The best way to protect your family and friends is by learning the signs of trafficking and creating safe spaces to openly discuss potential risks with your kids. Honest, ongoing conversations about these dangers can make a big difference. If your children ever find themselves in an uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situation, make sure they know how to reach a trusted adult for help. 

Increasingly, traffickers are turning to online message boards, social media, private messaging apps, video games, schools, and other public places to recruit victims. Traffickers often connect with children online to begin the process of grooming and luring. They look for vulnerabilities or holes in a young person’s life and try to fill them. 

  • Do they have low self-esteem? Traffickers will compliment them and tell them they are attractive. Do they feel unloved and alone? Traffickers will pose as doting romantic partner or friend and make false promises. 
  • Traffickers and other predators are using Facebook, Twitter, Ask.fm, Whisper, Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok to have direct access to kids. 
  • Parents should insist on knowing the passwords to their kids’ electronic devices, talk with children about how to stay safe while online and what to do if approached online by a stranger. 

There are also instances of peer-to-peer recruitment happening in high schools. It’s important to have frank discussions around this issue with all children, regardless of gender. Traffickers will sometimes use older girls to recruit younger girls by befriending them before turning them over to a trafficker. 

Parents need to recognize the warning signs and talk about the luring tactics these criminals use with their children. 

Look for these signs that may indicate your child is being trafficked: 

  • An older, controlling love interest who showers them with expensive gifts 
  • They frequently visit places unusual for their age group, such as hotels, motels, and clubs 
  • Marked changes in appearance  
  • Staying out late or all night, sneaking out  
  • Hanging out with new friends who are older than them 
  • Ignoring childhood friends and family members 
  • Drinking or using drugs 
  • Skipping school, skipping meals, not showering or not changing clothes 
  • Exhibiting anxious behaviour, lack of sleep, depression 
  • Ignoring rules and instructions at school or home 
  • Lying or unable to recall events in their lives 
  • Carrying a fake ID or having more than one cell phone 
  • Has expensive or new clothes, shoes or jewelry of unknown origin 
  • Spending more money and possessing expensive gifts from a new friend or boyfriend 
  • Talking about a modelling contract or another job waiting in another town or city 
  • Becoming more secretive about spending time online or on their cell phone 
  • Becoming frightened of being online or on the phone 

If you are concerned that your child might be trafficked, or if something simply doesn’t feel right, you can contact the confidential, 24/7 Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-833-900-1010 or by chat at www.canadianhumantraffickinghotline.ca. For more information, consult the hotline’s It’s Time to Talk document, which offers practical steps on how to approach these difficult conversations with your child.