TikTok may be providing opportunities for sex traffickers to groom children, a youth therapist has warned.
Dr. Katie Guinn has spent the past 10 years providing in-home family therapy to young people and their families in the Acadiana region of Louisiana. She’s the regional director of The Center for Children and Families, a nonprofit organization that provides advocacy, counseling, and other services for families in need.
The need for mental health services among young people has skyrocketed in the past two years, according to Guinn, who said she’s encountering more and more children who have been victims of sex trafficking.
In providing a definition of the term, she said that “sex trafficking involves engaging in sexual activities against the will of a person for an exchange of goods.” The transaction isn’t always associated with money, but can also include drugs, food, or shelter, for example.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guinn said, a relatively new concept has emerged, which she called “cybersex trafficking.” The goal of luring children and adults into sex trafficking remains the same, but in this approach, she said, “everything is virtual.” Websites and a variety of phone apps with messaging capabilities are utilized to communicate with users, who are often minors.
Victims and participants can upload content, such as photographs or videos, and a transaction occurs using cryptocurrency. According to Guinn, “this new realm of sex trafficking is incredibly difficult to track and learn more about because it constantly and instantly evolves.”
What is known, she said, is that children are particularly vulnerable.
“For a child or another victim to be susceptible to sex trafficking, there first has to be a vulnerability,” she said.
A vulnerability can be defined as “something missing in a child’s life that needs to be filled.” This void or need can come in many forms, she explained.
“It can be connection, survival, love, substance abuse, shelter, food, stability, and more,” she said.
“In the last three years, the biggest need we have seen in children is connection, [as] kids have been incredibly isolated as a result of the pandemic.”
Guinn identified connection as a human need that is as significant for a child as eating or breathing.
“People need connection, especially children,” she said.
By J.M. Phelps
