treatment are important, too. “The preventative
efforts on the front end — that’s how we’re going
to end this problem,” Holton says.
No Funds
Ness and Looking Glass CEO Craig
Opperman say that Looking Glass’s Station
7 is the only Eugene facility they’re aware of
that has specialized care to address the needs
of minors who have been trafficked for sex.
Looking Glass also has facilities that work with
young adults.
Opperman says that while Looking Glass has
many different funding sources, their money
comes mostly from federal grants and the Lane
County Human Services Commission. But as
revenues to the federal and county government
dwindle or dry up, that loss is passed on to local
community services like Looking Glass, which
now faces close to a 30 percent reduction in
funding.
“We’ve got shelter spaces and trained staff
that can really help to work with kids on letting
them know they could and should find a way out
and testify,” Opperman says. “But we don’t want
to tell them that if we can’t follow through.”
Part of persuading sex trafficking victims
that leaving their traffickers is a good idea is
giving them alternative ways to meet basic
needs like shelter and food, and also showing
them that it’s safe to leave their traffickers.
Looking Glass tries to provide these needs as
well as offer safety, but it costs Looking Glass
money that is getting harder to come by.
Opperman says, “There can be people
waiting to get in but we don’t have the resources
available. If someone comes to you three or
four times and you don’t have spaces available,
they can stop coming.”
Schwarz says that when people who have
been trafficked for sex come to Looking Glass,
the first priority is to immediately meet their
basic needs and start building trust. After this,
the goal is to introduce more support services,
case management and counseling services. “It
takes so long to build trust with that population
because of the trauma that’s involved,” she says.
Schwarz says it’s difficult to keep track of
statistics and emotional progress, because after
their basic needs are met victims often leave
town to ensure their own safety.
Just as laws have been changing to address
those selling sex as likely victims, Schwarz says
Looking Glass is starting to work with EPD
to bring underage sex workers to its facility
instead of lockup whenever possible.
She says that even though financial resources
are tight across the board, funding help for sex-
trafficked people under 18 is slightly easier than
funding it for those who are legally adults. That’s
a problem, Schwarz says, because sometimes
people first trafficked in their early or mid teens
don’t seek help until they are discovered by law
enforcement or begin to believe, against the
odds, that there might be a way out — at which
point they’re too old to be considered child
victims of trafficking.
“The ones that we’re able to ID well are
the young adults,” in the 16 to 22 year-old age
range, Schwarz says. “The 18 year olds we see
started when they were 15 or 16.”
Young adults who have been sex trafficked
often face a greater stigma, Schwarz says,
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because there’s some sense that they must
have been complicit in their trafficking.
“Society is much more likely to think of them as
a prostitute,” she says. “Society definitely looks
at that differently, and their situations aren’t
necessarily that different.”
A.K. was eventually arrested for prostitution
in Portland, when she was still 15, and she
agreed to testify in exchange for help from the
police. In the interim, Jackson had made about
$45,000 by trafficking A.K. He didn’t allow her
to keep any of the money, and he continued
to beat her approximately three times a week,
according to documents.
She moved to a safe house outside of Oregon
and testified against Jackson, who received a
40-year prison sentence in June, three years
after A.K. was discovered but only a short time
after she became a legal adult.
Jackson’s record for assault on women goes
back to 1992 — the year before his victim was
born. Before his conviction for trafficking A.K.,
he’d been convicted of 26 crimes, including
harassment, attempted unlawful imprisonment
and multiple assaults against women. Although
there’s no evidence he was trafficking the
women he was convicted of assaulting,
sometimes police do arrive at a situation that
looks like domestic violence and later discover
sex trafficking.
Schwarz says that despite media coverage
discussing how trafficking works, people don’t
realize that the crisis is local and constant. “It’s
here, it’s happening here,” she says. “You see
a lot of very sensationalized stories about sex
trafficking, but there’s every day trafficking,
and all youth are vulnerable.”
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Willamette
Eugene, OR
(541) 342-5191
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