Sex trafficking has been a big issue for many years and many times it is not talked about as much unless a bad situation occurs. Human trafficking can include labor trafficking and sex trafficking, but we see more sex trafficking happen in North Carolina.
Labor trafficking is where someone is forced to work for another person for little money or nothing at all and they work nonstop. Of course sex trafficking is when a female is forced to have sex with someone for money that goes to her pimp.
NC is among the top 10 states for human trafficking, which is probably pretty shocking. In Charlotte there’s a program called “Operation Cross Country.” This program is to raise public awareness and to also recover underage prostitution victims.
According to Charlotte Patch article on Oct. 18, 2017, they conducted operations in Charlotte, Raleigh, Fayetteville, and Lumberton in which they recovered three young victims.
This operation also led to 11 arrests. These are some of the ways that NC is trying to get a handle on sex trafficking and inorder for them to achieve these recoveries and arrests, they get over 500 law enforcement agencies, 55 FBI field offices, and 78 Child Exploitation Task Forces led by the FBI.
According to Charlotte Stories, there is an average of 78 sex trafficking cases each year in NC. Charlotte, NC being the number one city in the state. Attorney General Josh Stein released the numbers of human trafficking in Wake County.
According to ABC 11, Stein stated that there were 1,200 victims/survivors and 258 cases of human trafficking in 2017. NC also ranks in the top 10 states in human trafficking cases.
“Young people, even pre-teens, being forced to labor 40 hours a week and taken out of school … It shocks the conscience,” Attorney Stein stated to ABC 11.
Stein was referring to the alleged human trafficking case in Cumberland County. Human trafficking in NC is growing more and more everyday and law enforcement is trying to take the necessary steps to recover victims and implement interventions.