SARASOTA, Fla. — According to Selah Freedom, an anti-human trafficking organization, one in three girls and one in five boys are sexually abused.
Those traumatic experiences can lead to lifelong agony and sometimes make those children the target of abusers well into adulthood.
"It’s teaching them to keep secrets and to carry that shame and guilt," said Hilda Arreola, the Southeast Prevention Coordinator with Shelah Freedom. "That is something that traffickers, abusers, exploiters — they look for because they know that person knows how to keep a secret, knows how to stay quiet when they feel uncomfortable, so they target that individual."
Last month in Manatee County, Florida investigators arrested Christopher Thompson after he was accused of luring a 5-year-old girl from a birthday party he was attending to sexually batter her.
Deputies said they believed Thompson abused others and asked more victims to come forward. As of the time of this article, a spokesperson with the Manatee Sheriff's Office said officials now know of eight child victims.
Instances like this are the reason Arreola and others with Shelah Freedom educate children as young as five about sex predators and sex trafficking.
"Statistically someone who is taken advantage of is taken advantage of by someone that they know and that they felt like they could trust," she said.
Arreola said their lesson plans and educational materials are always age-appropriate. For instance, with young children, prevention specialists discuss unsafe secrets and the need to tell a safe adult when someone makes you feel "icky" or confused.
In older grades, Arreola says they broaden their education to prevent people from becoming not just victims, but buyers and sellers, too.
"We want to make sure we’re preventing the issue from ever happening in the first place," she said.
Shelah Freedom has provided lessons in all school districts in the Tampa Bay region including Hillsborough, Pinellas and Polk. In 2019, Florida became the first state in the country to require sex trafficking education in grades K-12.
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