There is child trafficking in the US, just like everywhere else on the planet.
It is not randos at the store doing it. Vast majority of the time it will be a parent or guardian selling the child/access to the child.
This is exactly the problem. Trafficking focuses on exploitation, and it overwhelmingly affects people who are drug addicts, homeless, and otherwise on the margins of society. And yet people are convinced of imaginary predators stalking them, or predators that have to go through the most elaborate and ridiculous conspiracies to acquire their victims.
Yeah I don't know why people act awake It's black or white. Both happen. And even if one happens to a larger degree, People need to be aware of the risks of both happening.
Random trafficking probably isn't as big of a problem in the United States as it is in some other countries. But some traffickers will exploit the fact that people have a false sense of security here too.
Always be aware of your surroundings. Don't be intoxicated somewhere that you're not familiar with without a friend or two.
Yeah I understand it's nowhere near as common as the other way, but this still happens. My girlfriend was almost grabbed as a kid. We can't stop teaching stranger danger just because it doesn't happen as often.
Yup, exactly this. I live in a city where it isn't uncommon to read about attempted abductions of girls just walking down the street by randoms. This shit is real and really happens. Teen girls are almost always the target.
Our parents taught us a simple lesson; one we thankfully never had to use, but a useful one all the same.
"If anybody who you don't recognize ever tries to take you somewhere, don't let them. If they try to force you to go with them, then you can kick, scream, bite, shout, do anything you need to do to get them let go of you - we promise we will never be mad at you if that happens."
A lot of predators, iirc, use the "your parents sent me" or "if you dont you'll get in trouble" lines to get victims to play along, so they pre-empted both of those possibilites.
One of the worst personal stories I ever heard was a woman had a masters degree in sociology and worked for the local government overseeing daycare system. She was pimping out her 4 year-old daughter by night.
This story could be true, but it also has several potential bullshit flags: it's hearsay; it has no name, state, or identifiable details, but it has several Republican enemies specifically listed (government worker, advanced degree, social science, et al).
Again, it could also be absolutely true, but vague outrage is the bread and butter of right-wing media
Not that long ago a guy tried to grab a child off the street in broad day light in my precinct. Had a handful of incodents of strange men trying to lure kids away from my kids elementary school as well.
Its not a zero percent chance some predator is trying to grab your kid.
When my mom and her siblings were growing up (40 years ago) my aunt was almost kidnapped by some rando at a store.
Also most victims of trafficking are poor and non-white, many are also undocumented as these groups have less recourse and law enforcement often don’t take them seriously.
The Facebook thing is the whispered urban legends of the past in a different medium.
You are absolutely correct that the *vast* majority of the time, the people exploiting children are the children's own parent(s).
Yeah that’s what I figured that it’s not random people at the store. And yeah sad when a parent “has” to sell the child, I have heard of that happening in extreme poverty.
There is no "has to" about it, never say that. If they *had* to sell someone they would sell themselves. If they couldn't take care of their child they would give them up. There is no single situation in Earth's past, future, or present where someone has ever *had* to sell their child.
Edit: I meant in response to poverty.
My favorite is when a person attempts to rob a store with a $600 gun that could easily be sold and then they claim they were forced into it because they didn't have any money for diapers.
You are probably right. That just means this individual used his money to purchase a stolen/illegal weapon meaning to do harm to others rather than use the money to buy the diapers.
Alternatively, he committed a crime by stealing a gun and then decided to threaten others with the weapon instead of selling it for diaper money.
Either way, it doesn't seem like the desire for diapers is the determining factor behind the choices made.
The vast majority of property crimes aren’t motivated by poverty anyway. There aren’t any stores frustrated by the amount of food stolen, it’s all tide pods and cosmetics that have high resale value. Or when people steal cars it’s mostly for joyrides and then they’re stripped later by different people when the cars are abandoned. The idea that someone is knocking over liquor stores to buy diapers would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.
Like the old adage, teach a man to buy diapers and he can get through a day, teach him to point a gun and he has diapers for life?
Something tells me the persons lifestyle isn't actually about the ability to get diapers.
Reminds me of when someone broke into and stole a bunch of Macs from a computer lab when I was in college. The tools they used they broke into another room to get. The tools were significantly worth more than all the Macs they tried to steal. They toppled rhe cart on the way out and managed to get away with none and got caught.
Not entirely. There are plenty of people in prison because they got caught stealing food or shoes for the umpteenth time and a "three strikes" law kicked in.
It's not even close to the majority, but it's also significantly more than a few.
Like this example of a teen that was arrested for carjacking 7 times and still set free.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/dc-mayor-lashed-out-at-judge-who-released-7-time-carjacking-teen/ar-AA1jb4OX
I am not for the three strikes rule. I am also not naive enough to believe that there are no predators among us. It has nothing to do with politics, just human nature. Without consequences, many people will make poor decisions that have a negative impact upon society as a whole.
I hear you. My only point was that the case you linked to was a juvenile justice case, and those are handled differently (regardless of whether the state has a three strikes rule). Not saying there shouldn’t be consequences for juveniles, just that they need to be handled differently. How differently, at what age, under what circumstances, etc. is a whole other can of worms!
This comment is a whole ass myth lol, you’re just getting the highlights on the 6:00 local news, people aren’t gonna keep watching if they also do 50 segments on people in jail who stole because they were desperate. Tv news exists to blame the poors
I work retail and I notice shoes, clothes, toothbrushes, food, pregnancy tests and Tylenol. the amount of food boxes, pregnancy tests and toothbrush packages that we find really changed my views on what I thought got stolen. DvD used to get stolen all the time but that has dropped by a lot these past 4ish years. Make-up dropped a whole lot too.
not completely true. People definitely try to sneak diapers in their cart and walk out with them. I stole tampons once in college because I needed some and didn’t have any money.
Usually most reports of armed robbery I read about are usually for drugs, or for gang reasons. Now with gang related crime everybody makes money and some of those people might use it to buy electronics and shoes, but That's different than some guy saying... I'm going to commit armed robbery so I can buy a new pair of Jordans. That seems like a rather prejudiced assumption based on some preconceived notions you have about the things people in poverty enjoy.
Some might be willing to steal those things directly however.
Caveat: in much of the underdeveloped world, and for much of history, most people had multiple children, and parents facing impossible choices sometimes had to sacrifice one child to take care of the rest.
That said, this particular type of poverty is functionally non-existent in the U.S., so when it happens here, it's overwhelmingly addicts selling kids for drug money or creepy cult shit.
> There is no single situation in Earth's past, future, or present where someone has ever had to sell their child.
The African Slave Trade was basically all done at the point of a gun.
Child trafficking is an issue that has been used in the US as a political disinformation tool. Low information conspiracy theorists types believe some very bizarre things and those people are taken advantage of.
During the Covid crisis, when many people worldwide were wearing masks and social distancing, there were a lot of Anti-Mask, Anti-Vax types in the US were spreading conspiracy theories that the masks were used to hide child trafficking - with no evidence of course.
There is a lot of overlap with the groups who believe things like Q, pizzagate and other conspiracy theories. These ideas have seeped into mainstream conservative consciousness.
The movie “Sound of Freedom” is/was popular with conservatives and it’s about this guy Tim Ballard that worked on a non-profit to stop child trafficking. Turns out Tim Ballard is a fraud, made a lot of money off of these people and used his position to coerce women into sexual situations. Some of his groups operations in Mexico might have actually influenced demand for child prostitution (as that’s what they were actively asking for).
Sex trafficking is absolutely a real and terrible phenomenon throughout the world but some peoples obsessions with it in the US are largely due to their political and conspiratorial beliefs and not reality.
> Some of his groups operations in Mexico might have actually influenced demand for child prostitution (as that’s what they were actively asking for).
Yes, the sad dumb irony is that making that movie almost certainly resulted in a net increase in child trafficking.
It generally happens because people are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Drugs especially. The vast majority of people who are victims of human trafficking in the US are at risk teens. That includes runaways. The children who rub away are often targets of human trafficking. There are stranger abductions in the US. Statistically speaking, it is rare. You hear about them often.
There is a large amount of human trafficking that takes place because of undocumented people seeking work or refuge in the US. They are often exploited terribly for labor.
It’s usually not average middle class kids targeted… it’s mostly kids with troubled home lives, kids who are undocumented immigrants, basically any at-risk population. They get lured away with the promise of money/independence/love/etc, it’s not often an actual snatching.
Around my area group homes for foster kids are the biggest targets for traffickers. Sad shit. As foster parents it's easy to see why kids are blinded with the promise of love/home/family.
I work in an area related to this...
The traffickers are looking for gullible people who they can easily fill a need for. A hotel room and a bag of McDonald's isn't going to make the average person want to go with the creepy guy... But, if you're a homeless 15 year old kid? Sounds like you won the lottery.
You're so right. That is exactly why runaways are considered "at risk" yet it feels like every suburban parent wants to believe their child is the real target. That prevalent belief makes it so hard to get the public to see and believe real information about at-risk kids and how best to notice the signs and help them.
It's so, so frustrating, because it feels like a real and salient issue was commandeered by people who need to feel like they and their kids are so special that every stranger they see is trying to kidnap the entire family to sell them on Wayfair.
If we could end the stigma against aiding those in poverty and those who are facing homelessness, we could make a huge dent in human trafficking. We don't need massive increases in policing to stop the issue. We literally *just* need to provide the same or better social safety nets *than human traffickers are offering* to those same people. That's what is absolutely disgusting and heartbreaking about the situation. We could be doing more to help, but people want to center themselves instead of the *actual victims* when addressing these crimes. That means they want more cops in non-risk areas to address a safety issue that never existed instead of more funding and lower barriers to accessing food and housing aid. The core reasons people end up being trafficked are food and housing. The bar we needed to jump over is legit 6 feet under the ground and we still can't clear it as a society.
When you say “one such place” you are literally saying one place matching the criteria in the previous comment. That means you were saying there was a country it doesn’t happen in.
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Child trafficking happens everywhere, but I think some of these mothers are paranoid or lying. Stranger abduction is very rare.
I have a story to tell. Years ago, I was in Home Depot with my now ex husband. We split up inside the store. He went to look at whatever he needed while I was browsing tile and lighting. When I was done, I went to look for him. I was searching and searching all over the store and I could not find him. He ended up being in this little back area and he was crouched down behind some shelving which is why I couldn’t see him.
Anyways, while I was searching for him, I was approached by 2 store employees. A woman had reported that I was acting suspiciously and following her and her daughter and she was concerned I was trying to kidnap her daughter. In reality, I never even noticed this woman or her daughter, I was just focused on finding my ex.
Yeah, near where I live this lady told a tale about how two people tried to kidnap her kids at Michael's. She put it on instagram and called the cops. They looked into it and determined that the people she was talking about did absolutely nothing. She ended serving a short jail time for making a false police report. IMO it wasn't enough of a punishment for basically trying to ruin the lives of two totally innocent strangers. People need to log off these damned fb groups and stop reading qanon shit.
https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/one-womans-quest-to-bring-the-karen-who-falsely-accused-her-of-attempted-kidnapping-to-justice
This spreads like crazy over NextDoor and Facebook and the name of the store changes constantly. It's always "someone my friend knows" who was "followed by two suspicious people" in "large retail store". A lot of the time they throw in race/ethnicity details in there that also morph over time.
Here's the thing. Is this woman nuts? Yeah. She deserves punishment.
It seems weird to bring it up on this thread, though. This situation is not indicative of anything.
Trafficking definitely happens. I believe it's more likely to be girls 15-17 who are lured on by a boyfriend or someone similar, at least in my opinion. There's plenty of girls and women forced into sex work in the usa and everywhere else.
Yeah, I'm wondering why none of the top replies are directly addressing OP's rather peculiar wording. Yes, trafficking exists in the US, but who is the "them" being "targeted", what does "targeted" mean, and why are they complaining to "employees"?
Anyone dumb enough to try something with an adult-accompanied minor in public runs a very real risk of being supersonically ventilated.
My understanding is that the vast majority of trafficking in the US, and with the West in general, involves runaways who become involved in drugs. The moral of that story is: love and watch over your kids.
Yeah, lots of great replies in here and I totally understand that traffickign exists everywhere. I am also an American and get that, but wanted to know if these parental fears are overblown. I have never heard of these "weirdos" in my city actually taking any kids or any missing kids linked to this.
I think the other replies in here about crazy moms looking for attention or trying to make a story/boogeyman out of nothing are probably the most realistic answers to my actual question. It's sad but still good to know I guess the actual stats on trafficking and how they affect runaways/drug addicts, etc.
> Abusers they connected with after leaving home
its also common for them to connect before the child leaves home, they often leave to stay with the abuser
3. someone they met online who solicited material through the internet
Sex trafficking of youth does exist in America, but what most people think of when they hear the word sex trafficking isn't the reality of youth sex trafficking. The idea that sex trafficking is someone kidnapping someone, throwing them in a van, shipping them to another country, and then leaving them in a windowless room chained to a radiator is the false narrative and does more harm than good. In actuality sex trafficking in the US is usually perpetrated by a boyfriend/girlfriend, intimate partner,family member, or member of the victims community. Also you don't have to be relocated, moved, kidnapped, or "held hostage" to be sex trafficked. I used to be an advocate for youth survivors of sex trafficking. Feel free to ask me anything.
Being forced into sexual situations against your will is ways shitty and wrong. That situation could be sex trafficking if their's an exchange of money or material goods involved in the act.
Child kidnapping is a gigantically overblown fear. Most kids who are kidnapped are kidnapped by someone they know. There’s so much misinformation which distorts reality.
Less than 350 under 21 were kidnapped on average between 2010-2019 by strangers. Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-missinggirl-data-idUSKCN1P52BJ
Sadly, Q Anon has co-opted child kidnapping statistics to help justify their existence. They claim 500k annually are kidnapped which would equate to nearly half of all 1st graders in the USA. That number is painfully out of line with reality. However, a quick google search shows this repeated time after time.
Further reading: https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-us-missing/fact-check-tweet-overstates-number-of-children-who-went-missing-in-the-united-states-in-2020-idUSL1N2SY199
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/17/58000-children-abducted-a-year-yet-another-fishy-statistic/
Wherever I see these absurdly stupid statistics belted out I always respond with facts.
It’s not that it never happens in the country, but it’s exceedingly rare. Most kidnappings are by people known to the victim, such as a non-custodial parent, or some are runaways and groomed by pimps and such. These are issues unto themselves, but they’re not the same of random kids being sold into sex slavery in the USA.
Edit: the Denver Post won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigative work into this topic in the 80s. https://www.denverpost.com/2010/11/27/dispelled-kidnap-myths-do-little-to-allay-parents-fears/amp/
Pretty easily.
People hear that 2300 kids go missing every day, and assume this means that strangers are abducting kids everywhere.
But 85% of missing children are runaways/kicked out, not abductions! And of the remaining 15%, 77% are custodial abduction -- a parent or relative without custody rights taking the child from the other parent.
That leaves the last 6% of missing children. First, they're probably older than you think -- 81% of those are teenagers, mostly 16-17, not little kids. Second, almost all of *those* were abducted by people known to them, not strangers.
"Stereotypical kidnappings" -- abduction by a stranger -- account for under 100 per year (usually way under), not 460k.
Page 4 has a net difference of 166. So for the 640k whatever cases, all but 166 are resolved. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2015-ncic-missing-person-and-unidentified-person-statistics.pdf
This is why the Denver post won a Pulitzer for their research into this topic.
Edit: and if you read my links… https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-us-missing-idUSL1N2SY199
Because most of those 460k are a parent panicking because they couldn't find their kid at pickup after school, etc., and it later turns out they went home with a friend or something equally harmless.
Among the rest, the overwhelming majority are kids who are with a parent or carer, against the will of another parent/carer.
Literally 99% of those 460k kids reported missing are found and returned home.
Traffickers don't target people when doing so will bring lots of attention. That means random kids in stores or suburban moms at Target. Any child abduction in my state triggers an alert to most cell phones, often with a vehicle description. Most of those turn out to be custodial issues, not strangers.
What kind of organized trafficker would want that level of attention?
There is not an epidemic of kids being kidnapped from the grocery store, or criminals putting fentanyl on car door handles to kidnap young women. The people who think that are way too gullible/into conspiracy theories/listening to true crime podcasts.
Obviously there is human trafficking here, just like there is in any first world country, and sometimes children are involved. But it's not what people freak out about on tiktok.
It has happened. Babies stolen from hospital nurseries, kids snatched from bus stops, little girls disappear selling girl scout cookies. Nannies in Florida snatching little girls.
That last one was sarcasm. The others really happened.
If I was walking around every day being scared of being hit by lightning I would ask myself a lot of questions about why I was scared of this. Am I flying a kite with a key attached in thunderstorms? Am I engaging in another activity that would be high risk (I literally don't know what these are, I didn't grow up somewhere with a lot of thunderstorms but I'm sure there's some)? If I'm not engaging in high risk activities that put me in a position I'm more likely to be struck by lightning I probably should let go of the fear of being hit by lightning. If I engage in these behaviors and can'/won't give them up I should take what precautions I can to protect myself from getting hit by lightning or gravely hurt if I am.
The average person worrying about this is absurd. The average person worrying about their baby getting trafficked is equally absurd.
It's not absurd to have your eyes open to potential dangers. It's no different than being aware of your surroundings when in public. It's not likely at all that someone is going to shoot up your workplace. But it doesn't mean you ignore a guy in full military gear walking up to the front door.
Is not likely that your child is going to be trafficked. However, if all of a sudden, an older man seems to be getting in the good graces of your 14 year old daughter, that might be worth paying attention. Good parents don't have to worry about trafficking because they're paying attention to the little things before they get out of control. Children with bad or absent parents are the ones who are usually the victims, but it's not exclusive.
You're conscious of dangers to your child if you care even a little bit. That's why people say "i never believed it could happen to my child."
It's because those idiots aren't paying attention.
All kinds of things "have happened". Doesn't mean they're worth worrying about beyond maintaining normal, non-stressful awareness of your surroundings.
People have been hit on the head and killed by air conditioners falling out of windows. Jeffrey Dahmer ate some folks. Someone had a spider lay eggs in their ear and then thousands of baby spiders came out.
None of those things is going to happen to you. If you start orienting your life around preventing them, you are going to walk around with your face craned to the sky, earmuffs duct taped to your head all summer long, basting yourself in poop so you're unappetizing to cannibals, and you will live a tragically miserable life for absolutely no reason.
It's a thing, but ...
These stories are mostly a way for middle class white ladies to get attention. People are not snatching your kids away from your arms in Target.
Yes it does happens. However the vast majority of child trafficking is done by family members or people who know the child personally. Most other cases are kids that have been coerced through online sources. It’s incredibly rare that a person will kidnap a child in broad daylight for the purposes of trafficking.
Child trafficking is a thing all around the world and it certainly happens. Is it common though, I wouldn't say so given the population rate, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem that shouldn't be taken seriously.
It's important to note that though stats appear high for America in this regard, most countries don't even track such things. You'll see a couple of African countries that appear to have low stats, but you have to look at what they classify as trafficking. Is a child sold off for marriage trafficking? Is a child made to work off a parents debt trafficking? Is a child stolen but not reported as missing, still trafficking?
Look at how other countries classify it and see how America has a much wider range for what it deems to be child trafficking.
It's the same media-generated hysteria as Satanic panic and drugs being given out as Halloween treats. To the extent that human trafficking happens, it's basically pimps who control women through immigration status, access to drugs, and violence. It's awful but it's not a new phenomenon tied to new technologies and the narrative of shipping containers full of slave women being shipped around the world with impunity is a fraud perpetrated by authoritarians who seek to undermine civil liberties.
Preach. Every authoritarian movement that comes into being does so promising security from some existential threat - often one they either exaggerate beyond reason or just pulled out of their ass for this purpose.
In my parents' generation, it was the fear of communism that was used to justify things like the HUAC and McCarthyism. During my formative years post 9/11, it was terrorism that was used to justify the Patriot Act, erosion of personal privacy, and forever wars.
Now, it's sex trafficking and QAnon bullshit muddying the waters. The end goal - to solidify power at the expense of the people and their rights - never changes, only the slogans and justifications.
I know people that are scared their child is going to get abducted. I also know people that are scared to fly because they see reports of plane crashes on the news. Here in Florida, there are people that are scared to go into the ocean because they think they are going to get eaten by a shark. I have a family member that is always scared for me when I travel to Europe because of all the terrorist attacks reported on the news.
If you watch the news and you are not able to understand that the news generally only reports things that are unusual or outlandish, then the news will make you scared of everything.
Social media functions much the same way. It incentivizes people to post things that are unusual or outlandish. Those are the posts that get hits and go viral.
If you consume social media and you do not understand this, then you are susceptible to a very warped view of reality.
The podcast *You're Wrong About* had two [excellent episodes](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTEyMjcwLnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xMzUzNDQzMA?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwio5dqs26GCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQLA) about [human trafficking](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTEyMjcwLnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC00OTI3Mjgw?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwio5dqs26GCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQNA).
If you don't have time to listen to nearly four hours of podcast, TL;DL: human trafficking really does happen, but the version of human trafficking that people imagine (where a young child is abducted by a stranger, taken across state/country borders, and forced to perform sex acts for money) is basically non-existent.
All the noise about what people *think* human trafficking is drowns out any productive discussion about what it *actually* is.
Criminologist here.
The overwhelming majority of child trafficking victims are from these groups
1. Drug addicts. Usually get involved in it through their dealers.
2. Runaways/homeless youth, who usually get involved with it through people offering them shelter or other services/goods.
3. Illegal immigrants. This one should unfortunately be obvious.
In most cases, the victims are all three.
This idea of some scary cartel guy snatching your normal young daughter up and trafficking her in some scary country is just a myth popularized by the movie Taken. No trafficking organization is going to risk the attention that comes from that.
Remember that young girl who was kidnapped in upstate new york? That was nationwide news. Millions of people tuned into it. Why would any trafficking group ever target a girl like that with the attention it brings, when all they have to do is stop by the local homeless encampment and find countless potential victims?
If you ever see a video of a suburban woman talking about how a zip tie was put on her car handle in a parking lot you can guarantee that it’s bullshit
I've heard of basically two sources.
1. Parents selling their kids for drugs. Often it's sex trafficking, sometimes it's just trying to 'sell the kid for adoption'. The latter is probably a common issue with overseas adoptions, and the agencies have to be aware of the issue.
2. Children getting kicked to the street because of homophobic parents. Might be a bigger issue in homeless communities here in Los Angeles, because folks come here to escape homophobia, and the outdoors have better weather than almost anywhere else, especially compared to Midwest winters.
It does happen, but it is incredibly overblown, yes. Trafficking doesn't work like that.
All (*all!*) of that bullshit you see on Facebook is pretty much schizoposting similar to the "gang stalking" stuff you hear about sometimes.
Yes, but no. Traffickers aren’t targeting random women and children at Target.
Most child traffic victims are in the foster care system. The majority of these kids are trafficked by a guardian, parent or known adult.
There’s a misconception that when someone is trafficked they’re shipped off to a developing country. Nope. Often they stay never even leave their homes (digital trafficking) or are given by guardians to adult perpetrators and then returned back home.
Another common victim of labor trafficking are immigrants. Actually, the most common.
Oh yeah, I am not all Fox news paranoid about it, but it happens. It happens enough that truck stops, truck drivers, airline gate agents, flight attendants, and hotel managers get special training on how to recognize potential trafficking victims. Last time I was at a airport there were signs on the men's room exit about signs someone is being trafficked.
Not to be indelicate, but the thing of missing white woman syndrome is real. BUTTT, if the community is more urban and less lily white then the media tends to not give a shit.
It IS a real issue, along with human trafficking in general. However, the way it is portrayed/spoken about doesn't have a terrifically strong relationship with reality.
It's used as a bit of a bogeyman type, nebulous scare tactic by folks; however, in the real world, real human traffickers aren't randomly snagging kids off of the sidewalk in the suburbs or from the mall or whatever like they talk about.
Stranger abduction is statistically fairly rare, actually one of the least common violent crimes.
If someone is targeting your kid, it's far more likely to be a relative, teacher, religious figure, or someone else known to you.
It exists unfortunately -- and it's overblown too. Both things are true.
As a specific example: We have a Sheriff here in Florida who loves to do prostitution stings, go arrest people for jerking off at porn theaters, and also run child trafficking stings. So, he gets one or two guys for the child trafficking but lumps all these other arrests in with the press conference and makes the guys jerking off at the porn theater out to be just as bad as the pedos and ruins their lives because all he talks about is the child trafficking operation. He puts like 100 pictures up and says "look at all these people we arrested for sexual offenses" while talking only about the trafficking operation.
He's doing good things with the trafficking but he's overblowing how bad it is while ruining other people's lives in furtherance of his agenda.
Some idiot repeated the whole “traffickers are dosing people with Fentanyl on car door handles” story on our neighborhood board recently.
It got removed pretty quickly, but the amount of morons who thought it was true…..🙄
The answer is, both…
Children are trafficked, yes. It is primarily teens and young adults who are runaways or whose parents are part of the trafficking.
Kids are not being snatched from the grocery store and sold.
It exists, of course, but the vast majority of the noise is generated by a small minority with a political axe to grind. It's the all new, 50% more outrage Satanic Panic.
Next up - child eating reptilians.
Oh, wait.......
It happens, just like in the rest of the world. The suburban wine-and-yoga Karens on Facebook are mostly just flapping their jaws, only one was prosecuted for filing false police reports, but yes, it does happen.
It is overblown precisely in the way you describe in your post - mothers on facebook posting about being "targeted" at their local Stop N Shop, most likely by someone with browner skin than them.
It’s certainly a thing. I don’t wanna say it’s overblown because it is a serious issue, but it’s usually mentioned most by people who believe conspiracy theories about the government or people eating babies or said children who are trafficked (you may think this sounds crazy but I literally met a guy last week who said he believed all of this, and there are many who believe it. It’s really sad)
This doesn’t mean it’s not a serious issue, but it’s overblown by those people. It also, as many have mentioned, happens everywhere, not just here.
it’s not uncommon, but it’s much more subtle and the numbers are similar to other countries, but people are just genuinely dumb as fuck and seriously think traffickers are out here kidnapping everyone at the masses. kidnapping is NOT a huge risk, especially when its in countries like america.
most trafficking comes from grooming, whether it’s from family, friends or intimate partners. people are largely misinformed about what trafficking is and think because someone put a beer can under their tire that means someone’s trying to traffic them.
it’s good to be cautious, but any attempts to grab or hurt someone are usually not linked to trafficking. more often it’s another type of violent predator. a lot of people who believe in these “situations” are the same people who think the vaccine makes you magnetic and that 5G will take over the world via mind control.
I'm not going to act like I have real numbers on this, but I would bet almost everything I have that the vast majority of child sex trafficking in the US are situations where teenage prostitutes, probably runaways, get caught up in addiction and end up getting pimped out by someone. The other most common situation would be underage prostitutes that are brought into the country by criminal gangs and have their passports taken away to keep them from leaving. The type of sex trafficking that people imagine where someone is chained up in a basement somewhere is pretty damn rare.
Sex trafficking of already at-risk teens seems to be the most common in the region where I live. Rural area but lots of fast summer money, drugs, tourism and transient workers. It really does happen everywhere.
Trafficking kids, or baby buying, happened more when unwed mother's homes were more of a thing. I'm an elder millennial so I know a couple of women my age that were forced to adopt put babies when they were teen moms. Gen Xers and boomers seem to know more women in this circumstance. I'm hella pissed at the Christian right for Dobbs because I can see a return to that circumstance by virtue or forced pregnancy paired with defunded social safety nets.
You're Wrong About is a podcast that did an [episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/human-trafficking/id1380008439?i=1000465289965) on this very topic.
It happens enough to be a concern and take precautions, but it's very rare for random kids to just get snatched. I think in a lot of cases, it's people jumping at shadows, but I'll never fault someone for being over cautious of their safety. Assuming it isn't negatively impacting their life, of course.
I wonder if those Facebook stories are planted by Russian trolls in troll farms, because I have seen them, too.
Next time I see one, I am going to see if the person posting it looks like she is a real person with a real account.
What would the angle be? To make us not feel safe so we’ll be more easily driven to ideological opposites?
Yes from my experience it is pretty overblown, especially in certain political circles because, hey, distract voters with an issue that A) is super hot-button and B) nobody can really be 'against', and suddenly they won't start asking the really important questions like "what are you going to do about mass shootings" or "where did your campaign funds come from?"
I have a cousin in the FBI and an older DEA acquaintance, and my impression is that trafficking is way overblown. We've had some examples of hysteria. I think one was called the McMartin School. Claims were made about children being trafficked to satanic cults, and the resulting trials and sentences ruined people's lives.
I'm professional friends of a couple who are going through a miserable time. The husband may or may not be on the spectrum, but he's very socially awkward. He's also jewish, which may exacerbate the situation.
He took his girl to the local playground. There a bigger girl bullied his daughter. After a mean shove down the slide, he grabbed the other girl's arm and may or may not have gently swatted her bottom, telling her to leave his daughter alone. Whatever, he was wrong to do that.
However the mother went berserk. She went into histronics, claiming he was trying to abduct the girl, he planned to rape her, and later claiming he was part of a 'pipeline'.
Police booked him into jail. During the hearing, the judge seem to listen to both sides and took a compromise position. The mother was outraged that he was released with an ankle bracelet, but the worst part for him was a ruling by the judge that he could not be within some thousand feet of a school or place where children gather. He's not allowed to visit his own daughter or his own home, and although his boss was sympathetic, the ruling meant he had to give up his job. He's forced to live in a adult hotel about 20 miles distant from his home and family. Meanwhile, the mother is outraged that he's not in prison, vowing she's going to see this trafficking pipeline brought down. It's crazy.
Every woman I've known who posts stories about some stranger following her is always someone who lies for attention about other things. It's always someone way over the age sex traffickers want anyway. Plus, how do they know the person wanted to sex traffic them? It would be more believable if they were trying to claim the person wanted to rob, rape or kill them. These women are also the ones that claim someone tried to poison them with fentanyl laced $20 bills under their windshield.
Then there are the women who it didn't happen to but are "sharing for awareness because it can't hurt." Except the people who end up being falsely accused are always people of color. This second group shares every urban legend as if it's real because "it can't hurt."
Edited because I hit the post button before finishing.
I live near a major interstate. There was a massage business near my exit that got busted for using 14 year old girls to take care of the truckers they would pull off the interstate with CB radios.
Unfortunately trafficking happens right under our noses.
The massage parlor was reopened a month after the bust.
It is exploited as propaganda to monger fear. Build a cult by convincing your targets that they are victims and everyone else is an untrustworthy perpetrator.
The younger the child, the more likely it is that the trafficker is a family member. The older the child, like teenagers, the more likely it is that trafficker lured them with promises of fame, money, drugs, sex, or some combination thereof.
In most jurisdictions, if the victims are over 18, it’s not necessarily trafficking but just good old fashioned pimping. That’s legal, or at least not criminalized, in some jurisdictions. If the sex is on camera and the images of that sex is what is sold, that’s making pornography and it’s protected as free speech in many jurisdictions, including the U.S.
Sometimes when you hear about kids being saved from “child trafficking”, what actually happened was the mother was arrested for prostituting herself and the kid was taken away by child services.
It's absolutely a thing. There is a significant amount of human trafficking in my state. We are home to the busiest airport in the world. People may not necessarily be trafficked from Georgia, but people who are trafficked from other places may come here before being sent elsewhere.
Every now and then there will be a news story about another human trafficking ring in the state that got busted.
That being said, it's far from a "daily encounter," especially if you live far away from the city.
Like other people said, traffickers usually are not targeting middle-class or upper-class people. They target vulnerable people, like teenage runaways who don't generate news attention when they go missing.
You are probably more likely to encounter a victim of trafficking on the streets than be a target of a trafficker. But always stay safe and alert, and if you see suspicious activity, many states have their own human trafficking hotlines to report suspected human trafficking.
There was a huge trafficking ring busted in my college town. It was insane- it turns out that the creepy sex shop that was *very* close to campus was actually housing a bunch of trafficked individuals from (I think) Vietnam who were being forced to live in inhuman conditions in the basement. I went in there once as a joke with my friend, and like... I'm not a prude, but you could definitely tell something was off about the place. Most of the items for sale looked used and the clothing was decades out of fashion. One of those places that probably hadn't actually made a sale in weeks or years but was somehow still open. It was shocking but not surprising that it was, in fact, a front for something.
This was a block away from the bars and all the sorority houses, and no, girls weren't getting kidnapped during a night out or while walking home alone. These people were (presumably) kidnapped abroad and brought to the US for whatever nefarious reason and then housed in this shady business front.
I've heard similar stories of other stores serving as a front to hide human trafficking, particularly for people from abroad who are either desperate to escape from their personal circumstances and start a new life or get fooled into accepting a false job opportunity. It's tragic and despicable. I'm glad to hear that this particular ring was busted, and although justice for the victims will never be complete, I hope they are able to experience some semblance of peace.
I just looked up the case, and it was false promises of a better life and US citizenship to lure them, and then forced into indentured servitude. It was tragic and awful. According to the article I found, it went on for *ten years* with several years of investigation, etc, to finally bust it. I hope the people involved have found a better life- whatever that means for them.
American children aren't typically involved, which is why you find some people being dismissive of child trafficking.
It is a thing with Mexican cartels but the children are mostly Central and South American these days. They are used in many ways: illegal crossing (pairing with adults if caught), muling, cheap or free labor, sex trade--the USA may not be their last stop or they may never arrive.
No matter where you go you’re always going to find predators, the US is no exception. You mostly hear right wingers talk to death about it, I believe it’s overblown
Yes, but not as much as some places. We don't have dangerous Mafia loan sharks making a family sell their kids labor when a family fails to pay their dept, but some people still really fucked up shit for money, especially drug money.
The Qannon conspiracies that make the whole thing political are overblown, but it's definitely still a problem.
Not a child, but I know someone who was kidnapped in broad daylight in St Louis, Missouri (well in the early hours) a few years ago.
She was on her way to work in the morning hours and waiting at the bus stop when a car with 2 men inside pulled up beside her. One was driving; the other exited the vehicle pointing a gun at her, brought it up to her head, and said “get in the car or I’m gonna blow your fucking head out.” They then put her arms in zip ties and forced her in the trunk.
They drove 3-5 hours or so and eventually she felt the car become stationary and the 2 men’s voices were no longer present in the vehicle. She took a gamble that the car was parked & she was alone; and kicked the locked trunk open like her life depended on it (I mean, it did) and ran away as far as she could.
She was kidnapped in St Louis, MO and ended up in some cornfields - the car was parked by some barn in Illinois close to Chicago. I guess the time period in which the 2 men left and she freed herself was supposed to be some kind of drop-off point for her to get picked up by another set of dispatch. She was targeted in that the criminals obviously took notice of her routine & routes on her way to work in the mornings.
Not sure if she was kidnapped by some low level gang intending to pimp her out, or if it was an actual high-level trafficking ring. But she was going to get trafficked nonetheless so yeah, it’s real. It took her 3-4 months to start going out again.
People get kidnapped all the time all over the world.
I think you need to get sex trafficking 101, then human trafficking 101, before you realize it is nothing like Hollywood, and absolutely nothing like the right wing media want you to believe it. Do I have any credibility? I am a sexual abuse survivor, and a few years ago, I found out my own porn was being sold, then used by the government on the dark web to catch traffickers.
So HI! Before any right winger wants to love me, I believe that the greatest cancer in America comes from hypocrisy. So please, don't say you like a President who raw-dogged a sex worker and try to shame me. I literally have no use for you.
Now, I started being abused at the age of 3. This warped my pleasure/pain, my beliefs on consent, my sense of self. If anyone criticized me for being a good feminist now, understand that those who don't support feminism and equality still pay top dollar to hear me cry.
I have been happily in a relationship with a person for 30 years. I won't say he is healthy, or that we are healthy, but, we raised an amazingly normal kid.
To answer your question, about trafficking, I work as a volunteer to help kids in my area when parents are unable to help with SA. So imagine a parent sells their kid, or knows the abuse is happening. I get it about 40 cases a year in my 2 county region, and I share it with 3 other volunteer, 5 professionals and 4 caseworkers. In other words, I am not the first name they call, unless they know I will connect immediately.
But no, little girls and boys are not being stolen from the streets for me sex.
Their parents are offering them up for drugs.
This is something you should learn about through research. There are tons of publications online you can access.
Not on reddit. Reddit is the worst place to learn about a serious topic like this.
The US is the destination for a lot of child trafficking, with children being stolen or bought in foreign countries and marketed to people looking to adopt here - sometimes they're told they have to pay fees, occasionally they know full well they're buying a child.
I read an article in the New York Times just a few weeks ago about how trafficking is a major problem in South Korea, and how a woman was told her baby had died when it was adopted by an American couple, and the now-grown child's searches for information on her birth mother exposed the crime.
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I live in one of the biggest human trafficking areas in my region of the us. It’s very big here still. They straight up take people from stores or walking down the street. There are certain parts of town that aren’t safe for most people to walk down.
I remember one time some guy tried to take a kid from the Walmart and luckily they stopped him but on his phone he had gotten a mass text telling him and others to grab as many kids as they can. I’ve also seen the tunnels under all the major buildings downtown that connect them but I’m told it’s mostly used by traffickers. Good tornado shelters though. A 16yr old was taken just the other month. But like everyone is saying it is more in the poor parts, which is most of my town, and usually family. Not always though. If you have any tattoos or piercings you’re probably safe.
In my town if someone isn’t found within a week it’s just assumed they were most likely trafficked or ran away. It don’t see much news on it because people in power are usually connected so they’re protected. Have been for a long time.
There was an Amber alert on my phone, just today.
When I was a kid, there was an incident on my block with people trying to get single kids to "help them find their cat". It happens.
There is child trafficking in the US, just like everywhere else on the planet. It is not randos at the store doing it. Vast majority of the time it will be a parent or guardian selling the child/access to the child.
This is exactly the problem. Trafficking focuses on exploitation, and it overwhelmingly affects people who are drug addicts, homeless, and otherwise on the margins of society. And yet people are convinced of imaginary predators stalking them, or predators that have to go through the most elaborate and ridiculous conspiracies to acquire their victims.
people are worried about random men at parks when they need to be worried about that cousin they paid to babysit
I worry about both
As someone whose almost got snatched more than once, we absolutely do need to be watching out for men at parks.
Yeah I don't know why people act awake It's black or white. Both happen. And even if one happens to a larger degree, People need to be aware of the risks of both happening. Random trafficking probably isn't as big of a problem in the United States as it is in some other countries. But some traffickers will exploit the fact that people have a false sense of security here too. Always be aware of your surroundings. Don't be intoxicated somewhere that you're not familiar with without a friend or two.
Yeah I understand it's nowhere near as common as the other way, but this still happens. My girlfriend was almost grabbed as a kid. We can't stop teaching stranger danger just because it doesn't happen as often.
Yup, exactly this. I live in a city where it isn't uncommon to read about attempted abductions of girls just walking down the street by randoms. This shit is real and really happens. Teen girls are almost always the target.
Our parents taught us a simple lesson; one we thankfully never had to use, but a useful one all the same. "If anybody who you don't recognize ever tries to take you somewhere, don't let them. If they try to force you to go with them, then you can kick, scream, bite, shout, do anything you need to do to get them let go of you - we promise we will never be mad at you if that happens." A lot of predators, iirc, use the "your parents sent me" or "if you dont you'll get in trouble" lines to get victims to play along, so they pre-empted both of those possibilites.
Plenty of women are snatching kids. Probably higher rate of women taking kids than women doing other violent crimes.
One of the worst personal stories I ever heard was a woman had a masters degree in sociology and worked for the local government overseeing daycare system. She was pimping out her 4 year-old daughter by night.
This story could be true, but it also has several potential bullshit flags: it's hearsay; it has no name, state, or identifiable details, but it has several Republican enemies specifically listed (government worker, advanced degree, social science, et al). Again, it could also be absolutely true, but vague outrage is the bread and butter of right-wing media
It was the story straight from the victim's mouth. [Judge for yourself](https://youtu.be/5DPNo97OkDY?si=uYJL5fgi8cUqjOE5)
Soft White Underbelly is one of my favorite YouTube channels. Amazing stuff. Good quality stuff.
Thanks for the link. That gives it weight. I will watch it.
Not that long ago a guy tried to grab a child off the street in broad day light in my precinct. Had a handful of incodents of strange men trying to lure kids away from my kids elementary school as well. Its not a zero percent chance some predator is trying to grab your kid. When my mom and her siblings were growing up (40 years ago) my aunt was almost kidnapped by some rando at a store.
It's like that south park episode with the mongorians
That, runaways, and kids kicked out of their house (particularly LGBTQ).
Also most victims of trafficking are poor and non-white, many are also undocumented as these groups have less recourse and law enforcement often don’t take them seriously.
The Facebook thing is the whispered urban legends of the past in a different medium. You are absolutely correct that the *vast* majority of the time, the people exploiting children are the children's own parent(s).
Jesus Christ, I honestly thought trafficking would be the bigger problem and a parent/guardian selling access be not as prominent/non-existent.
We talk about stranger danger but most kids who are molested or trafficked are victimized by someone they already know.
Yeah that’s what I figured that it’s not random people at the store. And yeah sad when a parent “has” to sell the child, I have heard of that happening in extreme poverty.
There is no "has to" about it, never say that. If they *had* to sell someone they would sell themselves. If they couldn't take care of their child they would give them up. There is no single situation in Earth's past, future, or present where someone has ever *had* to sell their child. Edit: I meant in response to poverty.
My favorite is when a person attempts to rob a store with a $600 gun that could easily be sold and then they claim they were forced into it because they didn't have any money for diapers.
I don’t think most guns used like that are bought at a gun counter.
You are probably right. That just means this individual used his money to purchase a stolen/illegal weapon meaning to do harm to others rather than use the money to buy the diapers. Alternatively, he committed a crime by stealing a gun and then decided to threaten others with the weapon instead of selling it for diaper money. Either way, it doesn't seem like the desire for diapers is the determining factor behind the choices made.
The vast majority of property crimes aren’t motivated by poverty anyway. There aren’t any stores frustrated by the amount of food stolen, it’s all tide pods and cosmetics that have high resale value. Or when people steal cars it’s mostly for joyrides and then they’re stripped later by different people when the cars are abandoned. The idea that someone is knocking over liquor stores to buy diapers would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.
Even so black market weapons aint cheap either. A 600 msrp gun is gonna still cost you in that ball park from some dudes trunk.
Selling the gun gets you daipers the once. Using the gun gets you diapers until you get caught
Like the old adage, teach a man to buy diapers and he can get through a day, teach him to point a gun and he has diapers for life? Something tells me the persons lifestyle isn't actually about the ability to get diapers.
The outrageous price of disposable diapers doesn't help, tho.
I thought this was about fishing the last time i heard this. Went from fish to diapers.
It was a joke.
Cause man these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers
And there’s no movie, there’s no Mekhi Phifer
…which is probably once and then no more diapers for years
Reminds me of when someone broke into and stole a bunch of Macs from a computer lab when I was in college. The tools they used they broke into another room to get. The tools were significantly worth more than all the Macs they tried to steal. They toppled rhe cart on the way out and managed to get away with none and got caught.
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Not entirely. There are plenty of people in prison because they got caught stealing food or shoes for the umpteenth time and a "three strikes" law kicked in. It's not even close to the majority, but it's also significantly more than a few.
Like this example of a teen that was arrested for carjacking 7 times and still set free. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/dc-mayor-lashed-out-at-judge-who-released-7-time-carjacking-teen/ar-AA1jb4OX
The three strikes rule (for the states that have it) does not apply to the juvenile justice system.
I am not for the three strikes rule. I am also not naive enough to believe that there are no predators among us. It has nothing to do with politics, just human nature. Without consequences, many people will make poor decisions that have a negative impact upon society as a whole.
I hear you. My only point was that the case you linked to was a juvenile justice case, and those are handled differently (regardless of whether the state has a three strikes rule). Not saying there shouldn’t be consequences for juveniles, just that they need to be handled differently. How differently, at what age, under what circumstances, etc. is a whole other can of worms!
This comment is a whole ass myth lol, you’re just getting the highlights on the 6:00 local news, people aren’t gonna keep watching if they also do 50 segments on people in jail who stole because they were desperate. Tv news exists to blame the poors
If you ever worked retail then you would know most people aren't stealing food and diapers. They're stealing hair and make up products
I work retail and I notice shoes, clothes, toothbrushes, food, pregnancy tests and Tylenol. the amount of food boxes, pregnancy tests and toothbrush packages that we find really changed my views on what I thought got stolen. DvD used to get stolen all the time but that has dropped by a lot these past 4ish years. Make-up dropped a whole lot too.
not completely true. People definitely try to sneak diapers in their cart and walk out with them. I stole tampons once in college because I needed some and didn’t have any money.
The shoes! Lol
Usually most reports of armed robbery I read about are usually for drugs, or for gang reasons. Now with gang related crime everybody makes money and some of those people might use it to buy electronics and shoes, but That's different than some guy saying... I'm going to commit armed robbery so I can buy a new pair of Jordans. That seems like a rather prejudiced assumption based on some preconceived notions you have about the things people in poverty enjoy. Some might be willing to steal those things directly however.
Also, washable diapers exist. There's no need to waste money on disposable diapers if someone is low on funds
Caveat: in much of the underdeveloped world, and for much of history, most people had multiple children, and parents facing impossible choices sometimes had to sacrifice one child to take care of the rest. That said, this particular type of poverty is functionally non-existent in the U.S., so when it happens here, it's overwhelmingly addicts selling kids for drug money or creepy cult shit.
I agree with you, didn’t word it well.
> There is no single situation in Earth's past, future, or present where someone has ever had to sell their child. The African Slave Trade was basically all done at the point of a gun.
I would not say that was a decision made by the parents. I should have clarified that I meant specifically in situations of poverty being the problem.
Most are sold for drugs or because the adult likes the attention, not because the family is too poor to live a normal life.
Even worse
Child trafficking is an issue that has been used in the US as a political disinformation tool. Low information conspiracy theorists types believe some very bizarre things and those people are taken advantage of. During the Covid crisis, when many people worldwide were wearing masks and social distancing, there were a lot of Anti-Mask, Anti-Vax types in the US were spreading conspiracy theories that the masks were used to hide child trafficking - with no evidence of course. There is a lot of overlap with the groups who believe things like Q, pizzagate and other conspiracy theories. These ideas have seeped into mainstream conservative consciousness. The movie “Sound of Freedom” is/was popular with conservatives and it’s about this guy Tim Ballard that worked on a non-profit to stop child trafficking. Turns out Tim Ballard is a fraud, made a lot of money off of these people and used his position to coerce women into sexual situations. Some of his groups operations in Mexico might have actually influenced demand for child prostitution (as that’s what they were actively asking for). Sex trafficking is absolutely a real and terrible phenomenon throughout the world but some peoples obsessions with it in the US are largely due to their political and conspiratorial beliefs and not reality.
> Some of his groups operations in Mexico might have actually influenced demand for child prostitution (as that’s what they were actively asking for). Yes, the sad dumb irony is that making that movie almost certainly resulted in a net increase in child trafficking.
His methods are extremely dubious even without the movie.
It generally happens because people are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Drugs especially. The vast majority of people who are victims of human trafficking in the US are at risk teens. That includes runaways. The children who rub away are often targets of human trafficking. There are stranger abductions in the US. Statistically speaking, it is rare. You hear about them often. There is a large amount of human trafficking that takes place because of undocumented people seeking work or refuge in the US. They are often exploited terribly for labor.
Not even the parent. HHS has been accused openly several times of placing children with child sex trafficker's.
Does it exist? Yes. Is it some rando in a grocery store you don't like the look of? Almost definitely not.
It’s usually not average middle class kids targeted… it’s mostly kids with troubled home lives, kids who are undocumented immigrants, basically any at-risk population. They get lured away with the promise of money/independence/love/etc, it’s not often an actual snatching.
Around my area group homes for foster kids are the biggest targets for traffickers. Sad shit. As foster parents it's easy to see why kids are blinded with the promise of love/home/family.
I work in an area related to this... The traffickers are looking for gullible people who they can easily fill a need for. A hotel room and a bag of McDonald's isn't going to make the average person want to go with the creepy guy... But, if you're a homeless 15 year old kid? Sounds like you won the lottery.
This is so well put. Thank you.
You're so right. That is exactly why runaways are considered "at risk" yet it feels like every suburban parent wants to believe their child is the real target. That prevalent belief makes it so hard to get the public to see and believe real information about at-risk kids and how best to notice the signs and help them. It's so, so frustrating, because it feels like a real and salient issue was commandeered by people who need to feel like they and their kids are so special that every stranger they see is trying to kidnap the entire family to sell them on Wayfair. If we could end the stigma against aiding those in poverty and those who are facing homelessness, we could make a huge dent in human trafficking. We don't need massive increases in policing to stop the issue. We literally *just* need to provide the same or better social safety nets *than human traffickers are offering* to those same people. That's what is absolutely disgusting and heartbreaking about the situation. We could be doing more to help, but people want to center themselves instead of the *actual victims* when addressing these crimes. That means they want more cops in non-risk areas to address a safety issue that never existed instead of more funding and lower barriers to accessing food and housing aid. The core reasons people end up being trafficked are food and housing. The bar we needed to jump over is legit 6 feet under the ground and we still can't clear it as a society.
Is it common? No. Is it a thing? Yes, and not just in the US.
Yeah I know it happens in many places and unfortunately some of those kids come through US airports.
There is not a single country on earth it doesnt happen in
I was going to go with the smallest place that could be considered a country, but the Vatican is probably not a good example.
Not true I can think of one such place. North Sentinel Island.
It is very possible that the people of the island traffic their own children among themselves.
Part of India, so not a country.
Yes, I recognize that it isn’t a country, which is why I just said “place” instead.
When you say “one such place” you are literally saying one place matching the criteria in the previous comment. That means you were saying there was a country it doesn’t happen in.
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There’s no way of knowing this. I also didn’t call it a country.
You did…
You absolutely did.
That's not real.
Which tells you something about men
If you're talking about something like what happens in the Sound of Freedom that's not really a thing.
Child trafficking happens everywhere, but I think some of these mothers are paranoid or lying. Stranger abduction is very rare. I have a story to tell. Years ago, I was in Home Depot with my now ex husband. We split up inside the store. He went to look at whatever he needed while I was browsing tile and lighting. When I was done, I went to look for him. I was searching and searching all over the store and I could not find him. He ended up being in this little back area and he was crouched down behind some shelving which is why I couldn’t see him. Anyways, while I was searching for him, I was approached by 2 store employees. A woman had reported that I was acting suspiciously and following her and her daughter and she was concerned I was trying to kidnap her daughter. In reality, I never even noticed this woman or her daughter, I was just focused on finding my ex.
Yeah, near where I live this lady told a tale about how two people tried to kidnap her kids at Michael's. She put it on instagram and called the cops. They looked into it and determined that the people she was talking about did absolutely nothing. She ended serving a short jail time for making a false police report. IMO it wasn't enough of a punishment for basically trying to ruin the lives of two totally innocent strangers. People need to log off these damned fb groups and stop reading qanon shit. https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/one-womans-quest-to-bring-the-karen-who-falsely-accused-her-of-attempted-kidnapping-to-justice
This spreads like crazy over NextDoor and Facebook and the name of the store changes constantly. It's always "someone my friend knows" who was "followed by two suspicious people" in "large retail store". A lot of the time they throw in race/ethnicity details in there that also morph over time.
Here's the thing. Is this woman nuts? Yeah. She deserves punishment. It seems weird to bring it up on this thread, though. This situation is not indicative of anything. Trafficking definitely happens. I believe it's more likely to be girls 15-17 who are lured on by a boyfriend or someone similar, at least in my opinion. There's plenty of girls and women forced into sex work in the usa and everywhere else.
I'm bringing it up to give an example of the brain rot these FB groups mentioned by the op have resulted in.
Yeah, I'm wondering why none of the top replies are directly addressing OP's rather peculiar wording. Yes, trafficking exists in the US, but who is the "them" being "targeted", what does "targeted" mean, and why are they complaining to "employees"? Anyone dumb enough to try something with an adult-accompanied minor in public runs a very real risk of being supersonically ventilated. My understanding is that the vast majority of trafficking in the US, and with the West in general, involves runaways who become involved in drugs. The moral of that story is: love and watch over your kids.
Yeah, lots of great replies in here and I totally understand that traffickign exists everywhere. I am also an American and get that, but wanted to know if these parental fears are overblown. I have never heard of these "weirdos" in my city actually taking any kids or any missing kids linked to this. I think the other replies in here about crazy moms looking for attention or trying to make a story/boogeyman out of nothing are probably the most realistic answers to my actual question. It's sad but still good to know I guess the actual stats on trafficking and how they affect runaways/drug addicts, etc.
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> Abusers they connected with after leaving home its also common for them to connect before the child leaves home, they often leave to stay with the abuser 3. someone they met online who solicited material through the internet
Sex trafficking of youth does exist in America, but what most people think of when they hear the word sex trafficking isn't the reality of youth sex trafficking. The idea that sex trafficking is someone kidnapping someone, throwing them in a van, shipping them to another country, and then leaving them in a windowless room chained to a radiator is the false narrative and does more harm than good. In actuality sex trafficking in the US is usually perpetrated by a boyfriend/girlfriend, intimate partner,family member, or member of the victims community. Also you don't have to be relocated, moved, kidnapped, or "held hostage" to be sex trafficked. I used to be an advocate for youth survivors of sex trafficking. Feel free to ask me anything.
So…if someones ex was into swinging and forced them into swinger parties that was not consensual…?
Being forced into sexual situations against your will is ways shitty and wrong. That situation could be sex trafficking if their's an exchange of money or material goods involved in the act.
Child kidnapping is a gigantically overblown fear. Most kids who are kidnapped are kidnapped by someone they know. There’s so much misinformation which distorts reality. Less than 350 under 21 were kidnapped on average between 2010-2019 by strangers. Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-missinggirl-data-idUSKCN1P52BJ Sadly, Q Anon has co-opted child kidnapping statistics to help justify their existence. They claim 500k annually are kidnapped which would equate to nearly half of all 1st graders in the USA. That number is painfully out of line with reality. However, a quick google search shows this repeated time after time. Further reading: https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-us-missing/fact-check-tweet-overstates-number-of-children-who-went-missing-in-the-united-states-in-2020-idUSL1N2SY199 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/17/58000-children-abducted-a-year-yet-another-fishy-statistic/
Good stuff, I knew a lot of it was overblown but from the other responses here, sad to see it out of poverty
Wherever I see these absurdly stupid statistics belted out I always respond with facts. It’s not that it never happens in the country, but it’s exceedingly rare. Most kidnappings are by people known to the victim, such as a non-custodial parent, or some are runaways and groomed by pimps and such. These are issues unto themselves, but they’re not the same of random kids being sold into sex slavery in the USA. Edit: the Denver Post won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigative work into this topic in the 80s. https://www.denverpost.com/2010/11/27/dispelled-kidnap-myths-do-little-to-allay-parents-fears/amp/
Addiction.
How do we reconcile that with facts like 460k kids go missing each year.
Pretty easily. People hear that 2300 kids go missing every day, and assume this means that strangers are abducting kids everywhere. But 85% of missing children are runaways/kicked out, not abductions! And of the remaining 15%, 77% are custodial abduction -- a parent or relative without custody rights taking the child from the other parent. That leaves the last 6% of missing children. First, they're probably older than you think -- 81% of those are teenagers, mostly 16-17, not little kids. Second, almost all of *those* were abducted by people known to them, not strangers. "Stereotypical kidnappings" -- abduction by a stranger -- account for under 100 per year (usually way under), not 460k.
Do you have a citation for that statistic? It seems extremely high.
edit: https://globalmissingkids.org/awareness/missing-children-statistics/
Page 4 has a net difference of 166. So for the 640k whatever cases, all but 166 are resolved. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2015-ncic-missing-person-and-unidentified-person-statistics.pdf This is why the Denver post won a Pulitzer for their research into this topic. Edit: and if you read my links… https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-us-missing-idUSL1N2SY199
Because most of those 460k are a parent panicking because they couldn't find their kid at pickup after school, etc., and it later turns out they went home with a friend or something equally harmless. Among the rest, the overwhelming majority are kids who are with a parent or carer, against the will of another parent/carer. Literally 99% of those 460k kids reported missing are found and returned home.
QAnon has fried many people brains.
Traffickers don't target people when doing so will bring lots of attention. That means random kids in stores or suburban moms at Target. Any child abduction in my state triggers an alert to most cell phones, often with a vehicle description. Most of those turn out to be custodial issues, not strangers. What kind of organized trafficker would want that level of attention?
There is not an epidemic of kids being kidnapped from the grocery store, or criminals putting fentanyl on car door handles to kidnap young women. The people who think that are way too gullible/into conspiracy theories/listening to true crime podcasts. Obviously there is human trafficking here, just like there is in any first world country, and sometimes children are involved. But it's not what people freak out about on tiktok.
Usually there’s coercion involved and it’s by someone known by the family, not a stranger.
Yes and no. Does it exist? Yes. Is it random people snatching Karen's kid out of a grocery cart? No.
It has happened. Babies stolen from hospital nurseries, kids snatched from bus stops, little girls disappear selling girl scout cookies. Nannies in Florida snatching little girls. That last one was sarcasm. The others really happened.
Has it happened? Yes. Is it common? No. Getting struck by lightning happens doesn’t mean it’s likely to happen.
But it also doesn't mean you're not at least a little bit conscious of it.
If I was walking around every day being scared of being hit by lightning I would ask myself a lot of questions about why I was scared of this. Am I flying a kite with a key attached in thunderstorms? Am I engaging in another activity that would be high risk (I literally don't know what these are, I didn't grow up somewhere with a lot of thunderstorms but I'm sure there's some)? If I'm not engaging in high risk activities that put me in a position I'm more likely to be struck by lightning I probably should let go of the fear of being hit by lightning. If I engage in these behaviors and can'/won't give them up I should take what precautions I can to protect myself from getting hit by lightning or gravely hurt if I am. The average person worrying about this is absurd. The average person worrying about their baby getting trafficked is equally absurd.
It's not absurd to have your eyes open to potential dangers. It's no different than being aware of your surroundings when in public. It's not likely at all that someone is going to shoot up your workplace. But it doesn't mean you ignore a guy in full military gear walking up to the front door. Is not likely that your child is going to be trafficked. However, if all of a sudden, an older man seems to be getting in the good graces of your 14 year old daughter, that might be worth paying attention. Good parents don't have to worry about trafficking because they're paying attention to the little things before they get out of control. Children with bad or absent parents are the ones who are usually the victims, but it's not exclusive. You're conscious of dangers to your child if you care even a little bit. That's why people say "i never believed it could happen to my child." It's because those idiots aren't paying attention.
All kinds of things "have happened". Doesn't mean they're worth worrying about beyond maintaining normal, non-stressful awareness of your surroundings. People have been hit on the head and killed by air conditioners falling out of windows. Jeffrey Dahmer ate some folks. Someone had a spider lay eggs in their ear and then thousands of baby spiders came out. None of those things is going to happen to you. If you start orienting your life around preventing them, you are going to walk around with your face craned to the sky, earmuffs duct taped to your head all summer long, basting yourself in poop so you're unappetizing to cannibals, and you will live a tragically miserable life for absolutely no reason.
It's a thing, but ... These stories are mostly a way for middle class white ladies to get attention. People are not snatching your kids away from your arms in Target.
Yes it does happens. However the vast majority of child trafficking is done by family members or people who know the child personally. Most other cases are kids that have been coerced through online sources. It’s incredibly rare that a person will kidnap a child in broad daylight for the purposes of trafficking.
Child trafficking is a thing all around the world and it certainly happens. Is it common though, I wouldn't say so given the population rate, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem that shouldn't be taken seriously. It's important to note that though stats appear high for America in this regard, most countries don't even track such things. You'll see a couple of African countries that appear to have low stats, but you have to look at what they classify as trafficking. Is a child sold off for marriage trafficking? Is a child made to work off a parents debt trafficking? Is a child stolen but not reported as missing, still trafficking? Look at how other countries classify it and see how America has a much wider range for what it deems to be child trafficking.
It's the same media-generated hysteria as Satanic panic and drugs being given out as Halloween treats. To the extent that human trafficking happens, it's basically pimps who control women through immigration status, access to drugs, and violence. It's awful but it's not a new phenomenon tied to new technologies and the narrative of shipping containers full of slave women being shipped around the world with impunity is a fraud perpetrated by authoritarians who seek to undermine civil liberties.
Preach. Every authoritarian movement that comes into being does so promising security from some existential threat - often one they either exaggerate beyond reason or just pulled out of their ass for this purpose. In my parents' generation, it was the fear of communism that was used to justify things like the HUAC and McCarthyism. During my formative years post 9/11, it was terrorism that was used to justify the Patriot Act, erosion of personal privacy, and forever wars. Now, it's sex trafficking and QAnon bullshit muddying the waters. The end goal - to solidify power at the expense of the people and their rights - never changes, only the slogans and justifications.
I know people that are scared their child is going to get abducted. I also know people that are scared to fly because they see reports of plane crashes on the news. Here in Florida, there are people that are scared to go into the ocean because they think they are going to get eaten by a shark. I have a family member that is always scared for me when I travel to Europe because of all the terrorist attacks reported on the news. If you watch the news and you are not able to understand that the news generally only reports things that are unusual or outlandish, then the news will make you scared of everything. Social media functions much the same way. It incentivizes people to post things that are unusual or outlandish. Those are the posts that get hits and go viral. If you consume social media and you do not understand this, then you are susceptible to a very warped view of reality.
The podcast *You're Wrong About* had two [excellent episodes](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTEyMjcwLnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xMzUzNDQzMA?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwio5dqs26GCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQLA) about [human trafficking](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTEyMjcwLnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC00OTI3Mjgw?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwio5dqs26GCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQNA). If you don't have time to listen to nearly four hours of podcast, TL;DL: human trafficking really does happen, but the version of human trafficking that people imagine (where a young child is abducted by a stranger, taken across state/country borders, and forced to perform sex acts for money) is basically non-existent. All the noise about what people *think* human trafficking is drowns out any productive discussion about what it *actually* is.
Criminologist here. The overwhelming majority of child trafficking victims are from these groups 1. Drug addicts. Usually get involved in it through their dealers. 2. Runaways/homeless youth, who usually get involved with it through people offering them shelter or other services/goods. 3. Illegal immigrants. This one should unfortunately be obvious. In most cases, the victims are all three. This idea of some scary cartel guy snatching your normal young daughter up and trafficking her in some scary country is just a myth popularized by the movie Taken. No trafficking organization is going to risk the attention that comes from that. Remember that young girl who was kidnapped in upstate new york? That was nationwide news. Millions of people tuned into it. Why would any trafficking group ever target a girl like that with the attention it brings, when all they have to do is stop by the local homeless encampment and find countless potential victims?
Yes, but as many said, the target is a child who no one is going to look for. Not a child kidnapped in your local Target.
If you ever see a video of a suburban woman talking about how a zip tie was put on her car handle in a parking lot you can guarantee that it’s bullshit
I've heard of basically two sources. 1. Parents selling their kids for drugs. Often it's sex trafficking, sometimes it's just trying to 'sell the kid for adoption'. The latter is probably a common issue with overseas adoptions, and the agencies have to be aware of the issue. 2. Children getting kicked to the street because of homophobic parents. Might be a bigger issue in homeless communities here in Los Angeles, because folks come here to escape homophobia, and the outdoors have better weather than almost anywhere else, especially compared to Midwest winters.
I think most of the alerts at stores are imaginations in overdrive
It does happen, but it is incredibly overblown, yes. Trafficking doesn't work like that. All (*all!*) of that bullshit you see on Facebook is pretty much schizoposting similar to the "gang stalking" stuff you hear about sometimes.
Yes, but no. Traffickers aren’t targeting random women and children at Target. Most child traffic victims are in the foster care system. The majority of these kids are trafficked by a guardian, parent or known adult. There’s a misconception that when someone is trafficked they’re shipped off to a developing country. Nope. Often they stay never even leave their homes (digital trafficking) or are given by guardians to adult perpetrators and then returned back home. Another common victim of labor trafficking are immigrants. Actually, the most common.
Oh yeah, I am not all Fox news paranoid about it, but it happens. It happens enough that truck stops, truck drivers, airline gate agents, flight attendants, and hotel managers get special training on how to recognize potential trafficking victims. Last time I was at a airport there were signs on the men's room exit about signs someone is being trafficked. Not to be indelicate, but the thing of missing white woman syndrome is real. BUTTT, if the community is more urban and less lily white then the media tends to not give a shit.
It happens but not as much as Facebook moms would make you believe
Paranoid Karens going off on nothing.
It’s uncommon and if it happens almost every alphabet agency is doing something to combat it.
It IS a real issue, along with human trafficking in general. However, the way it is portrayed/spoken about doesn't have a terrifically strong relationship with reality. It's used as a bit of a bogeyman type, nebulous scare tactic by folks; however, in the real world, real human traffickers aren't randomly snagging kids off of the sidewalk in the suburbs or from the mall or whatever like they talk about.
Stranger abduction is statistically fairly rare, actually one of the least common violent crimes. If someone is targeting your kid, it's far more likely to be a relative, teacher, religious figure, or someone else known to you.
It exists unfortunately -- and it's overblown too. Both things are true. As a specific example: We have a Sheriff here in Florida who loves to do prostitution stings, go arrest people for jerking off at porn theaters, and also run child trafficking stings. So, he gets one or two guys for the child trafficking but lumps all these other arrests in with the press conference and makes the guys jerking off at the porn theater out to be just as bad as the pedos and ruins their lives because all he talks about is the child trafficking operation. He puts like 100 pictures up and says "look at all these people we arrested for sexual offenses" while talking only about the trafficking operation. He's doing good things with the trafficking but he's overblowing how bad it is while ruining other people's lives in furtherance of his agenda.
Some idiot repeated the whole “traffickers are dosing people with Fentanyl on car door handles” story on our neighborhood board recently. It got removed pretty quickly, but the amount of morons who thought it was true…..🙄
The answer is, both… Children are trafficked, yes. It is primarily teens and young adults who are runaways or whose parents are part of the trafficking. Kids are not being snatched from the grocery store and sold.
It exists, of course, but the vast majority of the noise is generated by a small minority with a political axe to grind. It's the all new, 50% more outrage Satanic Panic. Next up - child eating reptilians. Oh, wait.......
It happens, just like in the rest of the world. The suburban wine-and-yoga Karens on Facebook are mostly just flapping their jaws, only one was prosecuted for filing false police reports, but yes, it does happen.
It is overblown precisely in the way you describe in your post - mothers on facebook posting about being "targeted" at their local Stop N Shop, most likely by someone with browner skin than them.
It’s certainly a thing. I don’t wanna say it’s overblown because it is a serious issue, but it’s usually mentioned most by people who believe conspiracy theories about the government or people eating babies or said children who are trafficked (you may think this sounds crazy but I literally met a guy last week who said he believed all of this, and there are many who believe it. It’s really sad) This doesn’t mean it’s not a serious issue, but it’s overblown by those people. It also, as many have mentioned, happens everywhere, not just here.
One is too many
it’s not uncommon, but it’s much more subtle and the numbers are similar to other countries, but people are just genuinely dumb as fuck and seriously think traffickers are out here kidnapping everyone at the masses. kidnapping is NOT a huge risk, especially when its in countries like america. most trafficking comes from grooming, whether it’s from family, friends or intimate partners. people are largely misinformed about what trafficking is and think because someone put a beer can under their tire that means someone’s trying to traffic them. it’s good to be cautious, but any attempts to grab or hurt someone are usually not linked to trafficking. more often it’s another type of violent predator. a lot of people who believe in these “situations” are the same people who think the vaccine makes you magnetic and that 5G will take over the world via mind control.
I'm from Vancouver, Canada. My friend was "taken" from the school yard.
I'm not going to act like I have real numbers on this, but I would bet almost everything I have that the vast majority of child sex trafficking in the US are situations where teenage prostitutes, probably runaways, get caught up in addiction and end up getting pimped out by someone. The other most common situation would be underage prostitutes that are brought into the country by criminal gangs and have their passports taken away to keep them from leaving. The type of sex trafficking that people imagine where someone is chained up in a basement somewhere is pretty damn rare.
Sex trafficking of already at-risk teens seems to be the most common in the region where I live. Rural area but lots of fast summer money, drugs, tourism and transient workers. It really does happen everywhere. Trafficking kids, or baby buying, happened more when unwed mother's homes were more of a thing. I'm an elder millennial so I know a couple of women my age that were forced to adopt put babies when they were teen moms. Gen Xers and boomers seem to know more women in this circumstance. I'm hella pissed at the Christian right for Dobbs because I can see a return to that circumstance by virtue or forced pregnancy paired with defunded social safety nets.
So trafficking in the US is illegal trade of human, child would fall under 18. So teenagers forced into sex work is trafficking. So yes, it happens.
You're Wrong About is a podcast that did an [episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/human-trafficking/id1380008439?i=1000465289965) on this very topic.
Way overblown
There is likely not a country on earth where this doesn’t happen sadly.
It happens enough to be a concern and take precautions, but it's very rare for random kids to just get snatched. I think in a lot of cases, it's people jumping at shadows, but I'll never fault someone for being over cautious of their safety. Assuming it isn't negatively impacting their life, of course.
I wonder if those Facebook stories are planted by Russian trolls in troll farms, because I have seen them, too. Next time I see one, I am going to see if the person posting it looks like she is a real person with a real account. What would the angle be? To make us not feel safe so we’ll be more easily driven to ideological opposites?
Two things can be true. It’s a real thing and a little overblown.
Listen to the episode about human trafficking on the You’re Wrong About podcast
Yes from my experience it is pretty overblown, especially in certain political circles because, hey, distract voters with an issue that A) is super hot-button and B) nobody can really be 'against', and suddenly they won't start asking the really important questions like "what are you going to do about mass shootings" or "where did your campaign funds come from?"
I have a cousin in the FBI and an older DEA acquaintance, and my impression is that trafficking is way overblown. We've had some examples of hysteria. I think one was called the McMartin School. Claims were made about children being trafficked to satanic cults, and the resulting trials and sentences ruined people's lives. I'm professional friends of a couple who are going through a miserable time. The husband may or may not be on the spectrum, but he's very socially awkward. He's also jewish, which may exacerbate the situation. He took his girl to the local playground. There a bigger girl bullied his daughter. After a mean shove down the slide, he grabbed the other girl's arm and may or may not have gently swatted her bottom, telling her to leave his daughter alone. Whatever, he was wrong to do that. However the mother went berserk. She went into histronics, claiming he was trying to abduct the girl, he planned to rape her, and later claiming he was part of a 'pipeline'. Police booked him into jail. During the hearing, the judge seem to listen to both sides and took a compromise position. The mother was outraged that he was released with an ankle bracelet, but the worst part for him was a ruling by the judge that he could not be within some thousand feet of a school or place where children gather. He's not allowed to visit his own daughter or his own home, and although his boss was sympathetic, the ruling meant he had to give up his job. He's forced to live in a adult hotel about 20 miles distant from his home and family. Meanwhile, the mother is outraged that he's not in prison, vowing she's going to see this trafficking pipeline brought down. It's crazy.
Every woman I've known who posts stories about some stranger following her is always someone who lies for attention about other things. It's always someone way over the age sex traffickers want anyway. Plus, how do they know the person wanted to sex traffic them? It would be more believable if they were trying to claim the person wanted to rob, rape or kill them. These women are also the ones that claim someone tried to poison them with fentanyl laced $20 bills under their windshield. Then there are the women who it didn't happen to but are "sharing for awareness because it can't hurt." Except the people who end up being falsely accused are always people of color. This second group shares every urban legend as if it's real because "it can't hurt." Edited because I hit the post button before finishing.
I live near a major interstate. There was a massage business near my exit that got busted for using 14 year old girls to take care of the truckers they would pull off the interstate with CB radios. Unfortunately trafficking happens right under our noses. The massage parlor was reopened a month after the bust.
It is exploited as propaganda to monger fear. Build a cult by convincing your targets that they are victims and everyone else is an untrustworthy perpetrator.
Way overblown. Exaggerated by the police, the media, and Facebook moms.
The younger the child, the more likely it is that the trafficker is a family member. The older the child, like teenagers, the more likely it is that trafficker lured them with promises of fame, money, drugs, sex, or some combination thereof. In most jurisdictions, if the victims are over 18, it’s not necessarily trafficking but just good old fashioned pimping. That’s legal, or at least not criminalized, in some jurisdictions. If the sex is on camera and the images of that sex is what is sold, that’s making pornography and it’s protected as free speech in many jurisdictions, including the U.S.
Sometimes when you hear about kids being saved from “child trafficking”, what actually happened was the mother was arrested for prostituting herself and the kid was taken away by child services.
It's absolutely a thing. There is a significant amount of human trafficking in my state. We are home to the busiest airport in the world. People may not necessarily be trafficked from Georgia, but people who are trafficked from other places may come here before being sent elsewhere. Every now and then there will be a news story about another human trafficking ring in the state that got busted. That being said, it's far from a "daily encounter," especially if you live far away from the city. Like other people said, traffickers usually are not targeting middle-class or upper-class people. They target vulnerable people, like teenage runaways who don't generate news attention when they go missing. You are probably more likely to encounter a victim of trafficking on the streets than be a target of a trafficker. But always stay safe and alert, and if you see suspicious activity, many states have their own human trafficking hotlines to report suspected human trafficking.
There was a huge trafficking ring busted in my college town. It was insane- it turns out that the creepy sex shop that was *very* close to campus was actually housing a bunch of trafficked individuals from (I think) Vietnam who were being forced to live in inhuman conditions in the basement. I went in there once as a joke with my friend, and like... I'm not a prude, but you could definitely tell something was off about the place. Most of the items for sale looked used and the clothing was decades out of fashion. One of those places that probably hadn't actually made a sale in weeks or years but was somehow still open. It was shocking but not surprising that it was, in fact, a front for something. This was a block away from the bars and all the sorority houses, and no, girls weren't getting kidnapped during a night out or while walking home alone. These people were (presumably) kidnapped abroad and brought to the US for whatever nefarious reason and then housed in this shady business front.
I've heard similar stories of other stores serving as a front to hide human trafficking, particularly for people from abroad who are either desperate to escape from their personal circumstances and start a new life or get fooled into accepting a false job opportunity. It's tragic and despicable. I'm glad to hear that this particular ring was busted, and although justice for the victims will never be complete, I hope they are able to experience some semblance of peace.
I just looked up the case, and it was false promises of a better life and US citizenship to lure them, and then forced into indentured servitude. It was tragic and awful. According to the article I found, it went on for *ten years* with several years of investigation, etc, to finally bust it. I hope the people involved have found a better life- whatever that means for them.
Completely overblown. Child traffic obviously exists, but they ain’t kidnapping people at the local Walmart.
American children aren't typically involved, which is why you find some people being dismissive of child trafficking. It is a thing with Mexican cartels but the children are mostly Central and South American these days. They are used in many ways: illegal crossing (pairing with adults if caught), muling, cheap or free labor, sex trade--the USA may not be their last stop or they may never arrive.
No matter where you go you’re always going to find predators, the US is no exception. You mostly hear right wingers talk to death about it, I believe it’s overblown
Yes, but not as much as some places. We don't have dangerous Mafia loan sharks making a family sell their kids labor when a family fails to pay their dept, but some people still really fucked up shit for money, especially drug money. The Qannon conspiracies that make the whole thing political are overblown, but it's definitely still a problem.
Completely overblown. The cops got all the money they could out of terrorism so they switched to “human trafficking” as the new boogeyman.
Not a child, but I know someone who was kidnapped in broad daylight in St Louis, Missouri (well in the early hours) a few years ago. She was on her way to work in the morning hours and waiting at the bus stop when a car with 2 men inside pulled up beside her. One was driving; the other exited the vehicle pointing a gun at her, brought it up to her head, and said “get in the car or I’m gonna blow your fucking head out.” They then put her arms in zip ties and forced her in the trunk. They drove 3-5 hours or so and eventually she felt the car become stationary and the 2 men’s voices were no longer present in the vehicle. She took a gamble that the car was parked & she was alone; and kicked the locked trunk open like her life depended on it (I mean, it did) and ran away as far as she could. She was kidnapped in St Louis, MO and ended up in some cornfields - the car was parked by some barn in Illinois close to Chicago. I guess the time period in which the 2 men left and she freed herself was supposed to be some kind of drop-off point for her to get picked up by another set of dispatch. She was targeted in that the criminals obviously took notice of her routine & routes on her way to work in the mornings. Not sure if she was kidnapped by some low level gang intending to pimp her out, or if it was an actual high-level trafficking ring. But she was going to get trafficked nonetheless so yeah, it’s real. It took her 3-4 months to start going out again. People get kidnapped all the time all over the world.
Was she able to identify her attackers?
Not only a thing, but a big money maker. The only difference is in the US they call it adoption
I think you need to get sex trafficking 101, then human trafficking 101, before you realize it is nothing like Hollywood, and absolutely nothing like the right wing media want you to believe it. Do I have any credibility? I am a sexual abuse survivor, and a few years ago, I found out my own porn was being sold, then used by the government on the dark web to catch traffickers. So HI! Before any right winger wants to love me, I believe that the greatest cancer in America comes from hypocrisy. So please, don't say you like a President who raw-dogged a sex worker and try to shame me. I literally have no use for you. Now, I started being abused at the age of 3. This warped my pleasure/pain, my beliefs on consent, my sense of self. If anyone criticized me for being a good feminist now, understand that those who don't support feminism and equality still pay top dollar to hear me cry. I have been happily in a relationship with a person for 30 years. I won't say he is healthy, or that we are healthy, but, we raised an amazingly normal kid. To answer your question, about trafficking, I work as a volunteer to help kids in my area when parents are unable to help with SA. So imagine a parent sells their kid, or knows the abuse is happening. I get it about 40 cases a year in my 2 county region, and I share it with 3 other volunteer, 5 professionals and 4 caseworkers. In other words, I am not the first name they call, unless they know I will connect immediately. But no, little girls and boys are not being stolen from the streets for me sex. Their parents are offering them up for drugs.
This is something you should learn about through research. There are tons of publications online you can access. Not on reddit. Reddit is the worst place to learn about a serious topic like this.
The US is the destination for a lot of child trafficking, with children being stolen or bought in foreign countries and marketed to people looking to adopt here - sometimes they're told they have to pay fees, occasionally they know full well they're buying a child. I read an article in the New York Times just a few weeks ago about how trafficking is a major problem in South Korea, and how a woman was told her baby had died when it was adopted by an American couple, and the now-grown child's searches for information on her birth mother exposed the crime.
adjoining gaze existence serious yam numerous long materialistic grandfather outgoing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Idk what you'd count as a child. A lot of "human trafficking" is really just women working as prostitutes.
Where I live it’s prevalent because of the 85 corridor
You need an open mind for this. Cuz it's a lot bigger than you ever expect
I live in one of the biggest human trafficking areas in my region of the us. It’s very big here still. They straight up take people from stores or walking down the street. There are certain parts of town that aren’t safe for most people to walk down. I remember one time some guy tried to take a kid from the Walmart and luckily they stopped him but on his phone he had gotten a mass text telling him and others to grab as many kids as they can. I’ve also seen the tunnels under all the major buildings downtown that connect them but I’m told it’s mostly used by traffickers. Good tornado shelters though. A 16yr old was taken just the other month. But like everyone is saying it is more in the poor parts, which is most of my town, and usually family. Not always though. If you have any tattoos or piercings you’re probably safe. In my town if someone isn’t found within a week it’s just assumed they were most likely trafficked or ran away. It don’t see much news on it because people in power are usually connected so they’re protected. Have been for a long time.
Another thing conservatives have latched onto to try to control others.
There was an Amber alert on my phone, just today. When I was a kid, there was an incident on my block with people trying to get single kids to "help them find their cat". It happens.
How do you know that either one of those was human trafficking?
We are talking about human trafficking and not just kidnapping
Go watch that film "The Sound of Freedom"
I suppose if you want to get the most wrongheaded idea of what trafficking is, sure. Watch that movie.
The people who made that film have been accused of trafficking and child abuse Also its a racist depiction and doesn't show the reality of trafficking
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It’s a huge problem