imstilla.grandma
Believer of Miracles
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Zeferjohn was charged in June 2016 with 10 felonies, including aggravated human trafficking. She was 17. Despite federal and state laws that bar prosecuting children for prostitution, Zeferjohn is serving a nearly six-year sentence in the Topeka Correctional Facility and will spend a lifetime on the state sex offender registry.
“I deserve another chance,” said Zeferjohn, now 21, who is seeking a pardon. “As long as I get hope, I can give hope to people.”
Along with Zeferjohn, a dozen other young women are facing criminal prosecutions after being placed in state custody, running away, and falling prey to sex traffickers while they were minors, said Karen Countryman-Roswurm, director of the Center for Combating Human Trafficking at Wichita State University.
As “the right hand of the organization,” Kagay said, Zeferjohn was responsible for “recruiting, identifying targets, locating and trying to earn their trust” for Long’s sex business.
“She had to be held accountable,” Kagay said. “She actively recruited and allowed minor children to be sexually abused, to be prostituted.”
That sort of role is not uncommon, said Yazmin Vafa, co-founder and executive director of Rights4Girls, a human rights group that focuses on gender-based violence.
Vafa said Zeferjohn served as what’s called a “bottom girl,” a term used to describe “young women who ascend to a position of power and are at the top of the exploitation hierarchy, where they are often relied upon by the trafficker to assert order and authority among the other young women who are being victimized.
“I think you started out as a victim in this case,” District Judge David Debenham told Zeferjohn when he sentenced her in August 2017, just a few days after she turned 19.
“You crossed the line,” Debenham said, “at some point in time.”
Kansas made this sex trafficking survivor a criminal. She wants another chance.
Direct audio link:
https://20943.mc.tritondigital.com/...b48E-5tkl5cZsJIhBTXDIuw&dl=1&utm_source=Embed
Zeferjohn was charged in June 2016 with 10 felonies, including aggravated human trafficking. She was 17. Despite federal and state laws that bar prosecuting children for prostitution, Zeferjohn is serving a nearly six-year sentence in the Topeka Correctional Facility and will spend a lifetime on the state sex offender registry.
“I deserve another chance,” said Zeferjohn, now 21, who is seeking a pardon. “As long as I get hope, I can give hope to people.”
Along with Zeferjohn, a dozen other young women are facing criminal prosecutions after being placed in state custody, running away, and falling prey to sex traffickers while they were minors, said Karen Countryman-Roswurm, director of the Center for Combating Human Trafficking at Wichita State University.
As “the right hand of the organization,” Kagay said, Zeferjohn was responsible for “recruiting, identifying targets, locating and trying to earn their trust” for Long’s sex business.
“She had to be held accountable,” Kagay said. “She actively recruited and allowed minor children to be sexually abused, to be prostituted.”
That sort of role is not uncommon, said Yazmin Vafa, co-founder and executive director of Rights4Girls, a human rights group that focuses on gender-based violence.
Vafa said Zeferjohn served as what’s called a “bottom girl,” a term used to describe “young women who ascend to a position of power and are at the top of the exploitation hierarchy, where they are often relied upon by the trafficker to assert order and authority among the other young women who are being victimized.
“I think you started out as a victim in this case,” District Judge David Debenham told Zeferjohn when he sentenced her in August 2017, just a few days after she turned 19.
“You crossed the line,” Debenham said, “at some point in time.”
Kansas made this sex trafficking survivor a criminal. She wants another chance.
Direct audio link:
https://20943.mc.tritondigital.com/...b48E-5tkl5cZsJIhBTXDIuw&dl=1&utm_source=Embed
