Over the past several years, there's been an indisputable uptick in attention directed towards human trafficking. The use of force, fraud, or coercion to extract sex or labor from another person is a crime. Unfortunately, it's also far more widespread than a lot of people realize.

As more conversations about human trafficking take place, it's imperative to dispel certain myths. To this day, the image of a girl getting pulled into a creepy white van by strangers is what many people think encompasses trafficking.

This scenario is not theoretically impossible and it can happen.

However, most cases of human trafficking don't mirror the events of blockbuster films. More often than not, victims sold for their bodies or labor personally know their traffickers. They could be relatives, employers, or abusers posing as friends or romantic partners.

As this new year gets started, January brings National Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

A closer look at National Human Trafficking Prevention Month 2024

Across the nation, various communities are taking steps to recognize and end this scourge of modern day slavery.

Earlier today, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody highlighted the state's anti-human trafficking efforts. This work includes giving anti-human trafficking training to state employees, along with state officials charging and procuring sentences for perpetrators of this crime.

https://twitter.com/AGAshleyMoody/status/1742580272892145833

In the midwest, Iowan locality Ely used the first city council gathering of 2024 to join forces with anti-human trafficking group Chains Interrupted.

At Ely's meeting, Chains Interrupted leader Tish Young stressed the importance of parents looking after their kids. A huge part of this means awareness and mindfulness of who children come into contact with on the internet.

Young then called for parents to make sure their relationships with their kids are in a good place.

Children who get along with their parents and face problems are more likely to share what's happening. If they don't feeling safe enough to do this, kids are more vulnerable to predators looking to take advantage of them.

A major challenge

Helping folks who are sold by their relatives or other people pretending to love them requires consistent efforts.

Trafficked children, for instance, are often abused by their immediate family members. Commonly, these kids don't even have to leave their homes for their relatives to hurt them.

Many adult victims of this abuse face a similar predicament.

A young woman being repeatedly sold by her boyfriend may not even know what's happening to her constitutes a crime that is human trafficking. The same also applies to someone trafficked by an individual claiming to be their friend.

Then, there's labor trafficking. This form of human trafficking lacks the public attention that sex trafficking garners. Nevertheless, it continues to be a pervasive problem. Like sex trafficking victims, many folks trafficked for their labor may not know or understand this is not legal.

Going forward, these uncomfortable issues are ones that the anti-human trafficking movement - and society at large - must keep facing and working to dismantle.

Anyone who wishes to report what they believe to be human trafficking can contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline via phone at 1 (888) 373-7888 or by text at 233733.