My understanding about the whole child sex trafficking thing. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Tommy Carcetti]

It is a very real issue with some heightened risk, but only if someone is:

1. An undocumented immigrant
Or
2. Runaways and children who have fallen though the cracks of the foster care/protective services system

For anyone else, for people living in normal, stable family situations, the chances that their child is simply snatched off the street for some trafficking ring like some bad Liam Neeson movie are basically Powerball winning odds.

Moreover, all the Q-Anon and Q-Anon Adjacent people who are spreading panic and fear that everyone's kids are being snatched away for sex-trafficking or organ harvesting are making it far more hard for people trying to combat legitimate human trafficking (see above) to do their job.

[Elessar Zappa]

1. Yeah, that's the way I understand it.

Q-anon is full of shit. It reminds me of the “satanic panic” of the 80s where people were convinced that children were being abused or killed in alleged satanic rituals.

[Scrivener7]

2. This article says that most victims of child sex trafficking know their traffickers.

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-human-trafficking-data-idUSL1N2QT27P

So yes, the Liam Neeson thing is not a thing.

But also, your two criteria are not accurate. Those aren't the risk factors.

And if they know their traffickers, I imagine that means most are relatives, which suggests to me that the numbers are much higher than what is reported and we will never get a realistic number.

Most of the articles agree that the number is increasing, but the numbers cited by reputable sources are nowhere near what the evangelists are saying.

But still. One is too many. I can't imagine a worse thing for a child.

[underpants]

7. See my post 5 below.

[The Magistrate]

3. You Have The Right Of It, Sir

The terms 'pedophilia' and 'child sex trafficking' contain an accusation of filth so besmirching it taints any it is directed at in many minds.

This makes these accusations useful in politics....

[TheBlackAdder]

4. Meanwhile Trump loses track of around 1,000 kids and they could be anywhere.

[underpants]

5. It does happen.

Last edited Mon Jul 17, 2023, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)

My wife worked on this issue. Mostly trying to make police more aware of what is going on. Cops often just see these, mostly, girls as drug addicts. They dismiss them as lost souls. Sad to say but it’s true.

There are victims as you describe but there are often middle class or around there that get snatched, moved, hooked on drugs and then used to make money that supports their habit.

There was one specific case that frightens me to this day. A woman’s 17 or 18 year old daughter befriended another young woman who moved in during their senior year. Everything seemed fine. The girl told mom she was going over to her friends house. This was not uncommon. She never came back. The whole family - dad mom friend and I think a younger kid - disappeared. They were renting a house in the burbs under fake names. Vanished without a trace. The whole thing was set up just for this. They probably moved on using both girls (all 3 possibly) as bait. She’s never returned.

[Scrivener7]

13. Holy shit. That's terrifying.

[obamanut2012]

18. I would love a link to this

[3catwoman3]

19. Having your child disappear and never knowing...

…what became of them would be worse than having them die, IMO.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. Close but not quite. People think that sex trafficking is dramatic, involves kidnapping or

abduction, is random, and involves people who don't look like them. In reality, the vast, vast majority of sex trafficking involves people who know each other and are in community with each other -- step/parents/guardians and children, romantic partners, etc., and it does not involve kidnapping or abduction or "disappearing," just some kind of coercion. It's comforting to think that we don't see people who are being trafficked for sex, when in reality we see them quite often.

[obamanut2012]

20. Yup

Taken was a fun movie -- I love both Liam Neesom and Maggie Grace. But JFC what it unleashed.

[Solly Mack]

44. Thank you.

[Sympthsical]

8. A lot of things in this country are lottery odds

340 million people, and what gets our attention varies. Squeaky wheels.

It's still horrible, and people still want to do things about these problems when our attention is shifted towards them.

[mopinko]

9. there's a guy on twitter railing against it as psyops.

kinda hard to argue.
and the numbers of ppl seeing it are vastly inflated. they’re buying blocks of tickets themselves.

[MineralMan]

10. The keywords are "normal, stable family situation."

There are many, many children living in families that are far from normal and stable. Those children are at risk, and they're far more common than you might think.

So, I think you have oversimplified the problem.

[Initech]

11. That is my biggest problem with Q Anon.

Is that they are minimizing very real crimes. And their thing with every democrat being a pedophile is just a smoke screen designed to distract us from real pedophilia crimes being committed by clergy members every day. All Q Anon does is distract and make life difficult for those that are trying to do their jobs.

[peppertree]

27. And to the extent they are true, 90%+ of it are committed by REPUBLICANS - I ga'ontee

The same people who are always against any oversight of potentially illegal behavior by the elites (their owners, after all), oversaw the wave of 1000+ missing undocumented children under Cheeto - and are always getting in the way of human trafficking legislation.

As Andy Rooney might put it: 'Why is that?'

[Initech]

36. There's entire websites and subreddits dedicated to preacher and clergy abuse.

Which really explains why most who go through the Q Anon rabbit hole don't want to get caught.

[Johnny2X2X]

12. Q vs reality

A few points.

* First, Q Anon believes there is a global cabal of Jewish bankers running a hundred and fifty billion dollar child sex ring where small children are being bought and sold and eventually raped and then killed to harvest their body for organs and other substances. It's a form of anti Jewish propaganda used by the Nazis among others called Blood Libel. Furthermore, Q believes literally they have film of famous Democratic politicans, including the Clintons, Obamas, and Bidens killing and eating small children. The makers of this Sound of Freedom movie believe these things and are using this movie to promote them, full stop.

* Second, all sex trafficking need to be stopped no matter the age of the victims. But that also makes it important that we understand what type of child sex trafficking is going on. In the US, it's mostly teenaged girls who are conned into selling themsleves through a combinatio of drug addiction and evil boyfriends or family members. These girls are under 18, but rarely under 13. Pointing that out doesn't mean we shouldn't be moving heaven and earth to help girls like these, we should. But it also different than the trafficking of 4-10 year olds which is really quite rare no matter how horrific it is. And when this type of trafficking occurs, it's almost always the parents who are doing the trafficiking.

* Third, it is Democrats who have championed the fight to help all victims of trafficking. Republicans have been obstacles to progress to helping victims of trafficking for decades. Republicans actually have made it harder to stop real child trafficking by fighting against laws banning child brides in states across the country. They've fought against funding to house victims of trafficking, and they've fought funding to treat these victims medically at every step along the way. So if Republicans are finally willing to join Democrats in calling for the social spending it takes to fight trafficking like this, welcome aboard, but I'm not going to hold my breath as they're seemingly just trying to spread conspiracy theories about Jews, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros.

* Fourth, these Republcians seem to be talking about sex trafficking and the border right now. So let's have immigration reform and give women and children at the border a safe and legal path to entering our country and applying for asylum. If the difficulty at the border is what's really leading to sex trafficking, then opening the borders up for potential victims should be the priority.

[Mosby]

22. Great post

The Frazzledrip video (deep-fake) just made another appearance on the dark web before being taken down. Qanon people truly believe this stuff.

[Johnny2X2X]

26. Disturbing

But that's where we are, a politial party has been taken over by Q Anon conspiracies. There are full fledged Q-Anon folk in Congress, and the GOP party leaders use Q-Anon conspiracy theories regualrly to try to gin up hate against their opponents.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

That's where we are, the atrocities phase. It's why you're catching these people outside of the Obama's house, why they tried to overthrow the government, why they're increasingly openly talking about terrorism including strapping bombs to themselves. When you're leading people to believe your political opponents are murding and eating children, violence against those opponents is certain.

[Initech]

38. I always wonder how the people who believe this crap never have any evidence.

Like if there really was a giant factory that was mass manufacturing 5G microchips to be inserted into human blood, surely someone would have seen evidence of it by now. Especially living in the age of satellites and the internet.

[Scrivener7]

14. The good thing about this thread: there was a contingent on DU a while back

that argued strenuously that sex trafficking was a myth. Which was disturbing to see here. I'm glad that group seems to have faded away.

It's disturbing that most sources agree that it is increasing, though no one knows by how much or what the actual numbers are, though I don't know how you'd get an accurate count.

I think the important thing is not to fall into the trap of dismissing. Q has made it such a satanic panic story that it would be easy to do that. But with satanic panic, there was very little evidence of satanic groups at work (except in my neighborhood, of course, no kidding). In this case, we know children ARE being trafficked, have always been trafficked and the trafficking numbers are increasing.

[soldierant]

37. The numbers

would increase as the total population increases - the population of the nation, or the population of the world, or whatever popultion you are ooking at. Not that that matters compared to the fact that one is too many. Only that knowing one's enemy is never a bad thing.

[UTUSN]

15. Real, but the Qanon slant is called "propaganda porn" by a DUer. CAVIEZEL, Mel GIBSON, VERASTEGUI

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=18082388
This would be one Eduardo VERASTEGUI - who allegedly started out as a boytoy with attachments to Ricky MARTIN and others, broke into a few Mexican novelas, but at some beknownst point turned into a "Catholic" fundraiser and professed "celibate" while fraternizing with one Marcial MACIEL, founder of the Legion of God (something like Opus Dei), celebrated by Popes for his streams of fundraising for the Curia while sexually abusing children, until finally demoted (but not defrocked), and VERASTEGUI started a "holy" mission of Rosary-praying for cash, until graduating into hobnobbing with movers and shakers of the wingnut variety - including Mexican president PENA-Nieto and eagerly joining the Drumpf regime. In his latest incarnation after this current grift movie, he is waiting for God to tell him to run for president of Mexico.

Beefcake versions readily available, also with all popes and wingnut leaders of several countries (maybe he's just a climber? )



https://democraticunderground.com/100218056237

"Catholic" /Mexican Drumpf-ite, homophobe wannabe president of Mexico, VERASTEGUI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcial_Maciel


Bald head behind JP II's hand is MACIEL:


Equal opportunity for Francis:

[Delphinus]

41. Those eyes,

in the picture with Dotard and Mother's Boy, are so intense they are frightening!

[UTUSN]

42. Oh, he's been trading on his magnetism from childhood on up.

In that pic, the contrast between Dotard and Mother's boy is telling - Dotard knows the whole game, Mother's boy is oblivious.

As for the popes, goes back farther - JP II was probably a dupe, the Legion of Whatever Marcial MARCIEL pervert was funneling big cash to the Church outfit and was blessed by the popes. RATZINGER was probably onto the game but didn't pull the trigger. Francis was probably taken in by VERASTEGUI's performance of humility/sanctity/whatever.

The Mel GIBSON contingent of Conservative anti-reform hate Francis and John XXIII.

It's a complicated game.

[LakeArenal]

16. The fear is insane.

Kids don’t play outside anymore. Crazy.

“In the olden days” we played outside til the street lights came on.

Modern day mom got arrested for letting kids cross the street unattended.

[obamanut2012]

17. Yup, and what is used as "bait" is usually affection and safety

Food, shelter, clothing, love bombing.

Sometimes, girls and women are sold by their families -- and, I don't mean white Americans. The US nail salon business is rife with trafficking. Domestic servants here and abroad have their passports taken, usually POC victim and POC perps. The workers who built the last World Cup facilities.

etc

etc

etc

[Snackshack]

21. These people

Need to stop being allowed to spew crap like this without called on it to show evidence or something that is proof.


They have gotten away long enough with just be able to say whatever they want with out ever having to show any evidence. Anyone who says 💩 like this should be laughed at uncontrollably if they have no actual proof beyond “Tphucker Carlson said it so it must be true” which apparently is all the evidence MAGA ever needs.

[Nevilledog]

23. Why Anti-Trafficking Experts Are Torching 'Sound of Freedom'

https://archive.li/2023.07.15-052515/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/sound-of-freedom-child-trafficking-experts-1234786352/

[Delphinus]

43. Thank you

That was a very helpful article.

[Effete Snob]

24. Yup

[PatrickforB]

25. I must respectfully disagree based on data. Certainly your '1' and '2' above are quite true, BUT

according to several sources, a child goes missing in this country every 40 seconds.

This is around 2,100 kids a day going missing. Our kids. Our grandkids.

This translates to over 788,000 kids a year here in the US going missing.

So, if you are a parent or grandparent, be a bit protective of your kids, because it only takes a second for some dirt-bag to lure a toddler close enough to grab them and disappear.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

28. The vast majority of those kids are with someone they know when they "go missing."

It's a noncustodial parent or grandparent, vindictive boyfriend, adult romantic partner, that kind of thing. Stranger abductions are very rare.

[Johnny2X2X]

30. Your numbers are misleading

788,000 kids missing might be true, most are found, most are runaways or taken by a non custodial parent.

On average 350 people under the age of 21 are abducted by a stranger each year in the US. Less than half of those are under 18, about 100-150 per year. Now 100-150 is not trival and deserves awareness, but even of these kids, the overwhelming majority are found alive.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-missinggirl-data/kidnapped-children-make-headlines-but-abduction-is-rare-in-u-s-idUSKCN1P52BJ

[stopdiggin]

34. the kids are not going missing on account of some 'dirt bag' snatching them

(at least that is the very, very rare exception) - and that is the myth that a lot of people are trying to push back against.

In order to combat the problem (and it is a problem) - we need to have an accurate understanding of what the problem is.
And that ain't it.

[Johnny2X2X]

39. Exactly stopdiggin

There are problems with child trafficking and child trafficking for sex. Understanding the scope and the nature of it is the key to finding solutions. The overwhelming majority of child sex trafficking is teenagers who've probably runaway from home and got mixed up with the wrong people, or are selling themselves to survive on the street. The solution to that is entirely different than the solution to if some large number of small US children were being kidnapped and sold into slavery each year.

Just stating 788,000 kids go missing in the US every year isn't helpful, especially when it's being implied that all or most of them are being sold into the child sex slave industry.

[midwestoperator]

29. Having lost a cousin because her "ideal home"

Sent her to a religious camp in the late 70s/early 80s.

From there as a 16 year old went on a mission trip to Mexico with her caretakers and never returned. Some of the Q'Anon themes are a complete crock but there is a very scary and FAMILIAR element to them to some people like me.

Some of you really hurt the problem by talking about things you have no experience with!

[GP6971]

31. Welcome to DU.

[obamanut2012]

32. Which Qanon themes do you think are not a crock?

Since you only think some are.

[NotVeryImportant]

33. It's not as rare as you think.

However, what the lunatic rightwingers are saying about it, is false, as usual.

[LeftInTX]

35. There was a girl in Dallas who was recently trafficked

She was abducted at a Dallas Maverick's game

https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/parents-speak-out-after-their-15-year-old-girl-disappeared-from-a-mavericks-game-with-sex-traffickers/

It was a big story because her dad went to the police and they didn't do anything. They pointed to competing suburban police jurisdictions. She was found in a motel in Oklahoma City. Located via a PI

_______________


So yeah, it does happen. I'm not following all this crazy Q stuff. I have no idea what their methods/means or even motives are because they're crazy. I'm sure they're using human trafficking to push some crazy narrative, but they're so crazy. The girl that was killed on Jan 6th (the heavy set girl who was trampled on) got hooked on that Wayfair child trafficking Q-anon thing and that's why she was there. She had never voted in her life. Q-anon doesn't make sense to me, but they fool gullible people.

[Johnny2X2X]

40. It can and does happen

But this story was so rare it made national headlines. And it was a 15 year old girl lured away by people promising to party with her. Still a terrifyig story, but not the same as some 6 year old boy being snatched off the streets of the Dallas suburbs and sold to some billionaire in a foreign country as a sex slave who will also be used in the organ trade.

[Mr. Scorpio]

45. Bingo