Jessica Muñoz was working as a nurse practitioner in Honolulu when she first discovered American youngsters have been being purchased and bought for intercourse.
Youngsters have been coming into the emergency room the place she labored, however their tales “simply didn’t line up,” she says. Usually, they’d been written off as troublemakers or dangerous children, however Muñoz realized the reality: They have been victims of intercourse trafficking and exploitation.
These weak children had been tricked or pressured into intercourse work, and so they had nowhere to show. Muñoz determined to vary that by founding Ho‘ōla Nā Pua, a nonprofit targeted on stopping youth intercourse trafficking and offering care and therapeutic for victims. The group’s identify means “new life for our kids” in Hawaiian.
Below her management, Ho‘ōla Nā Pua has opened a 32-bed residential remedy facility referred to as Pearl Haven that provides therapeutic companies for youngsters ages 11 to 17. The group additionally raises consciousness about intercourse trafficking, runs a mentorship program and offers prevention training in faculties. Ho‘ōla Nā Pua leads coaching for well being care professionals, regulation enforcement and repair suppliers who may need the chance to intervene.
“There was an actual must construct a complete mannequin in order that these children may actually discover these pathways to freedom and therapeutic,” she says.
We talked to Muñoz about her journey and the way on a regular basis individuals have the ability to make a distinction.
SUCCESS: What initially drew you to well being care?
Jessica Muñoz: I used to be at all times actually concerned with individuals who have been within the medical subject—nurses, medical doctors, family and friends who have been in well being care. I used to be simply fascinated by the tales they might share. And I may see the alternatives to offer hands-on assist for individuals once they have been in tough instances, going through well being points.
S: You’ve stated you will have a “justice gene.” What do you imply by that?
JM: All of us have DNA. All of us have totally different genes in our DNA. And I simply suppose there are individuals like Corrie ten Growth, Abraham Lincoln, William Wilberforce and Florence Nightingale who’ve this relentless drive to make proper what’s been mistaken, to face within the hole for the weak and be sure that individuals are capable of reside a lifetime of freedom and well being.
S: Why are the victims of intercourse trafficking and exploitation so typically labeled as “drawback” children?
JM: Behaviors are the language of trauma. If children are into medicine or substances or working away, they’re working away from one thing to one thing else. We have to look behind the scenes and actually perceive what’s taking place. A lot of children become involved in delinquent behaviors, and other people will label that as, “Oh, they’re only a dangerous child or a troubled child,” versus, “Wait, they’re a traumatized child.”
S: How do individuals miss it?
JM: A part of it’s oblivion. Persons are oblivious, and, for the typical citizen, they consider the scary man within the white van and kidnapping. However it’s truly the predator who’s on-line, who’s speaking to children and recruiting them subtly. It’s the boyfriend-type relationship. And so, there [are] simply misperceptions of what this seems like and the prevalence of it.
S: Do lots of people shrug off this challenge? And, if that’s the case, how do you reply?
JM: The truth is that this challenge is in all places. You simply don’t see it. It [might] seem to be, “Oh, that would by no means occur to my baby,” however I can’t let you know what number of upper-middle-class mother and father I’ve labored with. All it takes is a second of vulnerability and unhealthy attachment for teenagers to finish up on this scenario and never even understand what they’re stepping into. Everyone seems to be on-line, and the web and social media apps and all of these issues which might be presupposed to be bringing us collectively additionally collide our worlds with perpetrators and people who find themselves desirous to abuse and exploit. You simply won’t see it and understand it. However it’s harmful.
I at all times problem individuals. I say to them, “I don’t wish to reside in a world the place this occurs to youngsters.” And I consider my very own nieces and nephews, and I combat for them as a result of they symbolize the hundreds of kids who’re on the market who this might occur to.
S: What makes intercourse trafficking and exploitation such a tough challenge to deal with?
JM: It’s advanced as a result of sexual points are advanced. Take into consideration after we began speaking about sexual assault and rape and the #MeToo motion. It creates a variety of emotion. It creates a variety of dialog. There may be a variety of finger-pointing. With this, there’s a related stigma round it as a result of I feel individuals even have a extremely exhausting time accepting that this occurs to youngsters—particularly in America. “Wow, that’s loopy. In fact, you may see that in different nations however not our personal.”
Once you take that to the following stage of processing, you go, “Effectively, why does this occur?” We wouldn’t have this taking place if individuals didn’t [seek it out]. So, then you definately go into, “The place is that this demand coming from? How do you tackle it?” As a result of it’s not the scary particular person crawling out from below the bridge that’s doing it. It’s the politicians, it’s the medical doctors, it’s white-collar, blue-collar. It’s the entire above. Consider the disgrace and the stigma round that. And people are the hidden issues we don’t wanna discuss.
Kids who are suffering from this stage of abuse and violence have advanced trauma and wish a complete method to therapeutic. The over sexualization of our kids has elevated in our nation over the previous 20 years. This additional contributes to vulnerabilities of youth from all various kinds of backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses.
Photograph courtesy of OpenWaterProductions
