Hi, thank you so much for being out here today. Onthis beautiful saturday. My name is emily, im a manager at politics and prose and on behalf of the staff, welcome. Of view boring housekeeping notes, if you can silence your cell phones so we dont get her interrupted with feeding it would be great. Usually we have about 30 minutes of talking and we take questions. We are filming so i hope you all have questions that you use the microphones and get up and asked them as opposed to shouting them from the audience because that we dont want to ask the question in the recording so if you could think of questions and asked him there that would be great. Lastly we have a few more events today so sometimes the few of you who are familiar know we fold up the chairs. Dont fold up chairs today, thank you. And if you enjoy this event we do about 500 other author events a year so sign up my email, check out the events calendar. We have november and december out and we just opened a store at the worst, i dont know if Everybody Knows that october 12. You should see it, its beautiful. We have events there and its a great space. Now for the good stuff. Im excited to introduce kimberly mehlmanorozco. Kimberly told the doctors in criminology law and society from George Mason University with an expertise in Human Trafficking. Shes one of the few researchers with a background to testify as a witness in civil trafficking and exit is a regular contributor to the hill. She served as a reviewer for publications and taught Human Trafficking at the number one right Criminology School at the country, university of Maryland College park. You are here to discuss her new book hidden in plain sight. With information derived from narrative accounts of real trafficking cases, interviews with convicted human traffickers, Empirical Research and case files for what Kirkus Reviews direct intellectually rigorous account of modern enslavement. According to doctor millman, every in this country is home to some form of Human Trafficking and everyone has purchased something that a product of modernday slavery. We are all affected and it moves us to learn more about the issue and what action we and more importantly our government can take to address it. Join me in welcoming kimberly mehlmanorozco. [applause] first and foremost i wanted to say thank you to politics and prose for my first book talk and signing event after the publication of my first book. Thank you for the wonderful introduction. A little more about me in addition to serving as an expert witness, being an author and the consultant on Human Trafficking, im also the mother of four children. Two girls, two boys so its very busy my household. But i tell you that because i want to tell you how i became interested in looking into Human Trafficking. I first heard about the topic while i was in graduate school. I was taking a course by doctor luis shelley was one of the foremost experts on the issue. And she was telling me about how modernday slavery existed which was news to me. It was something very evocative and it was troubling to me that this was going on and i havent heard about it until that point. I started looking into the issue myself. I started researching articles, conducting systematic reviews, conducting Empirical Research and publishing in an ivory tower as you do while you are in graduate school. Nothing could have prepared me for the moment in which i encountered the first person i suspected of being a victim. The reason is it was on the front doorstep of my home in montclair new virginia. I was cooking dinner. My husband was still at work and we were getting ready to take my oldest daughter to track practice and i heard a knock on the door. It was amid dinnertime interruption and as you can imagine with four children i was kind of turned and i didnt want to answer it but i went down and it was a young lady telling and allpurpose cleaner. I said hello maam, im selling magic in a bottle. You squirt and it will erase any stain that you have. Can i talk to you about this item . Most people, if you are like me dont really like doortodoor salespersons and they will shut the door quickly but i have recently learned about Human Trafficking within doortodoor sales groups so i heard her out and i started asking her questions. She was in virginia from north carolina. She was staying in a motel with 15 other kids that some were runaways. Far more homeless and they were all pulling their money together. All their money was taken every day. They didnt eat if they didnt make money and it was a red flag after red flag type of situation sothats when i started to look into a little bit further. The concept for my book came out of the reality that existed behind the headlines. Im sure a lot of you have heard about Human Trafficking i guarantee that none of you have heard it from the mouth of a human traffickers, from the inside of the victim and understanding what happens behind those headlines so the objective was threefold. I want to take readers behind the headlines of what happened. I wanted to expose the various forms of Human Trafficking that existed in the United States and that we interact with on a daytoday basis. And then i wanted to confront failed solutions and understand how do we bridge this gap between law and the books and the law in action. So take readers behind the headlines, objective number one. I did a survey. I started writing and interviewing infected human traffickers. I wanted to get insight about their crime through their eyes and one of the things i found was there actually quite nice. They didnt happen like a made for hollywood tv movie. This wasnt liam neeson coming in and rescuing his innocent victim daughter done wielding monsters. These men were very nice. They were very articulate. They were very intelligent, very charismatic and thats what they use to exploit and use women. So i want to read you a few quotes that are in the book and i think it sheds light into these people are. So the first quote i read is from chapter 1. Page 11. This comes from a man who traffic a 12yearold girl from new york to dc. He was the first person sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. He sex traffic this woman across multiple states for this child, rather. And when asking him why does this happen, why did he engage in this type of crime, this is what he told me. Why does a prostitute need a pin . To guide her, to love her, to protect her. The pin is the father she never had. He had that big brother she misses or the boyfriend from back in the day. The pimp is the husband he fantasized about over and over. He is a popular guy in school that never paid her attention in class. He is what christ is to a christian. The blood that pumps in our heart and keeps our legs moving. Without him, there is no hurry. All four is put on this earth to be pimp by her attempt. Not tense possess the same characteristics but what we all have is common. Its a unique way of life and love for women and how they are able to use what they have to get them and us what they need. Notice i said need. We all need money to survive. Chilling. Disturbing. This convicted human traffickers told me he never let his left hand let the right hand know what is doing. He would use each of the women and children who were being sex traffic by him. And he wasnt alone. I interviewed trafficker after trafficker and they all had this common thread. They were all extremely charismatic, very intelligent. In chapter 8 of the book, i interviewed a convicted human trafficker from the ukraine. He traffics adult women from the ukraine to a strip club in detroit. And he spoke for languages. He could quote great philosophers from memory. He was very intelligent. He told me a cunning individual is very capable of making another person believe he or she is in control, concealing their intentions until they leave that person to the edgeof a cliff. Thats how i trafficker is able to recruit, control and exploit their victims. Concealing information. Not kidnapping, thats one of the reasons why it is so very difficult to prove in a court of law, because these men will make these children and women believe they are in love with them. They will promise them every dream they could imagine. They will even fulfill those dreams. The reality doesnt come out until months, years later and by that time, sometimes it can be too late. They are too afraid to report to lawenforcement. They have done things they think they will be judged or criminalized for and thats what happens. The same trafficker , the one who traffic girls in ukraine to detroit, i wanted to read another quote. This was in the early stages of our interviews and i think it shows how you can interact on par with a person. He knew i was smart, he knew i had a doctorate and he wanted to portray himself as an intellectual person. He wrote, at the end of the day, this experience makes me a better and stronger person. The things i took for granted before will be cherished now. Its like a rebirth. You get to experience life all over again. How many people can say that . People are tired but not me they go through life always complaining and never content, not realizing how fragile life is and how easily it can be turned upside down. You never truly respect and appreciate things until you lose them and i lost almost everything i never lost the will and determination to persevere. I didnt buckle under this weight but instead flourished as a person. Maybe i didnt flourish materialistically but in the grand scheme of things, you can always obtain material wealth. The question is can you ever obtain character . Character is forged under pressure. Pressure alone can make or break you. Collect. You think that was beautifully poetic. It resonated and i said this person is smart, hes very articulate, hes very intelligent. The emotion that he expressed about being in prison was really affecting to me and i said this is really surprising but thats exactly what they do. They put on this facade. They put on a persona and it isnt until months later that it all comes out. This was in the early stages, thats what he said. In the early stages of our interviews. Can you imagine what he said six months later . Do you think it changed . It did. He said if i were a dude and i could get my hands on you, id be your brains in and make you remember how to measure your words. On the streets it would be either you get me or i get you but since youre a dumb bead and i dont gossip, its bleak you, now go play in traffic so i would say the. [bleep] but there might be children. Shocking. It was like doctor jekyll and mister hyde. Look how he changed in the way he spoke in a matter of six months. Thats what is experienced by these victims of Human Trafficking. They believetheir engaging in a consensual relationship. They have no idea that they are being used and exploited until its too late. Here are some of the quotes from traffickers. But for this book i also interviewed and obtained quotes from consumers of the commercial sex trade. Men who purchase sex for sale. The demand aspect of the commercial sex industry and what when i first thought of this i thought these guys are in back alleys. These are anybody, this is somebody i know. But the men i interviewed, most of them had masters degrees and above. I interviewed a journalist. Adhd educated professor who started procuring commercial sex services after his wife contracted cancer. I interviewed an anti nonprofit jv. Men who purchase these services, that fuel the demand take all shapes and sizes from differences to economic backgrounds, from distant education backgrounds, racesand ethnicities , bridges all demographics. And so one of the chapters in chapter in a later chapter i talk about the mentality of these men. You hear about them in the news. Johns, they pay for sex. Thats not what they call themselves. They call themselves mongers or hobbyists. Monger as in warmonger. Thats how they refer to themselves. This individual who went by thehand over , i followed him over a period of time. He was a member of the military and he engaged in sex across the world, procuring services. His wife divorced him and he thought he was living it up. He claimed to be making 100,000 a year salary about how he chose to spend it, purchasing women and everyone denied one of his requests, he had another within 20 minutes that would acquiesce. But it took a toll on him as well. These men are not good, theyre not bad. They are multidimensional. So later on after he had been purchasing these services for years and years, he wrote this is bad. Very bad. Im presently in a downward spiral in my life and may not be able to reverse it because of my behavior and the women i now surround myself with. So the sick is my lifestyle, deluding myself that the garbage i post about is a substitute for intimacy. New country, new. [bleep], more money but the same hollowness inside. God for bid today i start hitting the minibar. I would give it up in a heartbeat if i could. It became an addiction. To purchase women for as cheaply as possible, being able to pay for them to do anything you want and thats what happens. So having this insight i think provided me with a nuanced perspective of use fueling this. Who are the type of people that are committing these crimes and gave me some insight into the survivors and victims as well. Of the women that i talk about in the book, one of the later chapters i rescued her in front of a mall in virginia. And the human traffic was down here on a pretrial release for Malicious Wounding charge against another woman. And he was following this woman back. This woman had been traffic on and off for 20 years, at one point being shot at pointblank rent range in the leg. But when she called the police, the Police Arrested her. For prostitution. They didnt arrest her tracker. The trafficker eventually had his charges dropped in this woman bounced from facility to facility seeking services that were never provided. The gap in Service Position are so start with its not a surprise to me that most of these women find themselves revictimized or criminalized post rescue. She told me it took him five days to dig a hole so deep that it would take me five years to get out of about her tracker. And if shes still working and struggling to try to get out of that traffic and exploited situation. Its one of those things where you hear about operation costscross country on the news and we rescued all these women and children. But they dont tell you the story after that headline. They dont tell you the story thats in this book, that most of those charges are eventually dropped against the traffickers. They dont tell you the story that most of those victims find themselves revictimized, criminalized post rescue. Denied services with no place to live. No job. Nothing to sustain and reestablish their life. Its harrowing. So also in the book i wanted to go through the various forms of Human Trafficking so i talked a lot in this talk about sex trafficking because i got a lot of insight from the various actors but in addition to that i talk about trafficking of runaway children , massage parlors, order rides. Military sex stories. Gang trafficking. Trafficking of legal nonimmigrants. How many of you enjoy chipotle every now and then or mcdonalds or taco bell . Youve all had it at one point or another. We never question how we are able to procure that food for sochi. Do we ever questioned where they get their Agricultural Products from . A lot of it comes from the exploitation of legal nonimmigrants, temporary workers who have their documents held in indentured servitude or slavery conditions. They will protest for a one penny increase for per can of tomatoes. We dont hear about that, we dont realize that and sometimes we take it for granted. Domestic service, doortodoor service, i think weve all enjoyed chocolate. At one point or another. And we question whether that chocolate comes from . 75 percent of our chocolate might be tied to the exploitation and slavery of children in the ivory coast. If not something we discussed, textiles. Nail salons. Each of those industries is discussed in this book in depth, telling you how you are likely to encounter different forms of modernday slavery. But i also talk about failed solutions. And there are a few start gaps with how we are applying Human Trafficking laws so i got some items i havent referred to yet or shell until so i think its important to understand the history behind antitrafficking laws. One thing that i noticed with how these laws are applied today was its very racialized. Incredibly racialized. Talk about in this book during the oneweek time period i was interviewed by a number of Media Outlets. One was a white mother who was shopping in ikea and she thought that traffickers were targeting her children. You, have you heard of that story . The ikea along that was targeted. Google it, you will go find it. She was heralded as somebody who stopped her children from being exploited, white mom. At first everybody was a great job, you recognize the red flag but i sent carol, thats not typically how Human Trafficking happens. I human trafficker is not going to go to a public place and get little kids with cameras and people around. Thats very rare. It would be an anomaly if it were true but that same week another story went viral but for a different reason. The c missing kids, the dc missing teams. Those girls that went missing. They were in the pictures portrayed of them were of mugshots. Or pictures in unfavorable poses or not looking the way that other mother did. People said theyre not being victimized, they ran away. They chose to leave. But when i was interviewed about that story i sent those are the kids that are at high risk of being trafficked. Theyre the ones that are at high risk of being exploited. And it was astonishing to me that people didnt take that topic or their potential victimization as seriously so i started to look back and one of the earliest antiHuman Trafficking ad was called the main act in 1910. If you know the history of how came to be or how it was applied, it was plot library regionally so on the far right of me, the far left i have an article from 1913. Original. One of the first people prosecuted under the man asked for sex traffic