Pre-Teens Now Targets for Human Trafficking

HICKORY, N.C. - June 18, 2014 - PRLog -- “If you think high school is a place traffickers target, think younger,” says abolitionist and bestselling author Kimberly Rae. “The average age for a girl to get trafficked is 12-14. For boys, it’s 11-13. Traffickers exploit vulnerability and middle school is a place to find vulnerable kids looking for acceptance, love, or excitement.

Years ago, a trafficker had to go out on the streets to find runaways to target. These days, finding victims is much easier. A trafficker need only to get on Facebook or Instagram, or any of the other online sites where pre-teens are making friends and looking for ways to meet their emotional needs.

Kids are searching and oftentimes, instead of talking with their parents, they get answers for life questions from the internet. For example, young kids are getting exposed to pornography in alarming rates from googling, “What is sex?”

“When I thought of talking with my daughter about trafficking, I thought I’d tell her around age 16, maybe 15. I never imagined I needed to make her aware at age 11,” says Rae. “I believe that’s one of the reasons pre-teens are targeted. Our natural hesitancy to bring up this uncomfortable target with pre-teens makes them vulnerable.”

However, Rae knows it is a hard topic to discuss without giving more information than is appropriate for that age group. Rae wrote Capturing Jasmina, a new Christian YA novel about a girl forced to work in a sweatshop in India, to help parents raise awareness in an age-appropriate way.

“I couldn’t think of any book I would feel comfortable giving to a 10 or 11-year-old. Awareness is needed by that age, which means resources are needed. Capturing Jasmina was my way of providing such a resource.”

“Our children are vulnerable today in ways we as parents were not,” adds Rae. “We need to learn what dangers they face and help them.”

Autographed copies of Capturing Jasmina and Rae’s Amazon bestselling Stolen Woman, also on human trafficking, are available at www.kimberlyrae.com.

What else can parents do? “A basic discussion and definition is a start,” instructs Rae. “Teach your kids the Polaris Project’s NHTR hotline, 1-888-3737-888, and what it’s for. Discuss ways traffickers deceive kids. That in itself lowers their vulnerability significantly. The other thing to teach would be the simple act of looking a potential predator in the eye and loudly saying, ‘no.’ Predators look for easy targets, so teach them to fight, resist, scream if attacked.”

Rae, who trains about human trafficking in churches and schools in North Carolina, believes God’s people should be at the forefront in the fight against human exploitation. “Jesus came to set the captive free,” she concludes. “I love helping people be part of that.”