August 2021: Share the ConVersation

Let the Conversation Begin

This morning began for me with a flashback to a couple of years ago when I was leading a demonstration against human trafficking with Men Standing Against Trafficking (MSAT) at an intersection where trafficking of human beings occurs on a daily basis in Long Beach. While holding our signs and sending a message to the victims in the hotel rooms that not all men are customers, a car swerved into the parking lot where we were based. A man jumped out of the car and rushed up to me with anger in his eyes. Not knowing what to expect, I braced for what was coming. When this man, a father from the neighborhood, began to share his story, I was brought to tears. This man had worked hard for years, saved to buy a home for his family and moved to Long Beach in realization of his dream. Only after moving in did he become aware of the prevalence of girls being bought and sold on the streets around his new home. The flood of buyers driving up and down the streets from early morning (on their way to work) and throughout the day and night, did he begin to second guess his dream.

Then his 12 year old daughter reported to him that men were stopping her on the way to and from school and offering to pay her for sex in the crudest possible language! She was terrified to go to school and felt unsafe in her neighborhood. This man expressed his gratitude for our being there to draw attention to this nightmare the community was living through, but his gratitude was tinged with a pained anger for what his family was enduring.

We must not be indifferent to the growing number of young girls and boys being threatened on our streets and online. WE must not turn a blind eye to the demand for access to the exploited by our sons, brothers, friends and even ourselves. WE are the solution to this crisis.

Patrick Erlandson, Founder: Father-Con, and See it. End it. Film & Arts Festival