It's Human Trafficking Awareness month and A Courageous Voice (ACV) wanted to help raise awareness about the sex trafficking trade happening in the United States right now. Michigan is #7 in the U.S. for trafficking, just under Ohio and Georgia, with California and Texas in the lead. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children receives calls from all 50 U.S. States, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C. , and from every type of community.

According to the FBI,

• Sex trafficking: When individuals are compelled by force, fraud, or coercion to engage in commercial sex acts. Sex trafficking of a minor occurs when the victim is under the age of 18. For cases involving minors, it is not necessary to prove force, fraud, or coercion. (https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/human-trafficking)

Some possible indicators of sex trafficking are physical and behavioral, and can include things like malnourishment, living out of hotels and cars, having a secret phone or app, brandings such as tatoo's, drug abuse such as MDMA (Ecstasy), disconnecting from family and friends, sleeping in school, uses a different language or emojis that reference the sex trade like "the life" or "the game" or "trick",  and has secret online profiles (https://www.missingkids.org/theissues/trafficking) .

In the news: A man was sentenced on January 7, 2022 for 25 years for sex-trafficking during the Miami Super Bowl (https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/man-sentenced-25-years-prison-sex-trafficking-during-miami-super-bowl). As a matter of fact, big sports arenas are typical places for trafficking to occur, right under our noses. A 17 year old girl was one of the victims and was being  coerced by a 48 year old male. He was taking her on to the next stop in Chicago to an NBA All-Star game.

If you believe a child is involved in a trafficking situation, submit a tip through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s https://report.cybertip.org/ or call 1-800-THE-LOST. If you would like to learn how to remove explicit content from your child's social media (https://www.missingkids.org/gethelpnow/isyourexplicitcontentoutthere).