Original subtitles

Hi friends and colleagues

I would like to speak to you today about the typical victim.

Or is there a typical victim in child sexual abuse trafficking

And what makes victims vulnerable?

One of the things, all of us need to understand and appreciate, regardless of your jurisdiction

whether you're looking at this in your community, in your state, your country, or internationally

is that there are two main drivers of exploitation and trafficking.

Number one, there is a demand for sex with children primarily by men

and that there is a desire of these men to make money.

Those two issues, along with a lot of the other factors that we're dealing with today

are the two primary drivers that we cannot ever forget some of the basic facts about this issue

is every country dealing with some aspect of exploitation and trafficking?

You may be in a large city where there are the strands

or the locks or the clubs or the locations where these activities occur.

Or you may be in a surrounding rural area or suburb

where these children and youth primarily come from.

But all of us have this issue or the aspect of exploitation or traffic

we're dealing with, as well as obviously all of us are dealing with it online.

27% of all trafficking involves children

and there is a premium on the younger the child is or if

they're virgins.

Two out of three of the trafficked child victims are girls.

I'm going to use the term children, but when I use the term children, I mean children.

I mean pre-teens, teens, and young adults as long as

they're below your age of majority or in your various countries.

And keep in mind that less than 10% of these situations

of trafficking and exploitation involve some type of abduction.

The majority of these pimps and traffickers are known to the child victim

whether there be family members, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends

that are met in the various facilities and institutions.

Many of these children find themselves living in.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute.

There are some difficulties in our efforts to combat trafficking around the world.

Number one, it's global, and that is made even more so with the advent of the COVID dynamic.

And now that everybody is connected with some type of social media

and various aspects of being able to go online have made sexual trafficking

and the ability for Predators to find victims much easier.

Another part that makes these cases very difficult is the victims themselves.

Many of them suffer from some type of mental illness or have mental health issues.

Most of it is probably due to some type of trauma or previous diagnosis

or a non-diagnosis in their homes, in their households

before they even were brought into "the life" or to be traffic.

But obviously having the experience of being sexually assaulted

and exploited in and of itself can create mental health issues.

Also, many of them come from a place of drugs and alcohol

whether it's in their home or whether they have been doing drugs and alcohol themselves.

And obviously, we know that a major part of the grooming process that traffickers use against these children

is drugs and alcohol to facilitate a good time or to numb the experiences.

Poor self-esteem is consistent across all aspects, whether it's children or even adults that are being trafficked.

And the low self-esteem literally screams to these pimps and traffickers that facilitate

their grooming of these victims into life.

Many of these kids are having issues in school or have dropped out of school

are truant or are not going to school

because they have to work in their home or school is too far

or because of some other issues, learning disabilities, or what have you.

Many of these children are in one of the areas of very high risk for being exploited

and traffic is LGBTQ youth because many of their families in our countries reject

these children and they become throwaways or runaways in many of our communities,

which makes them very attractive to traffickers and pimps.

Another area that we know that traffickers and pimps go to

I was talking to a colleague that works at a shelter who talked about how pimps sit right outside on the driveway

or on the road that goes into what's supposed to be a fairly secret shelter.

But, you know, those things can be kept secret for a very long.

But they know that a lot of easily victimized children are going to be in shelters at group homes

and foster care placements, as well as our youth detention facilities.

And they also know to have other of their victims,children to solicit kids into these facilities

Also, what are some of the other contributing factors to this issue?

If I call it a sexualize household, if there are family members who use sex workers

or if the household itself is highly sexualized with sex workers and what have you and

they're not.

Well, if that's just a part of how that family operates, that's a very, very high risk.

Communities that are neighbors of very cash-rich cities or where there is some type of employment

or work, where the workers are cash rich, whether it's in some type of agricultural situation or in the larger city itself.

We know that many of our kids have juvenile records

and those things for these kids make them less credible.

They have a record and they have various problems.

And some of them feel like they can't get beyond these problems

as well as the issues that have with them, with their families.

Many of these kids have a basic history of neglect

some types of abuse include sexual abuse and physical abuse, as well as witnessing violence in their homes.

But obviously, some of the highest-risk kids are living in some type of poverty

And many of them, whether it's their family or the kids themselves are engaging in some aspects of trafficking for some type of survival.

Again, some of these parents, who don't deserve to be called parents, make the decision to allow for or to traffic their kids to bring money into the household.

These gang members and traffickers and pimps know this.

Sometimes it's a situation when there's little or no supervision.

I'm not going to say it's a single-parent household.

I know many cases where there are multiple parents in the household as well as other adults.

And there's just but there's still no supervision of the kids.

And as we spoke about earlier, many of these kids are run away or thrown away or nobody cares about them.

Life is significant and glorified by the media.

We give rap music and we give these shows on television and just magazine articles

and this hyper-sexualized world that we're living in where kids are saying this also

and a part of their desire to grow up is to learn from adults the examples

that are being set by their parents and society at large.

Many of them are engaged in some relationship with boyfriends or girlfriends.

And these individuals may be caught up in wanting to have this glorified lifestyle or what have you.

And then, obviously, other family members

a dynamic of this that most are very uncomfortable talking about

is what we refer to as compliant youth or youth who engage in a direct part of their own victimization.

Obviously, their youth, they're above their heads.

They're being manipulated. They're being groomed.

But some of these kids know to a degree what they're doing and what's going on.

I remember reading and I'm a big fan of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and their work around the Behavioral Sciences Unit.

It's been very informative and they identify the characteristics of an ideal victim.

I think it's interesting the characteristics they identified

because if you talk to parents and child adolescent development professionals

I think they would come up with the same list at the very top of the list as a need for love and affection.

And unfortunately, many youths of these youths did not get appropriate love

and affection from responsible, loving, caring adults.

And they go to other locations that get this many times.

And I'm talking to parents, especially if this hyper-sexualized society

that we had, that we live in, I tell "you have got to talk to your children about love"

affection or relationships often and early, a lot earlier than you realize.

Because if you're not doing it, where are they going to learn about it?

And they're going to be seeking out that information.

And it's forbidden that they learn about it from some pimp or trafficker that wants to take advantage of them.

Kids are you know, these youth are easily led by or I referred to as misled

by adults and authority figures.

All kids are curious about sex and relationships.

And all of us as teenagers, well, most of us as teenagers

sought to be older or to emulate the older mentors in our lives.

Well, if those mentors are not positive role models, what are these kids' lives?

What are they in for?

All of this reminds me how to engage as we think about multidisciplinary teams and be victim and child-centered.

We have got to engage our local international law enforcement agencies, those vice units, those narcotics units.

those patrol officers that work the night shift in those areas of the tracks

or the strands or the struggles where there is trafficking.

We need to engage our Internet crimes against children

task force members, and our mental health professionals.

Obviously, they may know of some of these children that are at risk.

Talk to those shelters, cottages, orphanages staff

as well as our juvenile and youth authorities both the officers, as well as the facilities of these kids.

And lastly, but most importantly, we have got to be in our schools and talk to schools

and counselors as well as the truancy officers.

So to answer our question.

Who's at risk?

It's actually all youth.

It doesn't matter if they're rich or poor or if they're in our big cities or in the rural areas

or in our suburbs where it's believed that there is more money and opportunity.

There is a desire by many men to have sex with children

and there's money to be made in it as long as those two primary factors exist.

We will continue to be on the front lines

of identifying and intervening and protecting these children.

We have to do this.

I would encourage you to continue to do all of your work

and remember doing that one child at a time.

Until next time.

This is Detective Mike.

Thank you for all you do to protect children.