Local advocates against human trafficking are inviting the public to see a documentary tomorrow about the modern-day slave trade of women and children.
The documentary is called Not My Life. The director is Robert Bilheimer from Rochester. As WBFO's Sharon Osorio reports, trafficking children, teens and women is happening right here in Western New York.
While you might think that selling humans against their will would never happen in our neighborhoods, Erie County Deputy Elizabeth Fildes says three students in Buffalo and three students from Orchard Park were just some of the victims of sex-trafficking last year in Western New York. Fildes is also the program director of the Western District of New York's Human Trafficking Task Force and Alliance. She describes the case of one of those teens who was lured in innocently enough.
“She met this guy, actually, at a corner store by her house and he introduced himself and he was very smooth, and he offered to buy her something” says Fildes. “And although she refused, he gave her a business card and he told her that he would hire her for a summer job.”
But gradually it took a turn for the worse.
“This young girl thought about but she was not sure what to do, and then he explained to her that she would just have to dress up and go out with older men,” says Fildes. “But this was much after he had already bought her food and bought her clothing and had taken her out and had smooth-talked her into how much he loved her and how much he cared about her. And this young girl didn't have a father figure in her life.”
Then Fildes says this man, who is now serving time for prostituting a minor, started selling her online.
“She didn't turn 16 until the day I actually met her -- that was her birthday,” says Fildes. “And this man had already put her on the internet, had sold her several times, had taken her to a lot of the finer hotels in Buffalo, New York, and also to some of the hotels in some of the suburban areas, and also to some homes of individuals living in Grand Island, in Buffalo, in the southtowns. And I remember her telling me very clearly, ‘Oh, Hamburg? Yeah, I've been there. Orchard Park? Yeah, I've been there.”
The reality of a case like this is one of many reasons why Fildes has teamed up with two women to create a safe house for domestic victims of human trafficking called United Hands of Hope House.
“We're trying to create someplace permanent where, if we find a victim of human trafficking, or even a potential victim of human trafficking, we will have a place to take her back to, a place where she can change her life, she can do something else with her life, she can get self esteem, she can get a different trade, get a job, help her with life skills, and really build her up,” says Fildes.
The two other co-founders of United Hands of Hope House are Aimee Wheeler, a Buffalo public schoolteacher, and Karen O'Hara of Springville, who is Mrs. New York America 2011.
“If you're an international victim identified by law enforcement of human trafficking, you immediately get health care, housing, education, the services you need to become well,” says O’Hara. “You also get amnesty in the United States, and if you so choose to go back to your home country, we pay for that as taxpayer to send you back and to get you back into your own country. If this happened to my daughter or to your sister or to your mother, there are no services available. Right now, you can go to law enforcement and they would have to turn you a way because they don't have a safe place to put you.”
To raise money and awareness for their mission, O'Hara obtained the rights to air a documentary called Not My Life at D'Youville College Saturday evening.
“Not My Lifeis a documentary that took four years to film on five different continents,” says O’Hara. “And it’s a film by Robert Bilheimer who is from Rochester, New York. And he went abroad to show the realities of modern-day slavery. After seeing the film, I was blown away by the realness, by the truthfulness of this film, and what modern-day slavery really is. And I wanted to bring this film to Western New York and show the people here what's happening in today's world.”
Meanwhile, during the interview with WBFO, Deputy Fildes gets a phone call. A woman she met during a presentation at a suburban church calls in a tip about a potential trafficking case here locally. That tip will now be set in motion.
Event details: Saturday, November 12, 2011, in the Blue Lounge at D'Youville College. Social hour at 6:30 p.m. Showing at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 per person.
For more information or to report at tip, call Deputy Elizabeth Fildes at (716) 858-7804.