The harsh realities of sex and human trafficking

Jack WolfJanuary 15, 2023

IN THIS EPISODE:

Humbrel Marshall, the owner, sits next to Rachel Fisher, a registered nurse who is also a human trafficking survivor. She opens up to discuss her experience and what we can do to stop it.
The Houston-based organization is planning a big dinner to raise funds for the Hadassah Hospital in Israel to fight food waste.

Persons of human trafficking

Definition of human trafficking: The use of force, fraud, or coercion in exchange for labor, services, or commercial sex.

The smile of Rachel Fisher, RN in the photo above, belies the life challenges she has had to overcome to become a leading advocate for trafficked and sexually exploited women.

“My voice echoes to those who are still struggling to get out of this and don’t know what’s next,” she said. “So anyone who is still in life, still in the game… we don’t call it human trafficking when you are in it. You fuss, but there is hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel, you just need to know that there is another way.”

Rachel was 14 years old when she first encountered sexual exploitation, a trend that continued for several years when she was taken advantage of by adults in the foster care system. Her dedication to the world of human trafficking matches statistics from the National Anti-Trafficking Hotline which lists the main types of recruiters in the chart below:

Human trafficking statistics from PolarisProject.com (KPRK)

Rachel is one of the former victims of sex trafficking in the documentary Surviving Sex Trafficking. She has been trained for years to help law enforcement stop human trafficking, while focusing on victims, whom she says are being coerced at an increasingly young age.

“The average age of entry into human trafficking is around 14, so we see a lot of teenagers,” she said. “We see high schoolers selling and pimping many younger students so that children exploit other children. Parents don’t want their kids to hear about sex. This is a curse. People don’t want to talk about it. But in fact, these children are on social networks. They hear about it at the age of eight. And so even in elementary school, we have children, students who exchange sexual favors.”

Rachel Fisher is a guest on Houston Newsmakers this week with Humbrel Marshall and says helping people get out of an exploited life cycle is not easy and there are mental and physical scars that may never heal. Watch this week Houston Newsmakers EXTRA with Rachel Fisher to learn more about the realities of human trafficking and sex trafficking and what we can do to stop it.

Find out more about her and her outreach efforts and lecture availability here.

Houston’s Hadassah Presents Women Who Do Award to ‘Founder of Second Servings’

Barbara Bronstein, Founder, Second Line President, Linda Friedman Block, National Chair, Hadassah Gatekeeper (KPRK)

Hadassah of Houston is planning a big dinner for Tuesday, January 17th, in honor of Barbara Bronstein for her role in founding the nonprofit Second Servings.

Bronstein is a guest at Houston Newsmakers this week and says the reason she started doing it was pretty simple.

“I’m tired of seeing good food go to waste when there are so many people in Houston, one in five people in Houston are considered food insecure,” she said. “As a society, we throw away almost 40% of the available food.”

Hadassah in Houston is one branch of the 300,000-strong national organization and is using the lunch to raise funds for the main Hadassah hospital in Israel.

“This is a bridge to peace in the Middle East,” said Linda Friedman Block, National Chair of the Hadassah Gatekeeper. “Perhaps you will be operated on by a doctor of Arab-Israeli origin. You can have a Jewish-Israeli nurse in surgery, you can have a Muslim woman to take care of the anesthesia, and you can have a Catholic to serve you lunch.

Speaking of lunch, lunch on Tuesday will take place at Beth Israel Congregation. For information, send an email to: [email protected].