Across the world today, an estimated 20.9 million men, women and children are being manipulated or forced to sell themselves for sex.
In 2013, 3,609 sex trafficking cases were reported in the United States to the Polaris Project, a national sex trafficking prevention organization. According to a study conducted by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine through the University of Toledo, Ohio cracks the top five for sex trafficking cases reported in the United States.
“For a long time, this was a problem that was being ignored here. Luckily, that’s changing,” said Nicole Doeringer, a volunteer with BE FREE Dayton, a nonprofit organization that exists to combat sex trafficking in the Miami Valley.
BE FREE Dayton was born in 2013 and has four arms to the organization. Volunteers and staff members facilitate education, research, demand reduction and outreach to eradicate the sex trade to the community. Elizabeth Van Dine, Executive Director of BE FREE Dayton, said, “We identified the three main stages of the sex trade life cycle: before, during, after. After identifying these stages, we were able to develop our programs to target each stage.”
A key component of trafficking prevention is education and awareness. BE FREE Dayton emphasizes education and offers several programs to educate the community.
Domestic Sex Trafficking 101 is a one-time introductory course on the sex trade in the United States and in the Miami Valley. This course is ideal for those who are interested in learning the basics about sex trafficking.
BE FREE also offers Child Protection 101, a seminar aimed at caregivers of children that focuses on the identification of the recruitment and grooming stages of sex trafficking. BE FREE Generation Z focuses on educating junior high and high school youths on how to protect themselves from being trafficked.
BE FREE’s education seminars are free for businesses, schools, churches and any other organizations who are interested in learning about the sex trade and its implications on the community. “Sex slaves are hiding in plain sight. Anyone can be our eyes and ears, so it’s important that people are educated,” said Van Dine.
RESEARCH, DEMAND REDUCTION AND
OUTREACH ARE TOP PRIORITIES
The Organization has also made research a priority. BE FREE has a research team that collects data specific to this area from women in aftercare to better understand what victims go through and how they’re affected. The team also conducts area-specific research to understand the trafficking trends in Dayton. “We want to better understand what this industry looks like in our community so that we can develop programs to stop it,” said Van Dine.
Demand reduction is another goal of BE FREE. Through mentoring programs, community leadership, and public advocacy, the organization strives to reduce the number of traffickers and people willing to buy sex. Demand reduction is aimed at men. “We believe that this is as much a man’s issue as it is a woman’s issue since the majority of buyers and sellers of sex are men,” said Van Dine.
Outreach is the final goal of the organization. BE FREE has several programs to reach out to the community.
Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution, better known as S.O.A.P, is a national initiative that was started by Theresa Flores, author, abolitionist and trafficking survivor. Volunteers for BE FREE attend a one-time training session and are then put on outreach teams that go out once a month to local bars, hotels and strip clubs to reach out and equip businesses with the knowledge and resources to combat sex trafficking.
S.O.A.P. is BE FREE’s main outreach initiative, but the organization also hosts events and holds fundraisers to reach out to the community.
Van Dine claims that the organization’s outreach initiatives have been successful.
“We receive between 3 and 5 tips a week of suspicious activity in our community, and we work really closely with law enforcement. We’ve had several positive identifications of missing children from posters that we’ve taken to our outreach events. Our outreach has definitely done a lot for our community,” said Van Dine.
“We’ve grown so fast,” said Van Dine. “We completed our 5 year plan within our first 8 months of work.” With so much growth in such a short amount of time, BE FREE is fast-tracking into their future.
CONNECTING WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS TO
INCREASE INVOLVEMENT AND RAISE MONEY
The organization is joining Oasis House, a faith based organization whose mission is to provide hope for women involved in the sex industry, in a project called Homes for Healing. BE FREE is raising $160,000 to purchase 4 properties in Dayton that will be restored and turned into safe houses run by Oasis House to aid in the rehabilitation of victims of sex trafficking. As of now, there is no set time frame to complete this project.
“We’re not going to stop raising funds until we’re able to purchase these houses,” said Van Dine. “We’ll keep going until we reach our goal.”
Be FREE Dayton is also working to start BE FREE chapters across the nation. The organization has already established outreach chapters in Columbus, Cleveland, Indianapolis and Terre Haute to provide other communities with resources to prevent the sex trade.
“Anyone can be involved,” said Van Dine. “This is a great organization. We’re volunteer run, and we can always use more volunteers to stand behind us.”
For more information on BE FREE Dayton, call (530) 378-4771 or visit http://befreedayton.org.
