DETROIT — Standing at the checkout line, her arms filled with carefully selected Christmas gifts, Bridgette Carr caught sight of the plastic cups decorated with rhinestones designed to tempt shoppers into a quickie, kitschy, purchase.
One cup said "pimp" and one said "ho.""I put my stuff down on the counter and said, 'If you knew what the reality was like, especially for young girls who are being exploited, I don't think your company would be supporting that,' " Carr told the clerk. She left the items on the counter and walked out without buying anything.
Carr, a lawyer and law professor at the University of Michigan, sees the life-altering despair that engulfs women and girls who have been pressed into the sex trade. The 34-year-old runs the nation's only law school clinic dedicated to combating human trafficking.
Human trafficking — forcing people to work as slaves or provide sex against their will — is the second-largest criminal industry in the world, behind only the illegal sale of drugs. "If you have 100 pounds of cocaine, you will be jailed longer than if you have a 100-pound person enslaved to you," Carr said.
Her crusade against commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking was underscored this fall by theCraigslist.com controversy, which ultimately forced the Internet classified ad giant to remove its "adult services" category. Under pressure from state attorneys general around the country, Craigslist removed the category in response to charges that it was promoting prostitution, child trafficking and other illegal activity.
Largely because of websites like Craigslist and others, experts say, the face of prostitution and human trafficking is changing. Offers of sex for money are just a computer click away.
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On the Internet, solicitation ads generate big profits. In September, surveys showed that Craigslist was on track to make $44 million from advertising connected to solicitation ads before the "adult services" category was shut down.
Yet other websites featuring such come-ons still are on track to make about $39 million annually from related ads, according to an October survey by marketing researcher AIM Group.
Carr wonders what the real fallout from removing "adult services" from Craigslist will be.
"When you hear that the same site where you bought your baby's crib is also selling 12-year-olds for sale, that stimulates outrage," she said. Once those services vanish from everyday view, "it removes the average person from that experience; they say 'I have no connection to that.' "
Carr grew up outside of Fort Wayne, Ind., and earned an undergraduate degree at Notre Dame and her law degree at the University of Michigan. She worked for Americorps for two years, teaching English to immigrants and refugees at a middle school in Fort Wayne.
As a Michigan law student, Carr commuted to Detroit's Freedom House to work with asylum seekers, and continued that work when she taught at the Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, now relocated to Florida. Her work on immigration issues caught the eye of federal law enforcement authorities, who contacted her in 2005 when they encountered a case in which Ukrainian teenagers were being forced to work as strippers at Detroit-area clubs.
Sandra Todaro, supervisory special agent for U.S. Homeland Security, said Carr provided valuable guidance when federal authorities in metro Detroit first encountered the human trafficking victims.
"Bridgette is probably our biggest cheerleader and supporter," said Todaro. "She prepares the victims for court and puts them in a better position so they can move on with their lives and, at the same time, assist us in our preparation" of cases.
In trafficking cases, Todaro said the first priority is getting the victim away from the captor. From there, "we've got to work the case backwards, so it's essential for us to have those relationships with victims' advocates and their attorneys."
Carr and advocates like her "are going to work to get the trust of the victim, and to get the best possible case for us," Todaro said.
It was through her work as a victims advocate, Carr said, that she asked the law school to establish a human trafficking clinic, which formally took shape in summer 2009.
The clinic is offered to second- and third-year law students, with Carr as their professor. About eight students take the class. Another eight to 10 students and graduates volunteer their time to work on cases.
This semester, the clinic is managing 25 cases from around the country, dealing with issues such as forced labor and sex trafficking and whose victims include adults and children, both Americans and foreign-born.
Law student Elizabeth Campbell, 27, is in her second semester at the clinic. Among clients she helps are African girls made to work daily double-shifts braiding hair at East Coast salons. Campbell, of Flint, worked at a domestic violence shelter before entering law school, and she sees similarities in how society once ignored and dismissed the existence of domestic violence.
"I went to school with girls on the corner now in Flint, and I wanted to have a wider conversation on the issue," Campbell said.
Carr said she's focused on galvanizing the student lawyers.
"If I do my job right, the client thinks of the law students as lawyers, not me," Carr said. Her students "will be one of a handful of people who have any expertise in human trafficking in the state of Michigan."
