Since working with our investigations team, my view and understanding of human trafficking, especially child trafficking, has expanded to a degree I wasn’t prepared for.  Imagine if you will, your nose pressed up against a canvas painting.  For all you know, everything you see is all the picture is.  It would be easy to think you know the entire picture from that close-up perspective, but it isn’t until you step away from the canvas that you see just how diverse the painting actually is.  

If you’re like me, the topic of “child trafficking” can easily be understood from that analogy.  Everything I knew about child sexual exploitation I learned from the media, Hollywood, and scandals of a notorious pedophilic billionaire found hanging in a prison cell.  God used those stories to get me off my couch and into the arena to combat this horrific scourge, but what I’ve come to discover is that what I “thought” I knew about child trafficking and what I have “learned” firsthand, are not just different, but categorically transformative.

I’ve never met a child who had been trafficked by a Russian Organized Crime syndicate.  I’ve never met a child who had been exploited by an A-List celebrity.  I don’t know any children who were on private islands or exclusive parties or private jets.  I don’t know of a kidnapped teenage girl on vacation, whose father has a very particular set of skills acquired over a very long career.  To be clear, there ARE children who are victims of these circumstances, and their stories are no more or less valid, important, or impactful than any other child victim.  What I have encountered is far less “sensational” than the stories that get media attention and Hollywood scripts yet is vastly more common and much more difficult to combat.

I know of children sold by their parents or relatives.  I know kids abandoned and taken under the wing of a seemingly benevolent adult who now provides shelter, clothing and food, only then to exploit their innocence later.  I’ve heard stories of kids who willingly surrender themselves to pimps as an act to make money to help provide for their impoverished and often disabled family.  I’ve seen traffickers under the age of 25 exploiting their underage “friends” for a share of the profit.  While there are sophisticated and transnational criminal rings involved in trafficking children, my experience shows the problem is vastly more widespread and disconnected. Arresting one trafficker has little to no bearing on the operation of another.

We regularly see kids willingly and actively posting seductive photos of themselves online, complete with their weight, bust, and waist sizes to secure employment as cocktail waitresses, servers, hosts, and more.  Their uploads are in response to active posts from legitimate businesses looking for extra help on busy weekends, special events, or for high-profile guests.  The business’ solicitation itself might be benign, but the hundreds of folks surveying those posts with far less than positive intent are now in possession of a name, a face, social media information, and clear vulnerabilities.

Unlike the portrayals I’d seen on the big screen, of the cases I’ve worked on, most traffickers have been female.  Nearly all of them are barely adults themselves.  The narrative I believed involved prowling men ripping children from sidewalks on their walk to school, not women luring children away because of their innocence. But women initially appear less threatening and can easily seduce, lure, convince, or manipulate a vulnerable child without ever threatening violence. 

Additionally, if you’re like me, our hearts break at the thought of little girls being exploited for sadistic pleasure, but we’re ignorant of the massive market for boys as well.  No matter the fetish, there is an eager and evil entrepreneur ready to supply the demand and make a buck.  Don’t deceive yourselves, trafficking is business, and it is BIG business.  Drugs can only be sold one time, but a child can be sold repeatedly.  It is a pure market economy: where there is a demand, someone is eager to offer the supply.

Children are commodities, and many of them are held against their will in dark rooms, with little food and no access to the outside world. Yet, of the rescued children I’ve encountered, many are victims of being deceived into becoming willing participants.  Their traffickers/pimps dress them well, share a greater portion of the “profit,” and allow the children to come and go with more freedom.  The children make more money than they could elsewhere, so they come back again and again “willing” to endure the abuse.  They envision themselves more as employees rather than commodities or hostages.  That mindset, coupled with the nature of their “business arrangement” make criminal proceedings much more challenging.  “Are they really trafficked if they are free to come and go and are paid for their services?”  Absolutely YES!  But as long as police, prosecutors, judges, and the public’s narrow understanding of trafficking is shaped by the narrative portrayed on the big and small screens, the majority of child victims fall below the radar and their nightmarish exploitation continues.

The industry is incredibly lucrative, and if the public believes trafficking is defined by a narrow parameter, the industry often operates unchecked.  Like the vilest version of the arcade game “Whack-A-Mole,” when one bar, massage parlor, restaurant, hotel, or other business is raided and closed, operations pick back up shortly after without missing a beat.  The exploitation isn’t just happening in the darkest recesses of the internet or remote alleys in mysterious cities.  It’s everywhere and not even very well hidden!  The demand is unmatched.

Like most “good” people, it’s hard to fathom how anyone could dream of sexually exploiting a child.  But the reality is, it’s a slow fade.  I know of no one who woke up one day and decided to rape a child.  I’m sure that’s happened, but it absolutely cannot be the norm.  The fade all begins with pornography.  We’re all attracted to the salacious, the off-color, the taboo.  It has a draw, a thrill, a risk.  Porn provides all of that and more.  Like barbs on a fishhook, once set it is damn near impossible to get free.  Porn allows the viewer the rush without the risk.  But it never fully satisfies.  Before long, consumers need more salacious, taboo, and beyond-the-pale content, not suitable for civilized company.  Healthy friendships that should build up, edify, and strengthen one’s character are traded for alluring and arousing images for cheap fixes and thrills.

Like any other drug, once the initial buzz wears off, the user returns to their “normal” life which is often pitted with tragedy, hardship, depression, loneliness, and isolation.  They need another fix to disguise the pain, and this time a larger dose is needed.  Before long, they’re on to more dangerous and lethal substances.  Porn is EXACTLY the same, but instead of the user hurting their own bodies with substance, the victim is the person in the image, often threatened, beaten, and/or drugged against their will to make them a willing participant.  The slope is greased by the thrill of looking at “barely legal” individuals (PAUSE: let’s be honest, do we really believe the pornographers are diligent on checking IDs to ensure the person is in fact an adult?). Downward they go and next there’s the rush of viewing, sharing, selling, and producing the truly illegal content of Child Sexual Assault Material (CSAM).  The only rush left is experiencing the child from the screen in the present and physical form.

Make no mistake, the viewing of porn is not innocent, benign, victimless, or harmless.  Porn is the purest gateway drug that fuels the sexual trafficking enterprise.  Again, it’s a business.  The reason there is a supply of children to sexually abuse is because there is a tremendous demand for them.  That demand is created by pornography, and whether the pornographer also participates in trafficking or not isn’t the point.  The hook has been set, and others are ready to land the fish.  The greatest dent society could make in the trafficking arena would be to stem the demand for pornography.  It truly is that simple and requires no training, no money, no formal education, calling, or special gifting.  Stop viewing, sharing, and purchasing pornography. Until then, kids are going to continue being prey for predators.

At this moment, we are aware of a known exploiter of children.  He was arrested in Europe and served prison time for possession of over 80,000 images of child pornography.  After serving his time, he moved to Thailand and has been seen near children: always with his favorite camera slung around his neck.  

Stay tuned and I’ll next fill you in on the 8 types of trafficking, showing just how nebulous and shape shifting this nightmare truly is.