FLORIDA — Human trafficking continues to be a complicated problem both in the United States and around the world. Online reports of child sex trafficking and abuse are on the rise, and victims often don’t know they’re being groomed until it’s too late. But thousands of investigators and advocates are working to shine a light in the darkness. We talk about solutions, including ways the average person can help, and share stories from survivors who are now working to make sure nobody else experiences what they did.

The Problem

Orlando has the second largest number of human trafficking cases in the Sunshine State, and Florida has the third-highest number of calls into the National Trafficking Hotline.

But human trafficking is a worldwide problem.

It’s really easy to think, "This issue doesn’t impact me, my family, my friends."

However, the National Human Trafficking Hotline and law enforcement agencies across the country have a message.

“Anybody can be trafficked. Age doesn’t matter. Race, gender doesn’t matter. If you’re vulnerable, you’re vulnerable,” said St. Petersburg Police Sergeant Tim McClintick, the supervisor of the Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit.

A study by the Global Slavery Index estimates that there are about one million people living in “conditions of modern slavery” today.

The United States Department of State estimates that there are more than 27 million victims worldwide at any given time.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says it received nearly 16,000 “child sex trafficking” cybertips in 2020. In 2022, that number increased by nearly 3,000, and since 2020, the number of tips for “online enticement of children for sexual acts” has more than doubled — there were 80,000 in 2022.
 

Types of Trafficking

So what exactly is human trafficking, and where is it happening?

The United States Department of State says it’s a crime where traffickers exploit and profit at the expense of adults or children by compelling them to perform labor or engage in commercial sex.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline says many times, sex crimes are taking place in hotels, spas and illicit businesses.

When it comes to labor trafficking, it’s being seen in agriculture, on farms and in domestic work or hospitality.

Justice for All: Out of the Shadows discusses solutions to this growing problem of human trafficking by empowering you with the knowledge of what you can do to help. We also will hear stories from survivors.

One student athlete who was trafficked in college says she almost slipped through the cracks completely, and is now fighting to ensure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Justice for All’s Nicole Griffin has her story.

Survivors pour sand to bring awareness for those who fall through the cracks

Olivia Littleton is a human trafficking survivor who works as an advocate for the organization One More Child, which is why she helps host the Red Sand Project. The aim is to pour red sand in sidewalk cracks throughout the community to draw attention to the human trafficking victims in the area that fall through the cracks and don’t get connected to resources that could help them. Littleton hopes to change that and show others that there is life on the other side of trafficking.

Law Enforcement

Law enforcement agencies are on the front lines of intercepting human traffickers and bringing them to justice. It’s a difficult and often dangerous job, and the tools and methods traffickers use are always evolving.

So what can investigators do to stay one step ahead to save more lives?

“Most of our very successful cases in which we’ve either recovered a victim or been able to successfully arrest and prosecute a trafficker come from a tip that we receive. Sometimes that tip is from another law enforcement officer. It could be a police officer, a deputy who responded to a disturbance call. It could be a school resource officer or it could be somebody who works in an emergency room or someone at a hotel, and they see the signs that they know something’s wrong,” said Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation Director Ron Stucker.

"We don’t ask them to try to discern the elements of a crime. We just want them to look at a situation and go, ‘This isn’t right. Something’s wrong here,’ and call local law enforcement. The quicker we can get somebody on the scene to assess that, the better chance we have to recover that victim and to identify the trafficker.

"We’re fortunate to have two full-time human trafficking analysts, who are crime analysts, who are searching the internet, who are doing research for us, and they work as a team every day to help identify victims, to help identify these traffickers."

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, 20 percent of human trafficking victims are children. Other trafficking experts argue that number may be much higher.

So how do you protect the children?

Justice for All’s Saundra Weathers introduces us to a woman who’s using the strongest tool she has: education.

Extra education is now offered to protect children from human traffickers

“It takes less than 17 minutes for an online predator to entice a child to send an inappropriate picture,” said Paving the Way Foundation President Jan Edwards. Her nonprofit organization educates children and adults about the dangers of human trafficking.

She held one of her latest courses at an Orlando Boys & Girls Club with a group of high school students.

Topics like picture sharing are discussed, along with sextortion, where someone is tricked, then threatened with their own inappropriate images by a predator.

“The rise of male sextortion, teen male sextortion is up 322%. 322% because these people overseas know our boys won’t talk. They would rather commit suicide versus face shame, guilt and disappointment, which is a shame because it’s not your fault. It’s never your fault,” Edwards said.

The dangers of artificial intelligence and sugaring were also discussed.

She asked, “How many of you have heard of sugaring?” She was referencing what many know as sugar daddies and sugar babies.

“I had a little girl at a school we were talking to. She was 13, and she got a message from a sugar daddy,” Edwards said.

She hopes this kind of educating will save lives. “Deal with it, we must. Our children’s lives are at stake, their future’s at stake and if we don’t start to have these uncomfortable conversations with our children, we’re gonna see the continued growth of the epidemic of suicide, self-harm, alcohol abuse and drug use,” said Edwards.

Schools

In 2019, Florida became the first state in the nation to require child trafficking prevention to be taught in schools, for every grade K through 12.

To support this, the Florida Department of Education website has resources, training materials, links and phone numbers.

Individual school districts adjust the material to make it developmentally appropriate for each grade level.

Justice for All’s Erin Murray takes a closer look at some of that training.

Florida schools work to combat human trafficking

Growing up, Connie Rose lived a double life. To her friends at school, she was just a normal kid. But for some hours of the day, she was sex trafficked.

“I was leaving my house and having to service men throughout the night. I would come home, I would sleep about an hour and a half, and I would go to school,” said Rose.

That was back in the 1970s when she attended Jefferson High School in Tampa. Across the street from the school now is a construction site.

“This is one of the places that I would have to meet men and the buyers, and I would have to have sex with them,” said Rose.

A hotel used to be built in the location. She said she would cut class to meet buyers too.

“My trafficker was also my father,” said Rose. “At five years old I was in pornography, so it is being exploited. And being sexually abused.”

From 2 years old to 19, Rose said she experienced abuse and exploitation. Today, she fights to make sure other kids do not face the same fate.

“For me it is a driving force to do the work that I do,” said Rose. “I have been working in the field, since 1988, when my father was arrested for my stepsisters for being a pedophile.”

In January she spoke at Wharton High School on a Thursday evening to a group of Hillsborough County Public School parents.

“Here is the thing about human trafficking. Human trafficking doesn’t care who you are,” she said to the crowd.

She was one of many community members on the school district’s Human Trafficking Committee. One of its biggest focuses today is student online safety.

Listening in the crowd were a few dozen parents, including Rachel Crescentini and her son Rocco, 11.

“This is the reality we are living in now,” said Crescentini. “I want him to feel comfortable in talking about these topics to me. I don’t want him to hide anything from me, I don’t want him to feel that he has to be secretive or ashamed.”

A common place for traffickers to begin preying on victims is online.

“He has so many friends online, but to me that is dangerous,” said Crescentini. “To me there is nothing more important than your children’s safety, and this is how people are getting to our kids nowadays.”

PDF: Hillsborough County Public Schools letter to parents regarding instruction about human trafficking and other topics

Similar programs are in place across the country.

In California, schools have to provide human trafficking education at least twice: once in middle school and once in high school.

Outside of the classroom, several states require health care professionals to have training.

Ohio, for example, requires nurses to have at least one hour of education concerning trafficking victims.

Florida and Texas extend that mandate to all health care professionals.

In New York, facilities are tasked with providing training.

Technology

Today, there are more ways than ever for predators to reach potential victims.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s cyber tip line is a centralized reporting system for online crimes targeting kids. Nearly all reports come from “electronic service providers” or web businesses.

These reports could be of suspected child pornography, apparent online enticement or alleged sex trafficking. The center says the content of these reports varies greatly, and a high number of reports could indicate a dedicated effort by a platform to crack down on abusive material.

There were 31.8 million reports in 2022, and more than 95 percent of them came from websites and apps frequently used by teenagers and children.

Justice for All’s Jeff Butera investigates further on the impacts of technology.

With new technology, “anybody can be trafficked,” says St. Pete Police

Technology has made it significantly easier for human traffickers to reach potential victims — often children.

“The reality is anywhere there’s internet, traffickers and pedophiles have access to our children,” said Laurie Swink, co-founder of the Florida-based, anti-human trafficking organization Selah Freedom. “And that’s frightening.”

Swink said her research shows traffickers will use popular social media apps to contact possible victims. But they will also frequent video game chat rooms to try to start a conversation, willing to wait as long as necessary to build a relationship with a potential victim.

“They will become whoever they need to become to gain the trust of these children,” Swink said. “All they look at people as is a commodity. It’s a way to make money, and that’s all they care about.”

More than three years ago, the Tampa Bay Human Trafficking Task Force formed to tackle the issue. More than 20 agencies — including the St. Petersburg Police Department — joined forces to focus on education, enforcement and rescuing victims.

While the three-year grant money from the Department of Justice for the Task Force has run out, McClintick said the agencies continue to share information and resources to try to stop trafficking.

And as McClintick said earlier, “Anybody can be trafficked. Age doesn’t matter. Race, gender doesn’t matter. If you’re vulnerable, you’re vulnerable."

McClintick says, legally, social media companies are required to report possible child pornography or possible predator behavior to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. That information then filters out to local law enforcement in that area jurisdiction. But he wishes companies would do more to stop human trafficking.

“If you’re asking if I believe ethics should play a role, absolutely,” McClintick said. “Does it always happen? No. Sometimes money speaks higher than ethics.”

He adds that traffickers will move from app-to-app, making it hard to find them. Instead, he recommends parents use apps (like Bark or Canopy) that restrict or monitor their child’s internet/phone activity.

Resources and Recovery

Thousands of sex trafficking victims wait through the long night, anxious for the light of hope to come.

Many never find a way out.

And those who do, have their own set of new challenges to overcome. Once they escape or are rescued, there isn’t always a place for them to go.

We talked to a former Human Trafficking Task Force member who says she had a hard time finding a place for children to go in Florida after being rescued.

So, she created her own foundation — providing a safe space for survivors.

Justice for All’s Saundra Weathers has her story.

Safe house for child sex trafficking victims vital to combat the rising number of cases

Where do the victims of sex trafficking go after they’re rescued? That’s a question Laura Hamilton says was the push she needed to start Bridging Freedom. It’s a nonprofit for young girls who have been victims of sex trafficking.

Bridging Freedom is a top secret, state licensed safe house that Hamilton said the state desperately needed.

“It’s hard to hear that this is happening in our neighborhoods. It’s hard to hear that a child is lured in and then forced to provide sexual acts to buyers, unspeakable things that they’re asked or forced to do upon their little bodies,” Hamilton said. “It’s hard for the community to hear child sex trafficking and what all that involves. So, we use words that are services. They are providing services to buyers. It’s hard to go into too much more detail when you’re speaking to a lot of people because it’s so hard to hear.”

After working for years on sex trafficking task forces, Hamilton said opening the facility was her way of making a real impact. Now her facility helps girls ranging from ages 12 to 17-years-old.

At Bridging Freedom, the organization’s mission is to restore childhoods with therapy, education and a sense of home.

“The children that are in need of services here at Bridging Freedom come from three different areas. Either they’re coming from the foster system, they get so frustrated with their circumstances, they run. Another child might be from a family that’s abusing them, selling them, even involving them in trafficking and she may run,” said Hamilton.

She said as scary as that sounds, one of the other dangers threatening girls who end up there is something very common. 

“You have to look at that phone. You have to make sure there are protections on that phone so that your child doesn’t start developing a relationship with a stranger that they should not be. That is how simple it starts,” she said. “You give a child a cell phone, it’s like giving them the keys to your car and say ‘be safe.’ It’s not safe to give a 12-year-old or a 9-year-old keys to your car. So, when you give them that phone, you have to put parental protection on that phone because there are people looking to lure that child in.”

How You Can Help

How can we work to prevent human trafficking altogether?

It all starts with spotting the signs that it’s happening.

The State Department has some tips to identify victims:

• Are they not allowed to speak to anyone else alone?
• Do they live with their employer — or live in poor conditions?
• Does the employer or person they’re traveling with hold their identity documents?
• Are there signs of physical abuse?
• Are they submissive or fearful?

If you think you’ve identified someone in a trafficking situation, alert law enforcement immediately.

Don’t try to rescue them yourself — that can be very dangerous for both you and the victim.

“We don’t ask them to try to discern the elements of a crime. We just want them to look at a situation and go, ‘This isn’t right, something’s wrong here,’ and call local law enforcement. The quicker we can get someone on the scene to assess that, the better chance we have to recover that victim and to identify the trafficker,” said Stucker.

If you get the chance to talk to them, there are questions you can ask about their situation:

• “Can you leave your job if you want to?”
• “Can you come and go as you please?”
• “Where do you sleep and eat?”
• “Who has your passport or identification?”

Training to Spot Human Trafficking Victims

Human trafficking awareness training is a new trend in the private sector.

Florida requires hotel and lodging businesses to give their employees approved training, which includes housekeepers, front desk clerks, those at the concierge desk, valets and others.

In texas and Ohio, hairstylists and cosmetologists are required to take courses on spotting human trafficking in their clients.

The Truckers Against Trafficking organization is also working to put the brakes on trafficking.

Training programs, including one at Roadmaster Drivers School in St. Petersburg, teach truckers about the red flags they could encounter on the road and what to do about them, which is something that the transportation industry as a whole is following.

Awareness Signage at Public Places

Awareness campaigns also want to put the ball in your court. More and more signs are posted at airports, bus stations, restaurants and bars — especially in bathrooms.

Orlando International Airport also has a poster campaign, and employees received special training on identifying human trafficking and taking action.

(Courtesy: Adriana Arcomone)

Human Trafficking Hotlines

The National Human Trafficking Hotline is available 24/7 if you, someone you know or someone you see appears to be in a human trafficking situation:

• 888-373-7888

You can also chat the hotline on the National Human Trafficking Hotline website.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is the place to report missing children or child pornography. That number is:

• 1-800-THE-LOST

The organization also has a cyber tip line on the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children website.

Human Trafficking Tip App

The Tampa Bay Human Trafficking Task Force has a mobile app through tip411 that allows the public to communicate anonymously and in real-time with Task Force investigators. It’s available for free on both the iTunes and Google Play stores.

View additional resources: Victim of human trafficking? Here's how to get help