By Ruby Thomas, Record Staff Writer
Girls who have been abused or neglected and those who live in group homes are considered most at risk of being bought and sold by traffickers.
While these circumstances increase the risk factor, any child can fall victim, according to Julie Horen, who facilitates a new anti-trafficking program sponsored by Catholic Charities of Louisville.
During a sting operation at a local hotel last year, she said, authorities rescued a boy who attended a Louisville-area Catholic high school.
The new program, called My Life My Choice, is a national initiative adapted by Catholic Charities’ Victims of Human Trafficking Program to prevent the exploitation of girls in Kentucky.
Catholic Charities launched the program, funded by a federal grant, in Kentucky last December. At the heart of this effort is a spiritual work of mercy — comforting the sorrowful.
“Kentucky was seeing a rise in human trafficking, but there were no resources,” said Horen.
The program trains individuals to work with girls who are at high risk of falling victim to trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation. The program is also designed to help girls who are survivors of exploitation learn how to avoid becoming victims again.
It’s designed for girls ages 12 to 18 — the average age of a human trafficking victim in Kentucky is 11 to 14 years old, said Horen.
According to data from local and federal law enforcement agencies, as well as from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, 332 victims of human trafficking have been identified in Kentucky since 2008. Close to 200 were children and 79 percent were trafficked for sex.
Since March, 55 people across the commonwealth — 16 in Jefferson County — have been trained to teach the My Life My Choice program.
Horen said the trainees included therapists, volunteers from church groups and individuals who’ve worked with teens in the past.
The new trainees are now leading eight trafficking prevention classes across the state with approximately 65 girls enrolled. Horen noted that the program was designed for girls, but said a similar program is being developed for boys, as they are equally at risk.
Girls who enter the program are educated over the course of 10 weeks about how to identify situations or people that may lead them to become victims of trafficking. They’re also taught that improper use of the Internet may make them vulnerable.
Participants also hear from a survivor of trafficking and a law-enforcement officer who, Horen said, helps debunk myths that glamorize the commercial sex industry.
The officer also serves as a contact in the event any of the girls find themselves in a situation where they need help from law enforcement, she said.
The classes also have a therapeutic component, which allows the participants to talk about and work through past abuse and trauma, Horen noted. The classes involve “lots of dialogue” and are designed to build the participants’ self esteem and self awareness.
“It’s about building them up to believe they are better than what people are asking them to do,” said Horen. “What I saw during my years of work in social services were children who thought they had no worth.”
Horen said she will see the program as a success even if it helps one person, noting, “God sees one person as worthy enough.”
She also hopes that awareness of the program will lead to people feeling compassion for victims of human trafficking. That could take some time, though. Even state law didn’t see it that way a few years ago.
In 2013 the Kentucky General Assembly passed the Human Trafficking Victims Rights Act, which included a safe harbor provision stating that children found in these situations should be screened and have services offered to them.
That means, when a child is discovered to be the victim of trafficking, state law kicks in to protect the victim, said Marissa Castellanos, manager of Catholic Charities’ Victims of Human Trafficking Program.
The services offered to victims include shelter, medical and mental healthcare, advocacy and immigration and interpretation services, if the victim is a foreign national.
Castellanos said that the passage of the act has led to more awareness of trafficking. And now more residential facilities that house children are using a screening process to identify victims, she said.
The Department of Juvenile Justice, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and court designated workers are also using this screening process, which Catholic Charities helped to develop.
Meanwhile, Horen said, her long-term goal is to get the My Life My Choice program into local schools. This would be a program tailored to the school that would be used in study hall and later integrated into the school’s curriculum.
The program, she explained, can be tailored for use with groups that are not considered high risk.
If individuals or groups in the community would like to support the program, Horen said they can do so by writing encouraging letters to girls who are taking part in the program.
The program is also in need of such items as composition note books, name tags, pens and paper.
For more information about the program, contact Julie Horen at 873-2566, ext. 139. For more information about human trafficking, visit rescueandrestoreky.org.
