Throughout the day, from B-block’s showing of 50 Cent’s “PIMP” in the morning to the movie-based discussion at the end of F-block, people whispered.

They whispered comments to each other and exclamations of horror to themselves. They whispered about stigmas they had never before noticed and words they had never fully understood.

Some whispered about how the people they knew—their friends, their sisters, and even themselves—were all at risk.

Indeed, one of the emphases of the Students Against Human Trafficking Day of Awareness and Education on Thursday, Feb. 13, was the idea that the sex trafficking industry is an issue both globally and locally.

Senior Maya Shaked, a member of the Students Against Human Trafficking (SAHT) club, said that this point is exemplified in SAHT’s dual partnerships: one with the Somaly Mam Foundation in Cambodia and the other with My Life My Choice, which is centered around the Greater Boston Area.

Senior Marisa Lazar, another member of SAHT, said that the decision to partner with both the Somaly Mam Foundation and My Life My Choice was a purposeful one, intended not only to support both organizations’ efforts, but also to make a point about the geographic range of the sex trafficking industry.

“It’s really important that we have this partnership with them,” she said, “so people know it’s global, but it’s also right at home.”

E-block’s assembly featured three panelists from My Life My Choice, all of whom had survived and escaped what they called “the life”: forced prostitution.

Shaked said that part of the reason for the assembly was to demonstrate that, while it can be easier to think of sex trafficking as a third-world problem, the industry exists even at the high school.

“In reality this is very local,” she said. “Two years ago, My Life My Choice was helping two Brookline High School students get out of the sex trafficking industry, so we try to make it a point that this can happen to anybody.”

During F-block, a documentary in the Martin Luther King Jr. Room explored the sex trafficking industry in Cambodia through the lens of SAHT’s other partner organization, the Somaly Mam Foundation.

“We wanted people to have a full sense of the issue,” Lazar said, “that it’s happening at home but also around the world.”

Another topic that got people whispering was the repeated description of “Johns,” men who buy sex from victims of forced prostitution.

Lazar and other SAHT members said throughout the day that such people tend to be middle- and upper-class white men, not unlike many students at the high school today.

“I just want for the boys that graduate my high school not to be guys that are going to be buying sex,” Shaked said.

Lazar said that, in many ways, American culture legitimizes the purchase of sex. While some sex workers choose the profession on their own accord, the very vast majority of prostitutes from whom Johns buy sex are forced into the life.

“This year,” she said, “we had a little bit more of a focus on the aspect of demand, and the idea of what goes into our culture right now that allows people to believe they can buy sex.”

She shared Shaked’s concern that Brookline students could become Johns in the future.

“What can we do as a generation to make sure that we don’t go out and buy sex as adults? Look at slut shaming and girl hate and this kind of culture, and ask yourself how it plays into this bigger issue, and then do something to try and stop that,” she said.

Both Shaked and Lazar said that a significant goal of the day was to spark serious conversation about the sex trafficking industry, leading to increased awareness and, with that, increased ability to avoid becoming either a victim or a John.

“We want to make sure that it’s not forgotten about, and that we do talk about it,” Lazar said, “because it is making yourself more aware and making others more aware of the issue, and learning about it, and learning about it with other people, that’s going to really help you be able to take this on.”

Ben Gladstone can be contacted at [email protected].