not many people in minnesota realize that it is a serious issue but here are some people and organizations who are actively trying to stop it from happening in our community the first two people that we talked to was the s person comes up to you they don't they're not going to state they want to be sex trafficked you know there's a lot of pushing him off the manipulation usually starts with being honorable they're in a vulnerable situation so maybe they don't have a study like parent at home young girls who feel like they need affection so they gotta find it elsewhere some need or want is not being taken care of and so somebody will come along and be like hey i can provide this stuff for you still buy you really nice things they'll support you make sure that you're happy and then they'll be like ok i need you to do this one thing for me the girls get caught up in the system of a faction and they want to be loved so they'll do anything but these misconceptions is that it's a choice honestly they're exploiting these girls with the knowledge choice for minor to say i'm going to have someone else sell my body for their profit i had one woman sell me that well she asked for it and think i hear that kind of stuff all the time but a lot of the misconceptions of sex trafficking is that people do it voluntarily when they want to stay there and they can just to leave whenever they want without physical violence and these girls get dragged into something that they don't know about in it consumes them and it's hard to get out of in order to stop it or change it you have to understand it you don't have to live policies out in the community given many many talks in particular to men about sex trafficking we need to talk about it we need to acknowledge it's going on in our community we need to challenge each of us to be better right current state is it's happening everywhere suburbs intercity to happen in all of our neighborhoods and we have to recognize that all of society gets affected by this issue for the most part that that young girl who is be in traffic good against her well who is being forced to do things with men she's never ever met in our tire life and being forced to do that day after day to make that change so we can get a lot of that and we need to do that as long as someone's b victimize but prevention is really going to be the key to eliminating that and it takes some money that takes community support that takes a policy change is the one of the biggest changes that's occurred so far and french colonies and people like me and many others we've been advocating for years that this especially kids are you with when they get involved in this they should not be treated as criminals as of august first of last year eight all those young girls and some young boys they're treated as victims it's never enough we've got a long way as long as there's one one individual out there be a truck traffic in my mind it's not enough until we totally eliminated after getting name is dr tamara madison briney clarity is who we named our shelter and residential facility after she was the young lady who was trafficked and her body was found in the car in impound lot two years ago and so brittany was a thriving young adolescent and you know she was just gone about her life in an older guy approached her and started taken a liking to her promised her world after knowing him for a month her john killed her so the mission of britney's place is to provide an alternative to juvenile detention we provide a physical health nurse we provide mental health therapy chemical health  so for their mental health they just are traumatized and have lol low self esteem so the trauma could even look like they grew up in a family where there was domestic violence so they grew up in an area where there was a lot of gang violence or they have been victims of sexual abuse they have anxiety during night time a lot of the assaults and their work is done at night so at night time is kind of the hardest time for them the way that the girls were for the ir former pimps or always my boyfriends they're very very brainwashed and convinced that he's good for them in order to help them recover we take our residence there four stages r another organization that works directly with sex trafficking victims we talk to joy friedman a survivor herself about her work was breaking free well my name is joyce freedman i am the training outreach director at breaking free breaking free of mission is to end all forms of suppressed a two thousand and six trafficking what inspired me to get involved in this work on this field was i was a survivor i actually came through the doors of breaking free and utilize their support group and services and we actually are unique in the fact that we are survivor lead and survivor ran and that means a lot because women and girls need to see women and girls who look like them that has successfully gotten out we work with over five hundred women and girls each year in the numbers are continuing to grow we've got a young girl actually recently a new one came through who came through the criminal justice system choose a do not consider to throw away she had mental health issues on top of some social skill issues and learning disabilities when we first walked through the door she didn't want to talk to anyone and she said some foul words that is who the blank blank like are you i want to blank blank talk to you or anybody else and our unique piece about breaking free is that we hire survivors and so when i came in the door and spoke to us that i understand you don't want to talk to nobody but i just want you to listen to me and then i explain to her that i was a survivor and where i had been and something clicked in her when she heard the word survivor and all of a sudden she started crying the floodgates opened she started talking about everything i told her all she needed to do was give us a chance to help her we were here for her we were her voice where everyone else was there trying to tell her what she needed no one had asked her what she wanted we do say we love you we do give hugs here why because that's realistic and that's what's been missing on her life someone who genuinely cares of our her and her well being the misconception is that we enjoy what we do and we do know we can't stand it people say there's no harm in it it's safe there now any time a door closes whether it's a car or a hotel room that affects you it affects you psychologically it affects you physically and emotionally uniqueness about breaking free is giving a voice to the women to speak out here in the world about the truth about this life the violence that happens the shame that goes with it and that avenue we provide empowers women on their own to speak out and take their story and make it their story so we don't tell them what they need to do we ask them what they want do they're the best teachers when it comes to this breaking free has always worked with that