Students seek to combat sex trafficking

Over cupcakes from Bent Spoon and bags of popcorn, students gathered at the Rocky-Mathey Theatre on last Thursday night to watch “Very Young Girls,” a documentary on domestic sex trafficking. The screening was Princeton Against Sex Trafficking’s first event of the year.

PAST was founded by Rafael Grillo ’14 and Shikha Uberoi ’13 last April. One of their main campaigns is the Red Thread Movement, which sells bracelets made by girls rescued from brothels in Nepal. The group said it hopes to raise $1,500 through sales this semester.

The group was founded with the goals of raising “awareness about the gravity of human trafficking occurring nationally and internationally,” tackling the “sources of the issue and possible solutions by engaging and coordinating with third party organizations” and engaging politically “by bringing together policy-makers, field experts and others ... to discuss the ramifications and solutions of human trafficking,” Grillo said in an email.

According to Grillo, there are up to 27 million trafficking victims in the world today.

“It’s stuff we don’t hear about every day ... We take it for granted that domestic slaves don’t exist,” he said before the film.

“While we’re watching [the film], think of some solutions,” Uberoi said to the group. “We’re all smart; we’re Princeton students.”

Following the screening of the documentary, Janice Holzman, the director of communications and development for Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, discussed the film with the audience and held a Q-and-A session. According to its site, GEMS is “the only organization in New York State specifically designed to serve girls and young women who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking.”

“I was really excited thinking of screening this film,” Holzman said. “College students are in the unique position of being able to change the conversation ... Things have changed a little, I will acknowledge that. Five years ago, I don’t think anyone had heard about domestic sex trafficking.”

However, she said that the work is still not done, as domestic trafficking is still occurring today, and many of the girls who fall victim to it do not have many options.

“About 70 percent of the girls we serve have some involvement in foster homes,” she said. In these girls’ lives, there isn’t much parental involvement, and usually one or both parents are or have been incarcerated.

Holzman also emphasized that the girls were victims, even if they had “chosen” the life by walking into it.

“In terms of choice, choice is a funny word for a 12-year-old,” she said. Because they are so young, they do not have the capacity to make good choices for themselves.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“What’s really at stake is the age of the young girls we serve at GEMS,” Holzman said.

Another problem that GEMS addresses is the stigma associated with being a victim of sex trafficking, according to Holzman.

“People don’t see or haven’t seen domestic victims as victims” because “there’s comfort in seeing foreign victims,” she said. The girls are “really stigmatized even within their own environments.”

“A lot of what we do is address some of that [stigma] and give them a house that feels like a home ... a place where we’re not going to judge them,” she added.