Victims of human trafficking speak about their ordeal at conference in Morris County | NJ.com

Victims of human trafficking speak about their ordeal at conference in Morris County | NJ.com:

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For Nicole, the last straw was her pimp kicking and stomping her.

"I said ‘O.K., I’m either gonna die or leave,’" the New Jersey native told about 100 people attending a Polaris Project summit in Whippany Friday. "Anybody in this room can become a victim of human trafficking."

Nicole’s full name was withheld by organizers to protect her identity and she didn’t say how she got involved in human trafficking — only that her ordeal lasted for about five months, in Atlantic City.

Nicole said escaping wasn’t easy — she made three attempts before she finally succeeded — and most people will never understand what she went through.

"Somebody from the outside looking in can give you these reasonable methods: ‘You could have just did this or why didn’t you just do that’ but you don’t know what you would do or think or anything unless you’re in the situation," she said.

Stories like Nicole’s were on the focus of Friday's summit run by Polaris Project, a group that works to fight human trafficking. Organizers said someone may be a victim of human trafficking if they:

• Are not free to come and go as they wish.
• Are unpaid or paid very little.
• Work excessively long and/or unusual hours.
• Appear malnourished.
• Have few or no personal possessions.
• Show signs of physicial and/or sexual abuse or physical restraint.
• Exhibit unusually fearful, anxious, depressed, submissive, tense or nervous/paranoid behavior.

Between 2007 and 2012 a hotline run by Project Polaris, called the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, received nearly 800 calls about possible cases in New Jersey, 60 percent of which concerned sex trafficking. Out of those calls, 178 victims were identified in the state, according to the project’s data.

Rosemary Lontka of Randolph, who attended Friday's summit, said she learned how to "look in your neighborhood and to question things that don’t look right."

"Better safe than sorry, right," her friend, Vicky Stapleton of Wharton, added.

Melanie Roth Gorelick, director of the community relations committee of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, which hosted the summit, said human trafficking is modern-day slavery.

"Passover is next week and as we sit down to celebrate coming free from slavery, we want everybody to be free," she said.

But Helyn Payne Baltimore, 76, of East Orange she wouldn’t have know any of the women at the summit were victims of human trafficking unless they said they were.

Nicole echoed Payne Baltimore’s sentiment.

"You can’t label us," she said. "We (could) be anybody."

The National Human Trafficking Resource Center can be reached by calling (888) 373-7888.