by Cheryl Barnette

Created on: June 26, 2010   Last Updated: June 28, 2010

There's a dirty little secret in New Hampshire, USA. The Granite State - Human Trafficking in New Hampshire:

New Hampshire, we have an affliction here. Our granite has something we are not too proud too talk about, and something that very few may know about. It is called Human Trafficking. Like sexual abuse and other troubling matters, this has been swept under the proverbial rug in New Hampshire. But also, exposure of these “relationships” as the crimes they really are is of the utmost important and expediency. Especially when these crimes have been perpetrated on our youngest of the young, the elderly even, and the some of the most vulnerable of us all, the mentally challenged of our society.

Treated more like pets and playthings than the human beings they are, the victims that are caught up in this abuse are so fearful for their lives, that the only life they know is the life they have no control over, so they continue to exist with their abductors - in extreme humiliation and degrading and excruciating emotional pain; some of them are being exposed to the most torturous and horrific of sexual acts that are performed upon them on a regular basis.

“Since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000 by the federal government, United States of America v. Timothy Bradley and Kathleen O’Dell(2003) was the second case of its kind in the nation. Falling under the federal definition of labor trafficking, Bradley and O'Dell of Litchfield, New Hampshire were convicted of human trafficking in 2003 for withholding promised wages and living conditions and refusing to release passport and legal travel documents.

In August 2007, Marianne, a former victim advocate for a domestic violence crisis center located on the Seacoast, received a call from the National Human Trafficking Hotline in New York City. They called to report that a victim of human trafficking in her local area had contacted them asking for assistance. The victim was a 17-year-old woman who had been kidnapped from her native country 5 years before at the age of 12. She had been working for those 5 years as a sex slave in a house in New Hampshire with 5 other young women of similar age. Unfortunately, this young woman eluded her would-be protectors and her status is unknown.

This modern-day form of slavery flourishes largely because our knowledge and responses are inadequate. In an effort to avoid becoming a safe haven for trafficking activities, the Statewide

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