Family members may be human traffickers

More than 20 years ago, I worked with the FSU Center for Advancing Human Rights and helped create Florida's first strategic plans on human trafficking. We also launched Florida's first human trafficking task force, bringing together experts from across the state. At that time, we didn't hear the terms “parental” or “family” trafficking much.

Today, I am the Executive Director of the Survive and Thrive Advocacy Center (STAC), a nonprofit organization that helps survivors of human trafficking in Florida's Big Bend. Today, far too often we see parents and family members tampering with their loved ones. In fact, one study estimates that 41% of child trafficking (for sexual and professional purposes) is carried out by family members or guardians. Examples include a parent who is addicted to drugs and “gives” their child to a sex trafficker in exchange for drugs, sexually abuses their children live online for profit, or makes the child work in the fields or otherwise undergoes extreme physical violence if he does not do so. conform.

Sex trafficking and forced labor exist here in the Capital Region, not just in major metropolitan areas, as highlighted by Sheriff Walt McNeil's recent announcement of the arrest of 13 men accused of attempting to solicit sex with minors online. One of these men thought he was speaking to the parent of an 11-year-old child. Being clear-eyed and informed about domestic trafficking and its growing prevalence is an essential first step to ending sex and labor trafficking.