Every day, children in your community are being targeted, snared, and manipulated into a world of sexual exploitation. They are groomed, enticed, and sometimes physically coerced into selling themselves for sex. It is called Human Trafficking. It is modern-day slavery without the chains and shackles of a century ago, but it is real and happening right under our noses. A community that says, “We don’t have that problem here,” is a community that has not looked for it. How are these traffickers or pimps getting to your children? You don’t see them cruising the streets of your neighborhoods. They don’t need to. They are being invited into your child’s life, into your homes, into your child’s most private and intimate conversations, through the Internet and social media.

The Internet and social media have provided the perfect cover and access to exploit children. In my Cyber Safety workshop for both parents and their students, I outline the two main problems with social media that allow predators to operate and access children. One, social media is a portal to nearly three billion people on the Internet. These are people that parents do not know, and without the proper safeguards, they have no way of controlling their access to their children. Two, social media sights and internet sites cloak people in anonymity, allowing them to safely attempt to exploit children without the fear of getting caught. 

There are many ways a child might be exploited and trafficked. A common method is for the predator to connect with a child on a social media platform. Anonymously and privately, they can carefully begin the process of manipulating and grooming them. Children are manipulated into producing child pornography or to meet the predator for sex. Once the child has been sexually exploited, they ...