Lanie’s school bus dropped her off every day at the strip club where her mother worked. When she was younger, Lanie simply grabbed a bite to eat and did her homework while her mom worked. However, one day when she was 10 years old, the strip club lacked enough employees, so they “recruited” Lanie to help service the customers. Lanie became a victim of the commercial sex industry — just another number amid the cold statistics of human trafficking.>
We think of human trafficking as a Third World problem. Or, if it is in the United States, we think it’s only in cities like New York City and San Francisco — surely not in South Carolina. Sadly, this is simply not true. The I-85 corridor cuts right through the heart of the Upstate. That corridor runs between two of the worst cities for human trafficking — Atlanta and Charlotte. An ever-increasing level of human exploitation threatens our communities and our state as victims and traffickers travel between Georgia and North Carolina.
Human trafficking is modern-day slavery. It involves the use of force, fraud or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. The fastest-growing crime in the world, human trafficking is a $150 billion industry, with $99 billion being spent on sex trafficking. South Carolina is well on its way to losing the battle against the human trafficking industry.
After suffering for 14 years as a sex slave, Lanie is now a second-generation survivor of sex trafficking, and she rescued her mother from the industry in 2002. Can we help others like Lanie and her mom? Can we stop any further encroachment into South Carolina? What can we do to end human trafficking?
According to research, and from listening to those rescued out of the lifestyle, the number one way to end human trafficking is community awareness. That’s why the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s Christian Life and Public Affairs Committee is partnering with Switch, an organization that fights human trafficking in the Upstate, and Miracle Hill in hosting a free event called the Upstate Human Trafficking Awareness Summit.
Designed specifically for pastors and church staff, foster care parents, educators, child care workers, and all mandated reporters of abuse, the purpose of this event is to bring awareness and train participants to recognize the signs of abuse and human trafficking. Participants will learn how to report any suspicious behavior.
Speakers include South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson; Jonathan Bastoni with SLED and the federal Task Force on Human Trafficking; Suzy Cole, a lawyer and executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Center in Spartanburg; Zaina Green, executive director of Switch; and Frank Shock, deputy director of Spartanburg County DSS. The event is scheduled for Sept. 28 from 1-5 p.m. at Spartanburg First Baptist Church.
If you want to be part of the solution in the fight to end human trafficking, please register online at https://goo.gl/GMhVJj.
— Hannah Miller is a member of the Christian Life and Public Affairs Committee of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. She is a member of New Prospect Baptist Church in Inman and co-hosts a Christian worldview talk-radio program in the Upstate.