On September 28th, adults and students from the St. Louis area met in the Mary Queen of Peace grade school gym to learn about a rising problem in St. Louis: sex trafficking. Based on statistics from the United Nations, sex trafficking is a 9.5 billion dollar business, and this year the Department Of Justice has identified the top twenty cities for human trafficking in the country. St. Louis is number twenty.

The seminar at Mary Queen of Peace was an opportunity for St. Louis citizens to gain more knowledge on sex trafficking. They were taught what to look for, what to do, and how to make a difference. The Exchange Initiative, an organization that is working to stop the trafficking of children in St. Louis, led the informational seminar. The goal of the Exchange Initiative is education. Through education, the organization believes it can spread the word on the horrors of sex trafficking, and finally bring an end to this form of modern day slavery.

Three topics were discussed throughout the night: how do men, women, boys and girls enter the sex trade, where do pimps or leaders of the trade sell their girls and boys, and how do we help end sex trafficking in St. Louis. “Children make up the majority of slaves, and a pimp can make $150,000-$200,000 per child each year and the average pimp has 4 to 6 girls” (U.S. Justice Department, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children). In most cases, children who enter the sex trade are in unsteady mental situations or have a bad or nonexistent home life. Pimps are master manipulators who look for children with insecurities to pry upon. These men or women do this by gaining the trust of a girl or boy. Once the pimp is trusted he or she will either bring the child or mid-adult into the slave trade through promises, threats, or kidnappings. In the case of promises, the pimp will promise his or her slave a modeling career, financial support, or a steady job. When pimps make threats, they threaten their slave with their family, child or friends. Threatening with, “If you leave, I will hurt your family.” The rarest form of immersion into the sex trade is through kidnappings. However, whether the child was kidnapped, threatened or cohorted through promises, he or she is exploited.  The seminar made a large point about the process of exploitation: most children are exploited through internet ads. In response to this exploitation, the Exchange Initiative has come up with a powerful and unique way to turn internet exploitation into a means of helping victims. They created an app.

The app TraffickCam, “Allows anyone with a smartphone to help fight sex trafficking by uploading photos of hotel rooms when they travel. Sex traffickers regularly post photos of victims posed in hotel rooms in their online advertisements. Investigators can use these as evidence to find victims and prosecute perpetrators if they can determine where the photos were taken” (Exchange Initiative). 

TraffickCam creates a database of hotel room images that investigators can efficiently search. Features such as patterns in the carpeting, furniture, room accessories and window views are matched against the database of traveler images to provide law enforcement with a list of potential hotels where a victim photo may have been taken” (Exchange Initiative). At the seminar, Principle of the Exchange Initiative Molly Hackette and Director Kimberly Ritter, walked listeners through the app’s creation and the app’s goal of helping law enforcement rescue sex trafficking victims. Ms.Hackette said, “Exchange Initiative is committed to combating commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). We stand firm in our resolve to protect all children and will unite with others in various industries to bring awareness and networking to the issue of domestic minor sexual exploitation.”

Overall, the Exchange Initiative educated citizens of St. Louis to be more aware and conscience about their surroundings. For the Exchange Initiative education is key, because with educated minds, come minds that can make a difference. In the Loretto Student Leadership Vision Statement, the students of Nerinx Hall are called to fight for justice, and initiate change across the world. In this same way Nerinx women must know themselves and their world. These goals are first initiated through the education of young and growing minds.

For more information visit:

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2015/12/03/fbi-st-louis-a-top-human-trafficking-city-in-the-u-s/

https://wagner.house.gov/Human%20Trafficking%20%26%20Online%20Prostitution%20Advertising

http://www.exchangeinitiative.com/