On December 2nd, my group and I met Nicole Epps, the Media and Public Relations Consultant of Safe Horizons.  We met with her to talk about possible volunteer opportunities with Safe Horizons.  We were also able to get more information about our topic, we especially learned about sex trafficking.  We spoke about different types of pimping.  The types we spoke about were the “Boyfriend Scenario”, the “Gorilla Scenario” and the “Gang Related” scenario.

The “Boyfriend Scenario”, I find the most scary because in this case the person being trafficked knows their pimp very closely.  This scenario plays out after two people begin a relationship. Like many young girls who are dating an older man, the likely victim will not tell her parents about this relationship.  These two people will most likely become sexually active, and since the victim loves the boyfriend so much, she might get tricked into running away and moving in with him.  If this happens the boyfriend might say something like, I am on a really tight budget, can you help me. Obviously this girl loves her boyfriend so she will be willing to help him, but what she has to do is become a sex slave.  Her boyfriend will become her pimp, and she will be forced to have sex with different men, called “Johns”.

The “Gorilla Scenario” is very simple.  The pimp beats up the girl and kidnaps her and takes her to the “John” or where ever he keeps these girls and women.  The next type of pimping is the “Gang Related Scenario”, which is when a group of people have a big party, that involves drugs and drinking.  Some people who go there will be drugged ( someone will put a drug in their drink).  When this happens the morning after, they will wake up in a different place.  Once they are awake they will begin getting emails with attached pictures and videos of the person doing something inappropriate.  Then the email will say if you don’t do this for us (usually sexual deeds), we will send it out to everyone you know, or we will put it on YouTube.  Then this person is terrified and they will probably do what they were asked.  I found this be an amazing learning experience.  Although we spoke about many other things, the part I have shared with you, I felt was the most informative.