And you’re still being condescending to me instead of actually explaining your point, which includes how you know the best tactics for trafficking awareness.

Thank you, you too

They were extremely relevant to the conversation at hand, I asked how much experience you have in anti-trafficking work since you were denigrating my experiences as someone who works in the field. You quickly dismissed my points and told me that I don’t know how to raise awareness for trafficking, so I figured you must have some knowledge about trafficking awareness due to your willingness to criticize how I broach the topic

I addressed in another comment that the vast majority of sex traffickers recruit potential victims by coercing them into a romantic/sexual relationship and then force them into engaging in commercial sex against their will. It is very rare for traffickers to abduct strangers off the street and force them into trafficking. There is a ton of information online from legitimate sources that are working to combat trafficking, I can’t do all of the work for you.

But you didn’t actually answer any of the questions that I asked you

Thank you so much for telling me that I don’t know how to do my job and that I’m not aware of what trafficking recruitment patterns look like. I love how you have a problem with professionals in the anti-trafficking field providing information about what trafficking actually looks like.

How many trafficking victims and survivors have you personally spoken with? How much trafficking data have you taken and/or analyzed to determine what are legitimate trafficking patterns and what is misinformation? How many talks have you attended that discuss trafficking misinformation and disinformation? I would love to hear what expertise you have in this field, since you’re so quick to dismiss my experiences and patronize me

I’m from Western Kentucky, so I feel you. I got into a couple of accidents when I was a teenager, and I have a lot of anxiety around driving. I love being able to just zone out on public transit lol. Much better than driving two hours to the nearest airport

No, I work for an anti-trafficking organization and they are absolutely correct. We receive a lot of tips that have no correlation to trafficking, such as “I saw two men with children, they must be involved in trafficking” or similar vaguely suspicious situations with no concrete trafficking indicators. It is dangerous and harmful to spread misinformation about trafficking, and it redirects resources for trafficking victims and survivors towards non-substantive reports, making it more difficult for people who are experiencing trafficking to get the help that they need

I don’t, unfortunately. The issue is that a lot of the city statistics focus on number of cases per capita, but DC has a smaller population in the city than most of the comparable cities, which makes the rate of trafficking look higher.

Speaking from personal experience, I’ve noticed that the most prevalent areas for trafficking in the U.S. are California (LA/SF), Florida (Miami/Orlando), New York (NYC), and Texas (Austin/Dallas)

For the record, I work for an anti-trafficking nonprofit and DC doesn’t have a very high rate of reported trafficking cases in comparison with other states (source). Also, sex traffickers tend to build a relationship with the potential victim and then force them into sex work using a variety of coercion tactics. While there are cases of people being kidnapped off the streets and forced into a trafficking situation, the statistics show that it is not common.

It’s absolutely awful that this happened to OP, and I imagine that it was scary and traumatic. But there is unfortunately a lot of misinformation about trafficking, which it makes it more difficult for victims and survivors to recognize when they’re experiencing it

“Attacked”

If she really thinks that people yelling at her is an attack, she needs to get her snowflake ass out of Congress. Like get thicker skin or find a new job, don’t cry to the media about how Americans are holding you responsible for your words and actions