Minneapolis, MN
Sex trafficking survivor shares message of hope as Minneapolis launches new campaign
A human trafficking victim is sharing a message of hope as the City of Minneapolis gets ready to launch a new public awareness campaign.
The Minneapolis Departments of Health and Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging are using the Sex Trafficking Thrives in Silence campaign to raise awareness and provide resources to those in “The Life” and those who are at risk.
“I’m hopeful that victims/survivors will see me and see there is a way out,” said Joy Friedman, a survivor from Minneapolis, who is helping amplify the message of the initiative.
The 61-year-old has used the last couple of decades to redefine her life. She launched a consulting business called the Missing PEACE and wrote a memoir about her experience.
Friedman was caught in a cycle of sex trafficking and exploitation that started when she was a teenager. She explained her siblings watched her while her single mother worked.
“I ended up hanging around the wrong people and they saw my vulnerabilities,” said Friedman.
Friedman said she was raped, beaten and held captive for 24 hours, just a block and a half from her mother’s home when she was 15 years old. For the next 22 years, she was in and out of the life.
“I didn’t see a way out,” she said.
Friedman received help for substance use disorder more than a dozen times but it wasn’t until she was in her 30’s that she was introduced to a program specifically for sexually exploited individuals.
“Would it have made a difference at the beginning? Yes,” she said. “I never saw what I was in as trafficking, I never knew. I thought I was a willing participant because there were no chains on my hands. Why didn’t I leave? Why didn’t I go to the police? There’s a lot of reasons, fear for one.”
According to the Minnesota Department of Health, about 1,500 people received services related to sex trafficking state-wide between April 2021 to March 2023.
“That’s just a small number,” said Shunu Shrestha, a senior advisor for the City of Minneapolis. “There are many people who are not within the Safe Harbor system who are receiving services from other organizations.”
Shrestha explained the words and art being used in the new campaign were created in collaboration with survivors to ensure it reaches individuals who need it the most. It focuses on sexual exploitation and the role substance use disorder plays.
“Traffickers often exploit individuals by using drugs, something to control and manipulate them,” she said. “We’re trying to shine the light on these two intersecting topics. Making people aware that people are so vulnerable and really remove that stigma from people so they are more open to accessing services.”
Posters will go up next week in bathroom stalls at 30 locations city-wide. The campaign will also feature billboards and advertising on bus shelters, inside buses and on light rail platforms.
“Especially to victims, we want to get this message to victims that there are services available, there are resources available and we’re here to help,” said Shrestha.
It also highlights signs of trafficking, including missing school or work regularly, telling inconsistent or rehearsed stories and unexplained gifts or new possessions.
Friedman, who left the life when she was 37 years old, hopes those who are being trafficked know healing is possible.
“We’re people’s daughters, sons, we’re people’s moms,” she said. “I want the victims to know we can get out and we can have a wonderful life and there is a way out, all you have to do is reach out.”
Click here for human trafficking education and resources.
A halt on the construction of data centers in Minneapolis took effect in July after the Minneapolis City Council discussed the need for more time to understand the facilities’ potential environmental impacts.
The Council approved the halt through November by an 8-5 vote in May. Members said the halt allows time to study the environmental impacts of data centers and plan their development more conscientiously.
However, Council members not in favor of the halt said it will result in reduced tax revenue and may drive away businesses willing to invest in downtown Minneapolis.
Data centers are not new to the Minneapolis area, but community concerns have grown in recent months, President of Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council Dan McConnell said.
“Data centers have been around for decades,” McConnell said. “They’re not new. There just seems to all of a sudden be this hysteria around data centers.”
Celeste Robinson, policy aide to Minneapolis Council member Robin Wonsley, said the city should not rush the process because of the potential environmental trade-offs compared with the promised economic benefits. She said the halt could be extended to allow a full 12 months of analysis.
Robinson said the Council’s halt on data centers allows for a more thorough evaluation of their impacts.
“I think that there’s a misconception that the City Council being deliberative and taking the time to do it right. I think that there’s been a portrayal that that’s somehow a bad thing,” Robinson said.
Robinson said, although data centers are often seen as an investment, there is no evidence the developments generate the economic benefits for communities that supporters claim they do. She said the Council wants to determine what resources they would potentially take from the city.
“It is corporations who see land, fresh clean water, and electric grids that they can use for their profit, and that those profits get moved out of state to shareholders,” Robinson said. “They are not reinvested in our community, and so a lot of the rhetoric around data centers has really been about unverified claims around them being a source of investment.”
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations’ website claims that data centers are a staple for the modern job market and help to create more jobs, but labor protections for workers and regulations to protect surrounding communities are needed.
Resolution 7, a plan created by the AFL and CIO, outlines labor protections for data center employees and regulations aimed to protect surrounding communities. The plan calls for legislation that would require data centers to conserve water and energy. It seeks transparency from data center operators, union labor agreements and policies requiring data center operators to pay their share of energy and water costs.
In recent years, a lack of development in Minneapolis has seen a decline in commercial property value, leaving a shortfall of about $50 million in expected commercial property tax to fall onto the shoulders of residents, according to the Minneapolis Times. To help offset that shortfall and alleviate the burden that was placed on residents, Minneapolis must find new sources of revenue, Council member Elizabeth Shaffer said.
Some believe data centers, often being large-scale commercial developments, can relieve these financial pressures. Shaffer said the data center located in the Sleep Number headquarters in downtown Minneapolis has had a positive financial impact on the city.
“The Sleep Number building increased its valuation to eight times what it was a year ago because of a data center,” Shaffer said. “That helps relieve the property tax burden that residents and apartment owners have been feeling.”
When property values increase, property tax revenue also increases, helping Minneapolis generate revenue and address its estimated $50 million deficit, Shaffer said.
Robinson said data centers are not the only way for Minneapolis to generate revenue within the city.
“Council member Wonsley has been looking at how do we tax the rich, how do we put fees on real estate transfers for extremely high-value real estate,” Robinson said. “There are so many things that the city council can be doing to bring in new revenue to shift the property tax burden off of working-class people, that is not related to letting big tech corporations build data centers.”
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