It happens here: Changing views on human trafficking

Jennifer Kempton didn’t think it would happen to her.

Kempton was lured into a human trafficking ring by her then-boyfriend in Columbus. She was branded, forcibly tattooed to be marked as property of that boyfriend and other gangs.

Commonly referred to as Romeo pimps, men like the one who coerced Kempton exploit the vulnerability of women and girls often brought on by low self-esteem or economic instability.

Private investigator Lilly Paisley, who lives and works in Zanesville, said Romeo pimps, also referred to as loverboys, make it seem as if they will take good care of women who feel as if no one else will. They later force women into the violent and drug-ridden underworld of human trafficking — the buying, selling and trading of human beings for sex or labor.

“Since slavery was supposedly taken out of existence after the Civil War, it’s been kept underground now,” Kempton said.

Kempton spent six years in a human trafficking ring before making it out in 2013.

Human trafficking is now a $34 billion underground industry with more than 27 million people enslaved worldwide, according to the Bridge to Freedom Foundation. But it has only recently come into focus in the United States and is just now starting to garner attention in Zanesville.

Muskingum County saw its first arrest and indictment on human trafficking charges in March. Derek Jamison was indicted on three counts of human trafficking, 17 counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance, 11 counts of compelling prostitution, nine counts of unlawful sexual conduct, three counts of trafficking marijuana and three counts of having a weapon while under disability.

Paisley said this first arrest does not mark the end of human trafficking in the area, but the beginning of what needs to be a bigger crackdown.

“(Human trafficking) is in plain sight, but people can’t see it and it happens more than what we know,” Paisley said. “It’s in our neighborhoods and under our noses, but we’re just not educated enough to identify the red flags.”

Human trafficking can seem distant, especially in places such as Zanesville. It’s quaint, quiet and relatively rural. Paisley said that, in the United States, people perceive human trafficking as a foreign issue or, at the very least, an urban America issue.

“You typically think of prostitution happening in the bigger cities,” Kempton said. “What people fail to realize is that, even in the little towns, the little country towns, there’s still Backpage there. There’s still Craigslist there. There’s still addiction there where women need to supply their habit and older men come in to save the day. That’s trafficking and it happens everywhere.”

Backpage.com is a website for classified advertisements, which was at the center of a major human trafficking bust in February, including the arrest of three Ohio traffickers. People have posted erotic services ads on Backpage (and sometimes Craigslist), which has been seen as an aid to human trafficking.

Kempton was kidnapped, held hostage, raped, sodomized and forcibly fed drugs.

“It led me to a darkness so dark and so deep that I tried to kill myself multiple times,” she said.

Kempton said she made it out of trafficking through prayer and what seemed like endless cries for help but faces triggers that send her mind back to her darkest places. She admitted to suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

For some time after she found freedom, three gang insignias and a “property of” tattoo remained on Kempton’s body, which served as constant reminders of the life she had physically but not yet mentally escaped. She funded the coverup of one tattoo and found a sponsor to pay to cover up the other three. Still, she said, she screams out at night and often wakes up crying.

Having endured so much and seeing the public’s reluctance to accept the reality of human trafficking in Ohio, in the U.S. and around the world frustrates Kempton.

“People don’t want to acknowledge that this is happening,” she said. “They don’t want to believe the existence of this problem.”

Paisley attributes the continuation and growth of human trafficking to a lack of public awareness and acceptance of a problem.

“People think, ‘It will never happen to me. It’ll never happen to my daughter. It’ll never happen to my granddaughter,’ ” Paisley said. “People don’t think that will ever happen to them, and when it does happen to them, it is possibly too late.”

It is too late to see the warning signs that someone is, has been or might soon be a victim of trafficking, she said.

Though the federal government and state lawmakers have made more effort recently to stamp out human trafficking, Paisley said, many efforts are misguided or insufficient. Information and training is directed almost exclusively toward law enforcement professionals, when more should be aimed at the general public, she said.

Last year, Paisley launched Anchored for Justice Inc., which is a nonprofit aimed at rescuing and restoring human trafficking victims and informing the public about trafficking. She also began working with Kempton.

“She’s helped me,” Paisley said. “I’ve never been in this situation. I only know that I am to help people and educate. When you get to the real source, when you talk to someone who really knows what it’s like, it gives you a whole new perspective.”

Kempton said she wants to eliminate the stigma attached to trafficking victims and to combat misinformation.

“Society has turned a blind eye to this for a long time,” she said. “(People think) us victims are just prostitutes, it’s a chosen profession, and that’s ridiculous. Whether it’s out of desperation, addiction, forced by coercion, it’s trafficking and it’s not an act of choice.”

She began telling her story to try to help other victims find their paths to freedom.

“I knew how many women I had experienced the streets with that were still out there suffering,” Kempton said.

Together, their hope is to bring human trafficking within the realm of possibility for local families, to let them know that it does happen here, where many would least expect it.

As Paisley said, no one thinks it will happen to them.

“There are 27 million families in the world who thought that same thing about their children,” Kempton said. “And that’s how many are enslaved now.”

bparks2@gannett.com

740-868-3732

Twitter: @Bradley_W_Parks

Public Event

Kempton and three other survivors will tell their stories on the Ohio University-Zanesville campus Thursday.

The event starts at 2 p.m. in the Campus Center, Room 430.

The event also will include a mime depicting key players in human trafficking, two hip-hop performances and a keynote address from Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz.

For more information, call 740-252-6958 or visit www.anchoredforjustice.com.