Heather Sells of CBN news reports:
After 10 years of focus on global sex trafficking, the State Department has decided to take a look at trafficking within the U.S.
What prompted the change? Officials cite mounting evidence of this horror's existence right here at home.
Shared Hope International is a non-profit organization that works to combat trafficking globally. Undercover video captured by the group revealed how young the targets are. (continued below)
According to researchers, traffickers usually begin targeting kids who are 12 years old. Every year, up to 300,000 U.S. children are at risk of being sold for sex.
To the untrained eye, trafficking is hard to spot. While many believe it's confined mainly to urban areas, CBN News recently discovered that Toledo, Ohio, is one of the top city for trafficking.
An FBI anti-trafficking task force now operates there, as well as in 38 other communities around the country.
Problems within the system abound, however, making justice difficult to obtain.
Also, most state laws aren't nearly as comprehensive or severe as federal laws, often leaving authorities with nowhere to take victims.
"Most of the girls have no self-esteem by the time we get them. They have been beaten," FBI Victim Specialist Jennifer Meyers said.
Across the country, Christian grassroots groups have begun to set up shelters for victims - a beginning step in an enormous battle to fight this modern atrocity.