I first took an interest in human trafficking as a byproduct of work for immigrant justice. I saw the intersection of human trafficking and immigration issues as being a very wide and busy intersection. For labor trafficking and domestic worker trafficking every bit of this is true. For sex trafficking there is truth in the thought, but not as much as I had thought. Most of those who are trafficked for sex work are American born and bred.
A girl goes to her high school's basketball game. There are a bunch of adults there, but the crowd is mostly other high school kids. This girl has had issues at home. She feels isolated, alone, and she looks to be all of that. There is someone in that group of adults who recognizes that look and looks to exploit.
What does that person look like? Well, I'm sixty, and a grandpa. He might look just like me. Maybe she looks like a typical high school kid. One of the recruiting tricks of traffickers is to send another trafficking victim - one of his harem - out to recruit other girls, and this target is looking for a friend. Or the organization behind the trafficking sneds a guy to recruit a girl. If he's a hot enough guy, and this target is confused enough, it's easy to entice her outside, and the last thing she feels is a blow to the back of her head. Or they buy her a drink, and the last thing she remembers. . .
She wakes up locked in a closet in Atlanta or Oklahoma City or somewhere else that's not home. And the initiation into The Life begins.
One of the most frightening things I've seen on Facebook was a granddaughter who is now a teenager saying to her mom, "I know how to take care of myself, and I know what to look for." My granddaughter, you who make me so enormously proud and overjoyed, no, you don't know what to look for. I don't know what to look for. She does, however, do some very smart things to protect herself.
Law enforcement officials say that, once a kid is gone 24 hours, they're probably taken. Kinda presents a problem if the law enforcement agency doesn't take a missing persons report until someone's been gone 24 hours.
I have told the Sunday School class I teach - mostly junior high age, prime meat for these scumbags - that there is danger out there, and that there is safety in numbers. It doesn't mean that you have to take mommy and daddy with you everywhere forever. It does mean that when you go somewhere - anywhere - go with friends.
About the smart things that my granddaughter does: she takes her time in forming relationships, and she forms relationships and friendships only with people with whom she has something in common. She has a stronger family than do most of the kids that get caught in the trafficking trap. And when she goes anywhere it's with family or friends.
Smart girl, that.
The moral of tonight's story? Please discuss.
And thanks for hanging out, my friends.
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