“Trafficking children for either labor or sex has a horrific impact
on all aspects of development—socially, physically, emotionally
and cognitively,” says Kerr. “Those children remain at risk of
being exploited via trafficking and other forms of exploitation
as adults. People who have been trafficked are at risk of being
re-trafficked even after exiting trafficking if they aren’t able
to find a way to meet their basic needs in a sustainable way.”
Adults who are trafficked may also have children who are
directly impacted by the trafficking situation.
“In the case of women or girls who are trafficked, these may
be children who are the result of rape by the trafficker or, in
the case of sex trafficking, by those who purchase them for
sex,” says Kerr. “Traffickers also commonly threaten to, and
actually do, harm the children of people they are trafficking
as a way to coerce the victim to continue working.”
Identifying the Causes
How to Protect Your Child
Protecting your child from the dangers of human trafficking
comes down to awareness: understanding what makes a
child a potential target and knowing what to do to prevent
your child from becoming a target.
According to “Human Trafficking: What Parents Need to
Know,” published on Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s website,
traffickers have been known to look for children who have:
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Behavioral problems or mental illness
Low self-esteem
Sexual minority status like LGBTQ
History of abuse or neglect
Exposure to intimate partner violence
Caregiver substance abuse or criminality
Poverty
Gang affiliation
Substance abuse
You can help reduce the risk of your child becoming a target by:
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Knowing what your kids are doing online
Knowing who your kids are with and where they
are hanging out
Teaching your children resiliency
Helping your child build strong self-esteem
from an early age
Maintaining open communication with your child
Source: www.nationwidechildrens.org
According to Patrick Kerr, Ph.D., associate professor of
behavior medicine and psychiatry at West Virginia University
and chair of the West Virginia Human Trafficking Taskforce’s
Human Trafficking Activity Monitoring Committee, human traf-
ficking affects people across a broad age range. While globally
most people who are trafficked are adults, children can become
victims as well, which can have lifelong effects.
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
In general, human trafficking is rooted in exploitation.
“Traffickers seek to profit from the exploitation of vulnerable
individuals. This applies to labor and sex trafficking,” says
Stuart. “The form of the profiting can vary. Some are traf-
ficking to support their own drug habits, but many are simply
fueled by greed and seeking to make money off the compelled
services and labor of others.”
In West Virginia, the opioid epidemic also contributes to
human trafficking.
“The opioid crisis is fueling human trafficking in the region,
and as the crisis continues, we will likely also see human
trafficking continue to grow in West Virginia,” says Stuart.
“Drug addicted adults leave their children more vulnerable to
traffickers. Drug addicted teens and adults are themselves at
a greater risk of falling into the hands of traffickers who lure
them in with promises of supporting their drug habits, and
the need to support a drug habit can also drive individuals to
themselves become traffickers.”
To better understand human trafficking in West Virginia,
Kerr is conducting a six-year study of human trafficking’s
prevalence in the state called the Mountain State Human
Trafficking Mapping Project.
“It’s important to know the scope of modern slavery in our
state, how prevalent it is and what types of slavery are occur-
ring so we know how to best direct our resources to eradicate
it,” he says. “Accurate estimates also allow us to know if we
are making a change with any efforts to reduce trafficking.”
Addressing the Problem
To address human trafficking in the Mountain State, the
West Virginia Human Trafficking Taskforce, co-chaired by
the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern and Northern
districts of West Virginia, is developing methods to obtain
more accurate reporting numbers and centralized data on the
human trafficking rates and trends.
“Sex trafficking generally appears to be the more common
type of human trafficking within the state, and that is driven
by two different factors—the opioid crisis and the increase in
the number of children in foster care,” says Stuart.
Law enforcement most frequently discovers familial human
trafficking, or the selling of a family member in exchange for
money, drugs or other items of value.