SAVING INNOCENCE

The city of West Hollywood is inviting the public to a free virtual  educational training to discuss issues pertaining to human trafficking  to assist participants in helping support and advocate for victims.

According to a press release from the city of West Hollywood, the  Human Trafficking Community Training will take place on Tuesday, March  23, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. via a Zoom webinar; the training is open to  the public, but registration is required to attend.

Training will be led by Dawn Schiller, an expert survivor-leader in  the anti-trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault movements,  who previously provided trainings for a similar topic for West  Hollywood. Schiller provides firsthand insight to community advocates on  survivorship, education, and service to others. She is a national  speaker, educator, consultant, and author.

In 2020, she participated in the City’s Human Rights Speakers Series  panel discussion about human trafficking. In 2019, she provided training  to public safety personnel, law enforcement personnel, fire department  personnel, and code compliance officers about human trafficking, notice  requirements, and standards for businesses.

“As important as it is to conduct training among our public safety  personnel, it is just as critical to educate and raise awareness among  our city’s commissioners, advisory board members, and the community at  large,” said West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tempore Lauren Meister. “Being  able to recognize the signs of human trafficking is the first step to  combatting human trafficking.”

“Human trafficking is a crisis throughout the world. Hundreds of  thousands of victims are trafficked in the United States,” said City of  West Hollywood Councilmember Sepi Shyne. “This training provides our  community and City officials with the crucial tools needed to join the  fight against human trafficking. We need to know what to look for in  order to see something and say something.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security, human trafficking  is “modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion  to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.” Victims of human  trafficking include all genders, ages, races, countries, and  socioeconomic statuses. Individuals in vulnerable situations — including  migrants and refugees fleeing conflict or disaster, homeless LGBTQ  youth, women and girls, and children in poverty — are preyed upon and  may be more likely to be targeted by traffickers. The different kinds of  human trafficking include sex trafficking, forced labor, and domestic  servitude. Any person under the age of 18 involved in a commercial sex  act is considered a victim of human trafficking.

According to the Polaris Project, which publishes data based on  calls, text messages, webforms, emails, and webchats with the National  Human Trafficking Hotline, over 25 million people are trafficked  worldwide, and California is one of the largest sites of human  trafficking in the United States.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline has seen a 40-percent increase  in emergency calls since the COVID-19 pandemic. The Coalition to  Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST),a Los Angeles-based human rights  organization and one of the nation’s largest provider of services to  survivors of human trafficking, has seen a 185 percent increase in human  trafficking cases during the pandemic, compared to 2019. One-hundred  percent of CAST’s urgent trafficking cases have been homeless people who  were trafficked.

For anyone who has become a victim of human trafficking or know of a trafficking situation, there are resources to help:

• The National Human Trafficking Hotline connects victims and  survivors of sex and labor trafficking with services and support to get  help and stay safe. The hotline also receives tips about potential  situations of sex and labor trafficking and facilitates reporting that  information to the appropriate authorities in certain cases. Toll-free  phone and SMS text lines and live online chat function are available 24  hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days. To contact the hotline, call (888)  373-7888 or text HELP or INFO to BeFree or 233733. Deaf or hard of  hearing or speech-impaired people can contact the hotline by dialing  711.
• The Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) helps people  who have been in forced prostitution, forced labor, and slave-like  conditions by providing legal and social services. To request services  or report tips regarding potential human trafficking cases, contact the  toll-free, 24/7 hotline at (888) Key-2-FREE or (888) 539-2373.
• Journey Out provides comprehensive services and support to help  victims of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. For  assistance call (818) 988-4970 or email info@journeyout.org.
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For more information about the Human Trafficking Community Training,  contact Kerry McCormack, City of West Hollywood Event Services  Coordinator, at (323) 848-6385 or at kmccormack@weho.org. For people who  are Deaf or hard of hearing, call TTY (323) 848-6496.

To register, visit  https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NHNZ8sA_Q2G789u9pkMpKQ. A link to  the Zoom event, including a call-in number for those unable to join  online, will be emailed to participants prior to the event.

The Investigation

Moana is committed to helping bring justice against her traffickers and helping to liberate child victims who she indicates are currently being trafficked and exploited by this ring.  She is voluntarily providing ARC with vital information including perpetrators’ names, locations, vehicles, trafficking motels, photos, criminal history and her own witness testimony to help launch the investigation.  I am in contact with the Homeland Security Human Trafficking Victim Specialist in the jurisdiction where this trafficking ring has been operating for  many years.  We expect this investigation will take several weeks since  much research must be done to authenticate and collect supporting  evidence.                                         

There are many risk factors for Moana.   I am continuing to provide support and advocacy, particularly in  finding safe housing and stable employment for her as well as resources  for personal recovery and mental health.                       

For more info, please click here.

"Something Bigger Than Overthrowing Small Governments," the professional history of Bazzel Baz and the Association for the Recovery of Children, one of our non-profit partners.

Baz' long-anticipated non-fiction book details riveting highlights from Baz' life told in his witty, humorous and enthralling manner.  Explore in  first-person his stories from The Citadel and watch how his career in  the U.S. Marine Corps was interrupted with a shrewd recruitment by the  CIA.  Experience extreme adventures and history-changing missions from Baz’ ten years as a CIA special operator. 

Then walk through the events that birthed Association for the Recovery of Children(ARC).   Included in this book are multiple after-action reports from  outstanding ARC child rescue missions. Baz has reserved for the last  chapters some crucial revelations about our current times, "What Hides in The Darkness.”  Showing his fearlessness toward controversy, Baz takes a powerful stand on current issues that will inspire his readers to become the American patriots that are needed to defend a nation under attack from within. The professional history of Bazzel Baz and the Association for the Recovery of Children

Baz' long-anticipated non-fiction book details riveting highlights from Baz' life told in his witty, humorous and enthralling manner.  Explore in  first-person his stories from The Citadel and watch how his career in  the U.S. Marine Corps was interrupted with a shrewd recruitment by the  CIA.  Experience extreme adventures and history-changing missions from Baz’ ten years as a CIA special operator. 

Then walk through the events that birthed Association for the Recovery of Children(ARC).   Included in this book are multiple after-action reports from  outstanding ARC child rescue missions. Baz has reserved for the last  chapters some crucial revelations about our current times, "What Hides in The Darkness.”  Showing his fearlessness toward controversy, Baz takes a powerful stand on current issues that will inspire his readers to become the American patriots that are needed to defend a nation under attack from within. 

To order your copy of "Something Bigger Than Overthrowing Small Governments," please click here.

Launch of "26 Seconds"

"26 Seconds" is a dramatic documentary episodic miniseries that peers  behind an evil shadowy curtain of this rampant global plague. It takes audiences from the neon underground in Thailand to the dusty refugee camps of Iraq; from the glitz and glam of Las Vegas to across the border in Tijuana; from the sunny streets of Southern California to the slums of New Delhi, Phnom Penh and East Africa. The 26 Seconds pilot  is currently available on the online platforms listed below. Creating  Awareness & a Call to Action in 68 English Speaking countries and  over 120 countries overall.

     Amazon Prime

     YouTube

     Google Play

     iTunes

We have created a new funding campaign to complete the 26 Seconds Feature Documentary needed more now than ever. Please help us to continue to Create Awareness and a Call to Action during this difficult time of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Traffickers still want to make their money and are sending children and young women to work on the streets and/or solicit and sell sex online to service men, who may or may not test positive for the coronavirus. This horrific reality needs to be acknowledged and we ALL need to offer resources to victims from the sex trade. We ALL have different gifts and resources and I will do my part through media with the 26 Seconds Feature Documentary. Please help raise funding to complete post-production here.

Watch Unseen in Theaters Today

Inspired by true events in Utah, Unseen is about a  teenage girl’s innocent social media mistake. Carly, 17, like most  teenagers, want to have her own money, be seen at parties, get out of  her small town and find something better, even become famous. Carly’s  way out of her current situation comes in the form of a social media  avert that she sees on her phone. An agency looking for models and  offering them a prize of $1,000. Due to some everyday white lies, Carly  puts herself in an unsafe position. Carly’s lies lead to her being  unseen, never to be seen again. The next day when family and friends  realize that no-one knows Carly’s whereabouts, it’s too late. This is  “fame lure” and can happen to any child, anywhere at any time.

     Watch exclusive interviews with the cast of Unseen here.

     See theaters showing Unseen here.

Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force Quarterly Meeting

Date TBD

9:30am to 11:30am

Center for Healthy Communities, Yosemite Room B

1000 N. Alameda Street in Los Angeles

Please join us in the next LARHTTF Quarterly Meeting with updates on the task force, the subcommittees and for the chance to network, share resources and consult with the different stakeholders. Parking is free. Please bring brochures and other resources to share! For more information, please email philip@castla.org