海角大神

She was just 17 when she got into prostitution 鈥� but she didn鈥檛 know she was a victim, at the time. She had been raped and beaten by her father since she was 12 years old. She was desperate for a breakthrough as a model.

鈥淚 didn鈥檛 understand that it was an upscale call girl,鈥� the sex trafficking victim whose identity is kept anonymous said in a Federal Bureau of Investigation video. 鈥淭hey used us young people because ... we鈥檙e young and we鈥檙e naive, and nine out of 10 times they鈥檙e right.鈥�

By the time she realized what she got herself into, she had been beaten and starved. She left believing that the pimp was possibly going to kill her either way.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a trap, once you鈥檙e there it鈥檚 really hard to get out of,鈥� she said.

The FBI shared her story on Monday during an announcement that the latest Operation Cross Country X sting had聽 and arrested 239 pimps and other individuals across the country between Oct. 13 and 16. The international operation, in its tenth year and the largest to date, included Canada, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines as part of the sting.

鈥淥peration Cross Country aims to shine a spotlight into the darkest corners of our society that seeks to prey on the most vulnerable of our population,鈥� Federal Bureau of Investigations Director James Comey said in a press release.

A dark corner it is: While many may think of sex trafficking as a more common occurrence in developing countries, it is, in fact, a problem in the United States that some say is overlooked. Available data doesn't fully capture the breadth of the problem聽because many of the victims may be fearful of speaking out or of being charged with crimes, anti-trafficking聽advocates say. Others may feel threatened by their captors 鈥� who in some cases are their members of their own families.

鈥淚t has to do with the fact that victims often don鈥檛 self-identify,鈥� Staca Shehan, executive director of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a US nonprofit that worked with the Thailand operation as well, tells 海角大神 in a phone interview. Kids often enter the criminal justice system for crimes such as 鈥渞unning away, truancy, drugs, alcohol, petty theft,鈥� she says,聽but officials and welfare workers fail to notice that 鈥渁ll of those are traumatic side effects to being a trafficked victim.鈥�

It鈥檚 a point that Samantha Vardaman, senior director of Shared Hope International, a group that focuses on preventing child sex trafficking, agrees on, adding that when a child is arrested for a crime such as drug trafficking, they often aren鈥檛 asked about their motives.

鈥淣obody ever identifies them as a trafficking victim,鈥� she says. 鈥淧lug in any other offense like truancy, kids are picked up for skipping school 鈥� well why aren鈥檛 they in school? Are people really asking the right questions? If we get the answer I guarantee you the child isn鈥檛 going to say 鈥業鈥檓 being sex trafficked.鈥� 鈥�

of human trafficking have been reported in the US this year, a聽majority of which involve sex trafficking, according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. While the majority of labor trafficking victims are undocumented immigrants, , according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Such聽victims are most likely to be black and under 25. The FBI calls human sex trafficking the and estimated some 293,000 American youths are at risk of becoming victims, particularly those who were abused or abandoned by their families.

Since the , officials have undertaken a concerted effort to prosecute traffickers and protect survivors of trafficking by attaching severe penalties to culprits while mandating compensation for victims. Individual states have passed their own laws to address sex trafficking, as have some major US cities, like Los Angeles.

But the patchwork of laws or resources available in different states and cities can cause some young victims to be penalized by the law when law enforcement officials uncover a prostitution ring, Ms. Shehan says.

鈥淚n reality if there is nowhere to place the child 鈥� there are no beds or runaway homeless youth centers, in those cases if you release the child they鈥檙e going to return to the trafficker,鈥� she says. 鈥淪ometimes they end up being charged with the crime that is perpetrated against them.鈥�

Often, officials are tipped off about these cases either by coming across online advertisements or receiving tips from the members of the public, some of whom may have become aware of warning signs through public awareness campaigns.

鈥淲e really get out of the cities and into the communities that are less-frequently traveled and try to bring awareness to them,鈥� Ms. Vardaman says. 鈥淯nfortunately a lot of those locations are where the kids are coming from.鈥�

The Department of Homeland Security posts a for community members who regularly come into contact with children to look out for. Indicators include an apparent disconnection from the community or sudden absenses from school.聽Both Shehan and Vardaman say officials who come across juveniles in the criminal justice system should also scrutinize their backgrounds to identify victims.

鈥淭eachers, the child welfare system, all these different groups need to have an increased awareness of how to better identify this, what are the indicators they should be looking for,鈥� Shehan says. 鈥淲e need to increase in all different sectors awareness of the crime.鈥�