This article originally appeared in  the April edition of the Catholic Connection. It is part of a three-part series on the ministries provided by Catholic Charities of Louisville.  To subscribe to the Catholic Connection please visit: www.archlou.org/about-the-archdiocese/publications-media/connection/

By Marissa Castellanos

Although Kentucky is not a border state or a major entry point into the US, it faces a severe problem of labor and sex trafficking in small towns and urban areas across the Commonwealth, Louisville included.  Crisscrossed by multiple interstates, Kentucky is host to a number of high-profile events, including the Kentucky Derby and NCAA tournament, which increases traffic in the commercial sex market and leads to increased trafficking of adults and youth for labor and sex.  Kentucky’s high rates of poverty, child maltreatment, and the drug epidemic have led to increased cases of youth being trafficked by both parents and pimps. Traffickers force these workers to labor in Kentucky’s fields, restaurants, private homes, and hotels, telling them that they have invisible yet substantial debts to pay and threatening harm to their families. Often when foreign national trafficking victims are identified, they are criminalized, put in detention, and treated worse than their traffickers. This is the reality today in Kentucky communities.

Ten years ago, Catholic Charities of Louisville received referrals for our first two human trafficking survivors, and we began providing case management and legal services to the victims. Since then, we have become the only agency in the Louisville Metro area and in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to provide comprehensive case management and direct services to labor and sex trafficking survivors. Direct services often include assistance with basic needs (clothing, food, personal items), emergency and transitional housing, immigration legal services, legal advocacy, assistance with medical care, and interpreter/translation services.

Catholic Charities has provided case management services to 171 victims over the past four years alone as well as to an additional 197 adolescent girls who received support group services through My Life My Choice, many of them with histories of sexual exploitation or trafficking. These victims included foreign nationals and domestic victims, males and females, adults and children. Here are the stories of two of these victims:

In October 2013, Catholic Charities responded to a request for services from federal law enforcement for a 13-year old girl who had been trafficked for sex. She was originally from Louisville, but the traffickers took her to Nashville, Tennessee where she was compelled to engage in prostitution, along with many other teenage girls. The gang members who were the traffickers forced her to have sex with many men every day and gave her drugs daily. Once identified by law enforcement and returned to Louisville, she got medical treatment, and tested positive for several sexually transmitted infections for which she was treated. Within days of receiving treatment, she ran away and was then missing for five years. During those five years, Catholic Charities maintained contact with the girl’s family and provided them emotional support and assistance with legal services. In the last few weeks, this same girl has been identified and is no longer missing. She is now with her family again. She is 18 years old, and has an infant daughter. After several years of victimization, she is now in need of extensive services: educational assistance (she only completed 7^th grade, and would like to pursue her GED), parenting classes, substance abuse treatment, therapy services, family legal services, case management, and support with basic needs for herself and her daughter. I spent time with her yesterday, at her family’s house. We talked, and I called out the strength of spirit I saw in her. I told her I believe she can do big things in her life. And I saw the love and hope in her eyes as she held her infant daughter. We made plans for her future. She is now planning to live and to overcome.

Recently, I received a phone call from another young woman, now in her 20s. She is from Congo, and was forced to be a housekeeper and nanny for several years…first in Uganda, and then here in the United States. She was a slave in this family’s home most of most of her adolescent years, including her first years of young adulthood.  She was forced to make food for the entire family and wasn’t permitted to eat herself. The family shouted at her every morning to wake up. She slept near the children of the house whom she was to care for. She did not have basic supplies to keep herself clean; imagine for six years not having any hygiene products for your monthly cycle. This was done to humiliate and degrade her and demonstrate the control they had over her life. She could not speak to her family in Congo, who didn’t know where she was. She was never paid for six years of grueling work. She was referred to as “a dog” and suffered such spirit-breaking abuse.

When I first met her, she looked twice her age as a result of the toxic stress, trauma, and physical conditions of her exploitation. At that time, the trafficker was working at the same business where my husband worked, and he knew who she was. These cases hit close to home, sometimes in more ways than you could ever imagine. And there is fear and danger…not just for the victims and survivors, but also for those who come alongside them. After six years, she finally was able to make one phone call and ask for help.  Then she planned her escape, and we came alongside her. We got her to a safe location, helped her get her own apartment, assisted her with a report to the police, provided immigration legal services, and referred her to a civil attorney. She now has a visa and a good job at a hospital where she now trains others. She plans to be a nurse and told me that she plans to get married soon. Her hope is renewed.

This Lenten season, and always, may we provide hope to the hopeless, help for those in need, and a voice to the silenced and forgotten. May we find ourselves standing in the right place, just as Jesus always stood in the right place.

Marissa Castellanos is Program Director for the Bakhita Empowerment Initiative.