{"id":1317628,"date":"2020-01-10T17:36:59","date_gmt":"2020-01-11T00:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=992538"},"modified":"2020-01-13T08:59:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T15:59:52","slug":"a-solution-to-human-trafficking-stop-the-men-who-pay-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/a-solution-to-human-trafficking-stop-the-men-who-pay-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"A solution to human trafficking? Stop the men who pay for it"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Meghan Lundstrom speaks at the Battlement to the Bells Anti-Human Trafficking Summit Jan. 10, 2020.<\/strong>
Thomas Phippen \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The demand for commercial sex is higher on the Western Slope than anywhere else in Colorado, according to Dr. Angie Henderson.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s been the case since 2015, when Henderson\u2019s firm Avery Research and Consulting began studying the demand side of human sex trafficking.<\/p>\n

Henderson presented her research to the 150 people attending the second annual Battlement to the Bells Anti-Trafficking Summit Friday at Colorado Mountain College\u2019s Rifle Campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Western slope is a big region, it\u2019s a little bit skewed so we have to take that into account, but it\u2019s consistently over the course of the last four years been neck and neck with northern Colorado and Fort Collins,\u201d a far more populated area, Henderson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLot and lots of men want to buy sex out here,\u201d Henderson said.<\/p>\n

To track demand, Avery places false adds on websites used by people seeking commercial sex, often with underage victims.<\/p>\n

Going after those who want to purchase sex doesn\u2019t have to be antagonistic and or humiliate would-be sex buyers, according to Henderson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI truly believe, based on the research that I\u2019ve done and the men that I\u2019ve spoken with, that if they knew (the trauma of human trafficking), they wouldn\u2019t do it,\u201d Henderson said.<\/p>\n

Educating men \u2013 and women \u2013 about what victims of human trafficking experience could be enough to reduce the number of people seeking to purchase sex.<\/p>\n

Demand is important because of the overlap between people seeking to pay for sex and human trafficking.<\/p>\n

\u201cTruly the only way to end this issue is to decrease demand,\u201d said summit speaker Megan Lundstrom, who has studied finance and sociological theory, and is the executive director anti-trafficking nonprofit Free Our Girls.<\/p>\n

After years of analyzing human trafficking like any other industry, Lundstrom concluded that if selling sex were unprofitable, pimps would be less likely to do it.<\/p>\n

According to Lundstrom\u2019s calculations, the risk of arrest and conviction for trafficking are laughably low.<\/p>\n

For example, the federal maximum fine for drug trafficking is $10 million dollars, while the maximum for human trafficking is $1.5 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is cheaper to sell humans than it is to sell drugs,\u201d Lundstrom said.<\/p>\n

The risk of arrest and prison is also low for traffickers. In 2016, 994 people were arrested nationwide for trafficking crimes, and 470 were found guilty, according to Lundstrom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe odds of ever getting arrested are extremely small, and then if that case makes it to the courtroom, they\u2019ve got a 50 percent chance that they\u2019re not going to be found guilty of trafficking crimes,\u201d Lundstrom said.<\/p>\n

One reason human traffickers don\u2019t face frequent convictions is the people directing the criminal enterprise \u201cknow how to insulate themselves from the dirty work,\u201d said Jeff Cheney, 9th<\/sup> District Attorney.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy to get the Johns, the demanders, if you can catch them. It\u2019s the leaders behind the organization that escape the law,\u201d Cheney said.<\/p>\n

Another problem on the prosecution side is whether a jury will believe the victim.<\/p>\n

A juror may have questions like, \u201c\u2019Why didn\u2019t she (the victim) leave, why is she a drug user? I don\u2019t understand this victim\u2019s behavior, she\u2019s committing crimes.\u2019 That\u2019s blaming the victim, and when you blame the victim, it causes you reservation as to their credibility as a witness,\u201d Cheney said.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meghan Lundstrom speaks at the Battlement to the Bells Anti-Human Trafficking Summit Jan. 10, 2020.Thomas Phippen \/ Post Independent The demand for commercial sex is higher on the Western Slope than anywhere else in Colorado, according to Dr. Angie Henderson. That\u2019s been the case since 2015, when Henderson\u2019s firm Avery Research and Consulting began studying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 05:43:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1317654,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317628\/revisions\/1317654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}