‘I’m not going to stop.’ Meet a sex trafficking victim fighting for women in Warner Robins

Victoria’s Lighthouse, an anti-human trafficking group in Warner Robins, is named for a girl whose name is unknown.

Victoria is the name that April Scarborough gave the frightened pregnant girl she left behind when she fled a sex-trafficking operation in Atlanta in 2006. Scarborough never learned the girl’s real name.

Scarborough was unwittingly lured into sex trafficking at 19 when a man offered her a job at a restaurant and bar, she said. On her second day there, she says, she was offered a drink that was drugged.

Scarborough says she was then taken into a back room and sexually assaulted, though much of it she doesn’t remember. The man who had given her the job threatened her family if she tried to flee, she said.

“He was like, ‘This is your life, this is what you are going to do now,’” she recalled.

On her third day, she says was offered up for sale in an auction at the bar, but one man there appeared not to be in on what was happening. When the restaurant owner and manager left the room, the man grabbed her and they fled.

Shots were fired at them as they got to his vehicle and sped away, Scarborough recalled.

She stayed with the man who had rescued her and had two children with him, but she says it later became an abusive relationship. After leaving him, she soon met the man she is married to now. The couple moved to Warner Robins due to his job.

‘It’s something we just shove under the rug’

According to a report released Monday by the Human Trafficking Institute, in 2018 Georgia had 15 active human trafficking criminal cases in the federal court system, and all were sex trafficking cases. The states ranks 14th in the nation for the number of active human trafficking cases.

In 2017, Scarborough decided she wanted to do something about sex trafficking and formed Victoria’s Lighthouse. The group works to spread awareness and warn young women of the dangers. It started with a vigil and has steadily grown.

“For years I tried to pretend that it never happened, and that’s one reason it took so long to get to the point that I even realized what had happened,” she said. “I’m not going to stop until someone listens to me and someone does something about this issue, because it is such an epidemic that nobody realizes. It’s something we just shove under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist.”

Lance Watson, recently retired from the Warner Robins police department as a lieutenant, worked with Scarborough closely when he was on the force, and continues to work with the group. He didn’t know much about sex trafficking when he met her, but he said he has since come to see that it is a bigger issue in this area than he ever knew.

He said from what he has learned, Scarborough’s story is actually not that unusual.

“It’s just not something we had dealt with,” he said. “All of a sudden, it has become well known.”

Homeless women are targeted

Watson credited Scarborough with being the driving force behind raising awareness in the Warner Robins area. There is now an effort to start a program to help girls who are rescued from sex trafficking by providing a shelter and counseling.

Watson said there was only one sex trafficking case prosecuted in Houston County last year, but he said the problem is much bigger than that. He said the biggest issue locally is runaway juveniles who get lured into prostitution.

“A lot of these girls don’t see themselves as victims right away,” he said. “You may have to talk to them two or three times before the truth comes out.”

Scarborough said homeless women locally are also getting lured into sex trafficking.

Scarborough thinks a lot about the girl she calls Victoria, for victory, or what Scarborough hopes was her ultimate victory over her captors. She says she witnessed Victoria being taken repeatedly into a back room by men.

Scarborough said she wanted to file a police report after she made her escape, but when she returned to the restaurant a few days later, it was shut down, so she didn’t go to the police.

She finally did make a report years later, and although the statute of limitations has passed for her case, she said it can be investigated and remains an open case. She filed the report with the Polaris Project, an anti-human trafficking group that works with law enforcement.

Her hope is that the men, whom she says she can identify, will be found and if there is a recent victim a criminal case can be made.

“I will be in the courtroom,” she said.

Victioria’s Lighthouse and Georgia Cares, a group that helps victims of child sex trafficking, is having a fundraiser Friday in Warner Robins. It’s a short parade that begins at City Hall at 5:30 p.m., heading down to Davis Drive and back to City Hall. There will be a silent auction after the parade.

This story was originally published June 5, 2019 at 5:00 AM.