Basically, I’ve seen posts on FB from other mothers about them being “targeted” by strange people at the store or in public. They then told employees to alert the authorities about their behavior before they fled. Is there any truth to this or is it just made up/overblown? I figured if American kids were being kidnapped and trafficked this would be major news everywhere.
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Is it common? No. Is it a thing? Yes, and not just in the US.
There is child trafficking in the US, just like everywhere else on the planet.
It is not randos at the store doing it. Vast majority of the time it will be a parent or guardian selling the child/access to the child.
Child trafficking is a thing all around the world and it certainly happens. Is it common though, I wouldn’t say so given the population rate, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem that shouldn’t be taken seriously.
It’s important to note that though stats appear high for America in this regard, most countries don’t even track such things. You’ll see a couple of African countries that appear to have low stats, but you have to look at what they classify as trafficking. Is a child sold off for marriage trafficking? Is a child made to work off a parents debt trafficking? Is a child stolen but not reported as missing, still trafficking?
Look at how other countries classify it and see how America has a much wider range for what it deems to be child trafficking.
Does it exist? Yes. Is it some rando in a grocery store you don’t like the look of? Almost definitely not.
It’s usually not average middle class kids targeted… it’s mostly kids with troubled home lives, kids who are undocumented immigrants, basically any at-risk population. They get lured away with the promise of money/independence/love/etc, it’s not often an actual snatching.
Child kidnapping is a gigantically overblown fear. Most kids who are kidnapped are kidnapped by someone they know. There’s so much misinformation which distorts reality.
Less than 350 under 21 were kidnapped on average between 2010-2019 by strangers. Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-missinggirl-data-idUSKCN1P52BJ
Sadly, Q Anon has co-opted child kidnapping statistics to help justify their existence. They claim 500k annually are kidnapped which would equate to nearly half of all 1st graders in the USA. That number is painfully out of line with reality. However, a quick google search shows this repeated time after time.
Further reading: https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-us-missing/fact-check-tweet-overstates-number-of-children-who-went-missing-in-the-united-states-in-2020-idUSL1N2SY199
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/17/58000-children-abducted-a-year-yet-another-fishy-statistic/
Yeah, near where I live this lady told a tale about how two people tried to kidnap her kids at Michael’s. She put it on instagram and called the cops. They looked into it and determined that the people she was talking about did absolutely nothing. She ended serving a short jail time for making a false police report. IMO it wasn’t enough of a punishment for basically trying to ruin the lives of two totally innocent strangers. People need to log off these damned fb groups and stop reading qanon shit.
https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/one-womans-quest-to-bring-the-karen-who-falsely-accused-her-of-attempted-kidnapping-to-justice
Yes and no.
Does it exist? Yes.
Is it random people snatching Karen’s kid out of a grocery cart? No.
One is too many
If you ever see a video of a suburban woman talking about how a zip tie was put on her car handle in a parking lot you can guarantee that it’s bullshit
I’ve heard of basically two sources.
1. Parents selling their kids for drugs. Often it’s sex trafficking, sometimes it’s just trying to ‘sell the kid for adoption’. The latter is probably a common issue with overseas adoptions, and the agencies have to be aware of the issue.
2. Children getting kicked to the street because of homophobic parents. Might be a bigger issue in homeless communities here in Los Angeles, because folks come here to escape homophobia, and the outdoors have better weather than almost anywhere else, especially compared to Midwest winters.
There is not an epidemic of kids being kidnapped from the grocery store, or criminals putting fentanyl on car door handles to kidnap young women. The people who think that are way too gullible/into conspiracy theories/listening to true crime podcasts.
Obviously there is human trafficking here, just like there is in any first world country, and sometimes children are involved. But it’s not what people freak out about on tiktok.
Is child trafficking a thing? Absolutely.
Is stranger abduction (getting kidnapped whilst shopping, filling up gas, or whatever else) a thing? Sure. Is it common, the way Facebook moms would have you believe? Hell no.
The reality is, most trafficking in America happens to kids as a result of:
1. Someone they know (family or so on.)
2. Abusers they connected with after leaving home (ie running away, and so on.)
It’s incredibly sad / heartbreaking.
The problem is, these damn Facebook moms think they and their kids are the center of the world and everyone wants to murder/kidnap them: and they end up coming up with crazy conspiracies about how a brown dude at the supermarket was about to kidnap them. The reality is, it’s much more likely to be creepy uncle Donald or crazy cousin Jane that is the abuser; but that’d require them to confront their prejudices, can’t have that …
It’s absolutely farcical and indicative of mental illness on a large scale (either that or just sheer stupidity.)
It’s a problem because their tales (lies!) take away from the very real trafficking problems that do exist.
I think most of the alerts at stores are imaginations in overdrive
American children aren’t typically involved, which is why you find some people being dismissive of child trafficking.
It is a thing with Mexican cartels but the children are mostly Central and South American these days. They are used in many ways: illegal crossing (pairing with adults if caught), muling, cheap or free labor, sex trade–the USA may not be their last stop or they may never arrive.
It’s a thing, but …
These stories are mostly a way for middle class white ladies to get attention. People are not snatching your kids away from your arms in Target.
Traffickers don’t target people when doing so will bring lots of attention. That means random kids in stores or suburban moms at Target. Any child abduction in my state triggers an alert to most cell phones, often with a vehicle description. Most of those turn out to be custodial issues, not strangers.
What kind of organized trafficker would want that level of attention?
I’m from Vancouver, Canada.
My friend was “taken” from the school yard.
Yes it does happens. However the vast majority of child trafficking is done by family members or people who know the child personally. Most other cases are kids that have been coerced through online sources. It’s incredibly rare that a person will kidnap a child in broad daylight for the purposes of trafficking.
I’m not going to act like I have real numbers on this, but I would bet almost everything I have that the vast majority of child sex trafficking in the US are situations where teenage prostitutes, probably runaways, get caught up in addiction and end up getting pimped out by someone. The other most common situation would be underage prostitutes that are brought into the country by criminal gangs and have their passports taken away to keep them from leaving. The type of sex trafficking that people imagine where someone is chained up in a basement somewhere is pretty damn rare.
It’s certainly a thing. I don’t wanna say it’s overblown because it is a serious issue, but it’s usually mentioned most by people who believe conspiracy theories about the government or people eating babies or said children who are trafficked (you may think this sounds crazy but I literally met a guy last week who said he believed all of this, and there are many who believe it. It’s really sad)
This doesn’t mean it’s not a serious issue, but it’s overblown by those people. It also, as many have mentioned, happens everywhere, not just here.
It’s the same media-generated hysteria as Satanic panic and drugs being given out as Halloween treats. To the extent that human trafficking happens, it’s basically pimps who control women through immigration status, access to drugs, and violence. It’s awful but it’s not a new phenomenon tied to new technologies and the narrative of shipping containers full of slave women being shipped around the world with impunity is a fraud perpetrated by authoritarians who seek to undermine civil liberties.
Sex trafficking of already at-risk teens seems to be the most common in the region where I live. Rural area but lots of fast summer money, drugs, tourism and transient workers. It really does happen everywhere.
Trafficking kids, or baby buying, happened more when unwed mother’s homes were more of a thing. I’m an elder millennial so I know a couple of women my age that were forced to adopt put babies when they were teen moms. Gen Xers and boomers seem to know more women in this circumstance. I’m hella pissed at the Christian right for Dobbs because I can see a return to that circumstance by virtue or forced pregnancy paired with defunded social safety nets.
Usually there’s coercion involved and it’s by someone known by the family, not a stranger.
Oh yeah, I am not all Fox news paranoid about it, but it happens. It happens enough that truck stops, truck drivers, airline gate agents, flight attendants, and hotel managers get special training on how to recognize potential trafficking victims. Last time I was at a airport there were signs on the men’s room exit about signs someone is being trafficked.
Not to be indelicate, but the thing of missing white woman syndrome is real. BUTTT, if the community is more urban and less lily white then the media tends to not give a shit.
It happens but not as much as Facebook moms would make you believe
Sex trafficking of youth does exist in America, but what most people think of when they hear the word sex trafficking isn’t the reality of youth sex trafficking. The idea that sex trafficking is someone kidnapping someone, throwing them in a van, shipping them to another country, and then leaving them in a windowless room chained to a radiator is the false narrative and does more harm than good. In actuality sex trafficking in the US is usually perpetrated by a boyfriend/girlfriend, intimate partner,family member, or member of the victims community. Also you don’t have to be relocated, moved, kidnapped, or “held hostage” to be sex trafficked. I used to be an advocate for youth survivors of sex trafficking. Feel free to ask me anything.
It’s does happen, but it is incredibly overblown, yes. Trafficking doesn’t work like that.
All (*all!*) of that bullshit you see on Facebook is pretty much schizoposting similar to the “gang stalking” stuff you hear about sometimes.
Paranoid Karens going off on nothing.
it’s not uncommon, but it’s much more subtle and the numbers are similar to other countries, but people are just genuinely dumb as fuck and seriously think traffickers are out here kidnapping everyone at the masses. kidnapping is NOT a huge risk, especially when its in countries like america.
most trafficking comes from grooming, whether it’s from family, friends or intimate partners. people are largely misinformed about what trafficking is and think because someone put a beer can under their tire that means someone’s trying to traffic them.
it’s good to be cautious, but any attempts to grab or hurt someone are usually not linked to trafficking. more often it’s another type of violent predator. a lot of people who believe in these “situations” are the same people who think the vaccine makes you magnetic and that 5G will take over the world via mind control.
So trafficking in the US is illegal trade of human, child would fall under 18. So teenagers forced into sex work is trafficking. So yes, it happens.
I know people that are scared their child is going to get abducted. I also know people that are scared to fly because they see reports of plane crashes on the news. Here in Florida, there are people that are scared to go into the ocean because they think they are going to get eaten by a shark. I have a family member that is always scared for me when I travel to Europe because of all the terrorist attacks reported on the news.
If you watch the news and you are not able to understand that the news generally only reports things that are unusual or outlandish, then the news will make you scared of everything.
Social media functions much the same way. It incentivizes people to post things that are unusual or outlandish. Those are the posts that get hits and go viral.
If you consume social media and you do not understand this, then you are susceptible to a very warped view of reality.
The podcast *You’re Wrong About* had two [excellent episodes](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTEyMjcwLnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xMzUzNDQzMA?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwio5dqs26GCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQLA) about [human trafficking](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTEyMjcwLnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC00OTI3Mjgw?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwio5dqs26GCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQNA).
If you don’t have time to listen to nearly four hours of podcast, TL;DL: human trafficking really does happen, but the version of human trafficking that people imagine (where a young child is abducted by a stranger, taken across state/country borders, and forced to perform sex acts for money) is basically non-existent.
All the noise about what people *think* human trafficking is drowns out any productive discussion about what it *actually* is.
Child trafficking happens everywhere, but I think some of these mothers are paranoid or lying. Stranger abduction is very rare.
I have a story to tell. Years ago, I was in Home Depot with my now ex husband. We split up inside the store. He went to look at whatever he needed while I was browsing tile and lighting. When I was done, I went to look for him. I was searching and searching all over the store and I could not find him. He ended up being in this little back area and he was crouched down behind some shelving which is why I couldn’t see him.
Anyways, while I was searching for him, I was approached by 2 store employees. A woman had reported that I was acting suspiciously and following her and her daughter and she was concerned I was trying to kidnap her daughter. In reality, I never even noticed this woman or her daughter, I was just focused on finding my ex.
It’s uncommon and if it happens almost every alphabet agency is doing something to combat it.
It IS a real issue, along with human trafficking in general. However, the way it is portrayed/spoken about doesn’t have a terrifically strong relationship with reality.
It’s used as a bit of a bogeyman type, nebulous scare tactic by folks; however, in the real world, real human traffickers aren’t randomly snagging kids off of the sidewalk in the suburbs or from the mall or whatever like they talk about.
QAnon has fried many people brains.
Stranger abduction is statistically fairly rare, actually one of the least common violent crimes.
If someone is targeting your kid, it’s far more likely to be a relative, teacher, religious figure, or someone else known to you.
You’re Wrong About is a podcast that did an [episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/human-trafficking/id1380008439?i=1000465289965) on this very topic.
It exists unfortunately — and it’s overblown too. Both things are true.
As a specific example: We have a Sheriff here in Florida who loves to do prostitution stings, go arrest people for jerking off at porn theaters, and also run child trafficking stings. So, he gets one or two guys for the child trafficking but lumps all these other arrests in with the press conference and makes the guys jerking off at the porn theater out to be just as bad as the pedos and ruins their lives because all he talks about is the child trafficking operation. He puts like 100 pictures up and says “look at all these people we arrested for sexual offenses” while talking only about the trafficking operation.
He’s doing good things with the trafficking but he’s overblowing how bad it is while ruining other people’s lives in furtherance of his agenda.
Way overblown
Some idiot repeated the whole “traffickers are dosing people with Fentanyl on car door handles” story on our neighborhood board recently.
It got removed pretty quickly, but the amount of morons who thought it was true…..🙄
There is likely not a country on earth where this doesn’t happen sadly.
Yes, but no. Traffickers aren’t targeting random women and children at Target.
Most child traffic victims are in the foster care system. The majority of these kids are trafficked by a guardian, parent or known adult.
There’s a misconception that when someone is trafficked they’re shipped off to a developing country. Nope. Often they stay never even leave their homes (digital trafficking) or are given by guardians to adult perpetrators and then returned back home.
Another common victim of labor trafficking are immigrants. Actually, the most common.
It happens enough to be a concern and take precautions, but it’s very rare for random kids to just get snatched. I think in a lot of cases, it’s people jumping at shadows, but I’ll never fault someone for being over cautious of their safety. Assuming it isn’t negatively impacting their life, of course.
I wonder if those Facebook stories are planted by Russian trolls in troll farms, because I have seen them, too.
Next time I see one, I am going to see if the person posting it looks like she is a real person with a real account.
What would the angle be? To make us not feel safe so we’ll be more easily driven to ideological opposites?
Criminologist here.
The overwhelming majority of child trafficking victims are from these groups
1. Drug addicts. Usually get involved in it through their dealers.
2. Runaways/homeless youth, who usually get involved with it through people offering them shelter or other services/goods.
3. Illegal immigrants. This one should unfortunately be obvious.
In most cases, the victims are all three.
This idea of some scary cartel guy snatching your normal young daughter up and trafficking her in some scary country is just a myth popularized by the movie Taken. No trafficking organization is going to risk the attention that comes from that.
Remember that young girl who was kidnapped in upstate new york? That was nationwide news. Millions of people tuned into it. Why would any trafficking group ever target a girl like that with the attention it brings, when all they have to do is stop by the local homeless encampment and find countless potential victims?
Yes, but as many said, the target is a child who no one is going to look for.
Not a child kidnapped in your local Target.
Listen to the episode about human trafficking on the You’re Wrong About podcast