Children younger than 10 are being human trafficked right here in our backyard

Human trafficking: What's changed

 

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN)-We’re taking a closer look at a delicate topic, children younger than 10 are victims of sex trafficking, and it’s happening right here in our own backyard.  The way they are trafficked, may not be the way you think.

“When we operate under the ideas of what trafficking is and we refer to the movie Taken, or we think of things that we see on Facebook of be careful at Walmart putting stuff in your trunk you’ll get kidnaped and chained in the basement. Does that stuff happen? Absolutely, but I think in the work that we’re doing is we see it come from a lot of different avenues and when we live in a tunnel vision of where we expect it to look like Taken the movie, we’re missing all of the other victims and survivors that their experience looks so much different,” said Aubrey Yost Advocate for child victims.

Cell phones and social media have drastically changed how people are being sex trafficked.  Someone may be forced or enticed to perform certain sexual acts on social media.  Experts say apps are being used, and payments can be sent electronically.

“Now we are dealing with the reality of someone can put a web camera in their daughter’s bedroom and sell that to anyone that wants to log in. Just because the buyer is in Massachusetts or just because the buyer is in New Zealand or something like that or Belgium, that person is still being exploited here in our state, here in our communities,” said Investigator Ben Pflantz LPD Special Victims Unit.

A common myth is that children sucked into trafficking are troubled, or come from a bad home life, but it can be anyone with access to technology and social media.

“What we see locally a lot of times is youth exchanging sexual acts for basic needs, things of value, other items, rides to school. Things that you might not typically think of value, but because there is that exchange, that child is a victim of human trafficking,” said Jayme Buckley Anti-trafficking and exploitation coordinator.

Nebraska is seeing 16 times the amount of cases being reported than just a few years ago.

“In 2018 our state had 29 reports of child sex trafficking for the entire year. This year I don’t have final statistics from 2021, but last I kind of roughly figured it out, there were 50 reports just in Lancaster County. That still does not capture the magnitude of the problem,” said Buckley.

Investigator Ben Pflanz says the amount of human trafficking happening in our area most likely hasn’t changed, rather, it’s the community becoming more aware and saying something if they see something unusual.

“Let’s say we have a youth that comes in and they disclose that they have been involved in commercial sex activity, it’s not that uncommon for that youth to name off 4, 5 other names of people they know that are doing that same thing,” said Pflanz.

“We know that that does not encompass all of the cases that are happening, unfortunately,” said Buckley.

Parents and caretakers being aware of what kids are doing on social media can help, but not everyone has an involved guardian.

“That’s just where the importance of professionals and our general community just being educated and taking those opportunities to learn more and figure out, what do I do if? and ask those questions. That’s where frankly a lot of these reports do come from,” said Yost.

If you are a coach, teacher, or someone involved in the community, learn to be a safe space so that victims feel comfortable sharing what’s happening.  Then speak up and report things that don’t sound right.  You can reach out to the special victims unit or the Child Advocacy Center for guidance on what to do next.

“You likely do know someone who has some sort of victimization. Whether that’s trafficking or something else, and it’s important to not get into that judgy headspace, and just remain open,” said Yost.

State leaders have been working on ways to discourage this kind of activity by creating laws, giving harsher punishment for those involved.

“Compared to 7 years ago, virtually nothing with regards to penalties. A strong message came out of that case in Oxford, that person was sentenced to over 170 years,” said Dough Peterson Nebraska Attorney General.

They agree, more work needs to be done.

“We’re always coming across new situations, new cases, where oh yeah that doesn’t really fit any of these conditions that the law says it needs to be,” said Pflanz.

For example, how a case gets classified can change the way a person is charged.

“If this case gets classified as a child pornography case, it doesn’t necessarily get classified as a sex trafficking, right? So where do you draw that line?” said Pflanz.

“Our goal is to make it much more difficult, for those that think they can do this. I would love to have a reputation in Nebraska, of bypass Nebraska because the penalties are significant and they are aggressive of going after people,” said Attorney General Peterson.

The Child Advocacy Center is expanding to be able to help more victims all across the state.