🎥🎞🎬📽 Urban Street Science w/Tony Ray Harvey: Sex Trafficking Prevention Workshop
.Sex Trafficking Prevention Workshop held in Sacramento stresses importance of understanding the illegal business of the sex trade from the victims' perspective. #SexTraffickingPrevention #SB14
.Sacramento, Calif.
.Publicity Agents photo art by T. Ray Harvey. September 9, 2023.
Urban Street Science w/Tony Ray Harvey:
Sex Trafficking Prevention Workshop
🎨 🎥🎞🎬📽🎙✍️
Photo Art, Text, and Footage by T. Ray Harvey
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Sacramento, Calif. — Leia Schenk, a Sex Trafficking Prevention Specialist, provided a comprehensive, free-training workshop at the Sacramento Youth Center to equip members of the community about ways they can hinder sex trafficking. ✍️
Her presentation was extremely powerful, engaging, and at times tearful. ✍️
"This is raw, informational, and straightforward. I don't sugarcoat anything and I don't make it look pretty," Schenk shared with PA's Street Science and the detailed workshop. "We go out and implement theses measures. Preventive measures are so important because the signs are there. "This doesn't just happen. There's a process that happens for your child to actually get out on the street and fully be involved in trafficking."
Hosted by Roberts Family Development Center (RFDC) on Sept. 9, 2023, Schenk revealed what the signs are, what makes victims vulnerable, how it happens, the importance understanding the sex trade from the victims' perspective, and how to recognize the characteristics of traffickers. Within two hours, the attendees gained a plethora of knowledge of how stop trafficking before it starts. ✍️
The United States Department of Justice describes sex trafficking as the "recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age."
Schenk painted a grim picture of how minors are lured into the sex trade, many naive and not recognizing themselves as being victims because they have been manipulated and groomed by a trafficker. On average, minors between the ages of 12 and 14 are pushed into the sex trade. ✍️
"They are out here as young as 11 years old," Schenk said. "I'm out here four, sometimes five times a week with these women and girls. What I see I cannot unsee. There's a whole industry behind this that cause our children to not be in their homes and not be in safe places."
They are trafficked by someone they know, a family member, or a romantic partner. The young victims are mostly runaways, sexually abused as a child, or from broken homes. ✍️
Schenk said the sex trafficking awareness training is facilitated by Project TAKE (Trafficking, Awareness, Knowledge and Empowerment). It is a subsidiary of the non-profit, EMPACT Community Organization. ✍️
The workshop provides an important foundation for individuals, first responders, law enforcement, service providers, educators, businesses, parents youth/teens, college students and others to recognize the indicators of sexual exploitation and learn how to appropriately respond. ✍️
"What I did was create Project TAKE as an education curriculum," Schenk said. "I believe education is the key to prevention. While we have a couple of organizations here in the county that deal with victims and survivors we had nothing by way of prevention. We believe in Project TAKE that with awareness and knowledge you are empowered to protect yourself and others. It's just that simple."
According to a February 2023 report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), between 2015 and 2021, the share of human trafficking cases that involved sex trafficking grew from 87% to 89% in California and from 85% to 88% nationally. ✍️
Females — young and old — make up the majority of trafficked victims. In 2015, 91% of trafficked people in California and 89% nationally were women. By 2021, those shares had fallen to 86% and 85%, respectively, according to PPIC. The city and county of Sacramento is one of the top locations for sex trafficking, Schenk shared. ✍️
Roy Larry, Sr. Pastor at Sacramento's Potter House Church, attended Schenk's workshop. He said that a member of his church was involved in sex trafficking but he didn't see the signs until he was told about the situation. ✍️
Schenk's passionate delivery opened his eyes and ears. ✍️
"I was ignorant but now I am no longer because my eyes are open. Now I see the signs," Larry said. "Thank God for this message."
.For more information about Project TAKE's Educational Curriculum in Sex Trafficking Prevention, interested parties should contact Schenk at (916) 801-3890 or send and email to empactorg1@gmail.com.
🎙📢🎥🎞📽😏📸🗞📰🗞✍️ 🚔 🕵️♂️ 🚨
.Article and Footage by Tony Ray Harvey
#TonyRayHarvey #StreetScience #SexTraffickingPrevention #SexTrafficking #DOJ #Empact #PublicityAgents #SocialJustice.📰
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