Human trafficking is not an issue that happens just in movies or foreign countries — it happens right here in Charleston County.
“Human trafficking is an international problem solved at a local level,” said Lauren Knapp of Johns Island, co-founder and co-chair of the Tri-County Human Trafficking Task Force (HTTF).
The Tri-County HTTF has operated an interview-based screening process through the Al Cannon Detention Center since April 2021 to help identify potential victims of human trafficking who have been detained for various offenses, said Brooke Burris of Mount Pleasant, co-founder and co-chair of the Tri-County HTTF.
The goal is to assess the prevalence of human trafficking in the tri-county area and prevent victims from being treated as offenders, she said. Traffickers often will threaten or force their victims to commit crimes as a control mechanism to make the victim believe they have no one to turn to for help.
The HTTF research and data subcommittee, led by The Citadel’s Dr. Leslie Hill and Dr. M. Kristen Hefner, formulated the tool to identify potential victims of both labor and sex trafficking in partnership with co-chairs Burris and Knapp and The Formation Project, a local nonprofit.
Over two years ending in April, the screening tool helped to identify 20 victims of human trafficking, according to a Tri-County HTTF report prepared for the Charleston City Paper. The screening process first flagged 195 individuals. Then the Formation Project conducted 41 supplemental interviews. Overall, 49% of the individuals interviewed were confirmed victims of human trafficking.
“The goal right now is to validate the tool,” Knapp said. “[Once we] have enough data to validate the tool, [it] then can be replicated in other facilities — that is our hope.”
Identifying victims
There are key aspects that define human trafficking, Burris said. Human trafficking is work or sex acts exchanged for something of value and the situation is brought on due to force, fraud or coercion.
The human trafficking screening tool uses seven questions designed to flag possible victims. Once they are flagged, the Formation Project confirms victimization and helps determine eligible resources.
“We are survivor-founded and survivor-led, meaning we elevate survivor voices in all that we do,” said Mattie Critchfield Dodds, Formation Project program director. “We provide emergency shelter, comprehensive case management, operate a transitional home and provide the structure for a supportive peer community of survivors.”
The Tri-County HTTF is a comprehensive organization with nine subcommittees for adult services, child services, health care, law enforcement, legal innovations, prevention and education, research and data, survivor advisory and refugee services. To report suspicions of human trafficking and find resources, visit TriCountyHTTF.org.
“The Tri-County Human Trafficking Task Force was established in 2018 and is the official regional task force in our area named by the S.C. Attorney General,” Burris said. “The task force was created to connect and coordinate different agencies combating human trafficking in the Tri-County area so we can better serve survivors.”
Trafficking misconceptions, examples
“The media has often perpetuated the narrative that human trafficking looks like a young woman being kidnapped by a stranger, held against her will and trafficked in foreign countries,” Dodds said. “While this may occur sometimes, it is not what the majority of these stories look like.
“It’s important that our community educates themselves on what human trafficking is and isn’t,” she said. “This way we can better identify the issue and thereby help survivors find safety and freedom.”
Human trafficking happens to males and females of all ages, she said, and it does not always mean someone is restrained against their will. Mental manipulation is very powerful, and traffickers use it to their advantage. The majority of human traffickers are not strangers. Many survivors are trafficked by people they know personally.
It’s important to distinguish that minors cannot consent to commercial sex and labor, Dodds said, and so force, fraud or coercion do not have to be present for the situation to be considered trafficking of a minor.
Victims may not realize they’re a victim because they see the situation as a business agreement, Burris said. “Coercion is oftentimes threats and mental manipulation … So the trafficker is telling them, ‘You’re a criminal. You’re a prostitute. You decided to do this on your own. You’re doing this to feed your own drug habit.’ When actually, the trafficker got them hooked on drugs … [Victims] are trained to think it’s their fault.”
Often coercion can be debt bondage, where the victim can’t possibly work off the living expenses, Burris said. Or the trafficker tells the victim their visa is only for a specific occupation and if they quit, law enforcement will arrest them.
Burris and Knapp gave a few examples of cases they have come across in South Carolina, including a couple from Columbia who took jobs in construction, and their employer had control of their identification, transportation and housing. Another alleged case involved a mother keeping her children out of school to clean a movie theater in Dorchester County.
“With social media, [human trafficking] is so much easier,” Burris said. “You can groom and access so many potential victims. Then you can communicate and market with a really wide audience. Our culture is rife with [trafficking] to be happening, and it is happening very casually and consistently.
“Humans have innate, intrinsic value and dignity, and the lie of human trafficking is that they don’t. That lie gets so ingrained in their head that they begin to believe it. [We are] fighting against that lie.”
Resources
Identifying victims is only the first step, Burris said. Providing an adequate response, which includes comprehensive care and connection to resources, is the next step.
The Formation Project has been offering individualized services for human trafficking victims since 2020, Dodds said. Case workers connect survivors to trusted community partners. “We offer a safe space for survivors to receive trauma-informed services,” she said.
“Human trafficking is a criminal enterprise that occurs in every community in the country,” Dodds said. “No county is untouched. Most of the survivors we work with were born and raised here and trafficked here.”
The nonprofit’s goal is to build a resilient community, free from exploitation.
“We believe that survivors are the experts in their recovery,” she said, “and we want them to have the platform to help their peers heal.”
• Visit TheFormationProject.org for more information about the nonprofit and its services.
• Additional adult human trafficking resources include I Am Voices based in Goose Creek and Doors to Freedom based in Summerville.
• To contact the South Carolina Human Trafficking Task Force, visit Scag.gov/Human-Trafficking. The Department of Social Services hotline is 1-888-227-3487 (CARE4US). The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-888-373-7888.
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