The Daily Signal - Human Trafficking Is World’s Fastest-Growing Crime, Activist Says

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

Human trafficking is the fastest-growing crime in the world, but too few people are talking about it, says Sophia Fisher, executive director at Stop the Demand Project and a fierce foe of human trafficking.  Fisher joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss her fight against human trafficking, how America is dealing with this horrible crime within its own borders and abroad, and what conservatives can do to lead the charge against it.    Follow Fisher's work on social media using the handles below: Instagram: @stopthedemandproject Tiktok: @stopthedemand Facebook: @stopthedemandproject Twitter: @demandstop  Also on today’s show, we read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a church that took the time to personally thank some of the unsung heroes of the coronavirus pandemic.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, April 5th. I'm Virginia Allen. And co-hosting with me today is my colleague, Doug Blair. Doug, welcome. Thank you so much. It's great to be here, Virginia. On today's show, Doug talks with Sophia Fisher, an anti-human trafficking advocate and the executive director of Stop the Demand Project.

They discuss how America is combating human trafficking at home and abroad. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good. good news story about a church that took the time to personally thank some of the unsung heroes of the pandemic. Before we get to today's show, we want to tell you about another great Heritage Foundation podcast called Heritage Explains. Heritage Explains episodes are quick and easy to listen to because host Michelle Cordero and Tim Desher break down complex policy issues using stories, clips, and expert analysis. Recent Heritage Explains. episodes dive into what you need to know about the Equality Act, the gun control debate, and what

Biden's defense priorities should be. You can find all the latest episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We even put the full episodes on YouTube. Now stay tuned for Doug's conversation with Sophia Fisher. My guest today is Sophia Fisher, who is a political activist, anti-human trafficking advocate and founder of the Stop the Demand Project, a campaign dedicated to combating human trafficking trafficking throughout educational change. Welcome to the show, Sophia. Thanks for having me, Doug.

Glad to be here. Yeah, so I was watching one of your videos, and you mentioned that you had gotten into this in high school. So I'm curious if you could tell our audience a little bit about your background and how you specifically found your passion for this type of topic. Yeah, of course.

So in high school, I found out about human trafficking for the first time. This wasn't a topic that I heard much about. Considering it's the fastest growing crime in the world, you think I would have heard more about it. And so I never was talked to about it. No one in my family ever talked to me about the crime. I never heard about it in school.

And so when I got to high school, I became aware of a nonprofit nearby in my area that focused on the aftercare for survivors. And this was the first time I came into contact with it. Once I found out about the reality of human trafficking, I couldn't stay silent. If it was true that it affected every single zip code in our country, in every single country within the globe, I needed to do something about it. And so from high school and in high school, I started going to local schools around my area. The average age, a teen trafficked in America is 12 to 14 years old.

I went to these schools and I started to speak to them about the reality of human trafficking. I hated being the bear of the bad news and talking about it, but someone needed to speak to them. Oftentimes people are trafficked by someone familiar. human trafficking is often referred to as a hidden crime. And so I wanted to go to these schools and talk to these kids. And so that's where it started for me. I started speaking out about human trafficking in schools in my area. And then from there, I got into college and I started speaking out on my campus. And then as you mentioned in the beginning of the interview, I found it a campaign dedicated to spreading awareness about what's really happening called Stop the Demand Project.

No, I mean, it's so great that you've taken these steps to, like, actively educate people about what is happening in human trafficking, because you're right. I mean, I don't think a lot of people do think about human trafficking. Like, when I imagine human trafficking, I kind of think of, like, you know, taken, like the movie. It's just you're on vacation in Eastern Europe and, you know, some guy grabs her in an alley, and then that's it, right? It seems like from what you're saying, this isn't something that just happens abroad. It's something that happens here in the U.S. And I guess my question for you then is, is it better here or worse than in developed nations? Like, how are we doing in terms of human trafficking?

That's a fantastic question. And so the State Department measures different governments and their responses to human trafficking. And so since 2001, they've been putting out an annual TIP report. And so this measures, again, like what governments are doing to respond to human trafficking in terms of protection, prosecution, prevention. And a lot of the countries that rank super high for human trafficking are Somalia, North Korea, Venezuela. But the United States as a whole is still a huge hub for human trafficking.

And human trafficking encompasses both sex trafficking and labor trafficking and even sometimes organ trafficking. And so in terms of demand for sex trafficking, we are the number one country driving the demand for it. But in terms of, right, it's huge. It's up there. I mean, if you look at what really drives a lot of sex trafficking, the porn industry is extremely linked to this. And that's why we as a country, the United States, are driving the demand for this. So what you're saying then is that the sort of pornography and sort of like sexual content

industry is really what's driving American human trafficking. Are you saying that, you know, these girls are being put into that industry? or are you saying that this sort of causal link between people watching this content and people that are trying to consume this content causes people to be trafficked? I guess, can you clarify that? Yeah, so it's twofold, actually. And so the actual watching of pornography changes your brain through neuroplasticity. And so that changes one's mind and how they view other people.

Whether it's watching porn or violent porn, it changes one's way on how they view love. Right. And so that causes, and through a ton of studies, I know Fight the New Drug does a lot of, a lot of work with this. And they talk about the link between watching pornography and then how that causes one to view different acts related to sex. And so that's the first part. And then a lot of victims of human trafficking are often put into porn films in videos on the internet. I know people that have been rescued from human trafficking, and they continue to be re-victimized because their videos surface on the internet. And so not only were they trafficked once, but they continue to be

trafficked because their videos of them online continue to play into the cycle of exploitation. That is, I think, one of the most horrible things I've ever heard in my life. I can't even imagine having to go through that experience multiple times. And I think what you've brought up is a really interesting point. I was just thinking about this the other day where one of the ways we could probably get human trafficking, you know, off the map is if we empower girls, right? Girls getting educated, girls having the ability to sort of view themselves as more than a sex object. But like, the right and the left seemed to view empowerment really differently. I was thinking about this about the Grammys where Cardi B and Megan the Stallion were, you know, on stage and this was

sort of viewed as this very empowering moment, like, you know, these are very strong and these are role models for girls. But many conservatives don't view it that way. They see this empowerment, quote unquote, from the left as exploitation. How do you think we should be empowering young girls in contrast to how the left views that we should be empowering them? I definitely think we should be empowering women. I think that's fantastic that you mentioned that and brought that up. I do acknowledge that. And I think you made a great point. The left and the right do have different ideas of what empowerment looks like. But at the end of the day,

especially when we're talking about human trafficking, it's not a political issue. It's a human rights issue, but you're right. In order to tackle it, we need to be empowering people. We need to be talking about what's really happening. We need to be equipping them with truth and resources

in order for them to get out of it, if they're a victim, in order for them to recognize it, all of that. And so in terms of empowerment, I think we first need to break the idea that it's political. Empowerment doesn't need to be political. It's not a left or right issue, and I think that tribalism and partisanship gets in the way of that.

But this, at the end of the day, is a human rights issue. The left and the right need to come together on this and recognize that this is human rights abuse is going on. It's exploitation. It's modern-day slavery, and we need to come together and we need to be empowering women, like you said. Yeah, no, I really appreciate the passion and the fact that you did bring up that it's not a partisan issue. It's very much a, this is bad regardless of where you stand. Like, I don't think anybody's going to argue that, you know, a girl or a boy that's been, you know, forced to do unspeakable things is like a political issue. It's just something we kind of all agree we need to do something.

So you've, as I mentioned at the top of the show, you're the founder of this Stop the Demand Project, which is an educational organization that kind of seeks to combat human trafficking through teaching people. Can you highlight some of the things that you've done and are there any like specific wins you want to highlight for the audience? Yeah, so I found it Stop the Demand Project earlier on in this year, so we're a fairly new organization. But for those of you who don't know what Stop the Demand Project is, we are a digital campaign dedicated to combating human trafficking through educational content. And so we aim to build a hub for resources and give other organizations in the fight against human trafficking a platform. And so we partner with other organizations in the fight. As of right now, we have three partners that are doing fantastic work. And so some big wins for us so far have been getting in contact with these partners,

finding people and volunteers to go work with them directly, and engagement as a whole. Because if ultimately what we're trying to do is spread educational content, the way we measure that is our engagement. And so in the past couple of months, just on social media alone, and we've been able to reach hundreds of thousands of people. Keep in mind, we just launched in January. And so that really just excites me the amount of people that we're reaching about this.

As we talked about in the beginning, this is something that's not talked about a lot. No one told me about this. It's swept under the rug. And so the fact that we're meeting our Gen Z, our target market, right? And so we know that the average age of person is trafficked in America is about 12 to 14 years old. That's Gen Z. And so if we're meeting them on social media, and we know that over 90% of them are right there, we're meeting them where they're at. And so a big win for us has been seeing that engagement.

And so we're addressing a lot of these myths. We're partnering with different organizations. And we're encouraging our audience to go take advantage of the resources out there. I think that's great that you've basically highlighted that you're targeting the audience that is a target for human trafficking, like you said at the top. the average age you said was 12 to 14, which is, you know, it's not adults. It's not like older girls. It's, it's like children. It's, you know, people that aren't going to be able to protect themselves and that need to have that educational background and need to have that discussion told to them that there are going to try and take advantage of you and you need to be able to fight back against it. So I'm really interested in these partners. Are you working more with like NGOs? Is this government? Is this like, are these partners? Are these partners? Are these partners? like kind of children's organizations? Who are these people? Yeah, that's a fantastic question.

Right now we have three partners. And so 12-11 partners is one of them. They focus on the survivor aftercare. So they help with housing, mentoring, and different career referrals. And so they are currently looking for a lot of mentors and people to help with the aftercare programs. And so what we do is work on telling our audience and different ambassadors that work with us, hey, promote this, push this out there.

or any of you guys, you yourselves, are interested in working with these nonprofits. And so that's mostly where we live in the world of working with nonprofit organizations. And so the two other partners that we have, adaptive operations, they work on rescuing victims of human trafficking firsthand. They do great work, and they also are looking for volunteers. And so that's another way that people can get involved. I think that's a question that people ask a lot. And I find that that's something that people frequently message our page about. How can I get involved?

A way that they can get involved is getting connected with these nonprofit organizations firsthand. And so the two that I already listed, 12-11 and adaptive operations. And then our last one, Atlantic counter trafficking. They focus on providing resources to law enforcement. You and I know that across America, human trafficking happens in every single zip code. And so if that's true, we need to be giving law enforcement more resources. And so these are the three organizations that we're currently partnered with. Adaptive operations, Atlantic counter-trafficking, and 12-11 partners. And so under this umbrella of fighting human trafficking,

there are so many areas in where people can fight it, whether that's on the prevention side and education, or they can focus on the aftercare. There's so much to do when it comes to human trafficking. And that's what we're looking to do. We're looking to partner with organizations that are all across the board. I think that's fantastic that there are these organizations out there. And I think it's such an obvious thing to say, but they need help. Like you can go out and work with these people today. Like you can go out and talk to them and say, hey, I'm really committed to fighting against human trafficking. What can I do?

And I'm sure they know where the resources need to go. They know where the work needs to go. They know what needs the most fixing. But I think that's a fantastic recommendation. So as we wrap up here, I wanted to let you kind of take the floor. If there's one thing about human trafficking or helping victims of human trafficking and getting this issue settled, what was the one thing you would want people to take away from this? It's a great question.

Big takeaway is this. Human trafficking is never fully going to end because of the evil world that we live in. I don't want that to be a deterrent for you not to do anything, though. I don't want you to tell yourself because it's not going to fully end, therefore I can't make a difference. That's not true. Every life matters. I believe in inherent value and worth in one life can make all the difference, whether that's you telling somebody what human trafficking is and then becoming aware, or you actually partnering with nonprofits or helping those that are stuck in this vicious cycle.

And so breaking the lie and believing the lie that you can't make a difference. You can make a difference. And there are plenty ways to do so. I encourage people to go take training. There's a ton of free training if you head over to our social media at Stop the Demand Project. We give you resources and link you to other organizations that provide training, resources, and even are looking for volunteers.

That is fantastic. I really appreciate that. Sophia, I am so happy that you came on today and told us about human trafficking. We're going to include a link to all of that content in the description down below. But Sophia, thanks again. Thank you. Americans use firearms to defend themselves between 500,000 and 2 million times every year. But God forbid that my mother has ever faced with a scenario where she has to stop a threat to her life.

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It's SCOTUS 101. We are kicking off another Monday with a good news story. Virginia, over to you. Thanks so much, Doug. A church in the city of Arlington in northern Virginia has proved that a simple thank you and a small gift can go a very long way. Grace Community Church decided they wanted to do something to thank the essential grocery store workers in and around their community. So over the course of three days, 75 volunteers came together to give 5,000 gift bags to employees at 60 different grocery. stores in northern Virginia.

Each gift bag included a granola bar, chapstick, a gift card, a thank you note, and an essential button to remind the workers that they are important to their community. Annie, one of the volunteers, told Grace Community Church how special it was for her and her kids to have the opportunity to show appreciation to the grocery store employees in a really practical way. Annie walked into one of the grocery stores in the community and told the manager that they were there to deliver thank you gift bags for all of the employees. When we went to the customer service desk, the woman saw us and she's like, oh, what do you have?

When I explained that we were church just wanting to thank him and the staff, his mouth dropped open and he was silent. And then he said, do you know, we are always telling each other that nobody cares what we're doing. And I was like, Brandon, we do care. Thank you and your workers for everything you've done this past year to keep us said. Many store managers were in disbelief that others would take the time to show their appreciation, as another volunteer named Emia explained. When I told him that I'm coming from a church group, he was kind of taken aback and he was expecting me to sell him a Bible or ask for donation. So he just kind of told me that, hey man, that's okay. We don't need anything at this point.

Slowly and steadily, I was able to explain him that this is a gift bag, and he was so, so grateful. A gift bag and a thank you. It's not fancy, but it is a very creative way to show appreciation. And often, that is all that is needed. A huge well done to Grace Community Church. Virginia, thank you so much for sharing. We're going to leave it there for today. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Rickochet Audio Network. All of our shows can be found at daily signal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcast, Google Play, or your favorite. podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your

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