Maybe I'm WRONG… maybe those minivans were truly families staying at the motel, and maybe that house owner just really wanted a red light in their front porch light, and maybe those girls REALLY were just standing on the sidewalk at 1am wanting to wear those outfits…
I live in Toledo, OH,which has been cited by the FBI and the NCMEC as a top U.S. recruitment city for trafficking children. I live in Sylvania, the suburbs of Toledo. I live on the outskirts of the city where it seems pleasant and where I don't SEE trafficking day in and day out. Well, so I thought. I thought that I could ignore it, forget about it, live my days without the feeling of disgust, heart ache, and sorrow for the victims like I did for four months. Again, so I thought.
Tonight I was driving back to Sylvania on I-80. Getting off at Renolds Road, I had two options: Take the quick 475 highway route… OR take the route of strip joints, adult video stores, and motels… For some reason I chose the second.
I started driving and came across one of the motels. Of course I get a red-light in front, so I peer into the parking lot to find a big white van, and a few girls standing outside.
I drive a few more miles down past the adult video stores. Another motel. The parking lot? Three identical Honda minivans. Across the street was a NEW strip club with a group of girls in on the sidewalk waiting. Behind the strip club, one house caught my eye. It had a RED light in the porch light…
I was trained to SEE trafficking. I was trained to SEE the signs and report them. I was trained to see the weird vans at crappy motels, young girls at strip clubs, the one different colored light or mailbox at a house on the street…
I wanted to quckly dismiss everything that I saw and give everyone the benifit of the doubt. I wanted to convince myself that the minivans were for families passing through overnight, that the girls were just waiting for the bus to go home at 1am, and that the owner of the house was just preparing really early for Christmas with that red light on his porch behind the strip club…
BUT… there's the possibilty…
Maybe I'm RIGHT. maybe those vans were for transporting underage girls and boys to sell for sex MOTEL TO MOTEL, and maybe that house WITH THE RED LIGHT was a brothel housing underage girls (yes, we have those in Toledo), and maybe those girls on the sidewalk WERE being watched from a distance while they prosititute thelmselves…
When you are trained, or become educated about something like trafficking, that knowledge doesn't just go away. It sticks. You can't just say "oh poor them" and move on. Some kind of action must take place. What am I going to do about my experience tonight? To start, I am going to pray over those areas….
Do you live in Toledo? You now know that Human trafficking is a (BIG) problem in our city. What are YOU going to do about it? (If intrgiued and would like to get involved in SOMETHING, let me know, I got some ideas.)
(This post was literally written at 2:30am so apologies for crappy writing and bad grammar)
