S3: Ep2: Kyle Wood and Rebekah Covington on Human Trafficking
In this episode, I’m going to cover a topic that I find extremely uncomfortable, especially as a mother of a young daughter. This week’s subject is human trafficking. This topic is so layered, with so many different faces, and I wanted to tackle it because as parents and just as humans, we cannot continue looking the other way when we drive down the street and see this happening. We have to educate ourselves and our kids and we have to do it now. We have to shine some light on what’s happening in broad daylight right in front of us.
The broad definition of Human trafficking is the unlawful act of transporting or coercing people in order to benefit from their work or service, typically in the form of forced labor or sexual exploitation. This can mean forced prostitution, it can mean convincing a friend to open an OnlyFans account, it can mean a lot of different things and we’re going to cover it in the podcast.
There is a stretch of road in Seattle called Aurora Avenue - or US hwy 99. It stretches 49 miles from South of Seattle, from a city called Fife, all the way North of Seattle to Everett. State route 99 is also what’s known as a “track.” There aren’t many tracks left, but Seattle’s 99 is on the map for sex traffickers nationally, Kyle will explain - it’s a long stretch of road, heavily with car traffic a ripe for traffickers to bring girls to sell for sex. For those of you that live in the city, you know that Covid hasn’t stopped prostitution along 99. In fact, it’s more visible than ever. One of the hubs on the track is a motel next to a huge Lowe’s home improvement store - I found this out when my son and I stopped in last May to buy a fountain for our backyard. I’d never seen anything like what I saw that day - multiple young girls walking along the track, clearly soliciting, and worse, cars stopping to buy. So this last year, every time I’ve driven on Aurora, I’ve born witness to trafficking 2 miles from my house.
Enter Kyle Wood.
In another Right in front of my face example, Kyle has a daughter in my son’s class at school. We’d crossed paths many times, but I didn’t expect to see him at a parent event I hosted that featured a speaker from Seattle Police depts Child Internet Safety division. After the event ended, Kyle hung out and had clearly worked with this expert speaker. I asked Kyle what he did and he informed me he is the Assistant Attorney General for the state of WA specializing in human trafficking. Ok then.
Fast forward to about six months ago, I was taking a long Covid walk and literally crossed paths with Kyle. It took me 5 seconds to start talking about what I was seeing on Aurora Ave, and Kyle’s compassion, kindness, and explanation of how the system needs to change made me realize we all need to hear it and learn the lessons of these survivors.
Kyle agreed to talk to me as long as he could bring another voice - trafficking expert and survivor, Rebekah Covington. Together, they frame out what the landscape of trafficking is in our state, what we can do to help, and how we can better protect and educate our kids. This is one of my favorite interviews because it truly helped me understand this enormous problem better. Rebekah is right - this can happen to any family anywhere. We all need to open our eyes and I hope the following conversation allows you to better understand what you’re seeing in broad daylight.