Why Houston schools need an anti-sex trafficking plan

Of all the things K-12 schools have to contend with – bullying, underfunding, teen dating violence, book bans, etc. – there’s yet another monster issue these campuses must confront. Human trafficking.

But on school campuses?

Yes, according to these sobering facts:

1. Over 55% of trafficking survivors report that their first introductions to being sold for sex happened while at school or at school-related activities. This includes being groomed, solicited, recruited, and contacted.
2. Evidence-based data and cases prove that in cities and states across the nation, schools are hot spots for domestic child sex trafficking.
3. Predators are using other kids and technology to lure, groom, and solicit our children, mainly during school hours and at school activities.

Now, according to the National Foster Youth Institute, 60% of all child victims of human trafficking nationwide have a history in the child welfare system, many of them found during raids on sex trafficking rings across the country. And this illegal activity was said to be surging this past year.

NO TRAFFICKING ZONE

That’s why NTZ (No Trafficking Zone), an organization focused on “dismantling and disrupting human trafficking,” celebrated the passage of HB 3554 earlier this year.

“The law protects children and youth in Residential Treatment Centers, homeless youth shelters, juvenile detention centers, foster care facilities, daycare centers and other locations where human traffickers prey on society’s most vulnerable children,” read an NTZ statement.

That said, school campuses go almost unnoticed by the general public as breeding grounds for “recruiting and grooming” potential trafficking victims.

Last December, NTZ announced the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 7566 (the “Stop Human Trafficking in School Zones Act”), a bill authored by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D) and Congressman Michael McCaul (R) designed to protect children from predators and traffickers in schools throughout America by making such actions a federal crime.

This should be an issue of vast concern locally since Houston is a national hotspot for youth-focused sex trafficking.

Still, more must be done. And certainly, NTZ CEO Jacquelyn Aluotto will be on the front lines of that fight, as she has been for the last two decades.

“I was producing a documentary called ‘Not In My Backyard,’” recalled Aluotto. “It was about battered women and their children seeking refuge in a country that really wasn’t recognizing that it was happening here.”

Aluotto spent seven years filming, going across America, and discovered countless children in the foster care system and runaways who were being labeled as child prostitutes who were being bought and sold.

“And (society) did not even realize that they were victims of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking, and not even understanding that children can’t be prostitutes. That led me on a journey, and 20 years later, I’m still continuing in the fight against human trafficking,” she said.

SCHOOLS HOTSPOTS FOR RECRUITING

Aluotto works with several formerly trafficked individuals, like Courtney Litvak, a Katy native.

“That is where I was first approached on my school campus by people who were working for nefarious individuals who were former graduates or fellow peers, current athletes, and people who were my classmates, who introduced me into the world of sex trafficking,” said Litvak, a high schooler when targeted.

“What’s even sadder is actually now they are targeting younger and younger youth and children in junior high. And the youngest child, unfortunately, who was falling victim and being groomed by a recruiter for a human trafficker was a fifth grader… This had been going on for decades in the school system.”

According to Aluotto and Litvak, human trafficking in schools over the years has grown into a bigger beast of a problem. Litvak believes school campus targeting continues to grow because schools fear taking accountability due to liability issues.

“But when people sign up and say that they are going to protect children at all costs and they take an oath for their job or elected position, or a superintendent, their first priority should be protecting kids at all costs, no matter what that could mean,” Litvak shared.

She, Aluotto and all members of NTZ are continuing to push for schools to increase efforts to end campus-centered recruiting for trafficking.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING STATS, ETC.

1. In Texas, 55% of survivors reported that they were first groomed or solicited on school campuses as students.
2. 80% of human trafficking involves sex trafficking and 19% involves forced labor trafficking.
3. The National Human Trafficking Hotline receives more calls from Texas than any other state in the U.S., with 80% of those trafficked being female and half being children.
4. The average age that a teen enters the sex trafficking trade in the U.S. is 12- to 14-year-olds, with many of the victims being runaway girls who were sexually abused as children.
5. The U.S. State Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, with between 14,500 to 17,500 people being trafficked into the U.S. each year.
6. Of the estimated $150 billion world-wide income from human trafficking, an estimated $99 billion is attributed to sex trafficking worldwide, with roughly $9.5 billion being earned in the U.S. annually.
7. State Rep. Senfronia Thompson and State Senator Larry Taylor led the call for the state’s SB 1831 No Trafficking Zone Act.
8. U.S. Reps Sheila Jackson Lee, Mike McCaul and Al Green are working on NTZ federal legislation to protect schools.