, something that they wanted to do is being intruded upon . Have they become so used to what they are doing, that they are not sure they want to get out. Absolutely. Is there is a process of manipulation that happens. There is a bonding that happens and the trafficker manipulates those vulnerabilities, whether thats looking for love or a father figure or a variety of things in between, there is a bond there that cant be broken. Does that fact is that one of the things that makes this hard to police as a crime that the people that are being victimized arent necessarily blowing the whistle. And also because we criminalize those children. The response isnt necessarily to say, if you are 14 years old being bought and sold, you are a victim. So often there is a criminalization of that child. Around 1,000 children every year are arrested for prostitution. We arrest the children but we dont arrest the customers . That 150 people in the recent bust didnt include the buyers . And never does. Every year the fbi has done the crosscountry sting, they go after the traffickers, not the buyers. We have yet to see one arrest of one buyer doing a crosscountry sting, even though they have all of the laws that they need in order to arrest buyers. They can arrest the buyers on conspiracy to commit statutory rape, and yet we do not see the arrest of buyers and in the few times wait a minute. There are high school juniors, who are being threatened with prison and being tagged as sex criminals, sex offenders in their communities because they have been having sex with their soft fore freshmen girlfriend, they are getting trouble. But people buying sex from 14yearold arent . No. The few times we see buyers arrested its for solicitation. So we still talk about it, and contemplate it in the context of vice and prostitution. We do not arrest buyers for statutory rape. We do not put the buyers on a sex offender registry, and that is a real problem, because what it creates is a culture of impunity for buying children for sex. And we have also created a false distinction between raping a child and paying to rape a child, and in the case of the latter, there is impunity and we dont treat the child as a victim, right . So why is there ever, ever an arrest of a child for being bought and sold. Lexy, you mentioned you didnt even talk about this until you were 20. You didnt think of the men who came to the house to visit you were rapisted, it sounds like . Yeah, i didnt really know what was going on. I was kept totally in the dark, and i was told if i said anything else something i cared about very much for pay. So thats the other thing you have to think about. Its not just their life and their wellbeing but it doesnt sound like the guys who were coming over and paying your pimp were very either. Not at all. Arrested . Not at all. So all of the parties in the transaction arent afraid. The traffickers are more afraid than the buyers. So we can look at what the department of justice has done in the last decade, and leek at what state prosecutors have done, and there really has been a concerted effort to go after traffickers and of those fort efforts need to be acknowledged. I want to thing my guests. Ill be back in a moment with a final thought on the vulnerability of children. Stay with us. Its inside story. And send us your thoughts on twitter, or follow me and get in touch, or visit our Facebook Page and tell us your thoughts on how to eliminate sex stay with us. When youre on hold, your business is on hold. Thats why comcast business doesnt leave you there. When you call, a Small Business expert will answer you in about 30 seconds. No annoying hold music. Just a real person, real fast. Whenever you need them. So your business can get back to business. Sounds like my rides ready. Dont get stuck on hold. Reach an expert fast. Comcast business. Built for business. Now dont need me standing here to tell you the crimes woe have been talking about today are terrible, and you dont need me to tell you how their continued existence confirms everything that is worst about human beings. It is striking to see how people are use all of their ingenuity to get around the limitation s. One psycho analyst pointed out that the systemic rape or sexual abuse of a child is more than a sickness, he used the term soul murder to describe the robbing of a childs sense of self and of the world. In a world where so many families are crushed by economics, social breakon, the fraying of common life, its no surprise to find hundreds of thousands of throwaway children, children that exist to satisfy the cruel desires of a tiny minority of people. It makes it possible to match buyers with sellers of everything, not only makes it easier to traffic and abuse children, it makes it easier to hide, to lie about who you are, to lurk in the shadows, fine your prey, your commercial and collect your money. Hardly in, thank goodness will argue that its not a victim les crime. Im ray suarez. Thats the inside story. The news continues right now. A bomb blast in southwestern pakistan has killed at least 14 people. Close to a polio vaccination center. Hello and welcome to the to al jazeera live from our headquarters in doha. I am elizabeth puranam, also ahead. We have to take them out. [ applause ] in his final state Union Address the u. S. 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