When news broke that children were being separated from their parents at the U.S. border earlier this year, indignation swept the country. Protests cropped up across America, church groups mobilized, and the issue took social media by storm. By June, the “zero tolerance” policy that had expanded the practice was eliminated.
This is the kind of national response and furor we need to save the hundreds of thousands of children who are being sold for sex in this country every day. Sex trafficking, especially of minors, is rampant in the U.S., but law enforcement alone cannot stop it. To end sex trafficking on our soil, we need the involvement of millions of Americans, from parents and teachers to business leaders and newscasters.
Drug-free zones came about in the 1970s, in response to a growing concern about drugs being sold to children in schools. Since then, drug-free zones have been a critical component in America’s war on drugs. The program works because it draws attention to a national issue on a community-by-community basis and makes the penalties for buying and selling drugs in certain locations — schools, parks, churches, and even malls — so high that dealers choose not to take the risk. They sell elsewhere.
We need a similar strategy to deter those who are considering buying sex. That’s why the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking has created the TraffickingFree Zone program, a national initiative implemented on county levels to reduce the number of buyers for sex-trafficked victims.
According to the Department of State, 89 percent of those being sold for prostitution want to escape. And more than half could be minors. The 2017 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that of the 661 active sex trafficking cases last year, 65.8 percent involved child victims. Those cases represent just a small percentage of the countless victims who are still out there. Last October, 84 children were rescued from a multistate trafficking ring in one day alone. The dark truth is that when a man pays for sex, he has no idea whether that 21-year-old he is buying is really 15 or whether she’s in the room because she’s being forced by someone else.
The most effective way to end human trafficking is by ending the demand for sex buying. Without customers, traffickers have less incentive to find victims, their supply, to meet demand. We can do this by making sex buying so taboo within a community, and the penalties for buying sex so high, that men who are considering it decide not to go through with it.
The TraffickingFree Zone program is implemented at the county level in collaboration with community leaders, law enforcement, businesses, schools, healthcare organizations, churches, and the media. The program implements proven demand-reduction techniques that make the purchase of sex a high-risk, low-reward activity.
Most human trafficking occurs right in our own backyards. We just don’t see it, because we’re not looking for it. The TraffickingFree Zone program equips community members to recognize and report human trafficking, which leads to more rescued victims.
Awareness presentations are given to various groups across the community, including parents, as well as faculty and staff of local schools. Often, education of young men on the realities of sex trafficking prevents them from seeking out paid sex when they get older. And with up to 87 percent of human trafficking victims reporting that they’ve been in contact with a healthcare provider at some point during their victimization, providing awareness training to those in medical practice is critical.
The criminal justice module of the program trains law enforcement to recognize women in prostitution as victims, not as criminals, and focuses on stricter punishments for sex buyers instead. On a business level, it encourages companies to institute zero tolerance policies for sex buying; the threat of losing a job can often be a strong deterrent. In the social services sector, it ensures availability of high-quality services for those who are sexually exploited, as well as rehabilitation programs for those who have bought sex or are addicted to sex.
The TraffickingFree Zone program also has a strong technology component. It uses online advertising and social media campaigns to reach online sex buyers, as well as potential victims, offering education and help. Intercept bots, which pose as individuals being sold for sex and message back and forth with buyers, have already been successfully used in many communities throughout the United States to collect buyers’ information and pass it to law enforcement. Messages of help are also being sent to potential victims using phone numbers collected from ads of those being advertised for sex online.
TraffickingFree Zones have already been proven successful in Florida, which has one of the largest human trafficking problems in the country. The human sex trafficking industry is so large and so dark, it’s easy to believe a single person can’t make a difference. But small-scale measures can bring about lasting change on a large scale. If you would like to see your community become a TraffickingFree Zone, contact the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking at www.usiaht.org or call toll free at 844-600-7774.
Geoffrey Rogers is the CEO and co-founder of the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking, a nonprofit, faith-based organization committed to ending human trafficking in America. Geoff is also a former vice president at IBM.
