image by: Leonard J Matthews

HWN Suggests

Child Sex Trafficking Is Personal, Not Political

The current surge of awareness and attention on child sex trafficking is both encouraging and disheartening. It is encouraging because we, as a society, are finally acknowledging this horrific practice. It is disheartening because our current dialogue about the issue of child sex trafficking is inconsistent with the most prevalent risks in our nation and local communities. This dialogue fails to recognize the realities of how, when, and where most children are trafficked for sex. To make it worse, individuals are choosing to politicize the issue with the intent to gain power. Leveraging a non-political issue for political gain is another form of exploitation and can do additional harm, including…

read full article

Featured

 Child Sex Trafficking is Not a Conspiracy Theory

Unfortunately, there are also some disingenuous reasons for sharing theories around child sex trafficking and how this crime is actually committed at a large scale. Social media has exploded with influencers and non-influencers alike sharing unverified claims of child sex trafficking. The amount of people following these accounts has increased as well.

Articles of Interest

Child Sex Trafficking: Misconceptions and Your Community

All children are at risk for exploitation. Traffickers do not discriminate against gender, race, or socioeconomic status when luring their victims. However, there are many factors that can increase a child’s vulnerability to exploitation. Studies show that children with past trauma, unstable living conditions, or families facing addictions are at more risk for being sex trafficked.

Know the signs of child labor trafficking and child sex trafficking

Child trafficking, which includes child labor trafficking and child sex trafficking, is child abuse, and all children, regardless of their age, race, gender, socioeconomic background, nationality or place of birth can be vulnerable. Children can be paid the least, exploited the most, and, because of their legal incapacity and invisibility as minors, often have no access to resources. Red flags and indicators of child sex and labor trafficking can overlap and identifying instances of trafficking can be complicated...

The Prevalence of Sex Trafficking of Children and Adolescents in the United States: A Scoping Review

Little research has estimated the prevalence of minor sex trafficking in the United States. The existing studies examine different areas and populations and use different categories to estimate the problem. The estimates reviewed here should be cited cautiously. Future research is needed on this important topic, including methodologies to produce more representative estimates of this hard-to-reach population.

The Shocking Truth of Child Sex Trafficking

2 million children are victims of child sex trafficking each year across the globe. The number is staggering, and hard to believe. Yet, the numbers are true and society as a whole seems to look the other way.

What Child Sex Trafficking Really Looks Like

“People think trafficking is like the movie TAKEN, where the victim is tied up and duct taped and put in the back of a van, driven to a remote location and beaten and raped. Almost always they start out as online love relationships. Runaways are the second most common trafficking victims – in today’s social media age most kids aren’t running away just blindly, they are running TO something.”