District 6420 Task Force Against Human Trafficking

10/27/2026

Spoke with a wonderful group of ladies about the importance of online awareness and safety. Reach out if you would like to have us speak with your group!💕

10/19/2026

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Until three weeks ago, California set no minimum age for marriage at all. A child of any age could be wed, provided a parent consented and a judge signed off -- and over two decades, some 35,000 of them were, the vast majority teenage girls married to adult men. It took nine years, three legislative attempts, and a coalition of survivors who refused to let it die -- but on September 30, the ban finally passed, and Governor Gavin Newsom signed it into law, making California the 18th state to end child marriage outright, with no exceptions.

What that loophole allowed was, by any other name, abuse. Because the age of consent in California is 18, a child too young to legally consent to s*x could nonetheless be bound for life to an adult -- the marriage license serving, in effect, as a shield against the statutory-r**e laws that would otherwise apply.

"Children are children, and marriage is an adult decision," said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, who wrote the bill. The damage is well documented: girls married as children are far likelier to drop out of school, to end up in poverty, and to face serious health problems down the line.

The victory belonged, above all, to the survivors who had refused to let it die. "For nine years we have been begging, cajoling, urging and protesting," said Fraidy Reiss, who founded the advocacy group Unchained at Last after being forced into marriage herself as a teenager. "Every setback over the last nine years taught us something, strengthened the coalition and made us better advocates. We refused to give up because we knew that millions of girls in the Golden State were relying on us."

For Courtney Stodden, who was married as a teenager, the law meant something simpler and more personal. "I spent years wishing someone had protected the little girl I used to be," she wrote. "Today, California protected the next one."

California is the eighteenth state to end it. Thirty-two have not -- and in two of them, Mississippi and New Mexico, a child of any age can still be married, exactly as California allowed until this ban finally passed. Across the county, approximately 315,000 children were legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2021. Unchained at Last, which drove the nine-year fight here, is now waging the same campaign in statehouses across the country, determined not to stop until child marriage is illegal in all fifty states.

In addition to these state-by-state efforts, a federal bill was introduced last summer. The Child Marriage Prevention Act would encourage states to set the minimum marriage age at 18 with no exceptions, bar child marriages on federal property, close the immigration loopholes that allow minors to be brought into the country on spousal and fiancé visas, and give states model legislation and grant funding to end the practice. Introduced in July and now before the Judiciary Committees in both chambers, it would mark the most comprehensive federal action against child marriage the country has seen.

--> To urge your senators and representative to support this new bill, call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask them to cosponsor the Child Marriage Prevention Act.

--> To learn about child marriage in the U.S. today and how you can get involved in local efforts to end the practice in the 32 states where it is still legal, visit the non-profit, anti-child marriage organization Unchained At Last at https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-in-the-u-s/

For a powerful book for teen readers about how girls and women are fighting against child marriage, s*x trafficking, and gender discrimination around the world, we highly recommend "Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at a Time," for ages 13 and up, visit https://www.amightygirl.com/girl-rising-book

For an award-winning book about an Indian girl who is married at 13 and dares to defy her fate, we recommend “Homeless Bird” for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/homeless-bird

For a gripping account from Yemeni anti-child marriage activist Nujood Ali, who successfully won a divorce at age 10, check out "I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced" for ages 16 and up https://www.amightygirl.com/i-am-nujood

10/11/2026

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The most banned book in America this past year is a novel about a thirteen-year-old girl sold into a brothel. "Sold," Patricia McCormick's spare, shattering account of a child trafficked across the Nepali border into India, was pulled from American public schools 25 times in 2025-2026 -- more than any other title, in the worst year for book banning on record. McCormick wrote it to force a hidden horror into the light -- the exploitation of countless girls like Lakshmi around the world -- and for that, it is being banned.

Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi is proud when her stepfather tells her she will travel to the city to work as a maid for a wealthy family -- her wages will help her mother buy a new tin roof for their small hut in the Nepali mountains. She leaves her village with a woman she has been told she can trust, and boards a succession of trucks and trains across the border into India. At the end of the journey is a building her new handlers call "Happiness House," where she is told to wait quietly until her employers come to meet her. What Lakshmi slowly comes to understand, over the terrifying days that follow, is that she was never sent to work as a maid at all. Her stepfather has sold her into a brothel.

Written in haunting verse, "Sold" is the story of what Lakshmi survives at Happiness House -- the violence done to her by strangers, the small kindnesses of the other girls trapped there alongside her, and the careful friendship she forms with an American photographer who may be her way out.

McCormick, a journalist by training, spent months in Nepal and India interviewing women in Calcutta's red-light district and girls who had been rescued from the s*x trade, and she distilled what they told her into one girl's story. A National Book Award finalist and named by TIME one of the hundred best young-adult books of all time, "Sold" is as powerful an introduction as a young reader could have to a crime that still ensnares an estimated twelve thousand Nepali girls every year, and millions of other children around the world.

There is a bitter irony in it: a book that exposes the abuse of children, banned by people who say they are shielding children from harm. "It's so hard to understand why a book that educates people about s*xual exploitation would be banned," McCormick said this month. Her novel has been a particular target of organized groups like Moms for Liberty, whose activists, she notes, tend to pluck a single passage out of the book and "read it out of context at the school board meeting."

“The first time I heard that Sold was banned was about four years ago," McCormick recounted, "when a librarian from Virginia reached out via Facebook to tell me that it was being challenged as ‘po*******hy.’ I felt very misunderstood. I researched this book, going to a brothel in India, because I wanted to be part of the solution to the scourge of child trafficking. To hear my work was being called po*******hy was really distressing. It also angered me and made me wonder about those who would call an account of child r**e po*******hy.”

"Sold" is the most banned title in the most banned year ever recorded. According to PEN America's latest report, released for Banned Books Week, American public schools banned 11,982 books in the 2025-2026 school year -- the most since the organization began tracking in 2021 -- targeting a record 7,370 titles across a record 114 school districts, the overwhelming majority in just two states, Texas and Florida.

This record surge has also been documented by the American Library Association, which has tracked book challenges for more than thirty years: it recorded an average of just 273 titles targeted each year across the two decades from 2001 to 2020 -- a number that by 2023 had climbed past 4,000, the highest it has ever documented.

The books pulled most often are, again and again, the ones that tell young readers something true about the world, however uncomfortable: stories about race, girls and women, LGBTQ people, and the exact kind of violence Lakshmi endures. More than half were written for young adults, and 80 percent, like "Sold," were works of fiction -- the stories that show young readers they are not alone, and that other people's lives are worth understanding too.

"Sold," which is highly recommended for ages 14 and up, is available at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780786851720 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4yJjZHy (Amazon)

To stream the powerful film adaptation of "Sold," visit https://amzn.to/4yLwEtw

For Patricia McCormick's National Book Award finalist based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, a Cambodian boy who survived the Khmer Rouge's killing fields by learning to play music for his captors, we recommend "Never Fall Down" for ages 14 and up at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780061730955 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4B0oxdW (Amazon)

For an eye-opening book about an American teen girl who becomes trapped in the underworld of human trafficking, we highly recommend "The Life I'm In" for ages 14 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-life-i-m-in

For a moving memoir by a woman dedicated to ending the trafficking of girls in the U.S. as the founder of Girls Are Not For Sale, who herself is a survivor, check out “Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale” at https://www.amightygirl.com/girls-like-us-for-sale

To learn more about the record wave of school book bans -- and how to push back against censorship in your own community -- visit PEN America at https://pen.org/book-bans and the American Library Association's Unite Against Book Bans at https://uniteagainstbookbans.org

10/06/2026

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Alabama state Rep. Brett Easterbrook, Satsuma City School Board President Kory Wesley, and Orange Beach public works director Timothy Tucker were among the 17 arrested Friday in a multi-day undercover prostitution sting in Atmore.

Listed below are the other arrests:

-Austin Berry - Soliciting Prostitution
-George Dance - Human Trafficking First Degree
-Algeber De La Cruz - Soliciting Prostitution
-Quintero Francisco - Soliciting Prostitution
-Nicolas Gadson - Human Trafficking First Degree and Attempting to Elude
-Benjamin Holman - Soliciting Prostitution
-Cody Jackson - Human Trafficking First Degree
-Terry Long - Human Trafficking First Degree
-Joshua Martin - Soliciting Prostitution
-Dominque Mobley - Soliciting Prostitution
-Charles Mooney - Soliciting Prostitution
-Elijah Roy - Human Trafficking First Degree
-Juan Teletor-Siana - Soliciting Prostitution
-Bharath Vijakumar - Human Trafficking First Degree

Read more: https://weartv.com/news/local/alabama-state-rep-satsuma-school-board-president-arrested-on-human-trafficking-charges

09/23/2026

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A predator’s hidden camera in plain sight.

Smart glasses are spreading rapidly across the world—but child-safety policies are failing to keep up.

A predator no longer needs to hold up a phone or carry an obvious camera. They can look directly at a child while discreetly taking photographs, recording video or livestreaming what they see.

They could be used to:

• Record children at schools and playgrounds
• Film children in swimwear at pools and beaches
• Capture footage inside changing rooms
• Record private conversations
• Identify uniforms, locations and daily routines
• Upload and distribute footage within seconds
• Collect images that can be manipulated using AI

Some glasses display a small recording light, but it may be difficult to notice, covered or tampered with. Most children—and many adults—would never realise they were being recorded.

This is a global concern. Schools, swimming pools, leisure centres, workplaces and secure facilities worldwide are beginning to restrict camera-enabled glasses. Some are banning them in public schools, while governments and privacy regulators in some countries are being forced to consider stronger controls.

PRC believes smart glasses should be prohibited anywhere children undress, swim or should reasonably expect privacy. Schools and sporting organisations also need strict policies governing when and where they may be worn.

Technology itself is not the enemy. The danger is how easily it can be misused by someone targeting children.

Parents need to recognise these devices. Organisations responsible for children need policies now—not after a child’s privacy has already been violated.

If someone is wearing smart glasses around children in a sensitive environment, alert staff and ask what safeguards are in place.

Protecting children must come before convenience.

A safer world for children.

www.projectrescuechildren.org

08/05/2026

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Is Your Child At Risk of Being Trafficked?

This is happening to children in the United States every single day — and most people never see it.

But traffickers don't usually start with force. They start with vulnerability.

Across our country, vulnerable children are being exploited and trafficked every day. Children who feel unseen, isolated, or desperate for connection are often targeted first.

These are boys and girls who should be thinking about school, friendships, sports, and dreams for the future, not survival.

They are not statistics.

They are children created with immeasurable worth and value.

We all have a choice: to stay unaware, or to step into the fight to protect the vulnerable. Will you join us in the call to disrupt human trafficking and reach one more?

Join us today at timtebowfoundation.org/disrupt

*Stats sourced from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Polaris, NCMEC, and Spotlight

07/31/2026

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Every year, hundreds of thousands of children are trafficked in Ame...

07/24/2026

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05/05/2026

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/opinion-arrests-massive-human-trafficking-172902758.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

When you zoom out, this isn’t happening in isolation.