‘Yes, Quincy too’: Human trafficking organization warns Human Rights Commission of local risks

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains brief descriptions of graphic imagery that may be triggering for some readers. Please read at your discretion.

QUINCY — All of the action in Liam Neeson’s “Taken” begins when his teenage daughter informs him – from under a bed across the globe in Paris – that strange men speaking another language have grabbed her friend. He then listens to his daughter’s screams through the phone as she’s dragged out from under the bed and, well, taken. 

That’s not necessarily what human trafficking looks like in Quincy.

“Yes, (human trafficking happens in) Quincy too,” said Mark Philpot of the issue, citing the circumstances he’s observed in his role as a healthcare professional who works with young behavioral health patients at Blessing Hospital.

“Whatever these individuals are seeking – whether it’s money, whether it’s the favor of young girls, young boys, whatever that is – that element is present in our community, and we need to be about the business of gaining tools so that we can protect our children and keep them safe,” Philpot said.

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery where people profit from the control and exploitation of others.

In Quincy, it looks like a homeless man finally having a roof over his head – in exchange for oral sex.

It looks like a desperate, substance-addicted mother receiving money for drugs from a pedophile – in exchange for alone time with her toddler.

It looks like a runaway teenage girl in foster care who found refuge from the abuse she experienced in another state – in exchange for getting “passed around” by those who let her stay with them here.

It looks like mail-order brides who are no longer wanted by the people who brought them here, then kicked out on the street and left to fend for themselves in a place where they don’t understand the language or the culture.

It looks like undocumented immigrants who were promised a better life for their families, given shelter by their bosses and forced to pay excessive rents.

It looks like modern-day indentured servitude. 

Kaylie Gilbert shared these real stories during Thursday night’s Human Rights Commission meeting at City Hall. They’re just a handful of things Gilbert has seen in her nine years as a registered nurse and care manager at Blessing Hospital. She stressed that the issue is widespread, affecting not only women but also men, not only young children but also the elderly, and not only perpetrated by strangers but also by family.

“Trafficking doesn’t discriminate. It can happen to anybody. It doesn’t matter what kind of social economic background you have, what kind of religion you are, what race you are. It can happen to all of us. It happens here, and being in a rural community doesn’t mean that we’re immune to this,” Gilbert said.

She spoke at the meeting to give a local perspective on the issue of human trafficking, which was brought to the council in a presentation by Tish Young with the Iowa-based organization Chains Interrupted. Young warned of the nuances of human trafficking, which can occur in a variety of forms, some of which are:

• debt bondage,
• organ trafficking,
• forced begging,
• forced marriage,
• sex trafficking and
• labor trafficking, often seen in agricultural settings involving the employment of undocumented immigrants.

Modern human trafficking begins, in many cases, in a place that is hardly surprising but increasingly underestimated by parents in terms of potential harm: online.

“(Our children) are on their phones constantly. That phone — that social media outlet — is the gateway to people who they don’t know in their effort to find friends and acceptance,” Philpot said.

With children and adolescents becoming increasingly online, it’s more important than ever for parents to be aware of what their kids are doing on their phones, laptops, tablets and gaming devices. Traffickers utilize the anonymity of facilitating communications online to build trust under a more familiar alias, then escalate by requesting to meet in person and/or making demands to send money or photos. Even if a child sends a fully clothed photo to a trafficker, it doesn’t matter. Apps that employ AI to modify fully clothed photos into nude ones are becoming increasingly problematic, as warned by the Family Online Safety Institute. 

It’s important for parents to stay informed on parental controls and to educate their children on how to be responsible online, especially when verifying the identity of people they’re talking to on apps like Snapchat, Instagram and others, Young said. She also encouraged parents to practice “being a safe place to land” when their children come to them with information that might initially anger or frustrate them.

“We have to be a person they want to be confident in talking to. They’ll know we have their back, that we’re going to protect them and take care of them,” she said. “From this point forward, there’s no shame. There’s grace.”

More information on human trafficking, including helpful tips for parents on how to moderate their child’s activity online, can be found on the Chains Uninterrupted website. 

In other news, the commission endorsed an ordinance proposed by Quincy for Registration Inspection Licensing Enactment (Q-RILE). The group is collecting signatures to get a referendum on the ballot for the consolidated election in April. Roughly 1,100 signatures of the 2,000 needed to get it on the ballot have been collected thus far. The group is hoping for 3,000 signatures.

The referendum seeks to “assure that rental housing in the city is maintained in a good, safe and sanitary condition and does not create a nuisance or blighted conditions to its surroundings, and to protect and promote the welfare of tenants, preserve investments in property and secure the stability of neighborhoods” by creating a registry for all rental properties in the city with periodic inspections required.

More information on Q-RILE, its referendum and how to sign it can be found on its website.