Between 14,500 and 17,500 people are forcibly taken into the United States each year, according to the State Department, and some of that traffic passes through North Carolina.
"I-85 and I-95 are major routes for trafficking," said N.C. Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange.
Changing the public's understanding of sex workers was the focus of the second biennial conference, Combating Sex Trafficking: Prevention and Intervention in North Carolina and Worldwide.
At the two-day conference, the Carolina Women's Center aimed to deepen dialogue, facilitate research and contribute to efforts to eradicate trafficking.
The conference included multiple panel discussions as well as working group sessions. On Friday afternoon, two of the discussions focused on legal advocacy and child exploitation.
The ubiquity of the problem
Two speakers addressed the difficulties in fighting human trafficking and engaging the public in that cause.
"The level of awareness varies across the state, and we still need more education here," said Jennifer Stuart, an attorney for the nonprofit Legal Aid of North Carolina.
Stuart said the public's preconceived notions regarding prostitutes often make it difficult to garner sympathy for victims of human trafficking.
"There is a link between prostitution and trafficking. Out there in the real world, that's not the mentality at all."
Linda Smith, who was a U.S. congresswoman from Washington from 1995 to 1999, spoke about the need to stop the demand for sex trafficking.
In 1998 she founded Shared Hope International, whose goal is to prevent that demand from increasing and to help those who have been victimized.
Afterward, many in attendance said they were moved by video testimonies from victims of human trafficking.
One testimony featured a girl from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, who described the life of women forced into prostitution.
"We have no life. We have no feelings," she said. "I don't feel like a human."
Smith has discovered underage sex trafficking victims in cities across the nation. Chapel Hill, she said, is no different.
"If I did an assessment in this town, I would be able to find a child that could be bought."
Chapel Hill Town Council member Sally Greene, who moderated the discussion, echoed the sentiment that a lack of awareness is an issue.
"Trafficking is not something some people in Chapel Hill even recognize as something other than an abstract problem," Greene said.
The horrors of exploitation
Using graphic testimony, advocates emphasized the need to consider the impact of sex trafficking on its victims.
Col. Sharon Cooper, a UNC professor of pediatrics, is the CEO of a consulting firm that deals with child maltreatment cases.
She said society often finds commercial sexuality harmless and sometimes humorous, even when it pertains to minors.
A photograph showing a pair of young girls' underwear with "Who needs credit cards?" printed on the front drew gasps from the crowd.
Cooper's presentation included shocking stories, including one of a mother who forced her minor daughter to prostitute herself on Craigslist.
Photographs of teenagers' battered genitalia illustrated the horrors of child prostitution.
Cooper ended the panel with a discussion of how the public and the media deal with minors forced into prostitution. A clip she played featured a reporter asking a 16-year-old arrested for prostitution how she could do such a thing.
Cooper shook her head as the clip ended. "Arrest clients, not victims," she said.
Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.
