The lack of choice is a key factor in defining human trafficking, said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, whose office has been recognized for working with trafficking survivors to get to the root of the problem.
And while movies may make it seem as though this happens largely to immigrants from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia, Dart said the opposite is true. It is truly happening all around us β mostly on the internet. Statistics about the frequency of human trafficking are difficult to nail down, experts said.
Rebecca Rivera, manager of community outreach, said each scrape typically finds about 1, ads for sex in the Wheaton zip code alone. Panelists advocated for the approach of local prostitution investigations, which aim to arrest not the person offering the sex acts, but the clients buying sex and the traffickers forcing victims to sell it.
These include trauma, childhood sexual abuse, a lack of stable housing, and a lack of supportive family. Instead, speakers encouraged those in attendance to help others learn the truth about what human trafficking is and to push for more state and federal funding for targeted trafficking investigations.
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