ROTARY CLUB RECEIVES TALK ON TRAFfiCKING, ASSAULT

The St. Marys Rotary Club received an interesting guest on Wednesday in order to talk about a heavy topic; human trafficking and sexual assault.

The speaker at Wednesday’s meeting was Charla Lauth of the Crime Victim Services organization that’s based primarily in Lima. The organization is a non-profit that works to help victims that were hurt or involved in a variety of different crimes, with her specialization being human trafficking and sexual assault.

“I don’t know the kind of presentations you have here,” said Lauth near the beginning of her presentation. She wanted to prepare the audience for what she was going to talk about. “My youngest victim to date has been 17 months old, my oldest victim to date has been 77.”

Lauth works as survivor advocate, which means she helps the victims of these crimes through the process of charging the perpetrators, as well as make sure they remain safe and comfortable. One of the first things she talked about was how sexual assault covers more than just how rape is depicted on television.

“Sexual assault can involve over the clothing, under the clothing,” stated Lauth. Most of what she talked about involved consent, especially the lack of it during certain acts. “All of those things that if you don’t give someone consent to is against the law.”

Lauth tries to give victims of this the knowledge about how court cases work and what their options are, especially since some cases can either take a long time or end up not being “survivor friendly.” Sexual assault, primarily rape, can be a difficult process because of this, especially when the perpetrator is someone the victim knows personally.

“85 percent of people know who their victim is,” Lauth stated as being the current statistic related sexual assault. In cases like this, it can make reporting it all the more unappealing to victims. “A lot of victims just don’t report, and it can make things really challenging.”

The situation isn’t always easy, but it is something that Lauth does work hard to provide ways to help ease the process. It carries plenty of stigma around it and she encourages victims of it to report it as soon as possible, especially if they need help preventing it from happening in the future.

Human trafficking can carry just as many stigma’s as well, and Lauth does state that it also doesn’t share any similarities to how it’s portrayed on television.

“A lot of people think that’s it’s the ‘young child that is sold into sex slavery,” stated Lauth. While it isn’t outside the realm of possibility, it’s slightly different to how it’s truly portrayed. “Where St. Marys is at, it’s kind of a hot bed of interstates, county road, truck stops, different things like that.”

Most victims of human trafficking are usually those that end up running away from home or end up trying to leave town, with St. Marys having potential for it due to how easily someone can get out of the state using local roads. Lauth stated that it could take three hours to get out of the state, which can