While many children are taken from their homes and shipped to other countries, just as many remain right here in the United States. The U.S. sex trafficking industry exists in the shadows, causing most to believe it cannot be happening around us. Unfortunately, it is active, aggressive, and taking place in our own neighborhoods.
Traffickers often operate in areas near transportation hubs; highways and airports are popular hunting grounds. This allows them to lure away a child and travel quickly, before families even realize their child has been taken.
Child Slaves: What Happens Next?
The majority of U.S. child trafficking takes place along the borders, along major transportation routes, shipping hubs and large cities. While these highly populated cities are hotbeds for trafficking, children are also taken and sold in rural areas all over the country.
Understanding and mapping the trafficking networks and operating locations are essential to combating child trafficking. This information enables law enforcement to dismantle the trafficking networks, and prevent children from being taken in the first place. It also allows us to find trafficked children, prevent them from becoming Child Slaves, and return them to freedom. Developing this networking “picture” is critical in the fight to ERASE Child Trafficking once and for all.