On March 3rd, my group and I went to Port Authority to hang up posters that raise awareness about human and sexual trafficking. We went to Port Authority because a lot of sex trafficking occurs there. We took the train from school and got off at 42nd street. As we were walking through the train station, we stopped and hung up a poster on a pole or a wall. When we officially entered Port Authority, I was shocked. I had never been to Port Authority before, and I didn’t know that it was so dirty and full of homeless people. We began by going around the perimeter of the bus station, focusing on dark corners and hallways where it looked like girls might be seduced. We also focused on the girls bathrooms; we tried to put a poster on the inside of every stall. Putting up the posters was kind of frightening because we were trying to avoid PABT workers. PABT workers are in charge of making sure everything in the station runs smoothly. We had to avoid them because we did not have permission to put up these posters. We hung about 60 posters all over Port Authority. This was definitely my favorite fieldwork. This was the first one where we were doing something hands-on. All of our other fieldworks have been interviews, which were great, but didn’t make me feel like I was actually helping the victims. I know that by doing this, a girl might understand what is happening to her if she is sex trafficked. It also posted the number for a hotline, which could turn out to be extremely helpful for some of the victims.

This is us putting up a poster