Cape Cod is 'ripe for sex, labor, and domestic trafficking,' says local survivor advocate

HYANNIS — Asia Graves, a human trafficking victim advocate, bustled around the Health Ministry pantry on Nov. 20 to organize food donations.

Graves, 35, moved to Cape Cod in 2022 and was impressed by the Hyannis nonprofit, which offers free food, health care clinics, and educational health and wellness classes — and a shower for anyone who needs it, Graves said.

"Maybe if I had had access to services like this when I was growing up, I wouldn't have fallen through the cracks," said Graves, who was sex trafficked between the ages of 16 and 18.

Graves, who lives in Hyannis, is now a member of the Barnstable Housing Committee and advocates for affordable housing on the Cape. Vulnerabilities such as a lack of affordable housing, food insecurity, poverty, family instability, physical and sexual abuse and trauma can all lead to human trafficking, she said, "even on Cape Cod."

Boys and girls, men and women, sell themselves for food, clothing, and other options, said Graves. "That leads to sexual exploitation."

"No one wakes up in the morning and says, 'I want to be a prostitute. I want to be a whore,'" said Graves. "No one dreams of that when they’re five years old."

Sex trafficking is a form of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. In 2000, the passage of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act made human trafficking a federal crime. A state law was passed a decade later.

A handful of nonprofits on Cape Cod along with activists and law enforcement officials — including the Cape and Islands District Attorney and the Barnstable and Orleans police — are working to eliminate human trafficking and support trafficking survivors.

Trauma and neglect at home left Graves vulnerable 'Romeo' pimp

Graves was raised in a home filledwith trauma and neglect, she said. Her father, whom she didn't name, was an alcoholic and drug addict and kicked her out of her Roslindale family house when she was 16.

From 2004 to 2006, Graves became involved with a "Romeo" pimp, she said. He promised love. "A few days after that I learned he was a pimp and I was forced into the life," she said.

For two to three years, Graves faced daily beatings and lived through traumas associated with being sex trafficked, she said. Eventually, she met another man and became pregnant.

"My trafficker sent girls to attack me and I miscarried and lost my child," she said. "I decided to change my life. I said 'never again.'"

Graves began working with law enforcement and testified against her trafficker. Her pimp was sentenced to 25 years in prison, she said.

Federal law defines sex trafficking as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person induced is under 18, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

What does human trafficking look like on Cape Cod?

Between 2004 and 2006, Graves was trafficked across the country and throughout the Cape and Islands area. Graves' pimp, who she didn't name, took girls to bars to score dates — a word used to describe sex for hire.

Victims are sold in venues such as strip clubs, house parties, truck stops, massage parlors, social media, online escort ads, family homes and the streets, according to Teens Against Trafficking, a Nevada-based student-led coalition. The Cape "is ripe for sex, labor, and domestic trafficking," said Lois Hirshberg, co-chair of Cape Cod PATH, or People Against Trafficking Humans. The PATH task force, formed in 2014, works to eliminate human trafficking on the Cape through education, outreach and collaboration, and is a project of the nonprofit Cape Cod Foundation in South Yarmouth.

"When it comes to trafficking, humans are seen as products — not people," said Hirshberg.

Events like Super Bowl parties, said Julia Kehoe, president and CEO of Health Imperatives, also help increase sex trafficking incidents on a national scale. Health Imperatives, a nonprofit in Brockton, works in southeastern Massachusetts to improve the health, safety, and economic security of low-income and vulnerable individuals and families.

"Any event that causes the influx of people who have disposable income will increase the demand," she said.

What are traffickers and 'pimps' looking for?

On television shows, trafficking victims are often depicted as women or children who are stolen in the night by criminals in foreign countries, said Barnstable police officer Katie Parache.

But that's a mistake, Parache said.

"Thinking of human trafficking solely in those terms prevents us from seeing what is right in front of our face," she said.

Parache serves as a field training officer, sexual assault investigator, and crisis negotiator for a Cape Cod Regional Law Enforcement Council team that specializes in high-risk situations.

In reality, trafficking is the second largest crime in the United States and victims are usually girls aged 14 to 17, and boys aged 11 to 13, Parache said. Transgender youth are also at risk.

Many juveniles don't realize they are even being victimized, she said.

As a teenager, Graves remembers pimps waiting outside group homes to pick up girls."When you get kicked out on your 18th birthday, where do you go?" she said.

Online human trafficking

Pimps and sex buyers or "johns" also used Backpage.com to traffic Graves. The classified advertising website was shut down in 2018 because most of its ads were related to prostitution. "I was working, along with other advocates to shut Backpage down," she said. "And guess what happened? OnlyFans popped up." OnlyFans is an adult-only internet content creation and subscription service.

The federal Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, plays a part in sex trafficking, said Graves. The act says websites are not responsible for posted content. It's a way for websites like OnlyFans to make money on the backs of people who are forced into the sex trade, she said.

Do housing and human trafficking intersect?

Since she was 18, Graves has spent much of her life in Washington, D.C. lobbying to strengthen the Violence Against Women Act. President Joe Biden signed a reauthorization in 2022. Throughout that time, Graves noticed that vulnerabilities such as food insecurity and a lack of affordable housing, increase human trafficking in communities like those on the Cape.

Graves, recently appointed to the Barnstable Local Comprehensive Planning Committee, said a lack of long-term housing and basic needs can lead to what she calls survival sex. That's trading sex for clothing, sneakers, shoes, or a place to sleep at night, she said.

Kehoe, with the Brockton-based Health Imperatives, thinks housing is the single biggest contributing factor to human trafficking.

"If a woman is submerged into challenges surrounding addiction and trafficking and loses her child, she is now an individual and isn't eligible for housing or shelter," she said.

Policing human trafficking: it's a long-term game

A long-standing problem surrounding human trafficking is that the criminal justice system didn't see it for the crime that it is, said Kehoe.

"Before the law was changed, the focus was on women themselves. They were getting arrested more than sex buyers," she said.

Sex crime laws were enacted in 2011 in Massachusetts, but many police officers went through police academies before sex trafficking training was offered, Parache said. A working group on sex trafficking was formed by Orleans Police Chief Scott MacDonald, she said.

One of the only things that prevents johns from re-offending in the future is an arrest, Parache said.

In September: Ten men, mostly from Cape, arrested in sting operation on charge of sexual conduct for fee

"It’s embarrassing. They don't want to suffer social repercussions," she said.

Cape and Islands District Attorney Rob Galibois has expanded his office's child abuse unit to include human trafficking with a focus on child exploitation, which can lead to sex trafficking, according to Vanessa Madge, who heads the unit.

What are the solutions?

Training on human trafficking offered by Cape Cod PATH at schools, libraries and other venues is intended to spark conversation and change — and create awareness of the signs in everyday life on the Cape.

One way to directly help trafficking survivors is to provide empathy.

"People don't talk about the victims. What happened to them? Who are they? Where do they come from?" Kehoe said. "People don't see their humanity."

Graves said it's more important than ever to support affordable housing initiatives and organizations that are providing human services.

"We need housing, we need jobs, we need education. We need to ensure that people have mental health," she said. "Unless we address the signs and side effects of human trafficking, we are not going to be able to make any changes."

Rachael Devaney writes about community and culture. Reach her at rdevaney@capecodonline.com. Follow her on Twitter: @RachaelDevaney.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Sex trafficking occurs in areas flush with extra income, expert says