America’s Child Sex Trafficking Victims Would Be Safer Testifying Against the Mafia a State of Emergency

America’s Child Sex Trafficking Victims Would Be Safer Testifying Against the Mafia a State of Emergency

In recent years, street gangs have taken control of America’s child sex trafficking, reports HuffingtonPost.

According to media the risk of a child testifying against one or more of these criminals is now life threatening. Threats of murder are real and the well-meaning families who help these children are now reporting gang members showing up at their homes and threatening them with guns.

Such was the case recently in Spokane, Washington when a pastor and his wife tried to assist a young girl running from a gang – running for her life.

Spokane, Washington, not unlike other cities in the U.S., is heavily populated with gang members who exploit children for prostitution and other crimes. While Spokane hosts impressive law enforcement and prosecutor figures, they lack adequate resources for victim services.

Congress has provided minimal victim advocacy resources for child sex trafficking victims and state and federal victim advocates are naive as to the circumstances in which the child sex trafficking victim must survive and lack an understanding of how the sex trafficking criminal networks operate.

Victim advocacy by anyone other than law enforcement is ineffective and can be dangerous for the victim/witness.

To provide effective victim advocacy for the American child sex trafficking victim/witness, the advocate must have special knowledge of gang activities, relationships, hang-outs, meeting places and the forms of gang communications.

Most victim advocates do not understand that gangs operate with a community of helpers, relatives, friends, or younger people who must prove their loyalties by assuming risk type positions.

Gangs, not unlike other criminal networks, have lookouts at airports, train stations and bus stations. Members of gangs and their family and friends drive taxi cabs, work as security guards, parking lot attendants and have access to almost all social settings. Some are bartenders, servers and some just hang out on the corners as lookouts.

A child victim arriving in a city by airplane, bus or train for the purposes of testifying against a gang member must be met at arrival by law enforcement, if not escorted when traveling, and escorted to the hotel.

Hotels for the victim/witnesses must not be on the ground level or in courtyards where someone can approach a room door and bust a window or break in the door. The hotels should be high rises and if possible require a room key to use the elevator.

Hotels for the victim/witness must have proper security guards, and business, military, and government patrons who would easily recognize a gang member entering the hotel FOR ANY PURPOSE.

Law enforcement should escort the child to the court room and then to the airport to assure the child victim/witness departs town safely.

The family of the child sex trafficking victim/witness should also be afforded protections. Often times there are younger siblings in the family who need protection. Adequate protection of the victim/witness’s family requires, at minimum, relocation fees for housing, truck rentals for moving and gas.

The United States government has a system in place to protect and relocate witnesses who testify against the mafia and this system needs to be in place for America’s child sex trafficking victims.

The Federal Witness Protection Program provides for the relocation and protection of a witness or potential witness of the federal or state government in an official proceeding concerning organized crime or other serious offenses.

Contrary to existing victim advocate programs for America’s trafficked children, the Federal Witness Protection Program equips law enforcement to provide for the security, health and safety of government witnesses and their immediate family, whose lives are in danger as a result of their testimony against drug traffickers, terrorists, organized crime members and other major criminals.

Witnesses and their families receive new identities, housing, and subsistence for basic living expenses, medical care, job training and employment assistance. Witnesses are permitted to return to their original identities or voluntarily leave the program at any given time.

The federal government also gives grants to the states to enable them to provide similar services.

The U.S. Marshals provide 24 hour protection to all witnesses during pretrial, trial and other court appearances.

The esteemed Lenny DePaul, recently retired Commander with the U.S. Marshals Service-NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force, stated, “it is paramount to provide adequate protection for any cooperating witness where a threat exists, prior, during and after their testimony. The prosecuting attorney should evaluate and require such protection by a Law Enforcement agency.”

Federal sex trafficking laws allow for life in prison if the victim is under 14 years of age. In some cases, sex traffickers receive 20, 40, 60 or 80 years for torture and kidnapping. These are serious penalties that require protection of children who are critical figures in the prosecution of dangerous sex trafficking gang members.

This is a State of Emergency: violent gang domination of child prostitution creates imminent harm to America’s child sex trafficking victim. It is only a matter of time before an American child is murdered for testifying against a sex trafficker.

In the current state of affairs, America’s child sex trafficking victim would be afforded more protections testifying against the mafia than a gang member pimp.

Congress has the power to alert pimp/traffickers they will not tolerate the torture or murder of child sex trafficking victims who are witnesses in pre-trials and trials against anyone who has exploited them for prostitution – this situation is a human-made disaster and Congress has the power to act.