Faith leaders, victims and advocates will join together Monday evening in Manchester for a community conversation that aims to educate residents about the realities of human trafficking in New Hampshire, the efforts underway to combat it and how their involvement can make a difference.
The program, “Human Trafficking: Hidden in Plain Sight,” is a collaborative of the Interfaith Women of New Hampshire and the Human Trafficking Collaborative Task Force and will feature keynote speaker Jasmine Grace Marino, a Granite State trafficking survivor who in 2016 published a book about her experiences.
“I have come to know that when I share in a transparent and vulnerable way, it gives others a chance to do the same,” Marino, a resident of Nashua, said in a statement. “And when we finally tell someone else about the prior abuse, or the trafficking we have endured, we open the door to healing.”
Marino’s talk, entitled “I Am Someone’s Daughter: Surviving Sex Trafficking and Addiction in America,” will include stories from the time she was sex trafficked across New England, beginning at age 19 when her drug-dealing boyfriend groomed her with classy dinners, pampering and promises of a better life. She was a victim of the sex trade for five years and during that time fought a heroin addiction.
Today, she considers herself a survivor and is working to help other trafficking victims find their way out of this modern form of slavery. Through her organization, Bags of Hope Ministries, personal care products have been handed out to thousands of vulnerable women on the streets in communities in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Monday’s event will begin with an overview and introduction from the task force’s Project Director Rebecca Ayling, who is also the manager of the Human Trafficking Response Program at Waypoint in Manchester. She will discuss the work of the task force, which brings together law enforcement and social services to identify cases of human trafficking and to provide aftercare support to survivors.
The task force opened 29 new investigations into cases of reported human trafficking in 2018. Authorities have conducted investigations in each of the state’s 10 counties.
Marino and Ayling will be part of a panel discussion later in the evening that will include information about local initiatives to combat human trafficking in New Hampshire’s communities. Joining them will be Donna Plourde, executive director of Real Life Giving, an organization that serves survivors through street outreach, mentoring and support programs; as well as Bethany Cottrell, founder of Brigid’s House of Hope, the state’s first long-term shelter for trafficking victims in Laconia. Fundraising to build the shelter continues today.
“Human Trafficking: Hidden in Plain Sight” is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. It will be held at the St. Catherine of Siena School auditorium at 206 North St. in Manchester. Refreshments and conversation with the panelists will be offered after the program.
Registration is requested by emailing InterfaithWomenNH@gmail.com or calling 603-233-7760.
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319 or at adandrea@cmonitor.com.)