The global severity of human trafficking and exploitation is clear. Melea Stephens is on The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to share resources to stop human trafficking and exploitation. Take this free emotional abuse quiz to find out if you are emotionally abused.

Here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we deeply appreciate the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and the important work they do. Learn more about NCOSE here.

Help To Stop Human Trafficking And Exploitation Today

You can join the fight today. Start by:

• Subscribing to NCOSE emails
• Subscribing to NCOSE Updates & Actions alerts
• Reading and sharing the 2023 NCOSE Dirty Dozen List
• “Lending Your Voice”

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Stands with NCOSE in Fighting Against Human Trafficking

At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we know how deeply personal and painful the realities of the trafficking industry can be. When a spouse secretly uses online explicit material, solicits an exploited person, or assaults or coerces a partner, the results are devastating. We are here for you. Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session today.

Transcript: Resources To Stop Human Trafficking

Anne: I have Melea Stevens on today’s episode. She is on the board of the National Center for Exploitation, also known as NCOSE. They do amazing work on trafficking. So if you’re interested in involvement, NCOSE is the place for information about how to help. It is one of the best resources to stop human trafficking.

Melea’s involvement started with NCOSE, because she has seen young children addicted to online explicit material for over 23 years. She wants to ensure that we protect kids.

Melea: Thank you for having me

Anne: Melea lives in Alabama. She’s currently working on passing a bill in her state. We’ll also talk about how you can help protect children online in your location. Can you tell us about what’s going on in Alabama right now?

Melea: Last legislative session, we worked to pass what we call a filter bill. It’s a bill that would require tablets and smartphones to have the filters defaulted on. One of the names it had was the default to safety bill. We had different names at different points, but a similar bill passed in Utah a few years ago. And we wanted to pass it in Alabama. Several other states are interested in introducing it.

One reason we wanted to promote this bill is that we know 47 percent of young children have their first unwanted early exposure on smartphones and tablets. It’s just a common sense protection to have pre existing filters already on smartphones and tablets defaulted on. Versus putting the burden on caregivers and parents to try to go through 30 some odd steps on many devices to figure out how to activate existing content filters.

Details Of The Filter Bill

Melea: We have Supreme Court precedent that says it is preferable for protections to come at the filter level on devices. We know this bill would be upheld in court. And we’re confident it would be very enforceable. And all it is simply doing is asking that three major companies, Amazon with the Kindle, the Apple products and Google with their products, have smartphones and tablets.

That a software update would happen, which is a very simple fix. We’ve talked to software experts who work closely with device manufacturers. They would just do a very simple update that would allow phones activated in Alabama to have the default on instead of off with the content filter. And it automatically has broad based protections for young children, so they’re less likely to stumble across online explicit material at an early age.

People would say kids will find ways to get around it, obviously, but we were talking about very young children who aren’t even thinking about it that stumble upon this content. And it Is very traumatic to them to not understand what they’re looking at and the way it affects their brain. This gives them extra years of innocence, safety, and protection. I had the honor of speaking to different parent groups.

And have spoken to schools and churches in areas where kids don’t have involved parents. And those children, child on child, harmful behavior is rampant in those communities. Parents just hand children devices. They need resources to stop human trafficking and this behavior. No one’s looking for them, and they can become addicted to online explicit material and they act out what they see. That’s what children do. They copy what they see.

Challenges & Opposition

Melea: Then there’s a cycle of abuse happening and a cycle of trauma. So I especially think about those children when I think about this bill. We’ve been excited. We had a great response last session and had 67 bipartisan co sponsors in the House, and it passed through committee with bipartisan support. We got to the Senate, it passed through committee with bipartisan support. There are people working hard to stop human trafficking and help with this effort.

It was poised to be passed through the Senate. But we had one person in the Senate, who refused to allow it on the calendar. It only takes one or two people to set the calendar. They blocked it because a lot of opposition turned up to fight along the way. And that’s been true in every other state. Big tech has been our opposition. And telecommunications companies have also shown up at all our hearings with their lobbyists.

Even though our bill has zero to do with companies like AT&T or Verizon. They’re not held liable. It’s explicitly stated in our bill. They would show up, because unfortunately, big tech and telecommunications companies and the industry will sometimes fight common sense browsing protections for kids. And it’s really sad. But that’s one of the things we dealt with. Unfortunately, this gentleman blocked it. We assume there was pressure from lobbyists and one company in particular.

So we’re doing it again this session. I’m not discouraged. I’m encouraged, because the version we have this session is even better, has even more protections built in, and we have major support across the state. So I’m excited about getting the ball rolling again this session.

Resources To Stop Human Trafficking: Financial & Regulatory Obstacles

Anne: They’ll say all kinds of reasons that aren’t real. What’s the reason they don’t want to do it? Is it just simply money, this type of exploitation is sadly about money.

Melea: Money is a big factor. We know that historically, Google, AT& T or Verizon, do they get back general profits from online explicit material?

Melea: They do, and they have. There is potentially a loss of revenue. Big tech hates regulations. They do not want to be restricted in any way, shape, or form. They don’t want to give up an inch. So I think money, power, and resistance to any form of regulation. To me, it’s a safety feature on a on a car or something like requiring that they have proper antilock brakes on a car, something reasonable. And in this case, it’s just a simple software update. All the technology is there.

Anne: I hope this does not sound too political, but I’m a patriot saying, I’m grateful for all the government services we have. We have roads, we have a military, we have things in place to keep us safe. And that’s only something that the government can do, because the government is all of us. So I am so grateful that we have these opportunities to protect us. We need to do that through the government, because nobody’s going to willingly do that.

Although NCOSE has worked well with some companies. So that is exciting. They provide resources to stop human trafficking and are helping this bill to pass.

Resources To Stop Human Trafficking: The Dirty Dozen List

Melea: Absolutely, yeah, there’s opportunity. Companies respond to positive communication and sometimes negative. We have what’s called the dirty dozen list, and name and shame the main promoters of exploitation. We have had tremendous success, because once things are brought to light, it’s been refreshing that several companies have changed their corporate policies and resources to stop trafficking or unwanted exposure to online explicit material.

This has been a very tooth and nail fight all along the way. The opposition will say, well, you should just be fighting the online explicit material, instead of asking the manufacturers to do this at the device level, which I agree. We are like the National Center on Exploitation, and many of our allies are constantly fighting the industry to make changes there. But I wish our government was stepping up in this issue.

Because the laws on the books on a federal level would prohibit the production and distribution of hardcore online explicit material, which is the majority of harmful on the internet. And also our laws prohibit the distribution of all online explicit material, whether soft core or hardcore, from our internet. But our department of justice for many years has not been enforcing federal obscenity laws. That leaves us to tackle this issue of illegal content through corporate strategies and legislation.

Through lawsuits, like we have lawsuits against providers that are, we’re winning right now. We’re gutting companies because of lawsuits that we have with survivors. So we’re having to go at it every different angle.

Practical Steps & Community Support

Melea: But this is one of the most practical, simplistic things we can do to protect children. As I’ve talked to families across the state of Alabama, whether they’re Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. They really, really want to see this passed, and they’re upset it was blocked last session. There’s opposition from big tech, the industry and telecommunications companies.

And to everyday citizens that want to make a difference and make an impact when it comes to stopping and resources to stop trafficking and exploitation in general. At NCOSE, we understand that you’ve got to go upstream. I don’t know if you’ve heard the analogy of seeing people floating down the river drowning. You rush in to try to pull out as many as possible, and you’re struggling to get as many to safety as possible.

And you do this for a long time until you’re exhausted, but you’re not able to get to everyone. Eventually you come to this idea of like, I’ve got to go upstream and figure out who’s throwing people in the river. And so you go upstream and find out there’s someone who’s shoving all these people into the river. And in this case, that’s the industry because today’s mainstream online explicit material is highly addictive.

It changes their belief system, gives them permission, giving beliefs about consent and buying. People become objects. It’s creating a world of harm. And we know that if we did not have rampant, hardcore material if it was restricted to adult bookstores. Like you had back in the eighties with soft core material. As bad as that was, if we just lived back in that world, that’s what our laws on the book say.

Resources To Stop Human Trafficking: NCOSE’s Action Center

Melea: Our world should look like when it comes to online explicit material in the United States. There should be nothing on the internet, nothing on cable, or satellite TV. Can you imagine how different our world would be if our children could go through their developmental years without exposure to it around every corner? So that’s what we strive for is a shift in cultural expectations.

But then there are also practical things we’re doing to interrupt the cycles of things feeding trafficking. So we’d love for them to come to our website. It’s endsexualexploitation.org. And if you go to the action center, you can immediately get involved in helping us stop human trafficking and winning these victories.

Anne: I recommend NCOSE because so many people are talking about trafficking these days. And I have a really interesting story that is super alarming. So, one of my friends was on an airplane, and she was sitting next to a man, and they started talking about politics. He said, “I’m voting for this person because of his record on trafficking, because he will protect the children.”

Her ears perked up and she was like, oh, really, tell me more about this. He said, yeah, there’s these people are stealing these kids and we’ve got to stop it. And then she said, what do you do for a living? And guess what he did for a living?

Melea: What?

Anne: He owned a strip club.

Melea: Oh my gosh. You’re kidding.

Anne: No, so here’s a man who is an actual literal trafficker. He owns a strip club. And he’s talking about this nameless faceless group of people who’s like kidnapping kids when we know who they are. It’s him.

Getting Involved With NCOSE

Anne: We know who the exploiters are. It’s obvious. Getting involved with NCOSE is so awesome, because it’s clear what’s happening. So that you can say, okay, this particular Senator, he’s the one blocking this bill. We can write to that particular Senator and ensure that this bill gets passed.

So I love that NCOSE clears out all the confusion, because at least this man who owned the strip club loved saying, oh yeah, we got to stop trafficking to distract from the fact that he was a trafficker. We need the resources to stop human trafficking, which NCOSE has.

Melea: Talk about denial and hypocrisy, or else just a good marketing scheme there, yeah.

Anne: That is scary these days. So I love that NCOSE is a very reputable organization that has been around for a long time.

Melea: They do their research, and they are careful about the details before they speak out. That’s one reason I’m hesitant as a spokeswoman for NCOSE. I want to make sure I do my best to accurately present the facts, because they have such a high standard when it comes to what they share and do.

They’re very intentional and I respect that about them and they will correct themselves if there is something that they find out is inaccurate, but they do things with a lot of integrity and they get a lot done with a very small budget and a small group of people.

Anne: Well, that’s the other thing I love about NCOSE.

NCOSE’s Credibility & Integrity

Anne: Because so many people talk to me about it, they’ll be like, nobody’s doing anything. And I’m like, every year, NCOSE with their dirty dozen list, they make progress. They have wins. And if you’re on their mailing list, you’ll get messages, and it’s so amazing to be part of that, because you can feel the momentum. And as much as online explicit material is this overarching, exploitative, abusive, systemic problem. It affects every woman who listens to this podcast.

And so many families all over the world, it’s horrific. It needs to be stopped, it’s an abuse issue. The exploiters, they don’t want people to know that progress is being made. They want people to think it’s a lost cause or fine, and what’s your problem? We should just let this go. Or the alternative, which is, there’s nothing you can do.

Melea: They want it to seem that it’s a right and an entitlement, first and foremost. They don’t want people to know that it’s illegal. They want people to feel this is a free speech issue. And it’s not, it’s not protected speech, but you would think that’s the case given everything they do. They have all these organizations that are under misleading names, such as this free speech coalition, various names that make it sound like they’re anti exploitation as well.

They have some groups that sound like they’re anti trafficking, that they’re actually the industry putting up a false front to sound like they’re being benevolent, and they’re doing everything they can to undermine decency in society.

The Best Resources To Stop Human Trafficking

Melea: So you have to do your homework and dig deep when it comes to these issues. A legislator presented this filter bill, just like in our state and in other states. Several groups came in acting like they were, pro family, pro children presenting Trojan horse stills that sounded anti exploitation, and people fell for it. It’s a very sneaky opponent. Thankfully, the law is on our side, science is on our side.

As we educate the public about the harms of it on the brain and relationships in society. And as we educate the public about what the law actually says. They become empowered to push back against this evil industry.

Anne: And so that my listeners are not distracted by actual traffickers who say, Hey, I want to stop trafficking. So you don’t accidentally support a trafficker. NCOSE is the place to get your information to stop human trafficking. They are trustworthy, they’ve been around for so long, and they do their homework. And they know who the specific people are and talk about specific actionable things. That’s what makes it so effective.

Melea: Well, thank you so much. Enjoyed my time with you.

Anne: Yes, you too. Thank you.