Bottom Line: This has been a hot button of mine for almost my entire career. Maybe Robert Kraft being ensnared in the latest sting will help place some of the necessary attention on one more of the consistently horrific underbellies of our society today. I covered this topic last year.
Polaris is the largest nonprofit dedicated specifically to combating human trafficking. They've long provided a hotline and services to attempt to identify cases of human tracking, raise awareness and save lives. What I'm about to share with you isn't new. It's what you don't hear in the news.
Last year Polaris documented 8,042 cases of human trafficking in the United States. That's an average of 22 people, predominantly children, who went missing per day in the country. Through their research they've found:
- 73%: sex trafficked
- 14%: labor trafficked
- 4%: both
They also found that 86% of the victims are female and 81% of the victims are minorities. In other words, this is a huge, persistent problem in our society that doesn’t receive the attention it deserves. The Orchids Day Spa bust in Jupiter checks all of those usual boxes. But here’s the thing, this is just the tip of the iceberg. With an average of 22 new cases of human trafficking per day taking place in the US, there’s the equivalent of what was just busted up in Jupiter, daily across the country. It's just that someone as notable as Robert Kraft isn’t attached to the cases.
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