Child Sex Trafficking Starts at Home

In this episode of One in Ten, Teresa Huizar speaks with Dr. Vanessa Bouché, research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, about child sex trafficking and the 25-year impact of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). The conversation delves into the origins and patterns of child sex trafficking, the federal and state legislative responses, and the importance of empirical data in shaping effective policies. Dr. Bouché shares insights from her studies, highlighting the intersection with other forms of child abuse and the need for increased prevention efforts. The episode also explores the role of technology and corporate accountability in combating trafficking, and the importance of addressing the root causes and behaviors leading to both victimization and perpetration. 

Time  Topic 

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction 

00:24 The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) 

01:25 Dr. Bouché 's Journey into Human Trafficking Research 

03:15 Challenges in Data Collection and Prosecution 

04:12 Federal vs. State Prosecutions 

06:39 Trends and Challenges in Human Trafficking Cases 

14:48 The Role of Technology and Online Exploitation 

18:28 Prevention and Legislative Gaps 

24:06 Corporate Accountability and Public Responsibility 

31:48 Intersectionality and Vulnerable Populations 

37:28 Future Research and Concluding Thoughts 

Resources:

• Federal Human Trafficking Prosecution Data: Identifying Trends, Gaps, and Disparities to Advance Evidence-Based Reforms

Transcript

Teresa Huizar:  Hi, I'm Teresa Huizar, your host of One in Ten.  In today's episode, Child Sex Trafficking Starts at Home, I speak with Dr. Vanessa Bouché, Research Fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin.  Now, 25 years ago, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act or TVPA was signed into law, the first legislation to recognize human trafficking as a distinct federal crime.  

And while the toll trafficking takes on its survivors has been the subject of media attention in movies, far less attention has been paid to federal prosecution of these cases, the criminal defendants within them, and how and where trafficking originates.  As you will hear much of what we're learning about child sex trafficking lies in the face of stereotypes, public perceptions, and myths. 

What has TVPA achieved in its 25 years? What are the implications of what we've learned over that time and where should we be focused moving forward as we address this terrible scourge? I know you'll be as interested in this conversation as I was. Please take a listen.  

Hi Vanessa. Welcome to One in Ten.  

Vanessa Bouché: Hi.  Good to be with you.  

TH: So I'm wondering, how did you first come to this work, really looking at human trafficking cases and especially federal prosecutions of them? 

VB: When I came to this work, really, I mean, it goes back a long ways when I was in college actually, but fast forwarding to when I actually started looking at federal prosecutions, I started by kind of assessing that there was a lack of empirical data on the issue of human trafficking in the United States. So much of what we knew, and this is going back to like 2008, so much of what we knew was very anecdotal or journalistic in nature, and also very international. And there wasn't a whole lot of empirical research on human trafficking in the United States. 

And so I started by just asking the question of, well, what data can I actually have access to, and I really just started collecting data on state level policies on human trafficking, and I was, I started coding every single state law on human trafficking according to various criteria. And then I asked the question, okay, this is great, it's theoretically excellent that states are passing laws on human trafficking and elevating the issue within their states and among the public. However, we don't necessarily know if these laws are effective. And so that led me to ask the question of, well, how do we know if the laws are effective? And of course, there's lots of ways we can answer and ask that question of defining what effective means. 

But once again, if I was gonna answer that question empirically, then I needed to have data on effectiveness. And so I thought, well, so many of the laws prioritize criminalization over many other things, and so let me see if these laws are leading to the outcomes in terms of prosecutions that we would want or expect. 

So that led me to then start collecting data on prosecutions. Collecting data on state level prosecutions is very, very difficult because every state has very different systems and you pretty much have to go down to the district court level or state by state, the county district, and that's, that was just really difficult, really onerous. 

So I started looking at federally prosecuted human trafficking cases and you know, there are some reasons why we might, I mean, arguably you could say how would state law impact federal prosecutions? Those are two different levels of government, but there actually are reasons to believe that state law would impact federal prosecution. 

So that's kind of how I came to it, was what is data that I could wrap my arms around that I actually have access to on human trafficking to try to understand the issue better as well as understand whether we see state laws actually being effective in producing the outcomes that we would want.   

TH: So I'm glad you decided to pursue the federal side of it. 

 'cause I think many of us who work both statewide and federally have a lot of curiosity about how it's all played out. And one of the things that I appreciated about the paper is it started by reminding us just how recent a federal law prohibiting human trafficking actually is, and I knew it at the time, I think. 

But you know, the fact that it's as recent as 2000, that feels strange to me. Do you know what I mean? Like, it feels like something that should have existed longer than that. And so it's like, wow. 25 years. That's interesting. So it's an interesting time period to look at, even though the paper looks at a slightly shorter window than that. 

I think it's a good moment in time for kind of an assessment about how all of that has played out.   

VB: Absolutely. I think 25 year retrospective is what we need right now. What has worked, what hasn't, and how do we move forward?  

TH: Now when we're talking about that, your paper, and just for the listeners who haven't read it yet, and I hope they do, but it covers not only, even though this is a podcast that really is dedicated to child abuse and those types of issues, it covers a wider view because it covers also crimes against adults, so labor trafficking, adult sex trafficking, and minor sex trafficking. 

Is that right?  Talk to me a little bit about, first of all, what were you expecting when you went into this? And the reason I'm asking is because when I first saw that there was a paper and started reading it, I was like, oh, great. This could be so awesome to read all about all the federal prosecutions, even though I'm aware that a lot of prosecutions happen on the state level, never make it federally, that's fine. 

But still, even with that. I was expecting a number much higher than we actually saw for the totality of that by 2022. So by 2022, there were nearly 2,400 cases, which involved slightly more than 12,000 victims. And I mean, maybe that wasn't shocking to you, but frankly it was to me because it sort of felt, not that they're not all critically important. We want to see every last one of them that occurred, but it felt a little underwhelming, honestly. So what were you expecting and how did you react just to the numbers when you first saw the data that was available?  

VB: I agree with you. I mean, we know that the problem of human trafficking and the number of victims over the past 25 years is much, much higher than 12,000, right? Like we know that the problem is more pervasive than what the federal prosecution's data would have you believe. There's lots of reasons, I think why we don't see higher numbers and, you know, we can go into some of those reasons. So for example, as you said, this is only federal cases, and I did a project years ago where we did look at state prosecutions and federal prosecutions, and even though it was very difficult to identify, I would say probably like a critical mass of state level  prosecutions, what we found was that from 2000 to about 2011-ish, there were significantly more federal prosecutions of human trafficking than there were state level prosecutions. 

But then in about 2011, we actually see a shift where states started taking on more cases than the Feds. So that is one thing to keep in mind is that this is only federal prosecutions, and because of the fact that we saw kind of this shift in states taking on more cases, we are missing out on a huge number of cases just from this dataset alone. 

Now, the reason why we saw that shift is the federal law was passed, as you said, in the year 2000. That was a standalone criminalization statute for human trafficking, and the first states did not criminalize human trafficking until 2003. And in 2003, there were two states that criminalized it. It was Texas and Washington State. 

Then you begin to see from 2003 to about 2015, like a lot of states following suit, and so by, I believe it was 2015, 16, 17, finally all 50 states had criminalized human trafficking. So therefore, it makes sense that from 2000 to about 2011, it was vast majority federal cases. Then when more states started catching up, their criminalization laws started catching up. The state started taking on more cases, but there's also a lot of other nuance that whether a case goes state or federal, you know, obviously if it's trafficking within that one specific state, then it can be prosecuted at the state level, but it can also still be prosecuted at the federal level. 

But if it involves many, many states, typically, then it would be prosecuted at the federal level, anti-trafficking task forces at the state level, oftentimes are comprised of both state and federal law enforcement officials. And so there's a lot of negotiating that goes on between a state and federal law enforcement officials regarding who is best equipped to take on this for prosecutorial reasons. 

And sometimes it's just simply a matter of either capacity or what level we think we can get the highest criminal penalties at. And so some states are extremely harsh in their criminal penalties, or there may be a particular judge that is very harsh, and so in that case it might go to the state level versus the federal or whatever. 

So there's negotiating that goes on, but I do think it's really, really important to note these are only federal cases, and so we are missing out on probably the vast majority of cases taking place at the state level. It's also really important to note when it comes to child sex trafficking, because what we know is that the majority of child sex trafficking in the United States does take place locally. 

In other words, child victims are much less likely to be physically transferred across state lines. The big caveat to that, of course, is that if they're being trafficked on the internet, which of course is interstate commerce, in which case it could be a federal case. So those are all kind of different nuances to keep in mind. 

TH: Yes. And you know, I appreciated you detailing them because the listeners deal with these nuances every day in that they're providing services to victims and those victims, their cases are complex. And often the decisions that you are talking about being made around prosecution are made in a very pragmatic way. 

You know, who has the capacity? And also, who does the victim trust? Who are they most likely to testify for? I mean, they're just a lot of really practical things. So thank you for noting that. I'm just wondering, there's a figure in the paper that really demonstrates the trend line over time, and certainly it's had its peaks and valleys, I guess you would say, as a part of that, but overall, the trend line, at least at the time, that the data that you were looking at stopped was just going up if you looked at five year increments, and so I'm wondering, what you think about that, especially in light of what you just said, which is that states also are getting more savvy and have more capacity to do this. Many states do have their own human trafficking task forces. There are more resources available than ever. I mean, never enough, but more resources available than ever within states. 

What is your expectation about the next five years? If you were to look at the data, do you expect that the trend will have continued upward federally? Or do you think that there's likely to have been more of an effect based on what you're seeing or have seen in the states, which is not covered by your paper, I realize, I'm asking you to speculate.  

VB: Yeah. Well, it's a really interesting question because you're right from 2000 to about 2000 18, 19, 20, every year was almost like.  More and more and more, right? There was an upward trend. Then all of a sudden, we started to see less cases being prosecuted and there's another organization that collects data on federal human trafficking prosecutions, and they have a slightly different search criteria than we do. 

So while there's a vast majority of our cases overlap, there's some cases that don't overlap. But regardless, they also show a downward trend and the Bureau of Justice Statistics also produces a report every year on the aggregate number of cases. And they also have a totally different search parameters than we do, and they also show a decrease. 

So no matter what data set you look at, we are starting to see a decrease in cases from about the year 2019, and it really is a quandary as to why. Nobody really for sure knows why we've seen a decrease. I mean, we know that as administrations change, priorities change the way that trafficking gets framed and the prioritization of different types of trafficking at the federal level based on administrative priorities also may change the way the Department of Justice is looking at these cases or allocating resources to, to prosecute the cases and even to investigate the cases. 

So I really don't know why we have seen this decrease. We can speculate, but there's no silver bullet as to how we can explain it other than potentially shifting priorities. The reason that's really problematic, however, is because, and what is also important to note is of course, those were the COVID years. 

So that may also be part of the issue as well, is that those were the years it was, everything was weird during that time it so closed down. And so that, I'm sure that was also part of the reason we saw a decrease. 

The reason this is a problem, however, is because we also know during COD that cases of child abuse were on the rise. And we also start to see this trend of what's called online interactive sex trafficking. Where people are trafficking their own children over the internet for live interactive sex acts, and that is a form of trafficking and that's only increased and I believe will only continue to increase as technology continues to make it easier and easier, as accessing the dark web becomes easier and easier, as putting your child out there, but then putting a deep fake on top of them becomes easier. I mean, there's all kinds of reasons why I think that this trend will increase. So it's troubling to me that we saw a decrease when during that same time period, we know that children being stuck at home in abusive situations was potentially leading to increased exploitation.   

TH: Interesting. It seems to me that while there are never enough resources, it's not as though that the federal government over this last 25 years hasn't made very significant investments, especially when you're talking about child sexual exploitation that involves kids and trafficking that involves minors. 

So I'm wondering, in your view, what would it take to see a significant increase? There's an issue around priorities, but priorities are also tied to budget. And it's not as though during those years there was some tremendous decline in funding for child sex trafficking, for example. And so aside from simply placing more emphasis on it, what do you think it would take to see a significant increase in federal prosecution of human trafficking cases, whether they involve kids or adults?  

VB: Number one obviously is political will. I mean, let me back up and say I do not believe that we can ever prosecute our way out of this problem.  Law enforcement is not the silver bullet here, and nobody should be putting all of the pressure on law enforcement to be tackling this issue. The issue is way, way, way bigger than law enforcement resources will ever be able to tackle, and so, let me just preface it by saying that really it requires so much more than that. I mean, it requires going into schools and educating students themselves on de-stigmatizing issues around child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation so that the children are not feeling the stigma and the pain. I mean, they're going to feel stigma and pain no matter what, but to the extent that safe adults in their lives can destigmatize it so that they feel safe enough to make an outcry, that is going to go a long way. 

I think that there's more educating we need to do even in schools around tech safety, so that, that's one thing. Parents also have better, they can do better in terms of their own educating of themselves and their own children on these issues. So I think there's a lot of prevention work that we need to do that we need to prioritize. 

In another study that I did, looking at state laws across human trafficking, and we classified 20 different anti-trafficking provisions and state laws, and we classified them by prevention, protection, and prosecution. And what we found is that. The vast majority of states are significantly under legislated, let's say in the prevention category. 

So things like, you know, mandating education for students or education for teachers, stuff like that, or mandating, even child sexual exploitation screening among system involved youth, like those are much less focused on legislatively than the especially protection and prosecution types of policies.  

All that to say we have to focus on prevention as much as, if not more than the prosecution. 'cause if we can prevent it, then we don't need as many prosecutions. So that would be the goal. But as far as seeing more prosecutions, I think that there are, I think there's still some legislative work that really needs to be done.  

I think that we ought to be holding some of the tech platforms more accountable for content that they allow on their platforms than we currently do. So section 230 of the Federal Communications Act is, it really protects them. It protects tech companies, and it basically says that they're immune from. it's not their fault or their problem that people put certain content on their platforms, but I think if we held them accountable, then they would have to take better care in their trust and safety initiatives to prevent this from happening or to, so again, goes back to like holding corporations accountable, all of these types of things. 

TH: Well, let's unpack a couple of these. 'cause I think that I know there's so much, there's so much. I do like the fact very much that you're talking about how we get upstream from this, because I do think that in general, societally, our impulse is to deal with something after a terrible thing has happened and to focus almost all of our attention there. 

And at first it needs to be, 'cause if you have a gap in the law, you need to fill that gap. But we never seem to quite turn our attention to how do we get upstream from this? Because law enforcement is never going to be able to investigate all the potential cases that exist. Prosecutors are never gonna be able to prosecute their way out of this, as you say. 

So what can we do to make sure that kids are not falling into this in the first place? And I think that why do you, I guess I'm curious, do you see any sort of positive variants? Any examples? Maybe it's in a state where, you go, okay, this state, even though most states don't have adequate prevention laws themselves, and there are gaps there, here's an example of what they put into place that could be replicated federally or in other states if it needs a 50 state solution to that. 

Is there any sort of, you know, shining star, and you don't even have to name the state, but is there just some example where you're like, you know what, they really got that right.   

VB: I mean, there are some states that have, like when we look across all 20 of those trafficking provisions that we assessed, some states have passed like 18 out of the 20, and other states have passed like seven out of the 20. 

Like for example, I think Florida, Tennessee, and Washington State have about 18 out of the 20, whereas like Idaho has seven. So significant variability. That being said, just because a state passes the law does not mean that the law is being implemented effectively. And so what I cannot speak to is how well they're doing these things. 

Like they have them on the books, but I don't know, really genuinely don't know how they're being implemented or how well they're being implemented. I also know that some states don't have the legislative provisions for certain things, but there are agency prerogatives, so they're being like defacto implemented. 

But they're just not de jore within the law. In fact, I had a call yesterday with three people in New York state who kind of run a lot of the anti-trafficking programs there at the state level. And we talked about the state report with the legislative provisions in it and they said, you know, just so you know, yes, we don't have this legislatively, but we're doing it and we actually don't want a legislative provision because if we're mandated to do it by the legislature, they can mandate us to do it in a way that actually is not how we think it needs to be done. Like we are the subject matter experts. The legislators are not, and they may write a law that is not actually in the best interest of how we think this needs to be done. That was a very interesting conversation and very interesting feedback. 

So even, you know, if a state doesn't have a law, doesn't mean that they're not doing something about it  

TH: It also doesn't mean someone else couldn't do something about it. You know, to your point. If we already have examples that exist where folks have said, okay, a law doesn't exist, but there's enough flexibility in the existing law that we can do these things, then. 

You know, it still gives hope that those things can be done. I think your point is well taken too about tech companies. I think that as long as we keep avoiding the way in which these platforms proliferate wrongdoing, essentially, it's almost like they're custom made for it, even though they're not. But you know, offenders are inventive and they will find ways to use whatever technology exists to amplify their efforts.  

I felt that for a while, even though it was like a little bit like a drop in the ocean, right? I mean content moderation and all of that, the scale that that has to be done in order to make any sizable impact is really significant and fast. But it seemed like there was a period of time in which companies felt a public good obligation to make efforts. Now, some made more efforts than others, some made very little efforts, or had to be forced into efforts or shamed into them, or whatever. Other people seem to take seriously, even though they might not be doing it at scale, take seriously some responsibility for this.  

What does it feel like in this moment? What's the current climate as you observe it?  Because to me it feels like there's been a retrenchment and sort of abandonment of that responsibility in many quarters.   

VB: Yeah, it's so complicated. I think that there's more and more information coming out, even from whistleblowers within some of these tech companies who are saying like, at the end of the day, they care more about their bottom line, than they care about the exploitation of children on their platform. They have these large trust and safety teams. And I do think that it's interesting 'cause it's like as the political wind blows, so too do corporate policies.  And I think we've seen that with these tech companies. I think that until the public, because the public are the users of these platforms, right? 

And so until the public says, we are not going to use this platform anymore until we have certain assurances that you care about the people being exploited on this platform, and you're taking accountability for it.  They're not incentivized to do anything about it.  Like if people continue to use their platform and they continue to make billions of dollars through advertising because people are advertising there, because that's where people go for their content, they're just not gonna be incentivized to do anything. 

And if the law doesn't require it, if there's no financial implication to them.  Based in the law, you know, then I just don't see how they're going to be incentivized otherwise. So it's either public outrage that shames them and that ultimately impacts their stock value and their bottom line. Or it's forcing them to do it punitively through legislative measures and having that impact their bottom line. 

But right now, neither of those two things are happening. 

TH: Which leaves ultimately kids at such risk. And when you add to that this lack of prevention education that you're talking about, it seems like it's sort of cultivated the perfect storm in which I can imagine many parents feel exhausted and hypervigilant trying to keep their child safe, but in an environment where they may not have all the information or tools they need, that they know their children don't have all the tools they need, and yet there are algorithms that are feeding content to them or giving random people access to them in ways that it's hard for them to adequately prevent.   

VB: Yes, and I mean, speaking as a mother of two teenage daughters, it is exhausting. And I work in this field and I still don't know what is what, half the time. Right. So like where I feel the most power is my ability to just essentially shut down their phones and not give them access to many apps, period. But it is completely exhausting for a parent and the rate at which our tech is changing, especially with AI now,  I think it only is increasing. The vulnerability of children and our laws are just so woefully behind, and we have Section 230 and we have a First Amendment, 

TH: That pesky First Amendment, right? 

VB: Right. I mean, I am a huge proponent of free speech. Like I love everything about the First Amendment. The problem is when our different forms of speech, whether it's symbolic speech or whatever, when it begins to impinge on somebody else's rights and safety. And that is what's happening, right? 

And so I just think that we have real constitutional questions that we need to answer for the future. We have corporate accountability questions that we need to answer for the future. There's just, there's, there's, there's a lot.  

TH: What I was thinking of as you were talking, Vanessa, is that in some ways human trafficking as kind of, odd that this would be so, but it's a microcosm of the challenges in our society right now overall in a lot of ways, and you can see that play out in the things that you're talking about, the need for more corporate accountability, the tension between speech and safety and some of these other things. 

And then also just to what extent we value children, do we value them enough to protect them and to elevate their safety over other competing interests or do other competing interests outweigh ultimately the safety of children and the parental rights to keep them safe even? Which I think is also interesting.  

One of the things that your paper, I felt like also did was debunk a couple of myths that have been out there for a while. And while we won't have time to talk about all of those, one of the ones that I was struck by, which is something that I have been, well, I'll tell you why I was struck by it. I'm gonna own my own bias here. 

I've been running around saying I don't know why. Every time we talk about trafficking, everybody only wants to talk about foreign trafficking. They wanna start talking about somebody from Thailand, somebody from Myanmar, somebody. Do you know what I mean? Like for those of us in child abuse, it's so aggravating because we do know that often it's a parent. It's a relative, it's almost always somebody known to the child. It's not some random stranger off the street. However, it has felt for a long time, like media attention and the public discourse is always about some island, somewhere that trafficking is happening. 

And I thought it was so interesting in your paper because even though this has been aggravating me, just based on what we see in children's advocacy centers.  At the same time, it's not like there was a lot of data floating around out there either. And so I was excited to see these data points that yes, in labor trafficking you have more of this sort of international element. 

And certainly with online exploitation that can come from anywhere.  But so much of this is really happening and created and cultivated right here at home. What does that mean for what we should be doing policy-wise? What does this mean in terms of the way in which policymakers should treat that data point? 

VB: This is such an important thing and to understand and to realize that the survivors of minor sex trafficking or child sex trafficking in the United States, at least as far as the data that we have from federal prosecutions, which is not a prevalence measure, you know, it's not a prevalence measure, but the vast 97% of those victims are American citizens.  

I think that's a really, really, really critical data point because what it suggests is that the most important thing to note about trafficking is the intersection with other forms of adverse childhood experiences. And so all of those things that lead to many other outcomes are what we see for victims of child sex trafficking in the United States. It's all of the issues. All of the things on the ACEs are those exact same things that we see in victims of sex trafficking. The other thing that I think is really, really important to note is that although my research on this is still unfolding and somewhat preliminary, I interview people who were prosecuted for trafficking in federal prisons. 

 So these are people that were convicted of trafficking federally, and I interviewed them in prison. And the really fascinating thing that I found was that the same push and pull factors that lead someone to become vulnerable as a victim also leads someone to become vulnerable as an exploiter. That was not something that I went into these interviews hypothesizing. That's not what I intended to find, but that is what I found. And so that's why child abuse and neglect is, I would say one of the key things that we need to be addressing and attacking in order to address trafficking in the US, they're inexplicably linked and I'm working on a paper right now that looks at Allies Against Slavery, has collected over 130,000 screenings of system involved youth in Texas and Louisiana. And we published a report called Youth Insights Report on the screenings, and now we're looking at it from a different angle and we're showing how we oftentimes look at a child's behavior as the thing that makes them vulnerable to trafficking. So for example, a child is doing drugs, a child is running away from home, a child is delinquent at school, right? Like things that they're doing that are making them vulnerable to being picked up by a trafficker. 

What we found as we ran a different model is that those are all mediating factors. The primary factors, the real core causal root factors, are what's being done to them, right? So it's all of the abuse that they have endured predominantly from their primary caregiver that leads them to behave in a certain way, and those behaviors make them vulnerable to trafficking, but it's important to de-stigmatize those behaviors. 

They're not engaging in those behaviors for no reason. They're engaging in those behaviors because their primary caregivers who are supposed to care for and keep them safe are abusing them and exploiting them, and it's causing them to act out and to do things that make them vulnerable to it. They want love and affection, and when a trafficker shows them that initially, it's very alluring. 

And I just think that all of these things are so important. Going back to yes, the majority of child trafficking victims that we know of in the US are US citizens. They tend to be children who have endured significant childhood abuse and neglect, and all of the ways in which they've been abused and neglected lead them to certain behaviors that then make them more vulnerable to trafficking.   

TH: You said that so beautifully. I think that it just encapsulated in such a concise way what so many of us who have worked with kids have seen. We've seen that cycle over and over again, and we've tried to describe it to people and unfortunately, as you know, funding streams and laws often act in a siloed way. There's the stream for trafficking and there's the stream for child sexual abuse. There's the stream for neglect. And it's not helpful because as you are describing, it's all really interconnected. And I think if we were doing this live, you would've had a standing O from our audience on that are like, preach. 

This is our life working with these kids all the time. And to your point about stigmatizing that. I think for me, the sadness of that is that these kids, you know, often the behavior that we're dealing with is running, you know? That's often a place where it shows up and the fact that it takes us as long as it does to go, what are they running away from? 

You know,  it's people behave purposefully. So if someone's running away, what is that about? And unfortunately, I think we're just societally beginning to ask some of these key questions. Now, I could talk to you for the rest of the day about this, but we have limited time. So I have two kind of final questions. 

One is your paper outlined some areas for future exploration.  If magically dollars dropped out of the sky for more research in this space, what would you say is the top line priority where you say, this is information that if we knew it, it'd be actionable right away? It would really make a difference and be impactful.  

VB: Okay. I have to say that I really think that we are at a place where we have to do a better job with longitudinal studies, panel studies, and that explore different intervention modalities for different types of behaviors and see the final outcomes. For example, we could examine, you know, let's say trafficking survivors who are going through a certain program and just, I think we need to follow them through to see what is working and what is not working at different intervention points. So that's one thing I would say is better panel studies, longer term panel studies. So that really guides our program development. So that's one thing. And of course there's gonna be lots of conditions around that. 

So like this modality seemed to work for this type of population, but not as well for this type of population. But we only are going to really know that if we do the work to study it. And then the second thing that I would say is that there's just not enough, there's not enough research on how to prevent perpetrators. 

And so  I think perpetration also by and large begins in youth. I think that childhood sexual abuse is also a big part of that, even for perpetrators, even different types of perpetrators. And so I also think that there needs to be more research on the perpetrators, how to prevent perpetration, what their backgrounds and histories are, and then also potentially interventions for them. 

So.  Like I said, when we think about prevention, protection, and prosecution, it's always prevention of victimization, not perpetration. So we should also be looking at prevention of perpetration. It's protection for victims, which as it should be, right? How do we appropriately rehabilitate people to live holistic, flourishing lives, even after a highly traumatic event? 

But I also think that once somebody is prosecuted for trafficking or any other type of crime against children, we need to also be examining how do we protect them from recidivating, right? Like they, once they go to prison, it's pretty much we're done with them. If they get a life sentence or, and maybe many and many of them should. 

Right? So when we look at the average sentencing rate for traffickers at the federal level, it's between 7 to 15 years. And the average age that they're being prosecuted at is about 32. And then a lot of them will get out earlier at barring good behavior. But if they're, if they get out on parole or whatever, and what are we doing as far as programmatically while they're in prison, to retrain their brains into thinking differently about their behavior, understanding their behavior, where their behavior came from. 

Right. So that's another thing that I think we need to do a lot more research on.  

TH: Got so much work ahead of us. I mean, we've made some progress, but as you've talked, I've just been reminded about that we've got more work to do to protect kids, and I just appreciate all that you're doing research wise to help us do that in a way that's science-based, that is reflecting data and not just wild guesses about what might or might not work. Is there anything else I should have asked you and didn't, or anything else that you wanted to make sure that we talked about today?   

VB: I don't think so. I think the one thing that I will say is what most of my data shows up to this point is that this is not actually as “equal opportunity” of a crime as people might otherwise think. 

So oftentimes in the anti-trafficking space, you hear things like this can happen to anyone's child and theoretically, that's absolutely true, but the reality is that there are certain children that it's significantly more likely to happen to than others, and those tend to be children that are living in poverty, children who come from certain types of backgrounds and children of color. That's just the reality of the data across the board. And I think that's also something as a society that we need to contend with a little bit, is the intersectionality of oppression and the fact that these, you know, child sex trafficking survivors in the United States can be, of course, they can be any socioeconomic status, any race, any background. But the vast majority do come from a certain type of background, and I think that it's incumbent on all of us to recognize that and recognize that the, you know, there are certain areas that we can divert our resources that might be more effective than others. 

TH: Well, and to your point, for the effectiveness of program planning too. We can't avoid addressing what data actually says just because we might wish it told a different story than it tells. So that's great. Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. I think this has been such an important and helpful conversation. 

Come back anytime as you publish.  

VB: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.   

TH: Thanks for listening to One in Ten. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague and join us on YouTube at NCAforCACs to watch this full conversation. For more information about this episode or any of our other ones, please visit our podcast website at Oneintenpodcast.org.