The trucking industry is one place where caring people on the front lines can make a huge impact to end trafficking. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, welcome Kendis Paris, National Director of Truckers Against Trafficking. Kendis speaks about the important work her organization is doing to raise awareness about trafficking and why the trucking industry has an important role.

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Transcript

Dave: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast my name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues to be a voice and make a difference in ending human trafficking.  And Sandie I am so excited today that we have a guest with us who, I know we’re both going to learn a lot from, and our audience is going to learn a lot from.  Through a lens that I don’t think we’ve looked at much, we’ve talked about some of the things that we are going to talk about in the episode today a little bit but this is just a really neat thing that is going on that can help us all to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking.

Sandie: Well the Global Center for Women and Justice welcome you Kendis Paris to our Ending Human Trafficking podcast and why don’t we start off with how you got involved with fighting trafficking in the trucking industry.  So, tell us a little bit about how you started out doing this?  This doesn’t sound like the average soccer mom kind of job.

Kendis: (Laughs) No, No, really ironically it was my mother Lynn Thompson who came up with the initial idea for Truckers Against Trafficking.  Uh, my neighbor and I had put on a Human Trafficking Awareness Conference in Denver, Colorado; and she attended it and one of the workshop leaders was talking about training gas station employees along our nation’s highways. And she said that combined it with the statistic that the innocence lost, uh the innocence lost things that the FBI do between 2004 and 2009 because this is when she came up with the idea was in 2009. They were finding women and children being forced into prostitution in numerous places. But one of them was among our nation’s highways.  So, she combined that with the gas station idea and said we really should be targeting the trucking industry.  And that is really how TAT was born, and uh at the time our family had a ministry called “Chapter 61 Ministries”, uh was a very small mission which was to fight the exploitation of human beings worldwide, yes very small, very reachable.  Uh, but TAT became its primary initiative and that started in ’09 of March.  And uh became its own fiber one C3 just last September 2011.  And that’s, that’s really how the whole thing got going.

Sandie: So, let’s start with um, I saw the video, the training video that Truckers Against Trafficking produced, and the story in it; the real winner in the story is recognizing what one person can do to change another person’s life.  And I, I just I want to know more about Trucker Willie, can you tell us that story?

Kendis:  Absolutely.  Uh, so Sherri and her cousin Krissy, uh 15, 14-year-old kidnapped off the side of the road.  They were actually forced into prostitution and housed across town in Iowa, excuse me, Ohio.  And about a week into that their pimp recruits a trucker unfortunately, to transport them across state lines where they end up at a truck stop.  And Sherri is actually the one working the lot with an older woman.  And uh, and Krissy her cousin was actually in the car with her pimp.  And they uh go from truck to truck and they got to Trucker Willie, Trucker Willie’s cab.  And the older woman was much older; she was only in her twenties, early twenties.  And Willie realizes, hey they’re too young, they shouldn’t be, this shouldn’t be happening period. Makes the 911 call.  Uh, Law Enforcement arrives on the scene, and um proceeds to get Sherri away from the uh, older woman and that’s when she’s able to tell him, I’ve been kidnapped.  Earlier she’s saying, No I’m 18, cause she’s in the presence of the older woman.  And uh, she says I’ve been kidnapped, he runs the Amber Alert, and it leads to her rescue that night.  A week later, she’s able to lead her uncle and her mother back and that’s when Krissy is rescued, but this case opens up a 13-state prostitution ring and that’s the power that the trucking industry has.  That’s the resources, because they are the eyes and ears of our nation’s highways.  Most of us are not in a position where this crime is knocking on our door, but the trucking industry is.  Uh, for good or for bad, they are.  And it’s something, it’s taking the initiative like Willie did and making a phone call that really has the power to change lives, and that’s what TAT is all about.

Sandie: Now I, went through your website and um you have two different numbers for people to call. And is there a difference? When do I know when to call 888-3737-888 or 911?

Kendis: Well there, I think the 911 is a visceral response, and actually Willie did call 911 that night, that was in 2005 before TAT ever began. But it is such a perfect example, that we always use it, but what the reason why we want folks to call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center as well as 911 is no one comes to the lot that night. Let’s say you call 911 that information is lost, if you were to report that information to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center even if no one comes to the lot that night that information is given to anti trafficking deputies that information is given to FBI, given to somebody who can follow up on that tip.  Say you get a license plate, say you get a description of the vehicle, or a description of the girl that information is given over and you have a trafficker or pimp who is working on a circuit, that information can prove extremely helpful for law enforcements for opening an investigation.  In fact, we had a Riverside County trafficking deputy tell all of us, if you do not call the NHTRC I never receive that information. If you only give it to 911? I never get it. And he’s the guy that actually the one investigating the cases.  So, this is why we pump these numbers so very much, plus the other thing is the Human Trafficking Resource Center is run by Polaris Project, the other thing they do is that they track this information. And they are able to determine hot spots they are able to know how many truckers are calling in, the trucking industry is part of the solution instead of part of the problem, and they just do a fantastic job really keeping this information and sending it to the right places.  So that’s why we really ask for this number, not just 911.

Sandie: Oh, that’s great. I really appreciate that explanation. The other thing in your story you talk about these big truck stops where it’s like a giant parking lot for trucks, and I know that the first time I went up to Ontario to speak at an awareness event ...