In a joint press conference on June 5, the County of San Diego and the San Diego District Attorney’s Office announced the launch of a media campaign to protect children and youth from human trafficking. The education campaign will raise awareness and skills to protect youth and their peers from exploitation through messaging including on-air, outdoor and digital media that will run June through August.
San Diego Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas said human trafficking is an issue that is not spoken of enough, specifically the commercial trafficking of children.
“Human trafficking is the second largest underground economy in San Diego with up to 8,000 victims a year in the county alone,” she said. “In 2011, the county Board of Supervisors recognized the need to address the issue head on and created the human trafficking Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Advisory Council to identify best practices and promising threats to address this issue.”
Vargas said the County Child and Family Well Being is integral in solving this problem with children under the age of 18 that have been abused.
“In 2022, the SCEC program was developed, and the County Child and Family Well Being SCEC steering committee was established to collaborate with community partners,” she said. “Since then, every year the county has taken additional concrete steps to broaden the effort to fight and prevent the crime and protect our victims.”
Vargas said the human trafficking task force is a cooperative effort at the federal, state, and local enforcement agencies with a mission to significantly disrupt and dismantle sex and labor trafficking with educational organizations with a comprehensive, collaborative, and regional response.
“Trafficking of children and youth happens in all neighborhoods and communities in San Diego,” she said. “While we tend to think the sex trafficking victims as girls, an astonishing number of victims are also boys and LGBTQ youth. As high as 50% of children in the U.S., identify as boys. LGBTQ+ experience a much higher rate of homelessness and are also targeted by traffickers. They are three to seven times more likely to engage in survival sex to meet basic needs. Most victims are not kidnapped during broad daylight and locked away. Instead, human trafficking is a crime perpetuated against some of the most vulnerable members of our society through deception, psychological coercion, and force.
The list of ways our youth are forced to engage in sexual exploitation is long. Including, streetwalking, pornography, stripping, internet exploitation, and phone sex lines to name a few.”
Vargas said to get help for yourself or someone you know, call the Child Abuse Hotline at (800) 344-6000 where caring, trained people are available 24 hours a day.
District 5 County Supervisor Jim Desmond said San Diego has the “tragic distinction” of being one of the most impacted areas in the U.S. for human trafficking.
“Predators target young girls and boys, subjecting them to a life of sexual exploitation through coercion and exploitation,” he said. “These victims are thrust into an abyss of despair. Their dreams and aspirations shattered and are replaced with unimaginable suffering. Traffickers work to gain the victims’ trust, to provide their needs, and to isolate them from their friends and family, and then force them into trafficking. Children are often enticed into sexual exploitation with the promise of something of value to themselves or another person. Victims are manipulated into believing that they cannot change or get out of their situation.”
Desmond said these are some of the red flags that a youth is being trafficked: A change of friends or alienation of their long-time friends. A sudden change in behavior, attire, or attitude. Anger, aggression, or being suicidal or fearful. Bruises and other physical trauma.
“It is vital that all members of the community have a heightened awareness of these signs. Especially for those who work with children on a regular basis, such as parents, educators, law enforcement, medical personnel, therapists, and even other youth. Our youth need to know how to protect themselves, and their friends, who can then be powerful advocates to get help for those they care about. At the county, we provide tools to help kids avoid sexual exploitation,” he said.
Desmond said the county has worked together with school districts and communities to get youth to learn about, and how to remain safe from human trafficking.
“Education is power. And with human trafficking it holds potential to help our youth from becoming victims,” he said.
Desmond said for more information on the symptoms of trafficking of children of youth, and what can be done to stop it, visit ProtectSanDiegoKids.org.
District Attorney Summer Stephan said this campaign is to education youth on the signs of human trafficking and how traffickers operate.
“We know if we do not educate our kids, our parents, and our communities, the traffickers and predators will do it for their own selfish nature, for their own greed in order to line their pockets with the $810 million industry that is the underground sex trafficking industry here in San Diego County,” she said. “One of the best ways of empowering our youth is with real information. Not stereotypes, but real information on how traffickers operate.”
