The University’s first student-led anti-human trafficking organization was founded this fall. Senior Katerina Lescouflair established the new group, Breaking Chains, which focuses specifically on human sex trafficking.
Breaking Chains will be working with the local nonprofit Safe House of Hope by teaching Life Skills classes at their drop-in center. On campus, the group aims to provide students with knowledge about sex trafficking in the U.S., and pending approval, run a student run talkline.
Lescouflair recognized the active role that students could play after working as a street outreach volunteer with Safe House of Hope during her sophomore year.
“The idea behind Breaking Chains is that we will lead basic Life Skills classes with the women at Safe House of Hope because that was something that Safe House of Hope used to do themselves, but they had such a low number of volunteers that they had to stop,” she said. “I thought that what they were teaching were all things that students here were more than qualified to do.”
Members of Breaking Chains will be expected to participate in at least one three to four hour shift per month. Prior to teaching a Basic Life Skills Class at Safe House of Hope, students must complete a training session. The group will also host on-campus events targeted at raising awareness about sex trafficking that will be open to all interested students.
Breaking Chains hosted their first on campus event, a viewing of the documentary Very Young Girls, on Wednesday evening. The film highlighted sex trafficking in New York City. The screening was followed by an open discussion where students responded to questions about their preconceptions and biases of sex workers and sex trafficking in Baltimore.
According to Lescouflair, there is a transgender and gay sex trafficking track on 24th and N. Charles Street, not far from the Homewood Campus.
Freshman Madison Torrez shared what drew her to the event.
“I actually really want to work with anti-human trafficking in the future, specifically as a psychologist rehabilitating human trafficking victims,” she said. “Watching a documentary that exposes human trafficking as it occurs, here, in the States is very eye opening.”
Hopkins senior William Wisner-Carlson emphasized the need for us to acknowledge that slavery, including sex trafficking, remains a relevant issue.
“There’s a statistic that always staggers me, which is that there are more slaves in the world today than there has ever been at any point in human history, proportionally,” he said. “That’s mind blowing because we think of slavery as an old and gone thing and recognize that it was bad, archaic. It still exists.”
Lescouflair shared an interaction she had with a 19-year-old sex worker, drawing on the stigmatization surrounding sex workers.
“She had such a bubbly personality and was super nice, and she reminded me so much of myself. It felt like she could totally be at Hopkins and it bothered me,” she said. “It can be anyone, any age, any gender. It really bugged me that it’s just determined by your family.”
Lescouflair also touched on the reasons why students should volunteer in the Baltimore community, although it may seem intimidating at first.
“It is so great getting to connect with people in Baltimore and then also impacting their lives,” she said. “Honestly, I remember being terrified my freshman year after I went on the security walk. I didn’t want to leave. It’s not true, honestly. The people of Baltimore are great. I think that they’re wonderful people, if anything, they’re just disenfranchised with the system and feel put down by the systematic inequalities.”
At the same time, Lescouflair acknowledged that negative stereotypes about Hopkins persist in many lower income communities. This is especially the case for older generations that remember how Hopkins displaced communities to construct the Hopkins Hospital and their research study on lead levels.
“Even now, in some communities, people are a little bit more suspicious of researchers or anyone that says they’re connected to Johns Hopkins. And as far as the Homewood Campus, most people think that Johns Hopkins students are in a bubble, they’re from all over the world and the country, they don’t really care about Baltimore. They’re just here to take from the city and not give anything to it. I think that if you went into the community, even though you might hear that at first, if you stay with them a little bit longer, they’ll gain respect for you and realize that you care. If you stay in the bubble, you’re contributing to that negative stereotype.”
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