Child Trafficking in the United States Often Begins in the Child's Own Home.

A Substack article caught our eye. Written by Thomas Hampson, he is drawing attention to an underreported problem. Fromhis article: In the Third World, when a family member is involved in a child's trafficking, the exploitation is far less likely to be sexual than when no family member is involved — 36 percent versus 84 percent, according to international case records compiled by the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative (IOM). Families abroad more often sell their children for labor, domestic servitude, begging, or early marriage. Here, [in America] the family does not primarily sell a child into labor. Here, the family most often sells sexual access to the child and frequently records it. [Emphasis added.] There is no national estimate of how many American children are trafficked by their own families. The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics cannot provide a prevalence figure; there are no federal national estimates of the broader problem (DOJ 2023; BJS 2024; OJJDP). Any number you've seen published is a guess. What we have instead is encounter data — the cases that reach an institution and are counted. In every system that records who the trafficker was, family members account for a large share. Arrest data captures street activity, so the family share it sees is low. The spread from 12 to 60 percent is not five measurements of one quantity. It is a photograph of the lens each agency uses. The spread establishes a floor: even the systems least suited to finding family cases still find them in numbers no one can honestly call rare. There is another reason the encounter numbers understate the problem. Families who traffic their own children are harder to detect than pimps who traffic strangers. Victims run away far less — 69 percent, compared with 92 percent for children exploited by non-family (COPS 2024). They stay in school. They are disproportionately rural and homeschooled. When a case does surface, it is often classified as neglect rather than trafficking, and the child is returned home. Nearly 60 percent of identified familial victims remain in contact with the trafficker after identification because the system most often relies on family reunification (COPS 2024; Sprang and Cole 2018). A crime that stays within the household, committed against a victim who does not run and does not tell, will always be undercounted. What we can see is toward the lower end of the true figure. You can read Hampson's fullarticle here. Wednesday September 9, 2026 at 3:00pm CST, we will interview Jessica Bartholomew of Act United. She is the Founder and Executive Director ofA.C.T. United(Anti Child Trafficking United). She has more than 25 years of experience working with children, teens and families in youth outreach, domestic and foreign missions and law enforcement. Jessica brings firsthand knowledge of child and teen sexual exploitation, abuse and sex trafficking…including how children are trafficked by their own families.She also speaks regularly to students, providing prevention skills, answers and resources. An engaging, knowledgeable and passionate speaker, she will leave you not just informed on the facts, but inspired on how you can help protect children and take action. 'UNITED WE WIN.' You canregister for the webinar hereto watch it live or to watch it later at your convenience. Please join us. Child Protection League Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Share