YOUNGSTOWN — Barbara Freeman vividly recalls the day decades ago when, as a 15- or 16-year-old, she was put out of her house because of an addiction before she received a ride that radically altered the route her life took.

“I got into the car with this man, and it was the worst ride of my life,” Freeman, 52, of Columbus, painfully recalled.

After a bit of initial persuasion, the driver, who she thought was being a Good Samaritan, provided the first step she unwittingly took that led to a nightmarish life in the human trafficking trade.

Freeman, who now is an advocate for others who suffered similarly to how she did, shared her story during the 41st annual Community Workshop Honoring the Life & Legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gathering Monday at New Bethel Baptist Church, 1507 Hillman St., on the South Side.

More effectively addressing and tackling human trafficking was the event’s primary topic.

The four-hour program, themed “Remembering what is Civil and Doing what is Right,” was moved from First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown because of a boiler problem early Monday morning. Hosting the gathering was the Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee.

Serving as master of ceremonies was Jaladah Aslam, a planning committee co-convener.

Freeman, who also had an abusive stepfather, remembered that the driver kidnapped then took her to a home “with a mattress on the floor and milk crates in a corner,” before using her to satisfy his sexual desires – all premised by emotional manipulation to brainwash her into falsely believing he cared about her.

“He made me feel I was God’s gift to the world,” Freeman said.

Instead, the trafficker recruited a woman to buy the teenage Freeman clothing and coach her on how to sell her body to “customers” to earn money for him. Over time, Freeman was taken to various motels for the same purpose, and was sexually assaulted at least 33 times and kicked in the head with steel-toed shoes more than a dozen times, she remembered. She also was in a coma for a few months.

Freeman was jailed for short stretches on trespassing and other minor charges related to the life she was living, she continued.

One of her arrests, however, likely saved her life, because the undercover police officer to whom she had made a $60 proposition saw her as more than a mere prostitute.

“He took the time and talked to me. He said, ‘Behind that mask, you are so beautiful,'” Freeman tearfully recalled.

With God’s help, eventually she got out of a life of drugs, alcohol and prostitution, then spent about 2 1/2 years in a program for women, Freeman explained, noting that she was one of the first to graduate from a specialized docket in the Franklin County Municipal Court system. Today, she’s celebrating 14 years “out of the life,” Freeman told about 100 community leaders, elected officials and others who attended the program.

Freeman said her main goals are to help young women and girls see that they display inner beauty and don’t need anyone to denigrate or exploit them.

“The most precious thing is yourself,” she added. “You are worthy, and God has a plan for your life – and it isn’t for a man to manipulate, devalue or degrade you.”

In addition, she runs The Freeman Project, a Columbus-based nonprofit organization that helps those who were victims of sex trafficking find greater wholeness and freedom.

The driving force behind human trafficking is money. It is a $150 billion-per-year industry, affects an estimated 25 million people worldwide and is divided into sex and labor trafficking, Corey Taylor, an FBI special agent, noted.

Forced labor, often referred to as modern-day slavery or involuntary servitude, typically starts with the exploitation of vulnerable people who may be charged unreasonably high costs for basic needs, threatened with deportation and told they will be permanently separated from their families or harmed physically if they don’t cooperate, Taylor explained.

The scourge “has no borders,” because it occurs in all parts of the U.S. The FBI opened about 670 cases in 2022, with an estimated 1,600 pending ones from all 56 of the nation’s FBI field offices, he said.

Myths pertaining to human trafficking are that all victims are kidnapped and taken across state lines, all of it entails sex, only undocumented foreign nationals and females are victims, Taylor pointed out. He noted that nearly half of them are males, many of whom are less likely to be so identified.

“The traffickers feel that women are their property, that they own them,” Judge Renee M. DiSalvo of Youngstown Municipal Court, said.

Some perpetrators are what DiSalvo referred to as “Romeo” traffickers who seek vulnerable girls and young women, then lavish them with attention and praise in an attempt to lure them into the sex trade.

Many who fall into the clutches of human trafficking — including in the Mahoning Valley — tend to live in poverty, be marginalized, abused and ostracized and suffer from mental illness, she noted.

DiSalvo also discussed the Growth and Restored through Acceptance, Change and Empowerment (GRACE) court she runs that debuted in 2019 and provides women who have been victims of drug addiction and trafficking to receive treatment and help in lieu of going to jail.

It’s also imperative to “walk with those victims and make sure their needs are being met,” Debbie Hughes-Butts, an FBI victims specialist, added. That includes helping them better navigate through the legal system and reach self-fulfillment, she said.

In addition, Hughes-Butts noted that the internet has become a favored tool for traffickers who can use it to groom victims. Social media sites also can be a home for sextortion, the act of threatening to distribute one’s sensitive and private posts and other material if the person fails to provide provocative images, money or sexual favors, she continued.

During Monday morning’s gathering, attendees broke into small groups to discuss what impacted them about the topic, as well as what can be done to increase awareness and address the problem locally.

Ideas brought up included realizing that perpetrators can be family members, listening to victims without casting judgment or aspersions, maintaining continual media coverage, ascertaining how aware area social workers are of the problem, installing traffic cameras at local rest stops that often are hubs for trafficking, hosting a citywide viewing of the film “The Sound of Freedom” and offering additional mentorships.

The groups also spoke of installing billboards around Youngstown to call further attention to the problem, recruiting more people who are multilingual, stopping “commodifying” others and seeing them merely as consumers, refraining from labeling victims, hearing more stories of those who endured it and adding more transitional housing.

Such housing is vital because those who are trying to change their lives also need a place to live, Freeman said.

“If they don’t have anywhere to go, they go back to what they know,” Aslam added.

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