Human Trafficking and Teens: Grades 7-12

Slavery, also called Human Trafficking, is when someone forces or tricks someone else into doing something they don’t want to do for the financial gain of another person.

Human Traffickers forget that their victim is a person; someone’s daughter, son, wife, or mother. They look at their victim only as a way of making money.

They must be stopped!

People today are enslaved for three reasons: Slave Labor, Sexual Exploitation, and for Body Parts. In each of these, the victim… the slave… is forced or tricked into a situation they feel they can’t escape.

Three Forms of Human Trafficking

For Labor: Over 30,000,000 people, including very young children, are trafficked for forced labor in today’s world. Many of these individuals are working in agriculture.

For Sex: People will pay for all types of sexual services, including prostitution and pornography. Since there’s money to be made, there are Human Traffickers who will force or trick vulnerable children and women into selling themselves. In America alone, there are nearly 3,000,000 adults and 100,000 children who are forced to work as prostitutes. The average age when a girl enters prostitution is 13.

For Body Parts: Black market adoptions and illegal organ harvesting are also human trafficking. The organ trade is NOT just an urban myth.

In Labor and Sex Slavery, the work is dirty and dangerous. The victims make little to no pay and their “owners” keep almost all the money…

“Why would someone want this lifestyle?” you ask.
The answer is, they don’t.
The victims cannot escape or stop working. If they do, they are badly beaten or killed.

You… BE SAFE!

Facebook, Twitter, and hundreds of other social networks are great places for meeting people, sharing photos, and updating friends.

However, they are also anonymous places filled with prowlers looking for opportunities of crime, and predators looking for children, teens, the recently widowed, individuals with alcohol and chemical addictions, and other vulnerable people.

The innocent-sounding message coming from that nice stranger may in fact be a criminal looking to hurt you. The older friend you feel really understands you may be manipulating your feelings while she/he sets you up to sell. Once trust is established and you think you found someone in whom you can share your problems and loneliness, the trap is set and meetings occur where bad things happen.

Don’t post your personal information online. You really DON’T want strangers knowing where you live, go to school, and how old you are. Your friends already know this information.

Don’t take or share pictures you don’t want your grandmother to see. Once you share a photo, you’ve lost control of that photo forever; NOTHING sent over the internet ever completely disappears.

If you meet someone online or in person who gives you the creeps, listen to your feelings. Walk away… tell an adult.

If someone wants to hurt you, don’t be nice; scream, kick, run, get away fast, and call 911. The police are extremely well-trained and know what to do.

You CAN help free trafficking victims! YOU can PREVENT human trafficking, too!