Human trafficking survivors \u201cAmy,\u201d Chong Kim and Natasha Herzig recently\u00a0shared their stories of coercion, forced servitude, escape and recovery. The UCF event entitled \u201cHuman Trafficking Awareness Forum: Survivor Perspectives\u201d was organized by the UCF Global Perspectives Office and was designed to highlight the growing problem of human trafficking in the United States with citizens as the targets.<\/p>\n
Tomas Lares, who chairs the Human Trafficking Taskforce of Greater Orlando, provided the audience of 150 people an overview of the many facets of modern-day slavery in Central Florida. He also stressed the importance of harnessing the power of the community to combat this injustice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Next, the audience heard from a survivor who, for legal reasons, was identified as \u201cAmy.\u201d She underscored her middle-income upbringing and extenuating circumstances that drove her to dance at a \u201cno-nudity club\u201d in Tampa. The second day, she was lured under fraudulent pretenses away from the club, where she was nearly killed by what her trafficker put her through to \u201cbreak her in.\u201d She then spent a year being forced to dance at clubs and \u201cwork\u201d private parties all over Florida. \u201cAmy\u201d discussed the power of coercion, noting that while she would drive herself to certain engagements, she feared for her young daughter\u2019s life, and that \u201cfreedom of movement did not mean freedom of choice\u201d in her distressing situation.<\/p>\n
Building off of \u201cAmy\u2019s\u201d story, Kim explained how a man posing as a member of the U.S. military pretended to date her, and eventually trapped her and sold her into trafficking. Kim described an attempt to escape to a suburban shopping center after being tied up in an abandoned house. She noted that she was soiled from days of being held captive, and the scene concluded with a group of people clapping as her uniformed trafficker caught her and dragged her away. When asked about her current opinion of uniformed officers, Kim indicated she is working to create a national law that ensures all official uniforms be returned to their respective agencies once people are no longer serving. Kim\u2019s story is depicted in the film, \u201cEden,\u201d which was released in 2012, and Kim\u2019s book, \u201cIn My Own Words,\u201d is planned for release later this year.<\/p>\n
The third speaker, Herzig, shared her story of going from a great environment \u2013 consisting of a supportive home and active school involvement \u2013 to feeling as if she were \u201ctrash\u201d and the \u201cgirl that nobody wants anymore.\u201d She narrated her experience of being lured into a job that promised travel, money and excitement. It was anything but that. She was kidnapped in broad daylight, sold around the country by her trafficker, and eventually became a recruiter of other young girls. Herzig warned the audience that she could easily \u201crecruit [their] daughters and the young girls here right now.\u201d When asked how she could do to other people what was done to her, she responded that you do what\u2019s necessary to survive, and that was what her life became.<\/p>\n
All three women underscored the role of coercion in their experience. \u201cAmy\u201d said she felt her captor let her live the night he almost killed her. Herzig shared an anecdote about beating another woman without prompting from her own pimp, all the while knowing that she, herself, would be beaten by the woman\u2019s pimp. She did it simply because she knew it would make her trafficker happy, she said. Coercion and ongoing violence were invisible handcuffs that kept these women under control.<\/p>\n
All three also eventually escaped. \u201cAmy\u201d broke the bonds of coercion out of concern for her baby; Kim crawled through an air duct to elude her captor; Herzig finally reached out to her family, who involved the police and ultimately brought her home. All three women described the painful process of trying to become a \u201cnormal person\u201d again. One audience member asked how society could be more supportive of survivors, and Herzig responded that there is a stigma among survivors that is real and needs to be overcome. She shared how her own young child was denied entry to a private school over concerns about Herzig.<\/p>\n
One final theme from the forum was the importance of informing oneself and others about human trafficking. Information can teach those targeted how to avoid dangerous situations, enlighten those unknowingly involved about the prevalence of trafficking and educate society about what to look for, as well as where to go for help. \u201cAmy,\u201d Kim and Herzig now all work, in one form or another, to train law enforcement and promote legislation that appropriately addresses different facets of human trafficking in America.<\/p>\n
If you or someone you suspect is affected by this issue, the national human trafficking hotline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 888-373-7888.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to the Global Perspectives Office, sponsors of the forum included UCF Human Trafficking Awareness Program, UCF Victim Services, UCF Global Peace and Security Studies Program, UCF Diplomacy Program, Orlando Area Committee on Foreign Relations, Chastang Charitable Foundation, CliftonLarsonAllen, UCF SGA, UCF Women\u2019s Studies Program, UCF Political Science Department, UCF LIFE and the Global Connections Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Human trafficking survivors \u201cAmy,\u201d Chong Kim and Natasha Herzig recently\u00a0shared their stories of coercion, forced servitude, escape and recovery. The UCF event entitled \u201cHuman Trafficking Awareness Forum: Survivor Perspectives\u201d was organized by the UCF Global Perspectives Office and was designed to highlight the growing problem of human trafficking in the United States with citizens as the targets. Tomas Lares, who…","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":57467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1973,11472],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-57465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-global-perspectives","tag-tomas-lares"],"yoast_head":"\n