By Eva Posner | SDUN Reporter

The Radical Feminists of San Diego organized a Day of Action Against Human Trafficking, inviting several local anti-trafficking organizations to participate in an effort to raise awareness about all forms of human trafficking.

The event took place on Saturday, April 7. Beginning at noon at the intersection of 30th Street and El Cajon Boulevard and ending at the Boulevard Transit Plaza, nine speakers from various advocacy organizations addressed the crowd on the complexities of human trafficking.

Groups represented at the rally included Af3rm San Diego, the Center for Social Advocacy, Border Angels, the Women’s Museum of California, Unchained, Occupy San Diego and the National Association of Human Trafficking Victim Advocates.

Men and women of all ages and ethnic backgrounds held signs with messages that read, “Children are not for sale,” “Real men don’t buy girls” and “Human trafficking = slavery.” As they marched on El Cajon Boulevard toward the Transit Plaza, the group chanted, “Human lives are on the line; now’s a time to organize.”

Cathy Mendonca, a residential advocate at the YWCA of San Diego County and a member of the Radical Feminists, organized the event.

“I want to debunk the idea that trafficking is only sex slavery and prostitution,” Mendonca said. “That is a huge part of it but it is a very complex issue involving many marginalized groups, [including] women, children, LGBT youth, immigrants and men forced into horrible labor conditions.”

Ruth Inacay, a University of San Diego Rainbow Educator, spoke at the rally about the vulnerability of LGBT youth to be trafficked. “They are often kicked out of their homes or run away because their identity is not accepted by their families,” she said.

Inacay said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that one in three homeless teens will be approached by traffickers within the first 48 hours of being on the street.

Dilkhwaz Ahmed, a Kurdish woman from Iraq and Executive Director of License to Freedom, also spoke at the event. License to Freedom is a nonprofit organization seeking to end domestic violence in San Diego County. Ahmed spoke on forced marriages, a form of exploitation most people may not recognize as trafficking.

Ahmed said many young girls are taken from their homes against their will and married to men many years their senior. Sometimes the girls are taken out of the U.S. for fear of retribution, never to see their families again and are forced to be subservient to husbands they did not wanted to marry.

“One girl was 13 years old and her parents practically sold her to a 37-year-old man,” Ahmed said. “We can’t stand for that. America is better than that.”

Other topics discussed included the role of the U.S. military in trafficking abroad; the profit made from trafficking by companies like craigslist.org and backpage.com; the trafficking of immigrants; and the need for shelters and services for victims in San Diego County.

John Brooks, a congressional candidate for District 51, was present to support the cause.

“Human trafficking is a big, big problem in the world,” Brooks said. “I’ve been to places you would normally associate with it, like Thailand and Vietnam, and it’s evident there. …It’s [also] right here in the United States, on the streets of our city and cities like ours, and many Americans aren’t aware of that.”

Statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime state that 2.4 million people around the world are victims of human trafficking at any one time; 80 percent are exploited for sexual purposes and 17 percent are used for forced labor.

At the end of event, Kari, a 20-year-old survivor of sex trafficking, shared her story. She said she was kidnapped at age 14 from a San Diego sidewalk when someone asked her for directions. Kari said she was raped and spent the next several months being forced to perform sex acts for clients.

One of the girls Kari was held with was 8 years old at the time, Kari said. The two eventually escaped out of a small window in a bathroom.

“I just want people to know this is real,” Kari said. “I suffer from PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] from this. I wake up from night terrors on a regular basis. I wanted to kill myself for such a long time. … Now I know I lived so that I could help raise awareness for this issue. I just don’t want to another person to have to go through what I went through.”

For people who want to get involved in the fight against human trafficking, Mendonca suggested writing letters to local and state politicians, starting petitions and donating to advocacy groups that are working on behalf of victims.

“This isn’t a quick fix,” Mendonca said. “A rally is a great start to raise awareness but it doesn’t end there. California needs legislation that doesn’t criminalize victims. San Diego needs more education on the issue and more services for the victims, but it all starts with action by the people of the community.”