A 'groundbreaking move': Men’s shelter for trafficking victims a first in Ventura County

As a 14-year-old boy, he was drugged and kidnapped in Honduras and smuggled into the United States by human traffickers.

Trafficking survivor Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman believes that boys and men who are trafficked do not receive the support that they need. Interface Children & Family Services men’s shelter is expected to fulfill that need in Ventura County.

The 50-year-old nonprofit provides mental health, domestic violence, child abuse, homelessness and human trafficking services, among many other programs, across Ventura County.

In summer 2023, Interface opened the shelter, which operates as a voluntary program open to single adult men, or male-identifying, victims of human trafficking with a six- to nine-month stay.

While some trafficking shelters are gender inclusive, very few across the country are specifically for men. Many shelters are also faith-based establishments with requirements that many victims may not be able to meet, according to Piraino-Guzman.

A neurologist and clinical psychologist, Piraino-Guzman, whose practice is based in Los Angeles, helps train staff at Interface as well as providing specialized therapy for some of their clients.

'I had no control'

Piraino-Guzman said his childhood experiences put him at higher risk for trafficking with a violent father who physically abused his wife and kids. His father left the family when he was 9, and Piraino-Guzman started working at a restaurant to help support them.

As a youth, he went missing on Jan. 3, 2004, and was found by the police in San Diego on July 27, 2004. Attorneys estimated that during those six months, he was assaulted 196 times.

He was initially taken to a detention facility in Texas. Three months later, he was brought back to California and placed in the foster system after a judge declared him a ward of the state. His mother was called on the phone in court and she said, “You should have kept your mouth shut.”

“From a cultural perspective, I brought shame to my family. I told the whole world I was raped,” he said. Piraino-Guzman was able to reconnect with his mother after several years but their relationship remains strained.

For the first few months in foster care, he was put on medications to suppress his sexuality, he said.

“I had no control over anything,” he said. “Every social worker, every case manager would tell me that because I was assaulted, they thought that I would do the same to other kids.”

Trafficking survivors who are men are seen as potential abusers rather than victims, Piraino-Guzman said. As a result, their mental and physical health concerns remain unmet.

Identifying trafficking cases

In the past, because of the limited resources for male victims, Interface would refer male victims who needed housing to homeless shelters, according to Catherine Pedrosa, the director of Interface’s Human Trafficking Prevention and Intervention program.

She added that homeless shelters are not equipped with the resources and tools to help trafficking victims. People may line up for shelter at a certain hour, hope to find a bed, leave in the morning and do it all again the next day.

With a new men's shelter, they can house male victims while assisting with basic needs, education enrollment, employment readiness, advocacy and legal services, mental health and trauma treatment and substance abuse treatment.

Current Interface programs, with individualized care for both men and women, help victims of sex trafficking as well as labor trafficking, a lesser-recognized form of trafficking where a person is made to provide labor by force, fraud or coercion.

“There's just not enough knowledge out there,” said Jessica Torres, a program manager at Interface. “(People) can be in a labor trafficking situation or a sex trafficking situation and don't realize that they are in one.”

Pedrosa added that labor trafficking can happen within any industry but they identify more of it within agriculture, hospitality or home-based care services.

It can look like an employer making promises they are not keeping — not paying the promised amount, having pay subtracted for housing and food, or withholding passports and other immigration documents. Some severe types of force may include victims being forbidden from leaving the house or being tracked if they do.

Boys and men are victims, too

In 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice funded the Ventura County Human Trafficking Task Force, a collaboration between the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and Interface’s Victim Services team.

The two groups partner with several other organizations to identify victims, investigate and prosecute human trafficking cases, address service needs and provide training and awareness events in the region.

The task force’s program manager, Evelyn Guillen, said male survivors have been overlooked for a long time.

“As more survivors are identifying or as we are identifying them, we're seeing the need. It's always been there,” she said.

Rikole Kelly is the prosecutor tasked with holding perpetrators of human trafficking and sexual exploitation accountable at the Ventura County District Attorney's Office. Kelly said that this crime “is shrouded in myths and misconception.”

She added that Ventura County is at the forefront of identifying that men and boys are frequently victimized in the human trafficking context but due to societal norms and stigma, may not be as willing to disclose it.

“The men’s shelter can provide services to anyone that is being actively trafficked or at risk of trafficking,” she said. “And that's a really groundbreaking move.”

Visit 211ventura.org for support online or call 211 for information and referrals. Men and women who are victims of labor and sex trafficking in Ventura County can call Interface’s 24-hour domestic violence and human trafficking line: 1-800-636-6738. The National Human Trafficking Hotline also has an online referral directory with anti-trafficking organizations and programs.

Dua Anjum is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at dua.anjum@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Men’s shelter for trafficking victims a first in county