UD grad, former teen sex slave to speak at conference

More about the Dayton Human Trafficking Accords conference

The conference runs Monday, Nov. 9, through Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The even will feature a public conversation at 7 p.m. Monday with Benjamin Skinner, winner of the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction for “A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face With Modern Day Slavery.”

Theresa Flores will be part of a public forum, “Trafficking is Slavery,” at 6 p.m. Tuesday in UD’s Kennedy Union Ballroom.

DAYTON — Theresa Flores, a Columbus mother of three who holds a master’s degree in counseling education from the University of Dayton, puts a surprising face on the global problem of human trafficking.

A modern-day form of slavery, human trafficking is the acquisition of people by force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The U.S. Department of State estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked annually across international borders, and that as many as 17,500 of those people are trafficked into the U.S. for forced labor and/or commercial sexual exploitation.

As a 15-year-old in an affluent Detroit suburb, Flores was drugged, raped and blackmailed into selling her body for two years, all while attending high school and living with her parents.

“It’s not only immigrants coming to our country or people in other countries that are trafficked,” said Flores, 44. “It can look like me, too.”

Flores is the author of “The Sacred Bath: An American Teen’s Story of Modern Day Slavery.”

Flores will be among the speakers at the Dayton Human Trafficking Accords conference today and Tuesday, Nov. 9-10, at UD. The forum brings together law enforcement officials and victims’ advocates to assess the extent of human trafficking in Ohio and what is being done for victims.

“I’m really excited about it,” Flores said. “This is the first time Dayton has done anything really around human trafficking.”

“The purpose is to raise public awareness that there’s slavery in the world, in the United States, in Ohio and even in this part of Ohio,” said Mark Ensalaco, director of UD’s Human Rights Program.

Dayton is a prime region for the transportation of human trafficking victims because of the interchange where Interstate 75 and Interstate 70 meet, said Flores.

Dayton is near such cities as Toledo and Indianapolis, where the FBI and its local and state law enforcement partners have made arrests in recent years as part of Operation Cross Country, a long-running nationwide crackdown on child prostitution rings.

The youngest victim rescued in a Toledo raid announced Oct. 26 was 10 years old, according to FBI officials.

“Because of Dayton’s location, it’s very prime where these girls at least pass through the city,” Flores said.

Human trafficking is selling someone for exploitation in either sex or forced labor, said Mark Ensalaco, director of the University of Dayton’s Human Rights Program.

Flores' story

At 15, Flores was drugged and raped by a high school classmate. The classmate’s cousins photographed the rape. They then forced her to sell her body by threatening to show the photos to her parents and the family’s priest.

“I was Catholic, so there were a lot of expectations to be a virgin and to not have intercourse,” said Flores, 44, of Columbus.

The torture ended two years later when Flores’ father was transferred to a new job in a different city.

Flores earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from Ball State University and also holds a master’s in counseling education from UD.

Today, Flores works as a victims’ advocate. She is director of public awareness and training for Gracehaven, a safe home in Dublin, Ohio, for girls younger than 18 who have been victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Flores also is a member of Ohio’s new Trafficking in Persons Study Commission, launched in July by Attorney General Richard Cordray to study human trafficking in the state and develop recommendations to address the problem.

Cordray on Tuesday afternoon will address an invitation-only working session at the conference for law enforcement officials and victims’ advocates.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2419 or dlarsen@Dayton

DailyNews.com.