HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — Freekind has been spreading human trafficking awareness since 2012, and the Hampton-based nonprofit now works directly with adult survivors and trafficking victims who become criminalized.
Local organization shows human trafficking is closer to home than we think
“It is victims, more so than their traffickers, and certainly more than buyers, who are the ones who end up in jail, being convicted for crimes related to their abuse, crimes that their trafficker either makes them do or they do in an effort to get away,” said Freekind Executive Director Lisa Kersey.
In 2023, Polaris released an eye-opening report, stating that, out of roughly 400 trafficking survivors in the U.S. who were surveyed, 62% admitted to being cited, arrested or incarcerated.
“We teach right now on a regular basis in the Norfolk jail, in Newport News and up in Chesterfield,” Kersey said. “There are other jails that we’ve been in periodically. We’d love to be in every jail in our community to help stop that cyclical pattern of people just cycling in and out of the jail system over not being identified properly.”