Trafficking Remembrance at Baruch
Thursday, October 10th marked one of the many informational sessions at Baruch. Namely, it was the day of the Trafficking Remembrance Coffee House. Hosted by the Price of Life campaign, its main objective is to spread awareness of trafficking and seek those who are willing to lend a hand to such victims.
For those who attended the event, this was simply another one of their typical days as they gathered around and relaxed at the student lounge. For a remembrance ceremony, the vibe that it emanated stood out as fairly festive at a first glance. It started off with a few lively musical performances that would eventually transition into more serious discussions regarding those who were victimized by traffickers. For the first half hour, the attendees would listen to acoustic music performed by seasoned musicians as they sipped their beverages – Red Bull and Starbucks. The intention of the music wasn’t to establish a solemn mood – it sounded very much like the music you would expect at a concert: loud and very motivational.
To those who came simply because of the free food that was being offered, it was but a typical day for them. But for someone like Danielle Douglas, this wasn’t simply just a day for which she could kick back and relax. It was a night where she had to recount all the memories she despised and expose them to a group of people. Having survived her ordeal within the hands of several brothel operations, Danielle recounted her story to the audience and the various trials she had to undergo – a tale of hardships and obstacles, of terror and despair, of betrayal and submission, and of acceptance and salvation.
Danielle Douglas – the typical college/university student, who would fraternize here and there and attended parties in a routine-like way. A long way from home, her days at Northeastern University were a thrill, to say the least. This is not to say that Douglas was a careless person – in fact, that was precisely why she got mixed up her unfortunate predicament.
It all began with a knock on a door. Douglas was invited to a party and decided to follow the directions to the place given to her by the host of the party. Her suspicions were aroused when an older man opened the door and greeted her. Douglas was unsure about him, but it took a mere 10 – minute conversation for them to get along. Apparently, the party had been rescheduled and moved to a different location. She was about to leave, but than the man offered to buy her lunch – why would she refuse such a nice offer? Eventually, they both got along over the following days. He would take her out shopping and go watch movies with her. It was a pretty normal relationship. It was precisely because it was normal that the man’s sudden change shocked Douglas.
After 2 weeks, she had let her guard down; maybe she already done so earlier. The man turned into an abusive, violent, and dominant person. “It was as if he flipped a switch,” Douglas says. No longer was he the gregarious man Douglas once knew – this was a completely different person. As she got herself into the man’s car, she suddenly found herself thrust out of the car onto some tracks. Frightened and bewildered, she ran into an alleyway. She had never been in this area before. On the other hand, the man knew exactly where to find her and went on to beat her into submission. Thrown into fear and confusion, her initial reaction to the beatings was simply wishing for it to end. Douglas followed him to his car and they drove off. She had been defeated.
Douglas tried escaping once, but it ended on a despairingly sour note. A typical day for her life as a sex slave began with an abrupt awakening (if she were asleep at all). Given the choice of either food or two hours of sleep each day, Douglas and the confinees were kept in a state of paranoia and were constantly blackmailed. In addition to the beatings that ensued, the victims were often malnourished. Douglas would find herself blindfolded as arms grabbed her from behind. If she were to resist, she would risk getting shot. She was always taken to unknown locations, perhaps as a way to limit her movements. Customers would come and go and finish their business. After a certain amount of time, Douglas found the chance to evade her captors and run towards a gas station. Stark naked and with bleeding, black eyes, she used the phone to try and call her father. Instead, what greeted her was the voice of the man.
At the beginning of Douglas’s 2nd year of bondage, she was given a supervised phone call. The man asked her if she wanted to buy a plane ticket back home to meet her family. Douglas knew it would be a trick question but she complied anyway. She braced herself for a beating, but to her surprise, the man let her do it. Thus, her journey back home began. There were no difficulties getting on the plane and she quickly arrived back to Buffalo, NY. Douglas attributes a clear distinction between her and her fellow confinees – drug usage. She had never, not even once, touched any drugs inside the brothel. The others, though, were tied down indefinitely through their addiction. Even so, she could not and would not recount her life for the past two years to her family. Douglas’s friends and family something was off, but nonetheless this didn’t change the way they’ve always treated her. It was thanks to this normalcy, coupled with what Douglas believes to be a message from God – heavy snowfall which delayed planes for an extra week – that she gradually emerged from her state of paranoia. “It was a miracle”, Douglas exclaims. She exposed herself and her stories to her mother, who supported her all the way. Out of sheer overconfidence, the pimp may have committed a daring mistake, one that allowed Douglas’s escape. He never came in person to retrieve her, but kept nudging at her by sending her seemingly caring letters. It was only years later that she realized she had been assimilated into the infamous global human trafficking trade.
Danielle was a promising university student who carried herself well. What had happened to her during those years was unforeseen by anyone. It seemed not too long ago that she was among one of us before she ended up having to work under a brothel. The most dangerous ones are not those “stereotypical pimps” as we would so imagine them. They don’t wear gold chains, flashy clothing, or have these fancy black cars full of scantily dressed women. On the contrary, traffickers usually assume the appearance of normal people; with their completely normal smiles, their completely normal hairstyles, and their completely normal demeanors.
That’s why it’s terrifyingly surreal.
