Tag - Human sex trafficking

Dirty Dozen List. American Culture has been Pornified??

How Snapchat Was Used to Groom and Sell a 17-Year-Old Sex Trafficking Victim

Since the 1950s generations of pornography users have grown up watching pornography. During the course of the intervening decades, pornography has become increasingly available and normalized. This should come as no surprise, as pornography users, who often start out as teenagers, grow up to become individuals who work as librarians, law enforcement officers, lawyers, judges, reporters, corporate executives, and Hollywood screen writers, etc. Naturally, the amount and type of pornography they consume eventually colors their judgements, values, and beliefs, and for some, becomes a perspective that is superimposed on their relationships, both private and professional, and ultimately culture writ large. The evidence of this is all around us. From fashion magazines, the offerings of cable television and Internet service providers, popular entertainment, the “sexting” phenomenon, to the local grocery store checkout isle, American culture has been porned and this is unacceptable.

At NCOSE we work for a world where the pornified vision of reality—with its utilitarian and insatiable consumption of human beings for selfish sexual pleasure, its raw, brutal, debasing, violent and hate-filled themes—becomes unacceptable to all people with concern and respect for the dignity and well-being and humanity. One way we do this is through the annual “Dirty Dozen List,” which names and shames a range of actors who contribute significantly to the normalization of pornography (or prostitution and sex trafficking). The groups, agencies, and businesses named to this list are among for the nation’s worst—facilitating and protecting access to pornography, pandering and profiting directly from it, or pushing an agenda that normalizes pornography or other egregious forms of sexual exploitation.  Full Article

Who Rescues Human Trafficking Teen Victims

National Human Trafficking Hotline

Human sex trafficking—in which adults and children are coerced into engaging in sexual acts for money—continues to be a problem globally, including right here in the United States.

In 2017 alone, the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which allows people to anonymously report suspected instances of this crime, saw 4,460 cases of human trafficking. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children estimated that one in six endangered runaways reported to them were likely sex trafficking victims. One report from the Urban Institute even estimated that the underground sex economy generates more than $50 billion a year, worldwide, including more than $290 million just in a major American city like Atlanta.

National Human Trafficking Hotline

U.S. Navy Seals and Retired Police Join Forces to Rescue Human Trafficking Teen Victims Courtesy of Saved In America (SIAM)

Luckily, there are people working to put a stop to human trafficking, including the non-profit group Saved in America, which is based in San Diego, California. The team is made up of former law enforcement officers, Navy SEALs and other former military members.

Joseph Travers, a chaplain and private investigator, is one of the cofounders of Saved in America. He said he was inspired to start the group when he heard the story of Brittanee Drexel, who disappeared in 2009. She is believed to have been kidnapped, raped, and murdered by traffickers.

“I knew that street gangs, prison gangs and cartels took over drug trafficking in the 1980s and then they took over sex trafficking at the turn of the century,” said Travers.

Travers is quick to point out that funding from supporters makes such rescues possible. Travers secured funding for the venture from several sources including the William D. Lynch Foundation — and recruited, trained and licensed his all-volunteer team.