Staff photo by Clay Schuldt MLC speaker Danielle Freitag (left) and Action 169 Outreach leader Anna Friendt (right) spoke with audience members following the presentation.

NEW ULM — Martin Luther College (MLC) hosted a program on The Fight to End Human Trafficking, Wednesday with guest speaker Danielle Freitag, a survivor of trafficking.

The presentation was sponsored by the New Ulm Police Department and began with a presentation from NUPD Investigator Jeff Hohensee. Hohensee has been involved in sex trafficking investigations for nearly eight years. He started by saying trafficking is in southern Minnesota. Hohensee, in collaboration with other agencies, has been involved in several sting operations to find individuals attempting to exchange sex for money or other materials.

In these stings, officers will impersonate women online

Hohensee said that sadly, the Guardian Angel sting operations are the most popular. These are the stings in which a person is trying to contact an underage child.

Hohensee gave a summary of some of the cases that have occurred locally, including in Springfield and New Ulm.

The sting operations have captured individuals from all backgrounds including teachers, probation offers and police officers.

The next speaker was Jane Vader, the Regional Navigator for Lutheran Social Services. Vader works in youth services and helps sexually exploited youths.

She spoke on the Safe Harbor Law that decriminalized prostitution for those under 18. This means youths cannot be held legally liable for prostitution. The Safe Harbor Law helps exploited youths come forward without fear of punishment from the law.

In 2014, Vader was working with homeless and runaway youth and learned about a push in the state to combat sex trafficking. She learned an overwhelming number of homeless youths had traded sex and some had criminal records. Vader has worked to have the charges expunged.

Vader works to help find exploited youths get out of their life. Getting them in chemical dependency treatment is common, as many are brought into sex trafficking through drug use. Sometimes providing the youth with identification and documents. Sex traffickers will take away identifications as a form of control.

Vader said education is important for helping youth identify the red flags related to trafficking.

Danielle Freitag, co-founding executive director, was the featured speaker. Freitag is a survivor of sex trafficking. She shared her story and how it can happen in southern Minnesota.

Freitag opened the presentation by asking what comes to mind when people hear “sex trafficking.” She said the responses people give have been slowly changing since 2015 as the public became more educated on the topic.

She said public perception of what sex trafficking looked like was very different than reality. The image of women locked up was common and the stories were sensationalized. This is still an issue today.

Freitag said these sensationalized images were harmful because they decrease the potential to identify a trafficking victim.

She said a low number of trafficking victims were abducted. Fewer than 5% of trafficking victims were abduction victims. The majority, 90% were lured into it by someone they know.

She defined sex exploitation as when a child under 18 is coerced into performing sex acts and a third party benefits.

Freitag was sexually exploited at a young age. At 17 she was involved with an older man who dealt drugs. During one party he forced her to strip for his friends. Another man at the party saw her and brought her to a Minneapolis strip club and introduced her to the manager.

Freitag said she cannot prove the man who brought her to the club was a recruiter who went into smaller towns to find women for the club, but she believes he is. Through her Action169 outreach organization, she has found this story is common.

Freitag said the components of sexual exploitation are manipulation, coercion, force and isolation.

Freitag said she was able to escape the life after hitting rock bottom following a drug overdose. She recovered through a willingness to change, sobriety, creating boundaries, healthy coping, religion, reconciliation and service.

She provided a list of 10 ways to keep kids safe from sexual exploitation. Tips include understanding how exploitation works and being involved in a child’s life. She believed parents needed to talks with kids about these issues before they learn of them elsewhere.

Proper internet etiquette was another important aspect. Freitag said these days most of the exploitation begins on social media.

Freitag helped found the Action169 organization. The name is a reference to Acts, Chapter 16, Verse 9 and references the Apostle Paul’s vision of a man calling him to Macedonia.

Action 169’s mission is to prevent intervention and restore sexually exploited people.

The website can be found at https://www.action169.com