October 14th, we heard more on Educating Youth About Human Trafficking.
Jessica Bartholomew is the Executive Director of Anti Child Trafficking United (A.C.T. United). Her program today started where Karen Walkowski’s program on Human Trafficking and Rotary left off, giving us a detailed understanding of the issues our youth here in Bloomington and greater Minnesota are facing.
A.C.T. United was started in 2015 to implement sustainable action that will impact child trafficking: Education! The two fastest growing crimes affecting our youth are sex trafficking and sextortion, which we learned was finding something that will cause a person to be afraid of it being disseminated to the public. The fear is the controlling element in the relationship. The xtortion is to trade the “something” for sex or for money.
We learned some disturbing statistics. 50% of kids trafficked are trafficked by family members. In 2022, the MDH MN Student Survey showed 4,700 students in Minnesota had experienced a trafficking type of incident. Not all school districts participate in this survey. Throughout the state, between 1 to 2% of all students admit trading sex. Girls and Boys are equally victimized. 95% of teens admitted having sent an inappropriate photo of themselves to someone else. The phone in their pocket is the entry point for trafficking and sextortion with 83% of all cases starting online.
A.C.T. United provides community outreach in many forms. The photo here shows Jessica wearing the wrist bands they pass out at youth education events. They also have online resources for everyone to use and they can provide speakers or training on the issues. To get their newsletter, to donate, or for more information go to: www.actunited.org.