Episode 04 – The Kansas Case

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Linda Smith: 

Just because you bring money to the crime doesn’t make you just a guy doing what he’s doing. Our culture literally allows the buyers of commercial sex to walk with little penalty or none. It allows the buyer to literally say, “I didn’t know how old she was.” Still in 19 states how many other crimes against children would we allow that defense? Well, the culture is driving the law.

Podcast Announcer:

Hello, and welcome to Invading the Darkness: stories from the fight against child sex trafficking, featuring Linda Smith, the founder of Shared Hope International. Join Linda as she shares stories from her 23 years of fighting the battle of domestic minor sex trafficking. Our desire is that each episode of Invading the Darkness will help you understand the importance of fighting child sex trafficking as well as equip you to join in that fight. In this episode, you will come face to face with cultural norms that label children as prostitutes, and let the people that pay money for sex completely off the hook. Linda shares the story of two young teenagers that were forced into sexual exploitation. She also tells you how one judge got it terribly wrong.

Linda Smith:

There are times in this journey that I’m just literally excited when something happens. The fight against domestic usually child sex trafficking has been a 22 year battle for me to just get to where there’s justice. Well, not very long ago, we finally had a trial of a man buying a 13/14 year old, it was so exciting because rarely were men who were out there shopping for sex, and buying young people, rarely were they arrested and would get any penalty, maybe, maybe a fine. And even though the laws were changing, we were pretty excited about that we were getting laws all over the nation and in each state. We still weren’t seeing those headlines of a buyer of commercial sex with a child. In fact, it seemed very odd. Most states had laws against rape. They had other laws against domestic minor sex trafficking. But the application to men driving the market and mostly it was men was rare. So here’s this trial, somebody turned in this man who had had a 13/14 year old delivered to his house. He used those children, but somebody told, and he was taken to court. 13/14 year old girls. Well, it was a fairly substantial trial, describing what had happened to these girls, they didn’t have the best situation at home. And yet, they actually the jury convicted him and said he’s guilty. And it was really quite, quite awesome. And yet, we waited just a few months for sentencing expecting that this man might get the equivalent of the federal charges for the same crime. So at the federal level, if you are buying young sex with young girls, like 12, 13, 14, you can get 10 or 15 years per count. I was sure that they would in Kansas, at least give this man (dangerous to children, dangerous), that kind of penalty. But as the judge walked in, and he simply says, I’ve thought about this, “In this case, it’s different” and I thought, “Oh, good, they’re so young. He’s gonna get a really tough penalty.” He said, “Nting that 13 year old came in and took off her shirt. She’s more of an aggressor. So in this case, I am going to give leniency to this man.” And he lowered the penalty to a fairly low sentence. It showed me why we have to keep fighting. Because over this last 15 years, we’ve changed the laws. We’ve changed the laws in the States. We’ve increased the penalties for buyers. We’ve made sure there’s a trafficking law that says you can’t go shop for kids. And yet we all know, at the end of the day in American courts, the system, the prosecutor, and yes, the judges have a lot of latitude.

Linda Smith: 

We have to make it, so judges understand people are watching. We need to invade that darkness to not let that kind of injustice happen again. Our work over this last over a decade has been to change these laws in each state. We have been changing them aggressively. We’ve been saying, “Just because you’re bringing money to the crime doesn’t make you just a guy doing what he’s doing.” And yet, we now know that we have to literally educate society. We have to make sure all people that we talk to understand that this cruel crime would not be there if there weren’t men. And yes, mostly men out there shopping. And they’re shopping for younger and younger children like this man, that like grubhub, or one of these delivery services had a 13 and 14 year old brought to his house.

Linda Smith:

So often, we will want to say, “Well, that’s an exception.” But I want to tell you, it is not an exception in today’s courts. It’s not an exception in today’s society. And why? Because our culture still says boys will be boys. Our culture literally allows the buyers of commercial sex to walk with little penalty, or none. It allows the buyer to literally say, “I didn’t know how she was.” Still in 19 states, how many other crimes against children would we allow that defense? Well, the culture is driving the law. But the culture is also driving the application of the law. So the cases like the judge in Kansas, I’ve spoken about. The cases, like the girl Zephie, once labeled a prostitute in a commercial venue. Everybody looks at her differently. She must have been well, she must have been wanting to do that. Like in the Kansas case, she took her shirt off. Now, how do we accept that? Because no matter what you want to say with your mouth, we all have had this cultural bias of boys will be boys. Well, what if that guy looked like my dad or my brother, my son or my husband? Oh, let’s forgive them. For this one. It’s just they slipped. Boys will be boys. They have this strong drive. And what I’m saying to you is as long as we hold to that culturally, we do have to give up our women and children to this culture. Because what we’ve found over the last 20 years I’ve been working to fight this horrible darkness is that more and more buyers are wanting greater experience than they got the last time. Maybe on pornography, maybe in a purchase. And they’re going younger and younger, to where it is not unusual for me to see a 13/14 year old in a case. And not unusual to be sitting across from a 12 year old, a 13 year old. Because see, we let boys be boys. We did not stand up and say this is a horrible crime that not only destroys our children, but the very man who is shopping and going deeper and deeper into darkness. No boys can’t be boys and have that a part of what boys do. So in Kansas, Texas, Missouri, all these places where I’ve seen this same application of a man walking away and the child not getting justice and often going to jail. I’m sure that some of you would just like to turn this off, because it’s so dark.

Linda Smith:

But you’re the light. Just like the people in 1910, who started the fight against the selling of the women and children that were brought from the villages. You’re just like that. Recently, as I was in a really dark time, and I’ve been writing a book called Invading the Darkness, which shows the history of trafficking, clear back from 1910, in the United States to present day. I was just wrestling with: how do I bring this issue up? This is pretty dark. And a lot of people would much rather do something else than read this book, or even hear about a child being sold for the pleasure of another person, and then just walking away. Why would they want to hear this? And then I thought. No, we’re invading the darkness. We’re shining light into that darkness, even by you listening to these podcasts. You’re understanding now, and you can tell other people about the case that I just told you about in Kansas, that there is a bias in the courts. And in fact, the laws are not even being implemented in a lot of the nation. And you might be one of the states, where you’re part of the 19 states that still arrests the kid for prostitution. Well, it’s all about language, which reflects the culture. And the culture reflects the language. And that drives change in law or not. And that law, and that culture will only be applied if people change their language, their actions, and become very proactive with both. So change your language, change your attitude. that’ll start changing the culture. And let’s make sure that we bring justice through the application of those laws, to where no longer is it just a John out there shopping for a prostitute. But the child being a victim of a crime, and the man, being a serious, serious rapist. So next time there is a case like Kansas, you will see that you change the culture. You’ve changed the attitude of both the jury and the prosecutor and the judge, and you will bring justice and light into this darkness we call child sex trafficking.

Podcast Announcer:  

Thank you for listening to Invading the Darkness: stories from the fight against child sex trafficking. If you would like to learn how you can help put an end to child sex trafficking, please visit sharedhope.org/takeaction. New episodes of Invading the Darkness are released every Tuesday at 9am Pacific. If you have enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a five star rating as well as a written review. Join us in Episode Five where Linda shares Daisy story. A child from the Midwest that moved to the city in hopes of making some money to send back home. Little little did Daisy know what was waiting for her. We hope you will join us. Thank you again for listening to Invading the Darkness.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai