In early April, news broke of the arrests of three men for the sex trafficking of a 13-year-old girl in Bucks County, Pa. The same day, the U.S. attorney general announced the indictment of a 34-year-old man from Washington with 11 counts of sex trafficking children, production of child sexual abuse material, and forced labor. Earlier this year, in California, Operation Reclaim and Rebuild resulted in the identification of 547 suspected traffickers across the state.
Human trafficking is now the second-most-profitable criminal activity in the U.S. and our school children are the commodity traffickers seek.
Some schools already have responsibility for teaching school children about sex trafficking. In 2018, California, Tennessee, Florida and Virginia became the first states to mandate human trafficking education for public school students.
However, this training is often too brief and general, making it difficult for students to understand how it could happen to them or their peers. Schools can do better.
Schools need to recognize that their students are being targeted for exploitation by sophisticated criminals. While any student can be targeted, students with a history of child abuse or neglect are most vulnerable.
Research has shown that 41.4 percent of system-involved youth (including child welfare and juvenile justice) had clear or possible signs of being exploited. Students who frequently miss school, run away or are homeless are at very high risk, as are those with intellectual or developmental disabilities, unaccompanied migrant youth and gay, lesbian and transgender youth.
The common ground for all these students is that they are susceptible to love, belonging and self-esteem from strangers when their families, schools and communities let them down.
Unfortunately, schools often treat our most vulnerable students with a delinquency lens, punishing or excluding them for acting out or running away. Instead, schools need to remain curious and develop relationships with students who are struggling.
Educators need to learn to see the symptoms of sex trafficking, including sudden changes in behavior or academic performance, new phones, clothes or other materials, an older and or controlling romantic partner or changes in personal hygiene. Then they need to act in ways that prioritize their relationship with the child while referring the student to experts.
It is important for schools to work with experts trained in sexual exploitation because students cannot be easily “rescued” and are resistant to help. The only reason students are allowed to attend school by their traffickers is due to the strong trauma bond and extreme control traffickers exert over their victims. Thus, educators must focus on what they do best and avoid trying to intervene directly in the exploitation.
Schools also need to maintain their responsibility for student engagement. All too often, schools and other child-serving agencies rely on some other agency to serve children who are at risk for or who are being exploited.
Instead, schools should provide their own multidisciplinary team meetings to engage professionals across legal, mental health, child welfare and other sectors to support whatever the student needs to engage in school and whatever support they need. Schools cannot wait for the child welfare or mental health system to respond.
Schools should provide prevention, especially for students who are vulnerable. For younger children, prevention does not need to mention sex. Activities should include social media and internet safety, coercion resiliency and what constitutes a healthy relationship.
Students can also be taught how social exclusion creates vulnerability to trafficking. By seventh grade, schools should address sextortion and that sending explicit photos of themselves or others is not only legally classified as child pornography, but also puts everyone involved at greater risk of sexual exploitation.
Sex education is a controversial topic. However, the data are clear. The California Healthy Youth Act, which required schools to implement comprehensive sexual health education, resulted in California having the lowest rate of sexual activity amongst teens of all 50 states and, for those who are sexually active, an increase in contraceptive use well above the national average.
Comprehensive sex education works, and if our children are being groomed as young as nine years old, they need to be equipped with knowledge to resist criminals who want to profit off their vulnerabilities.
Fortunately, states like California that already mandate human trafficking education can build upon existing legislation and funding mechanisms to be an example for other states to follow. California’s Human Trafficking Prevention Education and Training Act requires the state to reimburse school districts for related costs.
At the federal level, the 2023 Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2022 strengthened the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and expanded federal efforts to combat human trafficking, focusing on prevention, protection, and prosecution. Although not specifically designed to support school efforts, federal resources may help jumpstart programs in communities without school mandates.
If we can support teens’ sexual education, we can and must help them avoid predators who are seeking to groom them and exploit them for profit. For any child we miss, their lifespan is 7-10 years from the start of their exploitation. Our children’s lives are at stake.
Jill Sharkey, Ph.D, is a public voices fellow of the OpEd Project, a professor of School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a strategic planning and data consultant for the Santa Barbara County Human Trafficking Task Force.