Joye Frost: We’re really expanding our vision of who is a victim. Just a few years ago, a 14-year-old runaway being prostituted would have been arrested and treated as an offender.
Rachel Lloyd: The ease with which you can purchase a child now has changed the issue. But we’re not seeing any systemic change.
Wesley Ware: Homelessness, substance abuse, depression—the same risk factors that lead other people into the criminal justice system are actually higher for LGBT youth.
Michael de Arellano: Migrant workers are at greater risk for being burglarized. They’re at greater risk for being physically assaulted, sexually assaulted. They don’t know what their rights are.
Michael Johnson: Cyberbullying has gotten to a point now that kids use it for social status. And then it starts to take a very, very twisted, ugly spin.
Joye Frost: Technology and globalization really are changing, not just the way we serve victims, but the way people are victimized.
Rachel Lloyd: Men realize they can make money off selling girls and women. And it’s not hard to do. You just need to kind of not have much of a conscience. Seventy to ninety percent of both children and adult women in the commercial sex industry were sexually abused prior to recruitment into trafficking. Recognizing that every individual that comes through our doors has her own unique set of needs and strengths, we try to offer as broad an array of services as possible and not one size fits all.
Michael Johnson: Youth are being exposed to adult levels of crime. The future of predation against youth is online, plain and simple. There’s sexting, there’s cyberbullying, there’s acquaintance child molesters, there’s classic pedophiles. Upwards of 80 percent of youth have already been solicited online.
Joye Frost: There are so many different, exciting resources and tools out there. What are those innovative partnerships that we need to address these enduring and emerging issues?
Cindy Southworth: A woman who had been abused for many years was getting ready to leave her husband, and she sent an e-mail to a friend of hers and said, "Can you help me pack this weekend?" Her offender was using spyware. He found out that she was planning to leave him, and he did indeed kill her.
Joye Frost: The same technology that is challenging us in terms of types of crime is also a real opportunity to reach victims in ways that we've never been able to do before.
Cindy Southworth: When it comes to technology and domestic violence, we’ve seen abusers misuse every tool at their disposal for decades. However, there’s now a digital trail, so if an offender threatens a victim using social networking, you can prove that the offender did violate the protection order. We work with victims to help them use technology to increase their safety. We want tech-savvy survivors.
Joye Frost: We’ve got to ensure that all victims are seen as victims and get the support they need.
Mohawk: I had a friend that went into prison for doing something wrong. She wound up being raped inside and contracted HIV and she died.
Wesley Ware: In a lot of detention centers there are already extremely high rates of rape and sexual assault. For LGBT young people, they’re more likely to face disproportionate levels of violence.
Mohawk: We deserve to be treated the same like everybody else.
Wesley Ware: We work to build the power of LGBTQ young people for them to be able to impact change.
Joye Frost: We still have many challenges in reaching every victim. Immigration, changing demographics--they’re happening at an exponential rate.
Michael Pinilla: There was one case, a migrant worker was being threatened to be beaten, killed. They’re living in these awful conditions. There needs to be a concerted effort to reach these immigrant workers and tell them about their rights. Tell them this is who they can call for help.
Lydia Cotton: The problem with the Latino community is the English barrier and the fear factor. So I start a new way to communicate through phones, text message, e-mails and Hispanic civic meetings.
Michael de Arellano: The more we do to help them reduce the risk of long term problems as a result of criminal victimization, the more likely they’re going to be strong, contributing members to our society.
Joye Frost: The pioneers that fought for victims’ rights would be the first to say, "We now face the challenge of expanding that early vision and including every victim."
Rachel Lloyd: It’s critical not to try and siphon victimization off into its own silo issue, but to see it as interconnected to all these other issues.
Cindy Southworth: We need the entire system to be there for victims.
Michael Johnson: Society has to create a safe environment for youth to have a sense of future.
Joye Frost: This is our next challenge; to make that not just a goal or a dream but a reality.
