Walk for Freedom to raise awareness of sex trafficking

Published 5:25 am Sunday, October 11, 2015

It was while studying at the University of Oklahoma that Tyler resident Jessie Gamble became involved in the fight against sex trafficking.

She heard the founder of A21, a nonprofit that works to educate and prevent human trafficking, speak at her church and she said the message deeply affected her.

The thought that 27 million men, women and children around the world are in bondage today floored her and caused her to get involved as a donor to the organization and advocate for the cause.

On Saturday, Ms. Gamble will lead the A21 Walk for Freedom at noon in Tyler. This is the second walk for A21, which stands for abolishing injustice in the 21st century. It is the first time it will be in Tyler.

The free event’s purpose is simply to raise awareness, get people to realize this issue is a problem and see how they might be a part of the solution.

“I would love to see (sex trafficking) become an issue that is … something that’s like cancer, that everyone’s like, ‘I hate that and I know that that’s bad and I know that that’s real and I know that that hurts people and that it rips families apart and that it destroys girls’ lives,'” she said. “I would like for it to not be so hush-hush.”

Participants will start the about 4-mile roundtrip walk at First Christian Church on the corner of South Broadway Avenue and Loop 323. They will walk down South Broadway Avenue to Grande Boulevard and back. Participants can register online and are asked to wear black shirts.

Several Tyler-based nonprofits that work to educate people about and combat sex trafficking will be onsite to provide information about their organizations.

Defining trafficking

Ms. Gamble said human trafficking involves women, children or men who are taken advantage of and used for someone else’s prosperity, be it sexual, financial or both. The victims typically are emotionally abused and robbed of their rights to freedom.

She said traffickers often pick up runaways. Ms. Gamble said once a child is missing for 48 hours, the likelihood they have been picked up by a trafficker increases dramatically.

Traffickers often create what appear to be legitimate businesses, but the people who work there can be victims of human trafficking.

This has been the case with some so-called massage parlors that are many times actually sexually-oriented businesses.

The women working there could have been brought to the U.S. illegally and are made to perform sex acts for little or no pay and given little to no freedom to leave.

The people who control these girls tend to make it impossible for them to leave or at least make them think it is, Ms. Gamble said.

There is a degree of detachment to the issue because it’s hidden, she said.

“It’s kind of abstract because you don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know how to identify a girl who has been through hell and back if you don’t know how to look for it.”

But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Though the presence of human trafficking in East Texas may be a surprise to some, it’s not a surprise to the law enforcement workers, juvenile detention officers and social workers who see its effects and its victims on a regular basis.

A local problem

Smith County Sheriff’s Lt. Paul Black said in an interview earlier this year that he believes the prostitution dollar totals in Tyler, Smith County and East Texas reach into the tens of millions each year.

Black said prostitution was only the beginning, as it branched out into organized crime, street gangs, the trafficking of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and guns, and the human trafficking of illegal immigrants and underage girls and boys for the purpose of sex.

One woman who is serving federal prison time after being convicted in a drug conspiracy case in Tyler previously said in an interview with the Tyler Morning Telegraph that prostitution is a bigger problem than most people think.

“It is going on all around you,” she said. “It is happening at the sleazy motels and the nicest hotels right here in Tyler. In some places, the prostitution group and criminal are the only ones staying in them, and in others, the room right next door to your family in the nicest place might have a prostitute doing business.”

Police are working to combat the prostitution industry and human trafficking, but they said it is a revolving door that never stops.

Tyler Police Chief Gary Swindle said he could take all of his 180-plus officers and have them work prostitution for two days and shut the industry down, but he said as officers booked one group into jail, other groups would move into town.

Last month, Anthony Nelson, 33, of Tyler, was sentenced to more than 20 years in federal prison for trafficking underage girls for the purpose of prostitution.

It is these realities that make Ms. Gamble even more passionate about addressing the issue. And she hopes other people feel the same.

“How could I not do something?” she said.

Twitter: @TMTEmily

Staff writer Kenneth Dean contributed this report

If you go

Who: Anyone who desires to end sex trafficking

What: Walk for Freedom

When: Noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17

Where: Starts in parking lot of First Christian Church at corner of South Broadway Avenue and Loop 323

Why: To raise awareness about sex trafficking

Cost: Free. Donations are accepted.

Info: www.facebook.com/A21CampaignTylerTX