The squeaking of sneakers from basketball practice may be a normal activity at Plant City High School on a Saturday. But there was something different happening Nov. 16, in the main mall.
Bulky camera equipment monopolized the area where students eat on schools days. Electronic cords wrapped around cafeteria tables and snaked across the floor.
The high school had turned into movie set, complete with producers, directors and cast members — some of whom walk the high school’s halls during weekdays as students themselves.
They had come together to shoot a public-service announcement about an issue near to their hearts — child sex trafficking.
Shot by Hillsborough Television, the PSA is the brainchild of producers Yvonne Fry and Dottie Groover-Skipper. As part of the Hillsborough County Commission’s On the Status of Women, the duo were part of its 2012 Fall Forum on the Sex Trafficking of Minors.
Through their work, they learned Florida was the third in the nation for sex trafficking. Tampa posed a particularly large threat, because of its booming adult entertainment, agriculture and tourism industries and its position next to seaports and the Interstate 4 corridor.
Often, sex traffickers target youth who have certain risk factors, such as coming from homes with domestic violence and drug abuse or low self-esteem.
After the COSW presented a report to the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners, the board voted unanimously to develop a community-wide human-trafficking awareness campaign with the focus on child sex trafficking.
The PSA is one facet of the campaign. It will be shown to Hillsborough County high school students in January in a required health class called HOPE. January also is Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
“It really clears up what sex trafficking is,” Groover-Skipper says. “It’s slavery.”
The PSA informs students about sex trafficking and signs to look for to avoid trafficking and also signs that peers are being targeted.
During the filming at Plant City High, students chatted in the background in a lunchroom scenario, while two human-trafficking recruiters try to find vulnerable youth. Different shots also were scheduled in R Hall by lockers and outside in a courtyard area.
“It’s great,” Assistant Principal of Curriculum Peggy Obel says. “It’s nice to have something that benefits the community here in our school.”
But, students don’t spend all their time at school. The PSA will also focus on their social lives. Shooting took place at a local home in Plant City. The scene was of a party during which a recruiter took inappropriate pictures of a student as blackmail.
“At that point, it becomes a slippery slope,” Fry says. “You feel that you’re trapped. It’s that emotional feeling of, ‘My life is over.’”
COSW leaders hopes having teens act in the PSA will only drive it home further. Students agree.
“You usually see this type of thing and think, ‘That doesn’t happen here,’” actress Kellen Morris says.
“You don’t know who these people are,” actor Arie Fry says. “They could be anywhere.”
Arie Fry, Morris and Bryson Keel sat at a table in PCHS during shooting. Fry played a recruiter, while Keel and Morris tried to concentrate on their homework. All three actors attend Plant City High.
“I think it’ll be cool,” Keel says about having the PSA shown to high school students. “Especially at Plant City. People will know it’s real, because it’s their school.”
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.
STATISTICS
• According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 100,000 to 293,000 children are in danger of becoming sexual commodities.
• The U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section reports 12 is the average age of entry into pornography and prostitution in the United States.
• The National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Throwaway Children indicates that one out of three of these children will be lured and forced to prostitute within 48 hours of being on their own.
• Investigative research by Shared Hope International, reveals pimps commonly sell minor girls for $400 an hour on America’s streets.
• Human rights investigations discovered minors were sold an average of 10 to 15 times per day, six days per week, totaling between 9,360 and 14,040 sex acts per year. The girls received none of the money.
COSW FALL FORUM
Hillsborough County’s Commission On the Status of Women held its 2012 Fall Forum on the Sex Trafficking of Minors. The COSW Fall Forum’s conclusions and recommendations to Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners led to a unanimous vote by the BOCC to develop a community-wide human trafficking awareness campaign, with focus on child sex trafficking.
In the COSW’s report to commissioners they discussed risk factors for targeted youth:
• Youth who are runaways
• Youth in the foster care system
• Pre-teens struggling with identity and self-esteem issues
• Youth whose homes contain domestic violence, drug abuse and sexual abuse
• Youth involved with the Department of Juvenile Justice
• Youth who come from damaged or broken homes
• Youth who live alternative lifestyles (such as sexual orientation)
• Immigrant youth
• Impoverished youth
• Youth involved in social media
• Disadvantaged youth
• Youth involved with the child welfare system
• Youth who frequent shopping malls
• Youth who lack community
• Youth who come from a single-parent home
HOW TO RESPOND
• Call 911
• The Florida Department of Children & Families Abuse Hotline (1-800-96Abuse)
• The National Human Trafficking Resource Center (1-800-3737-888)
• The Department of Homeland Security (1-866-347-2423)
• The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay (211)