Airport Human-Trafficking Posters Are Overstating the Risks to Young People
If you’ve recently been to a U.S. airport, you might have seen posters depicting an attractive, unsmiling young person. These posters are accompanied by sensationalist, hyperbolic claims that young people are at risk of predation from human traffickers. They include a contact number to report suspected trafficking.
The posters are part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign, “a national public awareness campaign designed to educate the public, law enforcement, and other industry partners to recognize the indicators of human trafficking, and how to appropriately respond to possible cases.”
I noticed one of these posters at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, Texas. I saw it again at Raleigh-Durham. (Note: Though the young man looks an awful lot like my editor, Robby Soave, he swears he is not moonlighting as a sex-trafficking victim impersonator.)
I’ve also recently seen a similar ad featuring a young woman of color. But a few years back, the trafficking posters in airports all looked like Brooks Brothers ads. Today, there’s a wider array of ethnicities.
Still, the real question is: By urging travelers to be on high alert for sex-trafficking, are these ads serving any legitimate purpose?
“That guy isn’t being trafficked by anyone,” says Emily Horowitz, a sociologist and author of From Rage to Reason: Why We Need Sex Crime Laws Based on Facts, Not Fear, when I show her the poster.
Kaytlin Bailey, the founder of Old Pros, a nonprofit that advocates for sex worker rights, and host of The Oldest Profession Podcast, agrees.
“We’re not having a problem with white middle-class kids disappearing from soccer games,” says Bailey. “That’s just not a thing that is happening.”
What is happening, she says, i
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