Tina Frundt, activist and last year's Fredrick Douglass Freedom Award Winner, speaks to a Cleveland audience about sex trafficking. Photo courtesy of Scott Shaw, The Plain Dealer
Last year’s recipient of the Fredrick Douglass Freedom Award, activist Tina Frundt, made headlines when she returned to Cleveland—the place she had been trafficked into sex slavery when she was just a teenager.
Frundt has been active in the fight against the multimillion dollar sex trafficking industry, starting her own anti-slavery non-profit called Courtney’s House—a place where services and resources are provided to survivors of the trade in Washington, D.C.
Frundt’s visit to Cleveland was covered by local newspaper The Plain Dealer. Check out the article below!
National activist fighting sex trafficking says she was first exploited in Cleveland
By Margaret Bernstein, The Plain Dealer
Tina Frundt doesn’t have happy memories of Cleveland. The former foster child arrived here from Chicago on her 14th birthday, in a car driven by a man who convinced her he loved her when no one else did.
She said she was taken to a house where four other teen girls lived and was raped by two men she didn’t know, beginning what would become more than a decade of being trafficked as a sex slave.
Kate Rosin, who assists Free the Slaves at our Washington, D.C. headquarters and frequently contributes to this blog, recently wrote a beautiful article for SGI Quarterly, about 2010 Freedom Award winner Tina Frundt. Here’s an excerpt:
Tina Frundt was 13 when she first met her trafficker. On her way to a neighborhood store in Chicago one day, a young man–maybe 15 years her senior–struck up a conversation. In the weeks and months that followed, this seemingly affable character, known on the street as “Tiger,” won her affections, listening sympathetically as she recounted her teenage woes, driving her to school and showering her with gifts. “Little did I know,” she reflects today, “he was planting the seeds of manipulation. It did not matter what my parents said to me, they did not understand me, and he was the only one that ‰got me.’” On her 14th birthday, Tiger, who had in fact been monitoring Tina’s behavior closely for a month prior to approaching her, successfully lured her to Ohio.
Read the rest of this article at the SGI website here!
Last month, Vanity Fair published a major investigative story on modern-day slavery in the U.S. ‘Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door’ takes a look at domestic sex slavery—an illicit industry that preys on every-younger girls and boys (the average age that a person becomes a prostitute in the U.S. is 13).
Featuring interviews with several survivors of sex slavery, the article is not for the faint of heart. Writer Amy Fine Collins doesn’t pull any punches when she describes the torture and horrifying abuse endured by the victims. (You can read the article in full here.)
If ever there was a report in the mainstream media that might turn the tide of of pimp glamorization, this might be it. Fine writes:
“Criminals have learned, often in prison—where ‘macking’ memoirs such as Iceberg Slim’s Pimp are best-sellers—that it’s become more lucrative and much safer to sell malleable teens than drugs or guns. A pound of heroin or an AK-47 can be retailed once, but a young girl can be sold 10 to 15 times a day—and a ‘righteous’ pimp confiscates 100 percent of her earnings.” (Emphasis added by me.)
One survivor put it bluntly:
“Pimping… is not cool. A pimp is a wife beater, rapist, murderer, child-molester, drug dealer, and slave driver rolled into one.”
Read: ‘Tina Frundt Tells Congress: “Every Pimp has a Myspace page”‘
The article is well worth a read. It illustrates how a person can be trapped into slavery by invisible bars—their confidence crushed, physically brutalized, their trust in family and institutions broken. There are times when family members enslave other family members. Fine shows how pimps lure their victims by plying them with gifts and attention, then controlling them througah drugs and violence. Often, law enforcement personnel won’t recognize a victim of slavery. Sex slaves are arrested for prostitution or soliciting.
It is important to note, as you read this report, that sex trafficking is not the only form of modern-day slavery. Domestic servitude and forced labor also occur with alarming frequency in the U.S.—as documented in the book The Slave Next Door, written by FTS President Kevin Bales and historian Ron Soodalter. This Vanity Fair piece brings home the fact that slavery is not a remote problem. Our connection to it is very close. It’s happening in our own communities. Because this is an issue that affects us all, it is our responsibility to help end it.
Learn more about what you can do to join the movement to eradicate slavery here.
To help Free the Slaves continue our work, make a donation today.
Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore were presenters at the annual Freedom Awards, honoring the heroes of the global anti-slavery movement.
We are excited to announce that our friends at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking—an L.A.-based anti-slavery organization that gives legal advocacy, shelter, and other direct services to survivors of modern-day slavery—are holding the annual ‘From Slavery to Freedom’ Gala on May 12. The event will be co-chaired by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, who continue to be active in the anti-slavery movement.
Demi and Ashton, who recently founded their own anti-slavery organization, the DNA Foundation were presenters at the most recent Freedom Awards, where they presented the Fredrick Douglass Award to Tina Frundt, an American survivor of sex slavery who now runs her own anti-slavery organization, Courtney’s House. They presented this same award to Sina Vann in 2009. (See the 2010 Freedom Awards in its entirety after the jump!)
Free the Slaves and CAST are both founding members of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), a group of U.S.-based anti-slavery organizations that work together to affect policy and public action to end modern-day slavery.
ATEST recently created a massive PSA campaign in New York’s Time Square: check out the campaign here.
Read more about CAST’s gala here.
And watch the Freedom awards below!
The beautiful Shamere McKenzie, an American survivor of modern-day slavery, presenting the 2010 Fredrick Douglass Freedom Award to mentor and fellow slavery survivor Tina Frundt.
Last weekend, Halogen TV premiered the 2010 Freedom Awards. We live tweeted and watched the broadcast along with the rest of you—it was just as inspiring and exciting to relive as it was to experience first hand. (I got to see what I looked like on camera, as I accepted my Zimmerman Fellowship—that part was not so fun. But I was once again moved to tears watching2010 award winners JEEVIKA, Roger Plant, Tina Frundt and 2008 winner James Kofi Annan stand on stage and speak about freedom.)
If you missed it, you can now watch the show at your leisure, because here it is, below, in its entirety! Scroll down for the footage from the Freedom Rocks, the anti-slavery movement’s best after party featuring Jason Mraz, the Makepeace Brothers, Luc and the Lovingtons, and Ghanaian reggae superstar, and current NAACP Image Award nominee Rocky Dawuni.
Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, who heads the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking has been called America’s “Human Trafficking Czar.” As a federal prosecutor, CdeBaca was lead council in what was the biggest human trafficking case on U.S. soil. His work has contributed to the liberation of hundreds of people.
In past weeks, CdeBaca has indicated an area of particular concern to the anti-slavery movement: the re-victimization slavery survivors by the criminal justice system.
Ambassador CdeBaca recently testified at a hearing on modern day slavery at the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he said the future challenges of his office will be to get law enforcement to recognize human trafficking victims as victims—rather than “merely illegal immigrants or criminals.”
CdeBaca’s statements on this issue were picked up yesterday by the Associated Press, who ran a brief story titled “US: Trafficking victims subject to detention”
In our work, Free the Slaves has seen this happen. One of our 2010 Freedom Award winners, Tina Frundt, was trafficked into sex slavery when she was just 14 years old. When the police came knocking, they didn’t treat her as a victim. They arrested her for prostitution.
Read Tina Frundt’s testimony to Congress, urging the passage of the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act (H.R. 5575)
Another modern day slavery case has happened just stones throw away from the Free the Slaves west coast office. Hawthorne, CA man Leroy Bragg, 34 was arrested last week and charged with human trafficking, soliciting a minor, and pandering and procuring of a minor, among other crimes. Bragg reportedly also goes by aliases Edwards Quincy, and “Snipe King.”
Bragg was arrested on the evening of September 28 in Hawthorne, following a chase through a residential neighborhood, where he “jumped through yards and tried to break into homes to elude police,” the Daily Breeze reports. Bragg was apprehended after an LAPD investigation of South Los Angeles motels suspected of allowing prostitution. Police discovered two minors who said they had been kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Other reports say law enforcement was tipped off when one of the girls contacted the LAPD.
The father of one of the kidnapped girls said in a press conference this morning that his daughter was given a tattoo identifying her as the property the “Snipe King.” Sex traffickers branding their victims is a common practice.
Victims of sex trafficking are often afraid to come forward, fearing arrest and re-victimization. Regarding the arrest of Bragg, LAPD Detective Hector Sanchez said, ”When girls get exploited like this, they have a lot of things to worry about, so when they see the police a lot of times, even though we are there to rescue them, they are trained to dislike us by their pimp.”
2010 Frederick Douglass Freedom Award winner Tina Frundt is a survivor of sex trafficking. She says her trafficker taught her to fear the police, and told her she would be arrested and treated like a criminal. “And everything he said was true,” Tina says, “Everything.”
In a testimony at a recent congressional hearing on the sex trafficking of minors, Frundt described her experience:
“I am a survivor of child sex trafficking. I was 13 years old when I fell in love for the first time—he turned out to be a pimp. I was gang raped, psychologically manipulated, sold for sex, and beaten. I had a broken arm, broken finger, and broken spirit when the police found me at age 15 through a raid. Sadly, they arrested me and I spent one year in juvenile detention. Torture… this is the typical experience of a child sex victim.
Arrest rescued me from my pimp, but it gave me the label of delinquent. Detention gave me a year away from the daily rapes and beatings I was enduring, but it did not provide me with counseling or treatment for the trauma. I spent one year locked up and came out at the end with no referrals for services or assistance to rejoin a teenager’s life in America.”
Frundt is now an anti-slavery activist who founded her own hot line and advocacy organization, Courtney’s House.
Police say Leroy Bragg likely victimized “dozens” of other women and girls. If you have any information, contact Detective Hector Sanchez at 213.486.0957.
An aerial view of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. On October 23, thousands will gather to walk against slavery.
Modern day slavery is the human rights issue of our time. It’s not just a foreign issue—slavery happens right here, in the U.S. Thousands are trafficked into the country every year, and countless more are trafficked within the U.S.
Take a stand against this egregious human rights violation. Join us in the DC Stop Modern Slavery Walk (SMS Walk), scheduled for October 23. Thousands will gather at the National Mall to raise awareness about slavery, and raise money for organizations working to eradicate it.
Free the Slaves is among several anti-slavery organizations that have partnered with the SMS Walk. FTS Freedom Award winner Tina Frundt will be among the speakers.
Stand up to slavery! Register for the walk here.
Craigslist representatives testified at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on sex trafficking of minors this morning. It was the first time the website made a detailed public statement about the recent take down of their “Adult Services” ads. Craigslist removed these ads under pressure from human rights groups who said they facilitated the sex trafficking of minors.
2010 Free the Slaves Freedom Award winner Tina Frundt spoke at the hearing. A survivor of childhood sex trafficking, Frundt is now the founder of Courtney’s House, a Washington, D.C.-based shelter for survivors of sex slavery.
In her statement, Frundt said:
“The Internet has played a part in the sex trafficking of every client at Courtney’s House. Furthermore, every pimp has a MySpace page. Traffickers are learning how to exploit the Internet using Craigslist and Backpage.com, as well as chat rooms where they become as familiar as a classmate to the girls and boys having lengthy ‘conversations’ with them every night safely at home. Something must be done to restore safety to the Internet.”
Craiglist sent two representatives to the hearing: William Clinton Powell, director of customer and law enforcement relations, and Elizabeth McDougall, the website’s legal council. Powell stated that Craigslist has permanently removed the adult services ads from their U.S. site.
McDougall’s statement reiterated the argument that removing the “Adult Services” ads from Craigslist will drive sex trafficking further underground, making it harder to trace and prosecute:
“‘Migration of the relatively small percentage of total U.S. adult services advertising that had been posted on Craigslist to less socially responsible venues uninterested in best practices is an unfortunate step backward in the fight against trafficking and exploitation… In Craigslist, law enforcement and NGO advocates had a highly responsive partner that listened to and was willing to meet with all concerned parties, and worked collaboratively to develop and implement best practices for minimizing such harms in the context of adult services advertising.’” (quote gleaned from Wired.com)
Read Tina Frundt’s testimony in full after the jump. Or, download the PDF here.
Under a barrage of media scrutiny and accusations of facilitating sex trafficking, Craigslist quietly took down the adult services section of their website last week. Other than emblazoning a bold “censored” bar over the adult services link on their website—which they took down a few days later without statement—Craigslist has been largely silent on the matter.
But on Wednesday, Craigslist will break its silence at a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. The hearing will explore the role of online ad services in the exploitation and trafficking of minors. Craigslist’s Director of Customer Service and Law Enforcement Relations, William Clint Powell will testify alongside federal lawmakers and representatives from law enforcement and human rights groups.
Among the panelists will be Tina Frundt, winner of the 2010 Frederick Douglass Freedom Award. Frundt—herself a survivor of childhood sex slavery—is the founder Courtney’s House, an organization that helps sex trafficking victims transition back into the community.
Read Tina Frundt’s journey from slavery to survival.
Some have called Craigslist the “Walmart of online sex trafficking,” saying the website facilitates illegal activities, and does not properly safe guard the public. But others argue that censoring the adult services ads on Craigslist—by far the most popular personal ads website in the country—will drive sex trafficking further underground, making it harder to trace and prosecute.
