Human trafficking survivor Lynne Caffery said she was “sold and given and resold and given to males and females for merchandise and guns and drugs and raped repeatedly” as a trafficked victim of a biker group and the Mexican cartel before landing in prison and, eventually, finding hope, education and a new life.
Caffery told Yellowhammer News her difficult journey led her to her life’s passion — helping young people as executive director of Safe Harbor Youth, which provides a transitional living program for youth ages 16-22 years old “who have run away from home, are neglected, homeless, living on the streets, or victims of human trafficking,” according to the organization’s website.
Alabama Human Trafficking Summit
Caffery was one of more than 20 state and national experts spanning church ministry, law enforcement, government, education, non-profit, technology and legal sectors who presented this month at the Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force’s fourth annual summit held in Montgomery.
Link between pornography and human trafficking
This year’s summit was the largest-to-date and explored the link between pornography and human trafficking among other focus areas, according to organizers.
“Due to [pornography’s] growing role in fueling sex traffickers, we brought Lisa Thompson of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) down from D.C. to present this emerging subject matter,” said David Pinkleton, fundraising chair for the Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force.
Thompson is the NCOSE’s vice president of research and education and recently said on the Dr. Drew show that when it comes to pornography’s “wide-ranging health harms,” to children and the public, the research is “pretty overwhelming.”
The NCOSE contends that research shows pornography fuels human trafficking, violence, rape, and abuse of women and children as porn viewers seek to act out the violent sex acts they see online.
