For many American citizens, the first time they are hearing about human trafficking on their own soil is from the recent PSA, #DoesYourHotelKnow? -- a campaign that spotlights hotels and the shocking fact that virtually every sex trafficking victim has been exploited in one. In the PSA video, a 13-year-old girl sheds light on her experience with American sex trafficking in hotels and mentions how she could tell hotel employees knew something was awry, but never pursued the situation.
Like these hotel employees, US officials do a good job at sweeping human trafficking under the rug. But with help from this PSA, as well as from the work of countless other organizations and campaigns, many are working toward informing and educating citizens on the issue.
Many people in the US are still in the mindset that human trafficking was left in our history, or only happens in third-world countries. The truth is that someone involved could be your neighbor or someone your children used to go to school with or play with. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 100,000 children are exploited for commercial gain a year, and 300,000 are at risk.
The biggest way to help end human trafficking in the US is through awareness. The more people that know about it, know signs and are overall in the know, the less children who will be taken and even raised within it.
Here is an in-depth explanation:
Human Trafficking is the modern-day form of slavery. It is the illegal buying, selling and trading of people for forced labor or sexual exploitation. In the United States, the most sex trafficking occurs in locations where the victims are easily smuggled into the country (like Texas and California). According to the US Justice Department, 17,500 people are smuggled into the US in a year, with the number being tentatively larger due to the number of undocumented immigrants. Although trafficking happens in EVERY state and mostly affects citizens, only a small portion of the 100,000 people experiencing human trafficking are runaways.
Sex traffickers use threats, violence, money and other coercive tactics to force victims into participating in commercial sexual acts. Many are lured into it through fake relationships/false love. During the early period of the "relationship," victims are lured in through luxurious gifts, vacations, money and given a better life that eventually gets overturned into an excessively abusive relationship in various ways and the victim is taken in through control tactics.
Human trafficking has no set location. It could be incognito within other businesses (i.e a massage spa), in hotels, out of homes, at truck stops and in cars.
According to Polaris, an organization that leads in the global fight to eradicate modern slavery and restore freedom to survivors, there are a handful of warning signs, including a person's lack of freedom to come and go as they please, a presence of debt they cannot pay off, and being under 18 providing commercial sex acts. As for appearance, if someone looks malnourished, has few personal belongings and shows signs of abuse, they might be a victim of trafficking.
If you think you have information about human trafficking in your community or need to request help, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline at 1-888-373-7888. Or text INFO or HELP to us at: BeFree (233733).
