Human trafficking was a problem when I was first starting out as a young social
worker in Michigan 40 years ago. I had clients back then that were victims. As
for Mr. Dunning its time for him to have his law license pulled.
Chuck
From: joe harcz Comcast
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2016 8:01 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] not victim less crime
(Just an aside Dunnings is the one prosecuting me for attempting to participate
in my own ADA Celebration. That said this is an important article and shows
that human trafficking is not a “victimless crime”.”
Joe Harcz
Prostitution, trafficking in Michigan 'a widespread phenomenon' Matt Mencarini
and Justin A. Hinkley, Lansing State Journal LANSING For all the shock in
seeing Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III in cuffs, the
prostitution-related crimes he's been accused of are all too common, advocates
say. Dunnings,
the 63-year-old lawyer who's been Ingham County's elected prosecutor for the
past 19 years, was charged Monday with one felony and 14 misdemeanors after
a yearlong investigation found he'd paid for sex hundreds of times with
multiple women in three counties, Attorney General Bill Schuette said. Dunnings
could not be reached for comment on Thursday. The sensationalism of such
charges against a leading law enforcement official garnered national headlines
. Yet thousands of women and girls are quietly, sometimes violently,
manipulated and abused into selling their bodies for sex every year, advocates
said.
And men and women from all kinds of oc'cup'ations take advantage of these women
or coerce them into prostitution. "I think this is a very widespread
phenomenon,"
said Courtney Walsh, regional specialist for the Washington-based Polaris,
which runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. "We see just a lot
of different demographics and context when it comes to players in trafficking.
"I assure you, it's not a victimless crime," said Dr. LaClaire Bouknight,
a Lansing physician and chairwoman of the Capital Area Anti-Trafficking
Alliance. "Many of the pimps are very violent. They're controlling the women
with
drugs, threats, threats to harm their families, and I don't consider that
victimless at all. "It's not a happy life," she added. "It's not a Julia Roberts
story. The charges against Dunnings follow several horrific cases in the
capital city: Agencies across Michigan reported 307 arrests for prostitution and
human trafficking-related crimes in 2013, and 409 arrests the following year,
according to the most recent available statistics from the Michigan Incident
Crime Reporting database. Twenty-one of those arrests were women 18 years old
or younger, including one reported to be 13 or 14 years old. Six males 18
or younger were arrested, according to the database maintained by the Michigan
State Police. Arrests were made in urban communities around metro Detroit
and rural counties in northern Michigan such as Alpena and St. Ignace. They
were made in impoverished areas such as Benton Harbor and tony towns like St.
Clair Shores. The database includes 26 cases in those years from Lansing. Those
numbers do not tell the whole story. The National Human Trafficking Resource
Center, which runs a trafficking hotline, took more than 700 phone calls from
Michigan and reported 152 cases of trafficking in the state last year, at
least 52 of which involved minors. Trafficking also includes forced labor, but
most of those cases involved sex trafficking. That was the eighth-highest
number of cases in the nation. "Human trafficking is alive and well in
Michigan," Walsh said. Prostitution and sex trafficking which is prostitution
with
some sort of coercion involved can fly under the radar for years and go missing
from the statistics, advocates say. In an affidavit filed with the charges
against Dunnings, the Ingham County Sheriff's Department alleges the prosecutor
paid for sex multiple times a week as far back as 2010, while simultaneously
prosecuting sex crimes, collecting campaign donations and winning elections by
large margins. "The reason why it's hiding is because people don't want
to see that," Laura Swanson, a Lansing-area filmmaker who's finishing up a
documentary about trafficking in Michigan, said of prostitution and trafficking
in general. "I think we've been told that a victim looks a certain way. When
you don't see that, then you're not likely to call it out. The Internet, where
women are advertised alongside sports equipment and puppies, has pushed it even
further out of sight. The move from street corners to the Web has made
enforcement and sting operations more elaborate and difficult to accomplish
than simply putting an officer undercover as a prostitute, Lansing police Public
Information Director Robert Merritt said. Online stings usually require several
departments. Merritt said gun violence and violent crimes are a higher
priority for Lansing police. Bouknight, the Lansing physician, said pimps and
traffickers prey on the most vulnerable people: runaways, foster children,
people with histories of abuse or even the offspring of prostitutes. The
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is disproportionately
represented,
she said. Recruiters sometimes the pimp, sometimes the trafficked are forced to
recruit new prostitutes may go to the mall, for example, and prowl, Bouknight
said. They'll find a girl and tell her how pretty she is, gauge her
self-confidence, and move in if she seems vulnerable. Some women are coerced by
force,
kept on the line with a supply of drugs, or blackmailed because of compromising
photos they've posted online or sent to someone they thought they loved,
advocates said. Others are bought gifts and treated like girlfriends before
being pulled into prostitution. Dunnings faces a felony charge because,
according
to the affidavit, he coaxed a woman to be paid for sex after she came to him
for help with a custody matter. He also paid for food, rent and drug treatment
for the women he also paid for sex, court records allege. For her documentary,
called "Break the Chain," Swanson spent time with a Michigan woman who ran
away from home when she was 13 and met a man whom she thought was interested in
a romantic relationship. The man ended up forcing her to become a prostitute.
The misconception, Swanson said, is that the prostitutes have chosen their
oc'cup'ation or have been kidnapped. The vast majority are merely vulnerable
women seeking a better life, who are approached by someone willing to provide
one, she said. "That opportunity seems to be the right one at the time,"
Swanson said. "You have no other reason not to trust that individual. For the
victims, the scars are lifelong, and not all of them are physical. The women
Dunnings allegedly slept with had bruises from being beaten by their pimps and
track marks on their arms from frequent use of intravenous drugs, according
to the affidavit, but the trafficked are also emotionally abused and carry that
trauma with them long after they escape the life. "You have to look beneath
the surface," said Walsh, of the Resource Center. "The reality of a situation
may not be what instantaneously meets the eye. Key to stopping the problem,
the advocates say, is awareness. Michigan has made human trafficking a
priority. Gov. Rick Snyder signed a package of laws in fall 2014 that created
two
boards focused on the issue and both Schuette and federal law enforcement have
cracked down. The United Auto Workers Local 6000, which represents thousands
of employees in the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, has reached
out to the department to train more workers to watch for signs of human
trafficking among those applying for public assistance. But more can be done.
Bouknight said schools should look for consistently truant children. Doctors,
hospitals and abortion clinics should look for young pregnancies or frequent
pregnancies and abortions. Police and others should look closer at young people
who are frequently arrested for shoplifting, because some prostitutes are
forced to do that to have nice clothes for their clients. Walsh said the most
important thing is for community members everywhere to report what they see so
victims can get help and perpetrators can be charged. "Having the knowledge
is incredibly empowering in trafficking," she said. Contact Matt Mencarini at
(517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@xxxxxxx. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini
. Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or jhinkley@xxxxxxx . Follow him
on Twitter @JustinHinkley . Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly,
at on.lsj.com/somsignup . If you are being trafficked and need help, or if you
suspect you've witnessed human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking
Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888 or visit traffickingresourcecenter.org .
