Developing Global Citizens

Human Trafficking: Global Issue, Local Impact

January 11, 2022 Santa Fe College Season 3 Episode 1
Developing Global Citizens
Human Trafficking: Global Issue, Local Impact
Show Notes Transcript

Inspired by the story of William Wilberforce,  leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. after watching the movie "Amazing Grace", Santa Fe College Professor Richard Tovar embarks upon a quest to make an impact on the world and live for something greater than himself.  More than a decade later, Tovar sits down to talk about the global problem of human trafficking and recalls the early days of founding the non-profit organization FIGHT (Fight Injustice and Global Human Trafficking).  His conversation touches upon how human trafficking while a global problem, has very real local impacts and discusses some of the societal stereotypes, cultural acceptance and legal frameworks..

On January 20, 2022 the Santa Fe College Institute of Public Safety is hosting Human Trafficking Awareness Training (HTAT) aimed at training federal, state, local, tribal or military law enforcement officers or agents.  The training will cover current indicators for human trafficking, an overview of Federal statutes and applicable state law related to trafficking. The training is oriented with case studies, videos, and student-centered learning activities tailored to your community’s unique challenges, followed by a panel discussion with state, local, & federal subject matter experts. Law enforcement officials should register for the event here.

To listen to other podcasts from Santa Fe College visit www.sfcollege.edu/listen.

Florida ranks third in most human trafficking cases, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, behind only California and Texas.  To learn more about efforts you can take to increase awareness or learn more about human trafficking in North Central Florida visit the North Central Florida Human Trafficking Task Force Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/NCFHTTF/.

Additional resources:


Vilma Fuentes  

Welcome to Santa Fe College, this Vilma Fuentes and this is our podcast Developing Global Citizens. Today I'm joined by a very special guest of Professor Richard Tovar who teaches nutrition and microbiology at our Science for Health Programs Department, here at Santa Fe College. Richard, welcome. So great to have you here.

 

Richard Tovar  

Thank you, Vilma it is a good time to be here with you. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

All right. So, boy, when I think about you, Richard, I think about so many global connections This podcast is isn't long enough to cover it all. So, there is going to have to be a part two. But let's start from the very beginning. Where were you born? I think weren’t you born in middle?

 

Richard Tovar  

No, actually, I was born in here in United States. I was born in Illinois, a small town called Peoria Pekin but the city is actually quite big is actually the, the base for Caterpillar. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

The Caterpillar? 

 

Richard Tovar  

Yeah, the machine. So, my mom, my mom's American and my dad's Peruvian. And so, they met in Peru, long story but I was born here and then when I was about three years old, they moved out to Peru. My dad's a dentist and I grew up there and then came back when I was 19 to go to college here, and I came to Santa Fe for my two years. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Aww, you are a Santa Fe grad. 

 

Richard Tovar  

I did my transfer to UF and that's where I got my graduate degree. I did my bachelor's and my graduate degree over there.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

And then decided to stay.

 

Richard Tovar  

 I decided to stay here. I liked it so much. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

But you travel often to blue, don't you?

 

Richard Tovar  

Oh yeah, I used to. I used to travel a lot more to Peru. I used to travel at least once or twice a year because my parents still live there. And you know, I would go always usually over Christmas break and sometimes over the summer.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, to me one of the most fascinating things about you and there are a lot of things that are really interesting is, so you teach nutrition, microbiology, but you have all these really strong interest and community involvement on the side specifically as it relates to human trafficking and sex trafficking. Tell me how did you ever get interested in this topic?

 

Richard Tovar  

I don't know. It's, I guess the closest I can say is, have you seen, have you watched that movie called "Amazing Grace"? 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

No. 

 

Richard Tovar  

It's about the it's about William Wilberforce, who was the British abolitionist in the late 1700s and early 1800s. And he was the he was the man responsible for that movement that actually made slavery illegal basically, and as well as the slave trade. And it was an awakening. If you look at his movie is very similar to my story. There was an awakening to him realizing that, that he needed to do things differently. That his life was no longer, is no longer enough to just live a good life. And you know, and have a lot of great things in your life. But there's more to it. You know, that just living for yourself. I was about 30, almost, I was about 33 years old, and I was going through a rough time in my life. I don't know if you've ever done if you've ever done things, you never thought you were going to do. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Sure. 

 

Richard Tovar  

I'm not going to go early. No, I'm not going to be explicit about it. But it's not I wasn't I wasn't stealing. I wasn't doing drugs but you know, but it was it was things that are out of my character and, and I realized, I don't know I just needed help. And I started thinking what can I do? And honestly, it came to me I would say it was something from a higher being if you believe in God, I believe it was God that you need to do something different because the way you're living is not enough and, and honestly, I started reading about it. I heard about it before from a friend and like years before that, but it never really was important to me. I didn't really care much. It's like a lot of people making bad choices. But something changed that year and it was 2009. And it was it was amazing. I literally started telling everybody that knew about it, my circle of friends about it. And people that I knew and by that December I had enough people that wanted to do something about it and I so I call a meeting at my house and said Hey, if you're interested in doing this, I need you to just come here and figure out if there's something we can do wherever we are in our lives. You know if we're in college or if we are really in college, you’re working there's something that we might be able to do because this is a problem. It's a problem here.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

And if I could just interject so the, the thing that you were trying to address was it sex trafficking, or human trafficking more broadly?

 

Richard Tovar  

It was human trafficking more broadly. And then as I looked into it later, and later that later that those years in the 2010 and 2011 I looked into labor trafficking and honestly labor trafficking is way harder beast to tackle than if I'm being honest, I don't think there's really a solution. We can discuss that if you want to but there's, there's from, from all that. I know it's, it's almost impossible. However, sex trafficking is something that we can tackle because sex trafficking what drives sex trafficking is the fact that men buy sex. Primarily men.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So,  So let's backtrack a little what, what is sex trafficking? Are you referring to prostitution? Is that what it is?

 

Richard Tovar  

Prostitution, pornography. It can be any kind of coercion of typically if it's a minor, you don't even have to prove that there's coercion. You just have to say any explicit any pornography any, any explicit pictures of any child, or putting a child in any kind of circumstance where they have to basically engage any kind of sexual activity is automatically sex trafficking. If it's an adult, you have to actually prove there's coercion or there's, there's some way that you're forcing them to be into this against their will. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

And when I hear the word trafficking, I'm often thinking about, you know, migration of people from one country to another is sex. Trafficking, primarily an international issue, is it mainly immigrants that are involved in this or?

 

Richard Tovar  

No, trafficking does not have to have that? That component? It does, of course, you know, anybody that comes into the country illegally is at a disadvantage because they're going to be exploited. You know, in my experience, most of the illegal immigrants are coming in into to the sex industry are being exploited usually by their own, own people that bring them in exploiting for labor and then also exploit them for sex. However, the great majority of the majority of the cases of human trafficking that we see in our country, I would say roughly what percentage I can give a percentage probably over 80% is going to be off domestic human trafficking, or sex trafficking. These are our own kids in our own school systems that are being forced to have sex with, with people.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

And is there something that characterizes them? Is it that they're poor? Is it that they're of a certain ethnic or racial background? Is that that

 

Richard Tovar  

sort of thing about it? It's not, you wouldn't. You do see poverty does, you know, enhance a lot of issues but in sex trafficking, we see trafficking of people that are in rich schools in poor schools, of all races. And the thing about human trafficking and this is why I was so passionate about is because it really takes advantage of any population does vulnerable and vulnerable can look a lot of things. Like if you're really rich and your parents are never there. You're vulnerable because you don't have anybody that really shows you love is guiding you through that, you know, time in your life. So, you're it's super easy for traffickers to come in, recruit somebody. If you're poor money can be it can be that you know that part of it. I've met a bunch of Pimps slash traffickers over my time. And honestly, what I can say is that these individuals are very, very, very smart. They're very manipulative, and they literally give that person that they're going to traffic they give them whatever they want. And because they do that, that person even though is being victimized, this person will never ever turn on. I'll never forget this story from this. This a D.A. from, from the Orlando area. There was this one patient who gave this girl, she was 15 years old and he's in he was prostituting her and he, he actually gave her braces he paid for her braces because she her teeth were messed up and she, she really was self-conscious about it. And he knew that so he went and paid for her treatment. When they finally arrested him, she was I think she was 18 or 19 At that point, and they had like a bunch of other minors with them as well. She never ever said anything, never turned him in ever. They tried everything. They said, hey, look, this guy's done to you. And this guy prostitute or if she had probably an average about three to five guys a night that she would have to have sex with and give all the money to him. That she did that faithfully and never turned on him, because he actually met what she really needed in her life. It's so sad how these people can pinpoint you know, those areas that people need, and they just exploit it. You know, it's extremely sad. And the worst part of it is that we don't care society. I think, in my opinion, we don't care because there's plenty of men willing to go and have sex with that 15-year-old. You know, and it's, it's heartbreaking. You know, you know, I have two little daughters. You know, I have a three-year-old and a six-month-old. And you know, when I see them, I always think you know, what, what are they gonna encounter when they grow up? You know, it's just It breaks my heart because I'm you know, I'm I will never ever let my little girl be in that position. But how many other you know, kids are gonna grow without any, any, any dads that love them that want to take care of them. You know, it breaks my heart. You know, I've been in Southeast Asia and I've seen it firsthand what it looks like. And it is something that if we, if we really want to see a change, we have to begin our change ourselves. And that's kind of what I started I started seeing things differently. Back in 2009. I mean, watch the movie and you'll see what I'm talking there's, there's a scene in the movie where, where Wilberforce, says, "You know, they asked me, do you want to change the world?" And he says, "No, I want to change myself first." 

 

Richard Tovar  

And that is something that I've really never really heard about, you know, people want to change the world, but nobody was willing to change themselves. nobody's willing to admit that I have a problem, you know, and when it comes to sex trafficking, the problem is us. We are a society that thrives on selling sex.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, when you say us, here, let me try to dissect this a little bit and I still want to go back and I because I'm sorry, I derailed you uninterrupted your story about 2009 and sitting around your living room bed in. So, I'm gonna personalize this for a second and I'm thinking, you know, I remember being 12 years old, like a pretty well developed 12-year-old but 12-year-old walking down the streets in Honduras with my uncle, and having men gawk at me and whistle and say all sorts of perverse things. And that were wholly inappropriate like me thinking, "Don't you understand I'm a minor", right? And, and it wasn't just in Honduras, like I've experienced this in South Florida. I mean, not maybe not so much recently. I'm a little bit older, but I experienced this for certainly in my teenage years and in my 20s and I remember being outraged thinking, I don't want to feel like a piece of meat at a at a, you know, at a meat market or something right and I despise this. So, is this the problem? Is it those men? Is it the societies that allow this to happen and that allows this kind of behavior? Is it the women because I, you know, I'm also thinking as also the mother of two. I've, my children grew up in a house where we never watched Spanish TV because I hated the way that Latin channels portrayed women, right? 

 

Richard Tovar  

I get it. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

And so, what is the problem? I guess it's what I'm going at right? I haven't really studied this.

 

Richard Tovar  

So let me think about it, I'm gonna make it personal and, please no judgment here.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

No, no, no, no, I just personalize it myself. So. 

 

Richard Tovar  

Like, how are you dressing were you dressing like super provocative? 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

When I was 12? I was being a 12-year-old, I was just being a regular kid. 

 

Richard Tovar  

I can pull up what a 12-year-old dresses like right now. And I can tell you that obviously, those are going to arouse things in men. I'm not saying that it's a woman's fault or to men's. I'm saying it's a society we're okay with turning a little kid into an object like I see the way that you know, I mean, I teach. I see the way some students come into class and they're like... 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Very provocative

 

Richard Tovar  

Okay. I don't know what to say. I mean, what do I say what, what is it that what are you portraying when you're when you're dressing like that? 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Right 

 

Richard Tovar  

You know, if I'm going if I'm we're talking on the stance that they are women.  How do you want me to treat you like a piece of meat when you come out wrapped like a like a freakin piece of meat? You know, I mean?

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Yes. 

 

Richard Tovar  

It's so um, I think that's the problem is not so much women or men. I think it's the way our society's guiding us to say, this is what women should look like, and this is what they should do. And this is how men should act. And this is how men should actually respond to these things. You know? Again, I'm telling you the I think the, the issues that things need to change, but nobody wants to change because if you if you do things differently than the way society lays it out, then you look like, like an outcast, that you're Why would you do that? For example, you get married, right? What do you do before you get married, if you're a guy?

 

Vilma Fuentes  

You have like you're, what do you call it? 

 

Richard Tovar  

You're call it a stag party if you're in Britain, but a bachelor party? 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Yeah, the bachelor party. Yeah. 

 

Richard Tovar  

What are you doing a bachelor party?

 

Vilma Fuentes  

I don't know. Never been to one but tell me.  Yeah, the, the stereotype is they're going to try to tempt you one last time before you go get married or whatever. 

 

Richard Tovar  

So, does that sound like a great thing? A great time. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Yes.  It sounds like all those single friends around. The one who is about to get married are about to have a great time.

 

Richard Tovar  

So, but see, that is that is the problem. So, if we do that before like before the day, I say I do to my wife I'm just gonna go and get like freakin’ dance on with some chick but I'm not gonna do anything because I freaking love my wife Are you are you are my fiancé Are you Are you kidding me? But see, that's the approach we take. So, if that is normalized that's a normalized behavior, then how are we expecting, you know, men and women to treat each other with respect when we don't see each other? And I think I think that's, that's one of the hardest thing with, with changing this over the last 10 years. I'm like, if we don't change these, the perspective of kids when they're younger of what it is to be how to treat each other. There's no way we're going to be able to tell them later on. Don't buy sex because that's what I've been doing for forever. We look at the Instagram, look at the Instagram all the social media of these kids, what are they doing?

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, I'm thinking to myself, so how do you how do we communicate these messages to different age groups? And I personally I've been privileged to see you communicate with students here at Santa Fe College and some of the, you know students and sororities fraternities here in town. But for the sake of our listeners, tell us like what would you tell that group, you know, this stereotypical college aged kids you know, 18 to 20 some odd.

 

Richard Tovar  

So, the great thing about talking to college students is that they do have the ability to change probably not as much as a younger kid, but they still are. I mean, once they get older than that, chances are like my generation and your generation, we are most likely not going to change the way we do things. We've been doing it for so long. We're not going to do things differently. We've already chosen but when you're younger, you can't you know, and I tell students, "Hey, this this is this is a reality." The reality is that we all know it. When we see somebody, we look what the outside is, and a lot of times we judge and we see them the way they are, partly is the way your brain works, but partly is because we were raised right. However, when it comes to sex trafficking when it comes to trafficking, you got to understand this if you ever buy sex, whether it's in the form of pornography, or anything, any kind of sex, you got to understand that you're not buying sex from an adult, you're most likely buying sex from a minor. Okay, so that shows us that basically, one out of what is it one out of five images online that are a product pornography, of pornography or going to be a minor? I'm talking about 18-year-olds like 17, 15, 14, 12, 10-year-olds, like really young kids, so they have to understand I had a police officer tell me once rich you don't understand when people buy sex. They going, you know, hire a prostitute or something. Or are somebody that's going to do a lap dance or a stripper or something? You understand most of these women are minors, or they started at least when they're like 14, 15 years old. It was this wasn't something that somebody was like, you know what? Yeah, I did two years at Santa Fe and now I'm going to change my career like right people really believe. Honestly, though, I used to think like that I was one of those people that thought, you know, what, just people make just really bad choices. You know, and this is a consequence of bad choices without really listening to where they came from. You know that? Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're 25 years old now. And you're on the streets, and you're selling yourself for money, but I didn't know that when you were like 10 years old. You were raped by family members and then they sent you to go and basically have sex with people for drugs or money. That how in the world are you going to expect you know that poor girl to now at 25 Say you want to go to med school? 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Right. 

 

Richard Tovar  

You know, it's we do this but those are the kind of expectations we have. And on top of that, we as a society, we are completely okay with victimizing you when you were a child. We are not really; we're not really focusing on putting all these people that victimize you in jail. We're focusing on putting you when you're 25 in jail. And so, it that's one of the things that we really wanted to try to try to focus on his focus on the real problem, which is that people that are buying sex, the Johns, we call them the Johns right, go out buy sex is focused on them. They did that in was it Sweden and Sweden, they did that they had this model. They said we're not going to prosecute anymore. The people, the women that are being prostituted we're gonna prosecute the people are buying these girls basically got rid of human trafficking. They're all went to like you know to Denmark and place the next day but they didn't they got rid of it in Sweden because nobody was nobody wanted to go and buy sex because they knew that if you bought sex, they caught you buying sex you automatically go to jail, six months, or something like that. I can't remember the law was but it was something like that. If we had a law here, where you get caught paying for sex. You go to jail for six months a year.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Not the prostitute, but the one who bought it. 

 

Richard Tovar  

The guy. The guy that bought it. The doctors, I mean they did a raid was this in 2014 or something or 15, I can't remember. They did a point where it was one of those online you know, like Catch a Predator thing by it was GPD, ASO so and I think FBI was, well I don't know if the FBI was involved but it was definitely ASO...

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, G, for the record, GPD, Gainesville Police Department and ASO, Alachua Sheriff's Office.

 

Richard Tovar  

They both that this this this thing and of course involved. The US Attorney. Assistant US Attorney was involved in it and you know, the state attorneys were involved in this whole thing but they post I think it was ICAC that started, Internet Crimes Against Children, it was part of the GPD and they basically started, they, they had officers posing as like a 14, 13-year-old and they, they, online, this is all online. Okay. And this is I'm telling you this is way pre COVID This is way before we went crazy online stuff this is way before. They did it for two weeks, and they had 42, I think 42 or 45 men that showed up to this house in Northwest Gainesville from all around the area to have sex with like a 14-year-old. Some of these guys brought some horrible things that were going to hurt this little girl. And they did it in two weeks. Then they got 42 guys. Who came?  Well. We had to have students from UF, and some students from Santa Fe, faculty from the University, I think Santa Fe too. I they had, I think clergy involved they had everybody you can imagine, all walks of life from all different places. That is the problem. We're okay with that. What happened to all these 42 guys, some got jail, some didn't. Some got more years than others. But it's unacceptable.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, if we go back to that day in 2009, I think you said you were all sitting around your living room where you just invited a bunch of friends like hey, let's talk and what do we want to do about it? So, so what happened there?

 

Richard Tovar  

So basically, I said, okay, there are so many people are interested in they're saying Richard, let's do something and I said like, okay, fine. So, I don't know why they looked at me to do something because I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm a microbiologist, and I teach nutrition because I you know, because I have some nutrition background, but I'm really a microbiologist by nature. I was going to be I wanted to do disease control. You know, that's what I wanted to do. And it was been really useful. I'm assuming these last couple years. But so, I was like, I don't know. And but it was funny because I'll never forget that one. One meeting. It was it was basically me. And there was about I was like nine or 10 different people and they're all women. Me with a bunch of women. And literally, since there was no guys coming in, I call my friend please get your butt over here right now because this is this is ridiculous. Like we're trying to fight for this and it's like only women are showing that we need to fight for them. That I'm I can't remember who said if it was my dad or somebody but I remember growing up and said, Richard, you never ever fight for yourself. Always fight for somebody else. You know, and I was I've always remember that for my dad. I was like, that's, that's a, it's a great quote, because everybody likes to fight for themselves. And that's like, ridiculously selfish. Like, when are we going to start fighting for other people, you know, and so I call my buddy and I'll never forget, he's a doctor now and he's like, “Hey, man, you need to come and we need to freakin’ do something because honestly, it's just me and all these girls. What am I gonna do? This is ridiculous.”

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Laughing…Made you very popular. So, how many guys did you get to join? 

 

Richard Tovar  

So, I got him to join and then I had another guy show up. So originally, we had like three guys from one drop out and then we ended up with two guys. And then involved my, two of my best friends which are part of the bord of FIGHT, right now. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, you established FIGHT, which is a nonprofit organization. Tell us about it. 

 

Richard Tovar  

So, we started FIGHT and it was actually, originally it was out of the, so what I told it, I told these 10 people, because it was nine and then my buddy. I said, this was an early December, remember like right before the semester was over? And I said all right. This is what we need to we need to figure something out if we can do something I think we should try. But I want you guys to not take this lightly. I want you guys to think about it. And I want you guys to commit for two years of your life to do this. I just don't want you guys to say yes and then not show up. I want you guys to commit for two years and if this is not something you want to do for two years, then just tell me now and that's fine. And we're gonna meet up back in January. So, I went semester begins we'll meet up again. So out of those 10 people I only had three people that showed up.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Only three that showed up in January.

 

Richard Tovar  

Yeah.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

 That's kind of sad. I shouldn't be laughing. That's... 

 

Richard Tovar  

It is, but you know it is but I'm happy because I'd rather have three committed people, right, the nine floozies now we're not gonna do anything, you know. And it was great. We I honestly, it was probably one of the greatest times of my life. Honestly. It was amazing to see how we were doing things that we never thought we could do without any knowledge of how to do anything. So, it was a really, really good time. And we started FIGHT and we became a nonprofit. And I also told them, I'll never forget this because this is this is one of those moments they forget. One of the friends, my friends there that was, she was a, one of the three. She was like, "Okay, we need to start fundraising." And I was like, "For what?" And she was like, "I don't know because that's what you know, nonprofits do", is they raise money. Okay, first, we are all, we are all going to give money every year to support this organization. We're not going to fundraise. So, we're going to have like a fee that every part, that everybody that is part of the board is gonna have to pay every year to make this work because if you really believe that this is something we want to do, we've got to put some of our money into this, you know, instead of just asking other people to use their money to do something else, you know, when is it going to hit us home? Yeah. And she was like, she's got it. She liked it very much, because I probably didn't say it's nice. I should have I probably was more you know, like, annoyed by it like, but it was good. We started you know, using our own resources. And we really didn't do fundraising at all because we realized, well, we have enough money from, from us that we can actually run a decent campaign of what we were doing we completely didn't know what we were doing.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, what was, or what is the purpose of FIGHT and is FIGHT the full name of the organization? 

 

Richard Tovar  

FIGHT stands for, FIGHTE now, but it stands for Fight Injustice and Global Human Trafficking. It's an acronym. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, and, so what is the purpose? Is it just to raise awareness? Is it...?

 

Richard Tovar  

Awareness and education about trafficking, particularly sex trafficking, and how to how to end it really is what we really fight is the commercial sex industry. That's what we're really trying to fight. Because the commercial sex industry is what fuels, is that is that fuel of human trafficking, you know, because it just people need to buy, they created demand. And then of course, we're going to have to traffic kids, there's not enough people willing to go out there and sell sex even if they wanted to. Right if I could say that we have plenty of adults 18-year -olds that consent to go and sell sex we don't have enough that want to do it for the amount of people that buy sex right? You know, it's numbers are large of how much money this industry makes. It's, it's, it's, it's pretty a pretty it's a pretty, pretty big industry. And so, they rely on trafficking to get all these victims into it.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Now, did FIGHT, my recollection is that around this time, another separate organization was created. I think it was called the Alachua. County Coalition Against Human Trafficking. 

 

Richard Tovar  

Yes. 

 

Vilma Fuentes  

Were you part of that coalition?

 

Richard Tovar  

Yes, we were so in 20 in 2013 there was a series of lectures at Trinity United Methodist Church, and it was organized by the women's group there. And they were and they actually invited Frank Williams, Sherry kitchens, and myself to talk like, you know, like one Wednesday for like, you know, a couple of months, you know, they have meetings every other Wednesday or something. And after that, um, there was enough, I think, desire for this group to do something more and so they propose the idea of having like a more bigger coalition of organ groups, and there had been sort of a task force prior, but the loss lost. There was some political issues, I think, at that time in the early and the late 2000s, 2008, or something that prevented it from moving forward. And so, so we decided, yeah, let's do this coalition that we did not have any law enforcement backing to it, for a lot of reasons I'm not going to get into. But, but we started in 2013, and it was called the Alachua. County Coalition Against Human Trafficking. And then in 2020, right before COVID really hit that, that, well technically 2019 we got involvement from law enforcement. And we were able to turn into a task force and the, the state attorney actually requested us to not just cover Alachua County but to be a task force for all of the Eighth Circuit, which includes what is the Alachua, Levy, Baker, Union, Gilchrist County, okay. And so, we are now like, now it's called the human, the North Central Florida Human Trafficking Task Force.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, you said this was formed in 2020. So, 2020 For most of us is like the COVID year. Right, and of course, 2021 also. So how has the pandemic impacted both human trafficking, sex trafficking, and then also your work?

 

Richard Tovar  

So, the thing about, you know, sex trafficking is that sex trafficking has already been, it's already been, been done online for the most part prior to the pandemic. If you would go in let’s, say, 2015 or 2013. Online, you will go to Craigslist, or you go to a number of websites on your regular web or the dark web, and you'll be able to find ads to, to have sex with women or kids here in town, every night of every day. So, they'll, what they'll do is they'll either bring them to your place, or they'll meet you at somewhere at a truck stop or somewhere and that's what you do the exchange and it's been going on online for, for sex trafficking for a long time. So, in fact, what we see is that our efforts have diminished significantly during COVID Because we relied on interacting with people having meetings, talking to people going out to the community, and that was basically gone. We had to do it online. We honestly weren't that good at it. Because we, we didn't really do it before. It's not something that we were good at. And on top of that, it was just it was it was a high learning curve for us. And everybody got busier at the works I mean to do different things. So, it was it was it was a very bad year. I know they did as best as I could. I took a I actually had another kid born at that time, so it was even harder for me. So, I had to step out for a couple months but um, but they did as much as they could, despite of you know what was going on. I'm still part of the board. And the only thing though, is that sex trafficking has continued like business as usual. Probably more, you know, stats, we don't have like very accurate stats, but chances are that it's based on the number of cases I've seen it's, it's probably gone up. You know because there's that the technology has increased and people are reaching out things more online and they don't see the need any more to go to a place to have sex with somebody when you can just do it online and get somebody to bring it to you.

 

Vilma Fuentes  

So, you're a professor at Santa Fe College, and you've been immersed in this work for over a decade now. And you have deep international linkages also experiences how do you bring this to our students? What have you done? What do you hope to do?