I haven't written in a while. Unfortunately the motivation for
writing now is a local case of trafficking. Since I moved to Swanton,
Vermont, away from the city (by Vermont standards, anyway) of South
Burlington a few months ago, I thought that I had moved away from the
high-danger zone for trafficking. Of course, I knew better: trafficking
can happen anywhere at any time. The contributing factors of human
trafficking exist everywhere: poverty, desperation, humans--who have the
potential to be monsters.
Last week, a Vermont news
story broke here in Franklin County, Vermont. A state senator named
Norm McAllister, a resident of the town over from Swanton, was taken
from the statehouse in Montpelier into custody on charges of sexual
assault and prohibited acts, aka human trafficking. McAllister is
accused of taking advantage of his tenants and women who worked for
him. Some might classify what McAllister did as a "light" form of human
trafficking. He did not physically enslave anyone nor did he threaten
anyone's life. Yet that doesn't lighten the monstrosity of what
McAllister did: coercing women to perform unwanted sexual acts so that
they wouldn't be kicked out onto the streets. I have spent a lot of
time thinking and reflecting on what pushes someone to do what
McAllister did and so on some level I understand it, no matter how
disgusting and appalling it is. What I cannot understand, however, is
that in public McAllister was an advocate for the poor, saying earlier
in his legislative career that he is concerned for the poor because he
sees how difficult it is for his tenants to pay the rent. Essentially
what he was saying, then, is that his reason for caring for the poor is
that he takes sexual advantage of his tenants because they struggle to
pay the rent.
No matter how often I have written and
said that people who use and abuse slaves are humans just like the rest
of us, meaning mostly that we should reflect inward on ourselves rather
than only lash out at perpetrators, and no matter how often I have said
that users and abusers will publicly look and act like the rest of us, I
have come to a point where I give up. I don't give up in trying to
fight human trafficking but I give up in trying to understand. I do not
understand how a person can publicly say, "I see my tenants struggle to
pay the rent and I care for them," and then privately take advantage of
them, forcefully invade their bodies, and perhaps irreparably harm
their mental and emotional space. I have been going around saying the
last few days, "I understand a lot of things, but I don't understand how
he could do that." I do not understand. Many times I have written
that we humans often create a Jekyll/Mr. Hyde scenario in which our
public and private lives are vastly different and our public mind almost
doesn't know what the private self is doing. I can almost guarantee
you that to some extent you do the same. I certainly do. In that
sense, I understand; I understand McAllister's motivation; but I do not
understand how he could publicly express concern for his tenants while
actively abusing them and trying to prostitute them.
I
suppose what this should teach us is that we can never know when we
might encounter an abuser. So many times I have said that trafficking
can and probably does exist right around the corner from where we live
(even if we need to define "corner" as forty minutes away), but today I
want to focus on the persons involved. Often we think of trafficking as
an object: some thing that exists. When we think that way, it's
easier for us to believe that we and our loved ones will never become a
victim. Certainly, I don't want to scare us into thinking we'll become
a victim, but the likelihood of our becoming a victim probably
increases when we think, "If I only avoid that dangerous neighborhood,
that spa, that place..." Human trafficking is not a thing and it is not
a place. Human trafficking involves persons and is perpetrated by
persons. Many of the 27 million slaves--trafficked persons--in the
world were lured in by a person (I would say all except that some are
still born into slavery like on U.S. plantations in the old days and
some are kidnapped without any warning signs). And because the
perpetrators will publicly look and act like the rest of us, we should
be aware of how prevalent human trafficking is and should be aware of
our resources. Victims are no longer treated as criminals. Victims
shouldn't be embarrassed to seek help, even when the perpetrator seems
powerful, like Sen. McAllister. We should feel confident to call 9-1-1
and, better, we should know these phone numbers: 888-3737-888 (National
Human Trafficking Hotline); 888-984-8626 (Vermont Human Trafficking
Hotline); and 2-1-1 (United Way of Vermont). We should also review this
website: Polaris Trafficking Resources.
If we find ourselves coerced or duped into a violating situation by
someone that we thought we could trust or someone who has power over us,
then we should know where to go. Thank God that the victims of Sen.
McAllister eventually sought help in the right places.
While
my main theme usually is that we need to look inward to make sure that
we don't ever use or abuse, or somehow contribute to human trafficking,
and thereby eliminate trafficking one person at a time, I'm now thinking
that there may be some people who are so far gone that such a tactic
won't work. If that's true, then the rest of us need to be aware of our
resources to help ourselves and help others from "a crime so
monstrous."
(It is, of course, important to note that Sen. McAllister has not been proven guilty.
He has plead not guilty. A charge or accusation does not equal guilt,
no matter how strong the evidence. A court of law must decide guilt.
However, in this case, a determination of guilt should not be necessary
for us to realize how important it is to know our resources as we grow
aware that trafficking can and does occur in all places and at the hands
of all sorts of people.)
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