Shawn Sullivan Transcript

FOGARTY:
How is the United States affected by human trafficking and how many victims fall into it each year.

SULLIVAN:
Well the United States is affected to a much larger scale than most people realize. Most of the time human trafficking is associated with movies like ‘Taken’ and things like that, that represent more of an international flair to this thing. But the fact of the matter, and it’s really hard to quantify this because of the low prosecution rate of the traffickers and things like that, however, the most conservative estimates given in the United States by almost every organization that works in this field is between 150 – 300 thousand people who are directly affected every year in the United States by human trafficking whether its domestic or international.

FOGARTY:
Oh wow, has the numbers been decreasing at all.

SULLIVAN:
No, as a matter of fact, the numbers tend to be increasing. And we’re certain that it’s because of the organic nature of this industry if you want to dignify it by calling it that. We know that because of the desperation of the economic situations of people around the world and in the United States, even because of the vulnerability of those at risk, because of the increase of the perversion of people who have this type of sick desire to use other human beings for profit. That seems to be on the rise. The other thing that gets rise to the increasing numbers, to a smaller degree, maybe the fact that there is much more awareness about this topic and so the numbers are solidifying more towards the real end of things. But we feel like it’s on the increase.

FOGARTY:
How do you think we can prevent it, or how can we stop this from increasing?

SULLIVAN:
Well, concerted efforts on the part of those that want to intervene on behalf of the victims of human trafficking and by raising awareness among those that may be targeted. And one way we do this is by visiting public schools and high schools all across the country. My partner and I and some of our other people that work with us conduct awareness seminars and cooperate with other partner organizations to help people be able to realize that it is much bigger, it is much closer, than we once believed. But to also help them recognize the signs that would indicate potential effects of trafficking, the signs that will help identify the victims of trafficking, and global awareness being at least in the mind of the general public. It helps us prevent the situation from happening in the first place which we believe is the best answer. Whether it be in the field of rescue or in the rehabilitation/reentry movement because they are already permanently scarred by the horrible experiences inside the world of trafficking. If we can prevent people from ever entering into that cycle, then we’ve done the very best job possible. So the way that this really fleshes out overseas is we use transition models, transition home models for those that are most highly targeted by traffickers. In Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia that can’t support those in state run orphanages and those children that live off the street. And now hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them are at risk because of those conditions.

FOGARTY:
You were talking about some of the indicators of human trafficking, how can you spot it out, what are some of the signs that a person is in human trafficking.

SULLIVAN:
Well there are lots of different places you can identify that, none of those are going to be what you would call a smoking gun, but what they do, the indicators would lead you to at least question the situation and possibly confront those individuals in the right way. You have to do that delicately and with the right training and the right people. If you go to our website the best way to begin awareness about this at this point is to go on our website at mannafreedom.com and you can get a lot of information there about what human trafficking is and statistics involved. But also there are downloadable resources on there that you can get for yourself to help you understand human trafficking in a pdf form. You can download those in the resource center to find out what those signs of sexual predators, the top characteristics of people that are predators, how to protect yourself in social media, Facebook and using your cell phone and smart phone there’s all kinds of resources, much too large for this interview. But if you go to mannafreedom.com and find the resource center there are lots of resources there that will lead you to links for a lot of good information that will help people be informed.

FOGARTY:
What is the punishment for traffickers when they get caught?

SULLIVAN:
Well, unfortunately less than 1% of perpetrators are ever prosecuted. What happens in the majority of the cases is that the victims; those that we would call prostitutes, those people are prosecuted as criminals. Instead of prosecuting those that are actually perpetrating the crime, we end up taking the lower and easier road in law enforcement. And it’s not their fault; they can’t change the way the law is written. So it’s a legal situation that we have to rectify so that we can give law enforcement greater authority to prosecute. But less than 1% of perpetrators are ever prosecuted. What happens is the ones prosecuted are the people being victimized, they are actually being criminalized, in other words they’ll arrest them and put them in jail for one night or two nights. For those traffickers that are prosecuted, the penalties are so minor, that it’s really disgustingly laughable to think that someone who would abuse another human being to the degree or regard that they do, to see them go to prison for 5 years or 6 years after ruining hundreds of people’s lives is just laughable to me. It’s just a very difficult situation that we find ourselves in. And so that’s why we have focused at Manna Freedom on the aspect of prevention so that we never have to get into that situation with the majority of the people we deal with. However, because we know it’s going on and going on a lot more than we can even imagine, we do cooperate with those that are directly involved in law enforcement and direct intervention and rescue and those that work with rehabilitation and reentry as well.

FOGARTY:
Who is subject to becoming victims of human trafficking? Is it just women or are men involved too?

SULLIVAN:
No, it’s not just women and I’ll address that in two different regards. Number one many people think that when you’re talking about children in domestic minor sex trafficking or something like that, they primarily think about girls or young ladies that are being used. It turns out that almost 50% of children that are used as a product of domestic minor sex trafficking are young boys. There is a target age for recruiting or entrapment or trying to manipulate these human beings so that they can be used as products. The targeting age for young boys is between 11 and 13 years old. Of course it happens at much younger ages as well, if you can believe that. So it’s not just girls being used. The other thing you need to be aware of is that human trafficking falls into three basic, although you can break them down much finer than this, but they call this the three basic areas of industry. And that is drug trade, the slave trade or forced labor – you know like a sweatshop or working on a plantation or factory or something like that and then there’s the sex industry. And so because those two other legs besides the sex industry involve drugs and forced labor, of course many men and boys of all ages are found in those industries as well.

FOGARTY:
So what exactly does your organization do?

SULLIVAN:
We focus on two things and when you say your organization, let me clarify that because our organization, our overall organization that I work for is Manna Worldwide. And what we do is rescue children from the grip of poverty all over the world. And that involves nutritional needs, it includes medical needs, it includes schooling and job training and orphanages and housing and transition programs. It’s a comprehensive approach to rescuing children. However, what we’re talking about today is one part of my work in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, involves the prevention of human trafficking with MANNA Freedom. There are two primary ways we focus on prevention. That is awareness and removal of children from exposure, or taking them out of the sight of risk; we are taking them out of the target of traffickers overseas. On the U.S. side you would focus on awareness for young people and their families, and overseas we intervene directly and build relationships with state run orphanages and with those that minister to the needs of children on the street. And we give them opportunities to get out of that cycle without ever being targeted by human traffickers; we take them out of that loop.

FOGARTY:
That’s all the questions I had, is there anything else you would like to tell me?

SULLIVAN:
It’s much easier for people to really make a difference, than they would expect. If they would to get more information about how they can be involved in literally saving a life. For just very little effort and very little money they can go visit our website at mannafreedom.com and they can contact me personally. Feel free to enter my email information and they can contact me. There are lots of different programs, lots of different avenues, lots of different resources, things they can get involved with to make a difference in the lives of people all over the world, to prevent them from being approached by human traffickers. I would recommend that they check us out.

http://mannafreedom.com