Someone left the cake out in the rain

Looks pretty at night, doesn't it?

With NightLight on Thursday night I went to MacArthur Park for outreach. Charity, the director of NightLight (who I met in March at the Hands That Heal training for working with trafficking victims), Ruben, the other Salvation Army outreach worker (like myself; I am supposed to be concentrating on sex trafficking and he focuses on labor trafficking), and I (got that? That was Charity, Ruben, and I) have set aside Mondays as our outreach day, and we'll come here to MacArthur park (admittedly NOT my favorite park to spend time at), Hollywood, and other areas. We are also planning some big outreach events that will involve volunteers and a big push to get information and materials out to people in the area, coming up this summer.

Anyhoo, on Thursday night we went to MacArthur Park. Kind of just threw me in there with the Spanish thing, since pretty much no one in the neighborhood speaks English. Charity and I talked to a lot of people, some taxi drivers, some apartment building security guards, and lots of people on the streets. We hung a lot of posters. Recently 9 Guatemalan women were brought to this neighborhood, promised jobs, and were forced into commercial sex slavery. There is a lot of stuff happening in this area. We pray before we go out, that we will be led to those who know where it is. Because it is hidden so well.

Sometimes I stand back and look at the streets, all the people, the kids, the Botanicas, taco stands, clubs...you know what is hidden behind all this, but how do you get "in"? How do you find it? How do you get enough info that you actually have something to report, to actually locate and find a victim? They are here by the thousands, hidden in plain sight. You've crossed paths with them without even knowing it. This is why it's such a lucrative business. Human trafficking made $32 billion last year. It's hard to identify, hard to find victims, harder to identify traffickers.

People gladly listened (tolerating my Spanish), took information, and even discussed the issue at MacArthur Park. They'll read the flyers, and maybe remember it if they see something later. I guess that is what we hope, for now...