Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
Print Edition

NCJW passionate about defeating human trafficking

Beatrice Kahn

ROSH HASHANAH EDITION
SECTION A PAGE 12

Open your eyes – you’ll see it. It happens in shopping malls, at highway rest areas, on streets and sidewalks, at truck stops and motels.

The visible interaction usually seems ordinary, innocuous, harmless — hence invisible.

“The crime occurs in secrecy,” says Beatrice Kahn, board director of the National Council of Jewish Women, “yet it’s out in the open — hidden in plain view. It’s happening right around us. If you’re aware, you can see it.”

Kahn has made the fight against human trafficking — specifically for the purpose of selling sex — a mainstay of her lay leadership at NCJW. She traveled to Denver last week to help local NCJW members organize their own activist and educational platform on the issue.

The ironic “now you see it, now you don’t” nature of sex trafficking helps conceal, hence perpetuate, what she considers a dire social problem.

“It’s really a scourge in every community in the United States,” says Kahn, who chairs NCJW’s anti-trafficking initiative. “Children from every socioeconomic class, every geographic area, are at risk. It’s a horrific, horrific crime.”

By no means does it limit its victims to children, she adds. Adult women are victimized, too. Sometimes, even men.

Human trafficking for what amounts to coerced prostitution is the very antithesis of a victimless crime.

Most at risk are children and adolescents, many of whom are runaways or “throwaway” youths, abandoned by their families. Also vulnerable are those who are homeless, recent immigrants, especially the undocumented, and those who are financially destitute.

Such vulnerabilities make them tempting targets for those willing to exploit human beings for profit.

“People in that situation are trapped,” she says. “You have no documentation, no transportation, no money. How are you going to get out?”

Kahn doesn’t mince words.

“It’s slavery.”

Sex trafficking is a difficult phenomenon to quantify, Kahn says, but she has no doubt that the numbers are huge.

“Statistics are very hard to come by because it’s a hidden crime,” she says.

“It’s very elusive, very hard to get a handle on specifics, but our current numbers indicate that up to 300,000 American children are at risk every year. I have heard that there are 100,000 children that are trafficked in the US right now. That doesn’t include adults or people in other countries.”

By “at risk,” Kahn means children who are in position to be victimized.

“In other words they are vulnerable. Traffickers prey on vulnerability and people can be vulnerable for any number of reasons. They can be in the foster care system or be runaways or throwaways.

“And people don’t run away because they’re living a cushy, nice life. They’re running from one danger and have already been victimized. Traffickers know that and prey on it. There are people who have suffered neglect, child abuse, sex abuse, all sorts of things. Even just being a girl could make you vulnerable.”

Trafficking serves as a primary entry point for people who end up living a life of prostitution, Kahn says.

“The average age of entering prostitution is 12 to 14. It’s one reason we focus on children because if you can protect children before they enter the system then perhaps they won’t continue on.”

For all these reasons and more, Kahn says, NCJW is determined to go to war against sex trafficking.

“We need to bring to bear an incredible amount of outrage to address what is a horrific, horrific crime that is really tainting every community in the United States,” she says.

“It is a big undertaking and there is not yet the will to respond. In fact, there are more shelters for dogs than there are beds for trafficking victims. Sometimes a large community, even something like New York, will only have 12 beds. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of victims.

“So it is a big job, a big job to raise people’s awareness, then to harness their outrage and then to have legislation and the will to implement and enforce it. It costs money and people have to be willing to bring resources to protect the most vulnerable in our society.”

A crucial front in the war against sex trafficking is the political realm, both on the federal and state levels.

A big part of Kahn’s responsibilities at NCJW is lobbying politicians and monitoring the progress of legislation.

It’s a big job, as she says.

“In the recent past there has been something like 2,000 bills proposed in Congress relating to trafficking,” she says.

“They have to be reviewed very carefully in order understand whether there are some hidden ramifications. They’re often pinned on other things that would not necessarily be good in terms of promoting social change.”

There are, however, significant signs of progress at the federal level, Kahn says.

She praises the Trafficking Protection and Victims Act, enacted with bipartisan support during the administration of President George W. Bush.

“It defines trafficking very clearly . . . and tries to protect children victims who are coming unaccompanied to the US. They really are vulnerable, almost more than anybody else, because they’re arriving in a foreign country and they’re sitting ducks for traffickers.

“This law said that before they get sent into the void they need to be interviewed and perhaps referred to services. It makes a really comprehensive package.”

Nevertheless – and somewhat amazingly — although the Trafficking Protection and Victims Act is a good law, Kahn adds, NCJW has been working hard since its passage to prevent it from being overturned.

State laws are no less challenging, Kahn says.

An effective trafficking statute in her home state of New York has failed twice in the state legislature, Kahn says, not necessarily because of opposition to its provisions but because it has been attached to controversial packages of bills and ended up becoming a political football.

There is encouraging progress in some states. Colorado, for example, recently enhanced its trafficking laws by clarifying that traffickers can no longer avoid prosecution by claiming that they didn’t realize that their victims were underage.

Overall, Kahn says, the NCJW strategy is to strive to bring state laws closer to the federal statutes.

“At the state level, there are versions of this federal comprehensive statute that really every state should have to be able to respond to trafficking.”

Among the statutory changes NCJW would like every state to enact are three fundamental provisions:

1. Safe harbor – “If you have sex with a minor it’s considered a crime because a minor doesn’t have the capacity to consent to sex,” Kahn says, “just like a minor wouldn’t be able to sign a mortgage or vote. They don’t have legal capacity yet.

“But if you pay that minor $20 then she’s a criminal because she’s engaging in prostitution. She’s really the victim in that business transaction between a seller and a buyer, but she’s the one who’s going to get arrested. The safe harbor laws say that people who are caught by law enforcement selling sex under a certain age will not be prosecuted. Instead, hopefully, they’ll be offered services.”

2. Conviction erasure — “If you are convicted of all sorts of crimes because you’re a victim – it could be sex, it could be drug use, it could be prostitution – that criminal record will prevent people from rehabilitating their lives in any way. You canget an apartment, a job, a mortgage.”

Such a criminal record, Kahn says, often deters victims of sex trafficking from seeking help or changing their lifestyle.

3. Hotline posting laws — “What it provides is a national trafficking hotline number that can be a source of all sorts of support and rescue operations. It immediately goes to a national hotline.”

Twenty-two states have passed hotline posting laws, according to NCJW. So far, Colorado is not among them.

In sum, Kahn says, the big picture on sex trafficking in the US suggests that change is starting to happen but that there’s still a long way to go.

“It’s improving all across the country,” she says, “but there is more work to be done and I think, although there’s increasing awareness, most people are unaware.

“This is a big thing that we’re undertaking, to build awareness so that we reach a tipping point of public outrage and will to being resources to bear commensurate with the size of the problem. We really do need to do much, much more.

“I want to be optimistic to say we’re improving but the truth is we have lots of vulnerable children and adults that nobody knows about.”

Kahn’s trip to Denver last week was to help members of NCJW’s Colorado section as they prepare to create and energize a regional activist front against human trafficking.

Speaking to the Intermountain Jewish News before meeting with local NCJW board members, Kahn laid out what she planned to discuss.

“We’re going to talk about the nature of trafficking and what some of the toolkits are on the NCJW website for activism,” she says. “Even if you’re not an NCJW member, it’s a good way to take action.

“Then we’re going to start the planning of what the Colorado section is going to do next. The Denver community should be on the lookout for some new initiatives. It should be a combination of education awareness and advocacy. They may even take on some service ideas. It’s all open at this point.”

Kahn, who worked professionally as an attorney and businesswoman before becoming a lay leader for NCJW, also told the Denver women that sex trafficking is far from a new problem and that NCJW is far from a novice in combating it.

“We began working against trafficking in 1906,” she says. “It’s not a new problem and it’s not a new problem for the Jewish community. It’s also not new that we take the problem seriously.”

Historically, NCJW had a permanent presence on Ellis Island, the main US entry point for European immigrants in the early 20th century.

Even then, the organization intercepted traffickers preying on new immigrants, guided girls and women (many of them Jewish) to safety and helped provide safe transit to their next destinations.

NCJW was so trusted by US immigration authorities that it eventually became the only organization authorized to perform this kind of work at Ellis Island.

Kahn is clearly proud to be carrying on that tradition today, although quite modest when describing her own role in enhancing NCJW’s recent surge of activism.

A few years ago, she represented NCJW in a coalition of organizations participating in a conference on human trafficking called “We Were Slaves.”

“The intent was to educate Jewish professionals about trafficking – rabbis, doctors, teachers – in the hope of bringing awareness to the community-at-large.

“I met so many Jewish people working on this issue. Over time I became increasingly educated and increasingly passionate and it became clear that this was an issue that was perfect for NCJW. We take social justice issues that other people may not know about and really are important to the Jewish community. It grew from there.”

Sex trafficking is a very appropriate issue for NCJW to address, Kahn feels, because it relates directly to any number of Jewish and Judaic values.

“We were slaves in Egypt,” she says. “We understand the nature of slavery and this is modern day slavery.

“We understand as Jews that allowing this to persist in our community makes us complicit and really degrades our whole community.

“It’s incumbent on us to take action. We are commanded to free the captive, to pay fair wages. We have all sorts of commandments which make this something we are compelled to respond to.”

Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News



Avatar photo

IJN Assistant Editor | [email protected]


Leave a Reply