Sex trafficking is defined as a "modern-day slavery that involves the use of force, fraud or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act (Johnson 2014)." After much research on the topic I have found that social media plays an important role within the …show more content…
She directly worked with the victims and helped them find a new life for themselves after leaving the system (personal conversation March 9, 2017). She informed me that Houston is one of the top cities for international trade of sex trafficking because it is a port city, making Texas one of the leading states for human trafficking (2017). Kristi found while working for the organization that most of the victims were girls between the ages of 13-17 and were brought into the circle of trafficking through social media (2017). Kristi stated, "most of these youths are from low-status families and are looking for support outside of their families. They saw these chat rooms as an escape out of their households; many were just looking for the attention that they weren't receiving at home (2017). She was sent to Dallas to work for the organization New Friends New Life after a trafficking network was exposed that traced back to a social media website. "It was so sad to discover that most of the girls we helped leave the system were young teens. We had places for them to stay in our rescue center and offered therapy and living accommodations for those who didn't have a home to begin with. The amount of girls who wanted to return to the system was unbelievable. They would tell us how they were given places to live and their "Daddy's" (their pimps) cared for them and knew they were loved them. This was more than most of these girls were given before they entered the trafficking system (personal conversation March 9, 2017)." After discussing the topic with Kristi, the topic of sex trafficking was really brought to life for me as I realized that girls younger than myself are being