One study calls the city “The Hub” of human trafficking.
Laura Johnson, 33, sits quietly on her couch, pulling her black cardigan tighter around her slender shoulders. Her black hair is pulled back into a simple bun, her eyes are sparkly and her smile is warm. Johnson absently stirs her frozen dinner as steam rises from it. The Lifetime Channel is on. She has just put her 1-month old down for his nap, she explains, and this is the only time she gets to eat. Her baby lays beside her, wrapped up in a blanket and cooing every once in a while. Johnson is on maternity leave. She has spent her time at home with her baby and her other two children, while planning new projects for her IAmLauraJohnson organization. Her calm demeanor shows no trace of the trauma she has survived.
More than 10 years ago at a women’s group, Johnson realized that there was a name for what had happened to her at the age of 14.
“I am trafficked,” Johnson had said, surrounded by women with similar stories, “I didn’t know there was a word for that.”
In Milwaukee, as many as 340 people under the age of 25 have been victims of sex trafficking, according to a study from the Medical College of Wisconsin. The study found that 97 percent of victims estimated are female and 65 percent are African American.
“I think [the number is] higher,” Johnson said. “The reason I say that is I know a lot of people that it happened to that haven’t talked about it.”
“From 14 to 17, I was basically a missing person,” Johnson said. “Back then, the police were so naive. ‘She’s a runaway, she’ll be back.’”
Growing up, Johnson’s mother was a drug user who bounced her family around Milwaukee. During this period, Johnson would become anxious if they stayed in a place for more than two days. She always had a backpack ready by the front door.
With the uncertainty of home and bullying in school, Johnson felt unsure of where she belonged and turned to books as her escape. She spent her free time reading, and earned good grades.
When she was 14 years old, she met a man who paid attention to her and encouraged her to travel with him out of town.
“He was an escape route from trauma in my early years,” Johnson said. “I just wanted attention, to feel loved, for someone who was there.”
While staying with her trafficker, he would take pictures of her and post them online. He trapped Johnson, taking her away from her family and home. Johnson thought she had escaped the abuse she had faced as a child but instead stumbled into a new cycle of abuse.
According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, many victims are recruited with false promises of better living or working conditions. In most cases, the traffickers tend to be significant others, grooming the victims for abuse.
“They feel like no one will believe them because of aspects of their lives,” said Bianca Williams, founder of A Cry for Help Foundation, which advocates for sex trafficking and abuse victims in the community.
“I’ve seen so much in these girls that I’ve seen growing up,” Williams said. “Not having fathers’ support. [They] just want to be seen, loved, accepted, to have someone to listen.”
Williams said many victims of sex trafficking believe they bring it on themselves, but the victims don’t choose i–they are forced into it.
Educating young adults has been a project for Williams, who said that it is a hard subject to teach in schools because of the politics. Many of William’s educational talks revolve around healthy relationships, self-care, and how low self-esteem can take a toll on a young person.
A Cry for Help Foundation is currently working on opening warming shelters, catered to abuse and trafficking victims and their families in the Milwaukee community.
“We are collecting supplies so these girls can work on getting their GED, so they can work, and they can have a safe space,” said Williams.
Speaking Out
Johnson is no longer paying attention to the Lifetime channel. Instead, she picks up her baby, bottle in hand, and repositions herself so she can comfortably feed him. Snuggling deeper into her brown couch, she said that May 5, 2011 will always be a special day for her.
It was the day she first told her story. From her trauma as a little girl to her time as a fosterchild to the day she was first trafficked, Johnson told a group of women her story and they inspired her to share it on a larger scale.
At 24 years old, Johnson revealed her story to an audience at the Share Hope Conference. Share Hope is an organization set on preventing sex trafficking and bringing justice to it’s victims.
Johnson said the goal behind her story was simple: “Don’t feel sorry for me. Here is how it happens.”
Johnson believed that telling her story opened more doors for her and helped create more safe spaces.
“I felt like I won,” Johnson said. “The guy, he doesn’t have anything over me.”
She continued to work in the community, at hospitals and school. She created her independent organization, IAmLauraJohnson, and began working with Dana World-Patterson, a member of the Human Trafficking Task Force of Greater Milwaukee.
The Task Force of Greater Milwaukee was first created in 2008 as a subgroup meant to help the Milwaukee Police Department with recommendations and responses to human trafficking in the city.
“The misconception is that [the victims] want to be there,” said Dana World-Patterson, a key member of the Human Trafficking Task Force. “There has been a journey from changing the conversation from prostitution to human trafficking.”
In 2012 the task force was taken from county to state level to address public awareness, education, legislation and service provisions throughout the Milwaukee area. The meetings are open to the public to give recommendations and bring in more community organizations.
Patterson said the key definition of human trafficking is force, fraud or coercion that keeps the victim trapped in a cycle of abuse.
Lt. Dawn Jones from Sensitive Crimes for the Milwaukee Police Department has also worked with the Human Trafficking Task Force.
Jones said that the goal of the MPD working with groups such as the task force is to work continuously to “share knowledge, saving the world, saving our children and helping victims in our community.”
Lieutenant Jones also said that she believes the age trends in human trafficking haven’t gotten lower, but that the Milwaukee Police Department has been able to find victims right away.
A common issue when helping victims is that most don’t identify as victims, and judges don’t understand the victim’s mentality, both Patterson and Lieutenant Jones said.
“When people are vulnerable, they will be exploited in different ways,” said Lotus Legal Clinic Founder, Rachel Monaco-Wilcox.
The Lotus Legal Clinic, founded in 2013, works to give victims of abuse and trafficking legal counsel as well as advocates in the community.
Lotus also works to change laws in Wisconsin that have created systematic barriers for victims of sexual abuse and trafficking.
“I really think we need to address safe harbor,” Wilcox said. “Stop prosecuting victims, [and] remove barriers for individuals coming out of that life.”
Safe Harbor is a law that recognizes minors as victims in cases such as prostitution. Minors who are caught as prostitutes are not booked by the MPD but are taken to treatment centers. However, in some cases, some of the victims are brainwashed and leave the center before treatment can begin.
Wilcox said that Lotus came from MPD asking her to take cases involving trafficking victims, and realized the need they had for legal services.
Stopping the Cycle
Laura Johnson leans forward, her elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped together in front of her. She is talking about her two older sons and their growing personalities. One likes to sketch, she explains, while showing off her son’s work. She says perhaps it’s part of God’s plan to bless her with three boys so that she can teach them how to be better than the men she had in her life growing up.
Johnson plans on going back to school with a focus on human services and child development to try to help others who were like her.
She has worked with social services before, after coming back to Milwaukee at age 17, and she felt the services failed her. She advocates for resources to help set up a program for young adults aging out of the foster care system as she had.
“It’s hard working with victims [because] I understand the trauma,” Johnson said. “I always feel good helping, and it helps them.”
Johnson and her group are working to produces mini-docuseries on Johnson’s life and the impact of human trafficking. She says it’s important to get her story out so that it could help others.
Both Johnson and Wilcox credit the survivors for speaking out about what had happened to them and bringing public awareness to the issue.
“I think what made the difference is that survivors started coming forward and started talking about what happened to them,” said Wilcox. “They became change agents. They got the attention of people in the justice system, and started the change.”