Magdalena Vermonte

English 2010
Review
Too Close To Home
Too Close to Home human trafficking in Tampa Bay, Florida, is one of the largest human
trafficking rings in the U.S. While most of the population in the United states would prefer to
believe that human trafficking only happens in un developed countries in other parts of the
world, it is actually in our back yard. In Too Close to Home the ordeal of human trafficking is
an every day nightmare for its residents and the task force built up of both the local police force
and homeland security. Human trafficking and especially sex trafficking happens more out in the
open then people would care to see. Its in the
fancy hotels that tourists visit to the ghetto
streets where crime is more of a normalcy than
something far away (Too close to home).
Too Close to Home explains the
heartache and traumatization from women who
were in human trafficking and escaped from it and how once the nightmare is over how much
they had to work through it, to seem normal. These women give real accounts of how they were
brought into human trafficking and how they escaped. Connie Rose a victim of human
trafficking was sold as a sexual slave by her father my abuse started when I was two, and it
started with being sexually abused, and that continued until I was approximately sixteen years
old, my father was my pimp (Too Close to Home). Most human trafficked victims are
brought into human trafficking by someone in there family. This documentary while it may have
Figure 1- human trafficking metro.net
been based in Tampa and is giving statistics from Tampa; it still shows how close this evil is to
our everyday lives.
While the expectation of this film werent set to high, due to it being a short documentary
based on one area of the United States and seemed to be extremely factual. I am actually
impressed with how educational and how good it was at keeping me interested in what I was
watching. There could have been more factual information pertaining on the rest of the U.S.
along with Tampas information. For example if along with telling you that there area around
30 40,000 runaways in Florida . . . and that
1of 3 children will be lured into prostitution
within 48 hours of being out on the streets
(Too Close to Home) and they also stated that
in the estimated amount of human beings that
are trafficked in the U.S alone are 18,000 per
year (Sex Trafficking in the U.S, Charity Sub). Here you would be seeing how much of Floridas
runaways alone impact the U.S.As total amount of human trafficking. There should also have
been more information on the other types of human trafficking. In this documentary they do talk
a little about domestic/labor slavery, and how these cases are much more difficult to weed out.
Domestic and labor slavery make up 20% of the human trafficking business in the world these
victims are chosen either from recruits are adopted from orphanages around the world. These
victims arent paraded around and there for it is much harder detect where they are.
While too close to home does a good job at showing exactly how close Human
trafficking is to each an everyone of us, it also does a good job in showing how we are fighting
against it. In Tampa they created a task force made up of the local police force and homeland
Figure 2
security as I stated earlier. This Task force is made up specifically to help catch human
trafficking rings and bringing them to a stop. There are also a couple laws that were passed in
Florida that were made to help human trafficking victims. The Safe Harbor Law has to main
purposes 1. Prevent minor victims of sex trafficking from being prosecuted for prostitution.
And 2. Protect child victims of sex trafficking by
providing them with specialized services. (Sex
Trafficking of Minors and Safe Harbor, Polaris
Project). Then there is also Bill 1328 which allows
human trafficking victims to have there records
expunged of any criminal activity they might have done
while being trafficked (Too close to Home). Another thing that they were doing to help the
victims were putting them into safe places where the victim could not only feel safe but also
comfortable, so that they could attempted to heal and go back to living a normal life. Places like
Bringing Freedom and the safe houses are homes and rehabilitation centers for these victims.
Especially since around 60% of human trafficking victims are diagnosed with PTSD. These
refugees help victims to be able to back into society and live on better lives.
Too Close to Home is a documentary that is showing how human trafficking is precisely
too close to home and that if we keep showing a blind eye to it, it will always be that way. We
must as a community and as people report when we see something suspicious and help educate
people on the real facts of this terrible ordeal we are being faced with. This movie did a great job
at showing how scary and how anyone could be a victim, but also how we can help and what the
government is already doing to help stop this.

Figure 3- Safe House fo Hope


Works Cited
"Sex Trafficking in the U.S. July 2012 CharitySub." Sex Trafficking in the U.S. July 2012
CharitySub. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 July 2014.
"Too Close to Home: Human Trafficking in Tampa Bay | WEDU PBS." WEDU PBS. N.p., n.d.
Web. 26 July 2014.
"Sex Trafficking of Minors and "Safe Harbor" | Polaris | Combating Human Trafficking and
Modern-day Slavery." Sex Trafficking of Minors and "Safe Harbor" | Polaris |
Combating Human Trafficking and Modern-day Slavery. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 July 2014.

Figure 1
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/09/giving/TRAVEL/TRAVEL-articleLarge.jpg
Figure 2
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Jo_jV3RiiJ8/TOr-
yaqK8AI/AAAAAAAAAUo/ZPzyjCA29eY/s1600/368FAH%2Bstreet%2Bchildren%2B%2Bw
here%2Bthey%2Bsleep_w.jpg
Figure 3
http://www.danyainstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/shohlogo.jpg