BURLINGTON — Drug traffickers are pressuring young female addicts into having sex for money or drugs, according to law enforcement and advocacy groups.
It’s a dark facet of Vermont’s opiate crisis that officials hope to make the public more aware of, and one that they are asking the public’s help to prevent.
“No one deals drugs alone,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Geni Cowles said Monday. “For every dealer our office charges there’s a circle of people, charged and uncharged, who make that drug dealing activity possible and profitable.”
In a review of the largest drug cases prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Cowles found that women are more likely than men to support drug dealers by providing housing, cars, contact lists, transporting drugs and doing minor dealing. Often they are also being trafficked for sex, she said.
Seventy-five percent of the people who support drug dealers are women. Sixty percent were under 30, some as young as teenagers, and almost all of them had addictions, most prevalently heroin, Cowles said. One-quarter of the women reported having some kind of romantic relationship with their dealer.
The same circumstances held true in smaller cases, Cowles said. This year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted nearly 150 defendants in 93 drug cases, 64 of which involved heroin. In almost every instance, the drug dealing relied on support from the community, she said.
By the time law enforcement comes in contact with women in those supporting roles “they’re well entrenched,” often with significant roles in drug trafficking organizations, severe addiction problems and some are being used for sex.
The women and girls are often controlled by dealers leveraging a sense of shame, the threat of violence, actual violence or by the withholding of the drugs to which they’ve become addicted, said Assistant State’s Attorney Heather Ross, who co-chairs Vermont’s Human Trafficking Task Force.
“We see them too late, but the community sees this process at its inception,” Cowles said. “Whether it’s a friend who notices someone with new stuff, watches clothes jewelry and no new income; a sibling who notices new acquaintances at a party; a parent who notices a new boyfriend who moved in and seems to stay in the back room.”
To raise public awareness and help young women avoid falling into a life of addiction and abuse, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Vermont’s Human Trafficking Task Force are launching a public awareness campaign titled “U Can Stop Traffick.”
The hope is that people will notice when a friend, loved one or acquaintance is in a downward spiral and seek help for them before the situation becomes dangerous. People who think someone they know is at risk can call 2-1-1 and they’ll be connected with nonprofits and other social service providers.
The campaign has a website where several women share their stories of how they fell into selling their bodies through the drug trade. It will also begin airing a public service announcement on television aimed at raising people’s awareness as well. The U.S. Attorney’s office used $15,000 from its budget and worked with Retro Motion Media in Williston to produce the campaign, with additional support from nonprofit partners.
In the PSA, a young woman gets into a man’s car repeatedly. In the first instance he gives her jewelry, but then she begins to hand him cash and he becomes verbally abusive. Throughout the minute-long spot the color gets increasingly washed out and the couple’s appearance grows increasingly rough.
Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said watching the PSA “touched such a nerve” for him, because as a prosecutor he sees people struggling with addiction go through that physical change in appearance as they’re processed through the criminal justice system.
“What it doesn’t show, and what we don’t acknowledge as a community — what we don’t acknowledge in law enforcement — is the erosion of one’s spirit, their character, because they’ve been subjected to such terrible acts,” Donovan said.
He called on both entities to bear in mind “the trauma that many of these young women endure in order to get healthy” and regain sobriety.
