#99THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW TO STOP CHILD TRAFFICKING
Want to stop the traffic? Here's some good news: You don’t need to speak 10 different languages. You don't need to travel to another country. You don’t need specialized training.
Trafficking happens not just across the globe but also across the street -- so you can do something right in your own backyard and make a huge difference.
And you can do that today.
Here are 99 things you can do right now to stop the traffic:
1. Investigate what’s happening in your own city. Search the name of your city and “child trafficking” or “human trafficking.” Note where, when, and how trafficking happens in your city.
2. Research if your city has an anti-trafficking task force. Search the name of your city and “anti-trafficking task force.” Go to a meeting. Ask how you can help. Volunteer. Get involved.
3. If you speak another language, offer to interpret when victims from other countries are rescued in your area or need translation during court cases.
4. Ask if your local high school or middle school has an anti-trafficking club. Offer to speak or help. If they don’t have one, help start one.
5. Do the same for your public library. If there’s not an anti-trafficking club, start one.
6. Ask if your church has a trafficking prayer group and then join it. Start one if they don’t have one.
7. Watch #31Times. Count how many times you might have seen a trafficked child right in your own town and didn’t know it.
8. Then watch #31Times with your family and talk about when you might have seen a trafficked child.
9. Discuss what you could have done so you’ll be ready next time.
10. Learn what to do: Memorize what the child looks like, what she’s wearing, who she’s with, location, tag numbers of cars, etc. and then call 911 or a hotline.
11. Learn what not to do: Don’t try to rescue her yourself. Don’t try to be a hero. Don’t draw attention to yourself.
12. Share what you’ve learned with others. With your kids. Their schools. Your neighbors. Your church. Your social media platforms.
13. Post #31Times memes on social media, 2 memes per day for 31 days. Use the #31Times hashtag.
14. Recognize the tactics traffickers use. They don’t abduct; they recruit. This is key to stopping the traffic because if you think traffickers abduct, you’ll still be looking for a “white van snatching kids”…when all the time traffickers are at work right in front of you.
15. Understand why traffickers recruit. They want kids bonded to them so they won’t run. So they spend months recruiting them. It’s the Stockholm syndrome.
16. Now that you know what’s happening in your own city, learn what your state is and isn’t doing to stop the traffic.
17. Search the name of your state and “child trafficking” or “human trafficking.”
18. Note where, when, and how trafficking happens in your state.
19. Find your state in Shared Hope International’s State-by-State Report cards.
20. Research if your state has a Safe Harbor law or other laws to protect sexually exploited children from being prosecuted for prostitution.
21. Call your state representatives, attorney general, and governor if you don’t like what you see on your state report card, and get something started.
22. Research if your state has an anti-trafficking task force. Search the name of your state and “anti-trafficking task force.” Go to a meeting. They’ll be involved in a wide array of anti-trafficking activities and regularly need volunteers. Choose something and get involved.
23. Stop saying your state is #1 in the US or a hot spot or other such non-quantifiable statistics. Trafficking hides in the shadows so no one has exact numbers. And it’s not a contest.
24. Learn the top two ways kids are trafficked in the US: (1) Online and (2) in their own schools—because traffickers can be other kids who are trafficked themselves. Their job is to recruit your child.
25. Teach your kids that. Protect them so they don’t become victims.
26. Research the many trafficking-prevention curriculums available to help you. National Educators to Stop Trafficking has a list. Born2Fly has curriculums for young children and teens downloadable in 12 languages including Hindi, Russian, Spanish, Thai, and more. Love 146, My Life My Choice, and other organizations have trained and licensed educators who can teach their programs to your children.
27. Find the one that’s right for you and teach it your kids.
28. Organize a neighborhood event to teach other kids.
29. Involve parents and grandparents in the training. They need to learn the material as much as their kids do.
30. Share it with your church youth leader. Explain that one of the prime places where traffickers recruit is church youth groups. Traffickers send already trafficked kids to do the recruiting. Youth groups aren’t immune. In fact they’re a target.
31. Offer to teach trafficking-prevention classes for parents and kids at your public library.
32. Research if your state requires trafficking-prevention training in K-12 schools. Many states do.
33. If your state doesn’t, start a campaign to require it.
34. Volunteer to be on the citizens’ team to research and recommend curriculums to schools.
35. Find out if your state requires trafficking-prevention training in foster homes and group homes. Many states do.
36. If your state doesn’t, start a campaign to require it.
37. Volunteer to be on the citizens’ team to research and recommend curriculums to foster homes and group homes.
38. Read the US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which covers the latest trafficking situations in 188 countries and territories.
39. Add international hotlines on your phone if you travel internationally.
40. Practice the international hand signal for “I need help,” which trafficking victims (among others in need) can use to ask for help.
41. Learn about internet safety because in the west one of the top two ways traffickers recruit kids is online.
42. Watch Shared Hope International’s internet safety series.
43. Choose one or two of those videos to watch and discuss with your kids.
44. Investigate what apps are on your kids’ phones, like the ones Vets for Child Rescue calls red-flag apps. Many of them are hidden, even disguised (for example as a calculator app).
45. Talk to your kids about them. And uninstall them.
46. Share this information with your neighborhood, community, church, library, and more.
47. Study the 3 P’s of anti-trafficking and decide which one you’re called to: Protection (rescues and after care), prosecution (writing laws, law enforcement of traffickers both buyers and sellers), or prevention (awareness training, reaching kids before the traffickers do).
48. Learn common myths about child trafficking. Read Love146’s fact sheet and 10 facts about child trafficking.
49. Post graphics for the 10 facts on your social media.
50. Watch Love146’s End Child Trafficking web series.
51. Watch Connect the Dots to understand how trafficking is just one of seven industries that partner together.
52. Read books about child trafficking such as Audacious, Born to Fly (for kids and tweens), Terrify No More, Born for Rescue, Renting Lacy, Made in the USA, The Least of These, and Sex Trafficking Prevention.
53. Donate copies of those books to your town’s middle schools, high schools, and public libraries.
54. Lobby Congress and your state legislature to take a stronger stand against trafficking. First research what anti-trafficking bills are up for vote and which ones need to be written. Then call, email, and meet with your legislators.
55. Intern with your local task force or a national or international organization that has intern programs like International Justice Mission or the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
56. Get a degree that supports anti-trafficking work. Find information on universities, degrees, and specialized programs here, here, and here.
57. Pray.
58. Organize a prayer group in your church, neighborhood, or school. You don’t need a crowd; aim for 3 or 4 people who will show up and pray.
59. If you know people or organizations that fight trafficking, ask how you can pray for them—then add them to your group’s prayer list.
60. Check with them regularly for updated prayer needs.
61. Sign up for text alerts from United Abolitionist whenever a victim is identified or recovered.
62. Pray for survivors in your area. They’re all around you and they need prayer.
63. Pray for law enforcement and agencies that rescue victims and arrest traffickers.
64. Don’t say every trafficker should burn in hell. They need freedom, too—just a different kind. Pray for them, too.
65. Don’t watch porn. If you buy child porn, you buy children. If you watch child porn, you traffic children. You are a child trafficker.
66. If you’re addicted to porn, you can get help here, here, and many other places. Ask for it.
67. Listen to survivors tell their stories on podcasts such as Emancipation Nation, Persons With Lived Experiences, and others.
68. Look for ways to help survivors while protecting their anonymity and security. Your local human trafficking task force can direct you—for example, buy backpacks and fill them with supplies for rescued victims.
69. Host a film festival of films, videos, and documentaries that share stories of survivors. There are hundreds and you can find them online.
70. Search “art therapy programs for trafficking survivors.” If a university near you has a program, offer to organize an art exhibition.
71. Or fund it.
72. Don’t blame the victim. Don’t ask, “Why doesn’t she just leave?” Don’t say, “She secretly asked for this.” Don’t judge “how she dresses.” Don’t condemn. Remember, traffickers recruit. No one enlists.
73. Plan for January’s annual Human Trafficking Awareness Month. Plan now to host an event. People will want to know how to help so show them #99Things.
74. Research if the industry you work in has industry-specific anti-trafficking training—because trafficked kids and their captors could show up on your doorstep. Get trained and train others on how to spot them and what to do. These industries have training available:
76. Emergency rooms
78. Pro-life centers
79. Educators
80. Airline industry
81. Interstate bus and train industry
87. Nail salons
88. Service workers
90. Retail industry
91. Uncover what’s hidden in your supply chain. Were kids involved in producing what you buy? What you eat?
92. Ask who makes your chocolate. Buy fair trade.
93. Ask who caught the fish on your dinner plate. Buy fair trade.
94. Who makes those cheap trinkets you buy for a dollar? Pay a few dollars more for something a child didn’t go blind producing for you.
95. Where do your jewelry and your gifts come from? Shop online at organizations like Trades of Hope and the Starfish Project that help women and girls experience freedom from trafficking and exploitation, establish independence, and develop careers.
96. Discover which companies knowingly facilitate sex trafficking. Check the annual Dirty Dozen List. If you buy from any of them, ask them to stop trafficking kids and adults. If they refuse, stop buying their products.
97. Give. There are thousands of anti-trafficking organizations—large and small—in the US alone and most of us need funds. Constantly. Find one that resonates with your heart (prevention, protection, or prosecution) and donate. Become a partner. Invest in what we do. We’ll be absolutely thrilled to partner with you to end this horror.
98. Maximize the impact of everything you’ve read here by sharing #99Things with others. Post one a day for 99 days on your social media platforms using the #99Things hashtag.
99. “Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter” (Zechariah 11:4 NAS).
You don't have to do everything. Start with one thing. Start today.
Help us reach kids before
the traffickers do:
