Cape Cod Times
By Rachael Devaney
HYANNIS — Asia Graves, a human trafficking victim advocate, bustled around the Health Ministry pantry on Nov. 20 to organize food donations.
Graves, 35, moved to Cape Cod in 2022 and was impressed by the Hyannis nonprofit, which offers free food, health care clinics, and educational health and wellness classes — and a shower for anyone who needs it, Graves said.
“Maybe if I had had access to services like this when I was growing up, I wouldn’t have fallen through the cracks,” said Graves, who was sex trafficked between the ages of 16 and 18.
Graves, who lives in Hyannis, is now a member of the Barnstable Housing Committee and advocates for affordable housing on the Cape. Vulnerabilities such as a lack of affordable housing, food insecurity, poverty, family instability, physical and sexual abuse and trauma can all lead to human trafficking, she said, “even on Cape Cod.”
Between 2004 and 2006, Graves was trafficked across the country and throughout the Cape and Islands area. Graves’ pimp, who she didn’t name, took girls to bars to score dates — a word used to describe sex for hire.
Graves began working with law enforcement and testified against her trafficker. Her pimp was sentenced to 25 years in prison, she said.
The Cape “is ripe for sex, labor, and domestic trafficking,” said Lois Hirshberg, co-chair of Cape Cod PATH, or People Against Trafficking Humans. The PATH task force, formed in 2014, works to eliminate human trafficking on the Cape through education, outreach and collaboration, and is a project of the nonprofit Cape Cod Foundation in South Yarmouth.