Westover Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, is imagining what fighting modern-day slavery could look like. The nondenominational suburban church is cut from an evangelical cloth and has 5,000 members and a sprawling campus. In 2011, the church started a ministry called “Abolition!” to fight human trafficking. It focuses on prayer, awareness and resources.
The truck-stop hooker is no Julia Roberts, the trucker in the cab with her no Richard Gere, and this truck stop off the highway could not be any farther from Beverly Hills, the staging ground for “Pretty Woman.”
The woman sports baggy shorts, a white T-shirt and frizzy hair. Her fat middle-aged pimp sits in a beat up red Honda, watching as his “lot lizard” moves from truck to truck, in broad daylight. If this pimp has a cane it is for substance, not style.
She moves through the parking lot, occasionally opening a cab’s passenger-side door and climbing in.
The trucker and hooker disappear in the back for 10 minutes.
Danielle Mitchell watches from the other end of the parking lot and shakes her head.
“We know from talking to other victims and other agencies that girls are taken to truck stops and they’re actually traded,” she says, sitting in her car, a shiny silver sport utility vehicle, keeping a healthy 50-yard distance from the pimp.
Mitchell is North Carolina human trafficking manager for World Relief. World Relief is a Christian nonprofit attached to the National Association of Evangelicals and is best known for its efforts to combat global hunger and respond to disasters around the world.
Mitchell is trying to tackle a disaster in her home state. And she is not alone.
Motivated in large part by their religious traditions of protecting the vulnerable and serving “the least of these,” as Jesus instructed his followers to do in the Gospel of Matthew, World Relief and other Christian agencies like the Salvation Army are stepping up efforts and working with law enforcement to stem the flow of human trafficking, which includes sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
“Jesus didn’t just go around telling people about himself. He also healed the blind and healed the brokenhearted, he freed captives, and I think that it would be ridiculous to walk up to someone who is hurting and tell them, ‘Let me tell you about the Gospel,’ and then walk away while they’re still hurting,” Mitchell says.
In North Carolina, the result of those efforts can be seen in the number of victims of human trafficking being referred to World Relief for services, up 700% in 2011, Mitchell says.
“It’s not that North Carolina is all of a sudden trafficking more people,” Mitchell says. “It’s that we know what to look for and we’re actually identifying and rescuing them.”
Truck stops and sweet potatoes
North Carolina’s rich soil makes it an agricultural hub. It produces more sweet potatoes than anywhere else in the country. The state acts as a crossroads for three major interstate highways. The mix of accessibility and low-paying farm jobs make a good working environment for traffickers, Mitchell says.
This truck stop is the type you think twice about. It’s grimy and run down.
How badly do I really have to use the bathroom? I bet I could hold out for another 12 miles. That kind of place.
Mitchell walks in and politely asks the women behind the register if they have tape.
“Over there, honey,” the cashier says, pointing to a dimly lit portion of the store.
After paying for a roll of industrial packing tape, she tucks it in her purse and heads for the restroom.
In a stall on the far end, she shuts the door behind her and pulls out the tape and a poster with words in English and Spanish.
“Need help?” the poster asks. “Are you being forced to do something you don’t want to do?” There’s a toll free number, 888-373-7888, for the National Human Trafficking Hotline, run by the nonprofit Polaris Project.
“A lot of times when girls are being trafficked they’re being controlled,” Mitchell says.
“They’re often not allowed to get very far from their trafficker. And we’ve found one of the very few times girls are alone is when they’re in the bathroom.”
She used to ask if she could hang posters in truck stop restrooms. Now she just hangs them.
That toll free hot line number is plastered on combs, lip balms and nail files that Mitchell and other anti-trafficking workers can slip discreetly to men and women they suspect might be victims. Slipping a potential client an anti-trafficking business card could be dangerous, even deadly, they say.
But it’s not the only way Mitchell gets in touch with victims. Law enforcement is reaching out to her more and more.
When North Carolina law enforcement breaks up a trafficking ring, they call her.
She helps the victims get safe places to live, food and job training, along with just being a conversation partner.
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