MUNCIE — The Youth Opportunity Center is expanding to New Castle to offer a program for victims of sex trafficking.
The Muncie center has leased the Henry County Youth Center, which has been unoccupied since 2011, said Youth Opportunity Center (YOC) facilities director David Dickerson.
Dickerson said they will be hiring 28 full-time employees and about 10 to 12 part-time employees from the area. After making modifications to the building and getting licensing from the state, Dickerson hopes the program for commercially sexually exploited girls will be running by the end of the year.
"It’s a service that we believe is definitely needed," he said.
Indiana code defines sex trafficking as “a person who knowingly or intentionally recruits, harbors or transports another person by force, threat of force or fraud to engage the other person in … prostitution.”
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Judge Kimberly Dowling of Delaware Circuit Court 2 previously called it an emotional and manipulative relationship. Sometimes pimps act as boyfriends for months before manipulating girls into prostitution. And many victims don't consider themselves victims, Dowling said, instead thinking their pimp loves them and try to return love to them.
Currently, the YOC has seven or eight girls who were trafficked, Dickerson said. For now they are put in existing programs.