South Florida Anti-Trafficking Resources
Child sex trafficking is a very real, pervasive, and complex issue.

Kristi House Children’s Advocacy Center has specialized in treating child sexual abuse since 1995 and has specifically worked with child victims of sexual exploitation since 2007, when Project GOLD was established to bring the legal and provider community together around the issue of child sex trafficking.

Learning about the realities of exploitation is essential to this fight.

National Hotline

The National Human Trafficking hotline is toll-free number, available 24/7 at 1-888-373-7888. Support is provided in more than 200 languages. Text the hotline at 233733.

Local Hotline

South Florida has a local trafficking hotline, available 24/7 to call or text: 305-FIX-STOP. Barry University’s 1 Human Trafficking Coalition maintains a local trafficking resource guide.

Project GOLD was established in 2007 to bring the legal and provider community together around the issue of child sex trafficking. The Project GOLD Drop In Center uses a strengths-based, survivor-led approach to provide health, social and legal services linkages, mental health support and educational enrichment to sexually exploited girls.

Miami-Dade ranks 1st in Florida for trafficking cases.
Florida ranks 3rd in the nation for trafficking cases.
In Miami-Dade, approximately 40% of total victims are minors.
In Miami-Dade, approximately 67% of victims are local.

#TraffickingTruths

From our decades of work in the field, and operating a survivor-led program, we know the importance of knowledge in this fight to end exploitation. These common misconceptions and realities are from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, and more details can be found here.

Misconception: Sensational, popular action films like Taken or viral conspiracies like Wayfair are accurate depictions of how sex trafficking occurs.

REALITY: Most sex traffickers prefer to develop relationships with their targets—sometimes virtually and sometimes in-person—in order to methodically groom and traffic them. Child sex trafficking often involves a person who knew the child or even a family member of the child.

Misconception: “This could never happen to my child” or, “that would never happen in this neighborhood”.

REALITY: While it’s true that most victims of child sex trafficking are children of color or come from backgrounds of poverty or abuse, it is also absolutely true that trafficking can happen in any community, to children from stable home environments.

Misconception: Child trafficking victims are usually white children with blonde hair and kept in dirty basements with chains.

REALITY: In active federal cases of sex trafficking in 2019, only 5.3% of cases involved cages, locked rooms, or barred cells. Most victims are groomed and held captive through psychological abuse, manipulation, and coercion that can be difficult to identify. Sex trafficking can happen without the child being kidnapped at all!

Misconception: Once a child is rescued, the work is done.

REALITY: You cannot solve trafficking by swooping in and stealing the victim back from the traffickers. While rescue is critical, it is PREVENTION that will stop this problem. Moreover, recovery and healing is a process that often lasts MISCONCEPTION: Sex trafficking will never go away completely.

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A Guide for Caregivers to Prevent Exploitation

Love146 is an international human rights organization working to end child trafficking and exploitation through survivor care and prevention. Kristi House is a certified facilitator of Love146’s child trafficking and prevention curriculum called Not a #Number for middle and high school students. Their Caregiver Guide has tips for preventing exploitation and activities to work on with youth to teach them about trafficking. For more info on Not a #Number facilitation, contact Kristi House Education.

Get Involved:

Support Kristi House Project GOLD:

volunteer@kristihouse.org

  • Project GOLD Wish List – Directly support Project GOLD by shopping for specific items members have requested.
  • Facebook Fundraiser – Celebrate your birthday or another event with us, while supporting Kristi House Project GOLD and the children we serve.
  • Get Involved – Learn about all ways to help and volunteer.
  • Host a Drive – Help us keep our Emergency Pantry Drive full year-around by hosting a donation drive for the children and families we serve.
  • Donate Directly – Kristi House is dependent on private support to ensure our services remain available, free, and accessible. If you are in a position to give, please consider making a gift today.
  • Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn – Become a social media ambassador, awareness is key. Like and share our posts, and add our website to your bio.
National Efforts:
  • I am Jane Doe –  I AM JANE DOE chronicles the epic battle that several American mothers are waging on behalf of their middle-school daughters, victims of sex-trafficking on Backpage.com, the adult classifieds site that for years was part of the Village Voice.
  • Lost Girls – Desperate to find her missing daughter, a mother fights to uncover the truth — and helps expose a string    of unsolved murders. Based on a true story.
  • Rape for Profit – Set against the backdrop of Seattle’s downtown city lights, “Rape For Profit” takes the audience undercover for an up-close look at the true nature of the sex trade. The film unveils a growing problem in major U.S. cities where girls as young as 12 years old are bought and sold as many as 15 times a night to service the desires of men.
  • Very Young Girls – A 2007 human trafficking documentary following 13- and 14-year-old African-American girls as they are seduced, abused, and sold on New York’s streets by pimps, while being treated as adult criminals by police.
  • Talk for Freedom Podcast – Discussing various topics about human trafficking and shining a light on this crime.
  • End Human Trafficking Podcast – This biweekly podcast will challenge you to study the issues related to human trafficking, become an educated voice in understanding this global problem, and ultimately make a difference in helping bring it to an end. Sandra Morgan, Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University of Southern California and Dave Stachowiak, Board Member of the Center, explore issues in each episode that will help educate you to be a helpful voice in ending human trafficking.
  • Sold in America – Sold in America is an eight-episode journey into the world of selling sex in the United States. Hosted by journalist and activist Noor Tagouri, this deeply personal, deeply reported series takes listeners across the country to meet the human faces of this billion-dollar trade – and uncovers its surprising misconceptions.

Local Organizations:

Upcoming Events:

For more Kristi House Education offerings, click here. For our Full Event Calendar, click here.

Additional Resources:

For more free resources, online courses, tip sheets and information, please visit our resources page.

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