SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A Sioux Falls non-profit is looking to reach more young people about the warning signs of sex trafficking.
Over the last two years, Call to Freedom has given presentations to thousands of students, but the organization wants to reach as many kids as possible.
For staff at Call to Freedom, a trafficking tactic that has been catching their attention lately is sextortion.
“Sometimes, they’ll be men that are actually posing as young ladies and making connections with these young boys, building relationships, essentially asking them to send nude pictures or nude videos,” Call to Freedom president and CEO Becky Rasmussen said. “Once they receive those pictures, then they begin to blackmail them for either more pictures or for financial reasons.”
According to research by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and anti-child sexual abuse technology company Thorn, 90% of known financial sextortion victims are boys between the ages of 14-17.
“Research actually shows that young boys are more than likely to pay a blackmail debt versus girls. These individuals are all about making money,” Rasmussen said.
So Call to Freedom understands the importance of educating children about the warning signs of sextortion and other trafficking methods. That’s why the nonprofit has its Speak Up youth prevention curriculum. Staff will go to places like schools and after-school programs for free to educate kindergarten through 12th graders.
“Our goal is to get to every young person to equip them to not fall victim to these victimizations that we’re seeing with sextortion, online commercial sexual exploitation and also even human trafficking,” Rasmussen said.
The training sessions have kept the non-profit busy.
“With Speak Up and our other curriculum in the last two years we’ve done close to 300 to 350 youth presentations to over 6000 kids,” youth navigator coordinator Steve Sternhagen said.
Sternhagen and youth prevention volunteer Rachel Gage both give presentations for the Speak Up program.
“The goal is that when they leave the training, they’re able to apply that to their real life settings. If something comes up, they have words to use, vocabulary to utilize and a little bit of practice in what those conversations might look like,” Gage said.
“A lot of times, I talk with the kids that I have two granddaughters, too, and I want to make sure that they’re safe,” Sternhagen said.
The content they discuss depends on the age of their audience.
“For like the younger kids, we talk about our heart and our stomach are our two safety meters, and if something doesn’t feel right, then it’s time to share that with some adult that they trust,” Sternhagen said.
“When you get to middle school and high school, we’re having those more difficult conversations of social media. What are the safe and unsafe situations on social media? Are you meeting everybody on social media? Are they safe people? Probably not,” Rasmussen said.
“When they walk out of the classroom after seeing a presentation, participating in discussions, that they feel empowered to take that information with them throughout the rest of their lives,” Gage said.
And Call to Freedom wants to make as many people feel empowered as possible.
“We’re doing these anywhere from one to two times a week on average, but we want to increase that. We have the ability through our volunteers as well as our staff to do as many trainings as possible, so our goal is to reach every county in the state of South Dakota,” Rasmussen said.
All to help the youth speak up and stay safe.
If you would like to request training from Call to Freedom, click here.
