THE TRAFFICKING ‘GAME’

Mt. Hood’s Public Safety officers, Title IX team and Associated Student Government (ASG) hosted a talk on Feb. 7 geared to raise awareness about sex trafficking in the Portland Metro area and how it looks like – and why it persists.

Sex trafficking happens because “we live in a society that ‘commoditizes’ and objectifies the female body,” said Keri Hadley, Trafficking Program Specialist for Multnomah County.

Hadley worked for the Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC) for over three years and now speaks at public events to raise awareness about sex trafficking.

She addressed the sensationalism of sex trafficking in the media and made it clear that the crime happens all over, including the Portland Metro area.

She defined trafficking as “harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of commercial sex act(s).” Most often, individuals are manipulated and coerced into sexual exploitation, she said.

Anyone under the age of 18 does not need to provide “proof of forced fraud or coercion” to be considered a victim. And the crime can affect folks of any gender identity, or folks that are gender non-conforming, said Hadley. Most victims identify as females, but anyone identifying with any gender can be a victim.

Language of ‘the game’

Hadley addressed some vocabulary often used in the world of human trafficking. “ ‘The life’ and ‘the game’ both are just terms that refer to trafficking or exploitation,” she said. “ ‘Daddy’ is just a reference to the trafficker or the exploiter, or the pimp. ‘John’ is the purchaser.”

Other terms she mentioned include “bottom bitch,” someone who has been trafficked but has gained responsibility from their exploiter and often works to recruit victims for the trafficker.

Perpetrators of trafficking often use the word “quota” to describe how much a victim must work per day.

Currently, advocates who work to help trafficking victims or “survivors” are moving away from words like prostitute, ho, and hooker. “We try not to use that language when working with these individuals and other derogatory terms,” said Hadley.

Nowadays, the internet is a major venue for sex trafficking. “Social media apps are used to recruit new individuals or new victims and used to sell individuals as well,” she said.

On average, using data from 2016, girls who are trafficked often get caught up in “the life” from as early as 15 years old, while boys have been found to start from an average of 11 years old, said Hadley. Among the victims, “80 percent of them are parents. And sometimes they are parenting children that they’ve had with their traffickers.”

Sex trafficking is looked at as a “low risk, high return” business by the perpetrators. “In that business model, the pimp is the supplier, the victim is the item of value, and the John is the buyer,” said Hadley.

Portland remains a ‘hub’

Most often, victims get trafficked in urban areas that have “major attractions, sporting events, international airports,” she said. Traffickers take their “business” to where they can attract the most customers, but still occurs elsewhere, including rural areas.

In Portland sex trafficking is culturally embedded because the city is seen as a “sex positive city,” Hadley said.

Victims get caught up in “the life” because they often had it normalized it through disruptive or abusive childhoods. “A lot of folks are in the runaway homeless continuum, are couch surfing, and that’s a lot of times when they get connected with a trafficker for the first time,” said Hadley.

With a worsening housing crisis in Portland, people get caught up in sex trafficking because they’re struggling to make ends meet, she noted. She said Portland has been recognized as a “hub” for trafficking, but that’s because “once you address the issue, you’re going to have more people come out of the woodwork and come forward with their experiences.”

Resources and information for combating human trafficking is available from MHCC’s Public Safety office at 503-491-7310 for non-emergencies and 503-491-7911 for emergencies.

SARC is also available at 503-640-5311 or sarcoregon.org.