Milwaukee Ranks High In Human Trafficking
Sex trafficking victims and numbers purchasing sex is "mind-blowing." Special report, first in a series.
Dana World-Patterson, chair of the Human Trafficking Task Force of Greater Milwaukee, is working to educate young men on the role they can play in ending the demand for commercial sex. Photo by Ni’Sea Wamubu-Thurman.
The victims
A bus full of rowdy, loud elementary school students drove past Sgt. Theresa Janick standing on a street corner near Lisbon Avenue, flinging jeers out the window as easily as they fired spitballs in class earlier that day. Janick, who has worked undercover for MPD for four years, said that catcalling from passersby, no matter their age, is not unusual.
“Putting myself in those positions and seeing the tip of the iceberg of how (individuals in the sex trade are) treated is heartbreaking,” Janick said. She recollected feeling degraded after being offered items such as a cheeseburger in exchange for sex, and said she is always shocked when solicitors try to barter with her.
From her undercover work and work with victims of human trafficking, Janick said her view of individuals in the sex trade has changed.
“They’re a person. You’re a person,” she said. “That could definitely be me if I had those experiences and circumstances.”
Janick and detective Dawn Jones said that many of the sex workers they encounter were driven to the streets by circumstances. The average age of entry into the commercial sex trade is 13.
“The line between prostitution and human trafficking is very blurred,” Janick said.
Community prosecutor Chris Ladwig agreed that it’s often challenging to distinguish between the two situations.
“That’s the difficulty in prostitution. It’s very difficult to separate coercive behavior,” Ladwig said. “When you start peeling back the layers… you can oftentimes see decades of abuse and victimization.”
Research shows that people experiencing poverty, homelessness, abuse or addictions are more at risk of being trafficked, but survivors and advocates point out that trafficking can affect anybody.
“When I share my story, I make sure to stress that anyone can be trafficked, no matter where you’re from or who you are,” said Laura Johnson, a human trafficking survivor from Milwaukee who now advocates on behalf of both survivors and victims. She wants everyone, especially young women, to be aware of what trafficking looks like.
World-Patterson, Linn and other local advocates said that often someone trusted and loved by the victim, such as a boyfriend or family member, first coerces girls to sell their bodies for commercial sex.
Janick said that she often hears from people that prostitution is a victimless crime. “It’s more like a ‘victim-full’ crime,” she said.
Jones agreed, saying that people justify purchasing commercial sex by rationalizing that the sex workers are consenting adults, but that is rarely the case. She said sex workers are almost always beaten and manipulated.
“Oftentimes customers have no idea how the victims are controlled,” Jones said. “It is a crime that is hidden in plain sight.”
John Doe
Laura Johnson’s brow furrowed as she thought about the customers who purchased sex from her when she was taken from her home in Milwaukee and trafficked from age 14 to 17, and then when she fell back into a life of prostitution.
“It was any kind of person. They can be anyone: blue collar workers, doctors, lawyers, public officials, fathers,” she said.
Police officers, advocates and survivors all agree that johns, or people purchasing sex, come from all walks of life and that many have power or influence. Although no research has been done in Milwaukee specifically, experts such as Vednita Carter say johns are relatively consistent from city to city and year to year.
“It doesn’t change too much,” Carter said. “It’s mainly older white guys from the suburbs that come into the community.”
In 2014, according to data collected by Breaking Free, the majority of sex buyers in Minneapolis were college-educated, married men between the ages of 30 and 49. Sixty-seven percent were white, and 66 percent had children.
Research conducted by the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE) found that 40 percent of buyers were African-American and 36 percent were white in Chicago. Sixty-two percent of buyers made more than $40,000 a year and 53 percent purchased sex regularly.
“A lot of people of affluence and influence are purchasing sex from minors,” Linn said, based on anecdotal evidence from survivors she works with.
When Johnson’s trafficker began to set her up on “dates,” he took photos of her in lingerie and posted them on Craigslist and Backpage. Such sites have become platforms for johns to purchase sex, experts say.
“The Internet has completely changed and proliferated this problem beyond our wildest imagination,” Linn said, explaining how it has streamlined the process of purchasing commercial sex and increased its accessibility. Research conducted by Arizona State University in 2013 shows that one out of every 20 adult males pursues online sex ads.
“It used to be that buyers would have to go out at odd hours of the night … in the community to find victims,” Linn said. “Now they can just go online and find a cellphone number of the person to call and it’s very much like flipping through a book picking out the person you want to be with.”
