Citizens Urged To Spot Human Trafficking
Lt. Lovelace urges citizens to talk to their kids, educate themselves about the signs and call for help
By News Channel NebraskaNEBRASKA CITY – Nebraska State Patrol Lt. Monty Lovelace encouraged Nebraska City Rotarians Wednesday to get involved in the fight against human trafficking.
Lovelace: “All of our citizens can communicate with their kids number one. Like I said during my presentation, human trafficking and crimes against children that are perpetrated on the Internet are parallel to one another, so it’s important to know what your kids are doing online.”
Lt. Lovelace outlined both labor and sex trafficking and described examples in Nebraska where criminals used force, fraud or coercion tactics to manipulate a person into things they would not ordinarily do.
He encourages people to educate themselves about what to look for to stop human trafficking.
Lovelace: “You may see things like a disheveled appearance or someone that’s got markings or bruises on their body and they seem uncomfortable, they are using multiple cell phones, things just don’t look right. It’s always important to make note of those things and make a simple call.”
He said call the National Hotline 1-888-373-7888, text “help” 233733 or dial 9-1-1.
Lovelace: “It never hurts to do something and be wrong. What hurts is when you do nothing and it ends up being a problem. We encourage people to educate themselves and be proactive.”
Lovelace, who has 19 years with the state patrol including six years with the traffic division based in Auburn, said criminals are perfecting their tactics daily.
Lovelace: “This is very calculated by people that are perpetrating offenses on others. It’s very easy, or it becomes very easy for them to pick out victims through a process that we call grooming and then get them to a point where this person will do unspeakable things.”
He said some victims resort to suicide because the tactics used by traffickers make them feel there is no other way out.
Lovelace: “They are looking at things like socio-economic status. They are looking at things like whether or not this person has a lot of people surrounding themselves in life, maybe a lower functioning individual. They are looking for certain things that they can exploit and they are looking for vulnerabilities.”
He said online platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat allow perpetrators to communicate with kids.
Lovelace: “The anonymity of the Internet provides a perfect wall for people to hide behind and do things that you or I wouldn’t think anyone would ever do.”
He advises parents to disable location services on Apps and says people should be wary of job offers that sound too good to be true.
He urges kids to be careful about what photographs they post of themselves.
Lovelace: “I know that is hard to believe for some teenagers, but I’m telling you that people with sexual addictions .. there are certain things that they look for, and, if they see it, it will trip a trigger and they are looking for ways to exploit a child.”
Signals of trafficking include unexpected gifts, multiple cell phones, runaways from home, unusual tattoos, referencing older boyfriends or girlfriends and travel.
