On a sunny afternoon, a police officer pulls over a young male driver. There’s an innocent-looking, girl-next-door type in the back seat of the car. The driver responds to the officer’s basic questions with cold indifference. When questioned, the girl in the back says she’s fine. Maybe she betrays a hint of unease.
Off-screen, a man’s voice makes the sorrowful observation that he never expected his daughter to become involved with human trafficking. The voice is sad, but not self-critical. Who’s at fault in this situation? The parents? The daughter?
The public service announcement, an outreach effort by the Northern Virginia Human Trafficking Task Force “Just Ask” Prevention Project, was rolled out to the public last week at the Fair Oaks District Police Station.
The date of the roll out coincided with the halfway mark of the project itself, a two-year, $1 million Department of Justice grant-funded enterprise to help with enforcement and education related to human trafficking crimes.
“Our message is just to let the community know that this exists and it's a growing problem,” said Kristin Fitzmorris with Just Ask. “These girls, usually girls, are victims, not criminals. That's been a problem up until recently, where people are shunned, especially in some of the cultural communities in Fairfax County. There's a tendency sometimes to think that, if they get involved in this, you're a bad person. It's not the case.”
As part of the Just Ask project outreach, members of the task force created an interactive website for teens and their parents, teachers and members of the community, as well as developed a high school curriculum to bring the issue up at schools.
THROUGH RESEARCHING the schools, Fitzmorris said they found Krya Beckman, a senior at West Springfield High School. Beckman had already started her own awareness club called Spartans against Human Trafficking. Just Ask asked her to join a group of current and former FCPS students that produced the PSA.
Only a year old, the club already has 70 members and meets weekly to write supportive letters to trafficking survivors and organize public displays like wristband campaigns.
“I wanted to start a club against women's oppression,” said Beckman. “But then I realized there was actually trafficking in our area and it was a huge problem. So then the best way for me as a student to help out, because I knew I had to do something about it, was to start a club to raise awareness.”
“She has this real insight into knowing how to motivate people her own age,” said Fitzmorris.
“It feels rewarding, but also it feels kind of right,” said Beckman. “I really wanted people my age to know about it too, because it's kind of hidden in the shadows.”
In the first year of the Just Ask project, community members have supplied 141 leads that lead to 253 victims being identified, 13 percent of whom were juveniles.
Separate law enforcement investigation identified an additional 69 suspects.
One example is the case of Tayron Weeks, an Alexandria man who approached a 14-year-old girl at the Braddock Road Metro station and engaged her about prostituting herself. After a successful sting operation, Weeks plead guilty to trafficking charges last month.
“That would not have been possible without the Just Ask campaign,” said Detective Bill Woolf of the FCPD Human Trafficking Unit. “What ultimately gave that girl the courage to come forward and report what was going on was because of an event that was sponsored by the Fairfax County Office for Women, in conjunction with Just Ask. After that she was educated by the website and got the courage to come forward.”
Elaine Stewart, a friend of Beckman’s and also a senior at West Springfield, played the girl in the PSA. “It was very interesting, just because I knew I was in a safe environment,” she said. “It was hard to actually imagine what it would be like to be a victim.
“I think this video will help reinforce that,” she said, “so people will see it and understand that they themselves might be being trafficked. Or they know someone. So they're able to approach it and get out of the situation appropriately.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION, visit www.justaskva.org. The PSA is available to view on the Just Ask YouTube page.