March 17, 2025 • 40 mins
Actress Marisol Nichols may have only appeared in one episode of Beverly Hills 90210, but her career crossed paths with Shannen Doherty on different occasions. From 'Friends 'Til the End,' to 'Charmed,'...Marisol saw Shannen shine on screen, and saw the passion she put into her advocacy.
In this episode of 'Let's Be Clear', Marisol shines a light on the dark world of human trafficking and explains how she helps rescue victims on an international level. From going undercover for law enforcement, to explaining how these criminal organizations lure kids in, to her advice on how to keep your loved ones safe...this is what you need to know, and what you can do to help fight sex trafficking.
To learn more about her 'Slavery Free World' foundation, visit MarisolNichols.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Dohrny.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi everyone, and hello to the Let's Be Clear listeners.
My name is marisaul Nichols. Now you may know me
from shows like Refordo or even twenty four, or if
you're more my age, you may know me from Vegas
Vacation playing Audrey Griswold. But today I am very humbled
to be guest hosting this episode of Let's Be Clear.
(00:30):
I had the opportunity of working with Shannon actually several
times on nine O two one zero, also Uncharmed, and
then we did a movie together that was for MTV
called Friends Till the End, So and she was always
just absolutely wonderful and besides being incredibly talented, I always
always respected her advocate work. So I understand that this
(00:52):
podcast is something that's very important to her, and I'm
really honored to be doing it today and to be
hopefully creating a space for strong women and strong voices,
which is what I know Shannon wanted and today, aside
from me being an actress, if you don't know, and
(01:13):
you can just kind of google it or anything, but
for the past ten twelve years, I have been working
also in the field of human trafficking, both as believe
it or not, an undercover agent, because I've been deputized
in several states, in several countries, and I would use
my acting skills to partner with different law enforcements to
help them get into places or talk like a kid
(01:37):
or look like a kid, or look like a trafficker,
or look like a customer, depending on whatever's needed. And
I also have a nonprofit called Foundation for Slavery Few
World that I founded about almost a decade ago. So
that's what we're going to be talking to about today,
and hopefully by the end you'll learn something. You'll learn
how to protect yourself, happy, to protect your family, your friends.
(01:59):
We're going to cover things such as child predators and
internet safety and all of that.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
All of that stuff, So let's get started.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So first, I wanted to talk a little bit about
why in the world I am talking about human trafficking
and how in the world I got involved. So essentially,
back in twenty twelve, in a twenty twelve early twenty thirteen,
I was friends with this older woman who traveled around
the world educating people.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
About human rights. Literally, that's what she did.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And she would come back from these travels and tell
me these like heartbreaking, horrific stories about human trafficking, and
back then, I'm like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I didn't know what.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That meant, and I didn't understand that this was a thing,
you know. I mean, this was over a decade ago.
So anyway, I sort of hearing about it, and she
started telling me about like something called the sex trade,
which made me want to throw up, and that there were,
you know, people caught up in this and hold against
(03:04):
their will, just like slaves. And I was pretty shocked
because I was like, I thought slavery was abolished when
Abraham Lincoln abolished it, you know, on the Emancipation Proclamation.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And I was wrong. I was very wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And actually, back then, the statistics, according to the International
Labor Organization, there were twenty one million people worldwide caught
up in what Barack Obama called modern day slavery, and
today that number is upwards a fifty million worldwide, and
it's in every single country, especially also including the United States,
(03:39):
and every single city in the United States, and it
is just rampant. And so essentially I was like, Okay,
I couldn't sleep. It wasn't like I was like, Okay,
let me go take this on. I honestly could not sleep.
I had, I think at the time, I was six,
and I was I was I just I couldn't imagine
other kids going through the things that I heard. And
(04:02):
I'm going to try and keep this palatable so you
don't turn the channel, but some very very dark things.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And I couldn't sleep, and.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So I was just, well, I'm a firm believer in
let me figure out what I can do about it,
you know, And so I dove in, and I dove in.
I met with different NGOs, non governmental organizations, different nonprofits.
I met with senators, I met with Republicans, I met
with Democrats. I met with everyone and their mother. I
(04:30):
met with executive brands of the White House. I met
with State Department, I met with Homeland Security, different law
enforcement entities, everyone and anyone that I could that was
trying to tackle this, to learn as much as I could,
to see what I could do about it, if anything.
And at the time, I was promoting a TV show
(04:51):
that I did called GCB for ABC, and I was
walking the red carpet on you know, one of these
events where your publicist calls you and say hey, marries, well,
can you come out for backpacks for children? It's a
charity organization in Style magazine, it's going to be covering it,
you know. And then you run and you scramble and
you get an outfit, you get a dress, and you
get a makeup artist, and you know, you look all
(05:13):
pretty and you walk this red carpet and what you.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Get is a cheat sheet.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So what that is is your publicist goes, here's your
talking points, and you get talking points so that when
Access Hollywood shoves a microphone in your face and goes,
why are you here for backpacks for children? You can go, oh, bah,
there's sixty thousand children in the United States without backpacks.
And you look I hate to say this, but you
look like you really know what you're talking about, when honestly,
(05:38):
you've been given a cheat sheet for the most part,
for the most of us. And I was learning about
this very dark thing, and I just I was like, look,
the only way that this thing can be allowed to
happen to the degree that it is happening in the
world is because good people don't know about it.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Because all the.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Bad guys know about it, know about it, but good
people don't know about this thing. How would we ever
cross flow this thing and find out about it unless
we're involved with some dark stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So I was like, Okay, I'm going to throw.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
My own red carpet event, and I'm going to invite
people from different nonprofits and different sectors of the government
and law enforcement to come and speak on this issue.
And I'm going to have the press there, and I
had access Hollywood there, and we invited all my you know,
actor friends and stuff, and we gave them.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Cheat sheets and so when they would walk the red.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Carpet, they were the ones including like Terry Crews and
Kelly Preston and you know, Jenna Elfman and Erica Christensen
and Kristin Chenowith, and it was really amazing and they
would spit out the statistics and they were learning for
the first time about this issue. So when they came
into the event, instead of a typical Hollywood event where
(06:55):
there's like open bar and a DJ and that's it's
mingling and that's pretty much all of it. I made
it like an award show because I wanted to find
a way that I could communicate what was happening in
the world in a way that wasn't like a lecture,
you know, And so long story short, you know, I
had I had different celebrities award at different individuals that
(07:19):
were doing work in this field, and then as they
would accept their award, they would talk about what it
was that they did, and we had a nice intro
video and so by.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Default people would learn about it. So that's essentially how
it all started.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And then one year I needed a keynote speaker, and
I met an organization that was running around essentially another
NGO that was running around rescuing women and children and
infiltrating different trafficking rings and working with law enforcement here
in California or in other states or in other countries.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And the head of that organization at the time was like,
can you you know, do you want to come and
watch and op?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And I'm like sure, And then when I got there,
it was like, well, do you want to can you
help me? I need a female And that was kind
of it. I just kind of dove in, and by
default I would just get phone calls, can you come,
can you come out? We're going to go to this
foreign country which I'm not going to say, but different
foreign countries, and you know, this was the real This
(08:22):
is the real deal. This is as scary as it
freaking gets, it as dark as it freaking gets. And
but I felt like if I could use a skill
set that I have in acting to get into a
place where other law enforcement maybe can't get into because I.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Don't look like a cop.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That was the biggest thing is I'd wear disguises and
I don't look like a cop, so it would like
essentially bring the guard down of the bad guys. And
that's that's just what I did off and on while
filming Riverdale, while not filming Roverdale, in between other things,
and I would just get a phone call. And I've
(09:05):
worked with different sectors of law enforcement, including the LAPD
and the sheriffs in Chris Wanson in Michigan. I've worked
in Sacramento, California. I've worked in these other foreign countries
and there you go, and I kind of just fell
into that side of things.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
So okay.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So one of the things is that I wanted to
make sure that everyone understands like human trafficking, Like when
you think of human trafficking, you think people chained up
in a room and held against their will, and all
kinds of images conjure, right, and that does happen, and
that is true.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
But it's also when I say it's here in the
United States, because it is here in the United States.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
These are people, human beings, women, children, sometimes men, but
mainly in the sex trade, because it's what I kind
of concentrate on. It's women and children and little boys,
and they are essentially held against their will, forced into
by coercion or pain or something else, into servicing, for
(10:16):
lack of a better word, strangers. And it is horrible
and it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And my main thing is.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It's supply and demand, right, you would not have a
supply of what it is now six point six million
I think it's six point six million children caught up
in the sex trade currently globally. You would not have
that supply if you did not have a demand. And
so you know, there's trafficking comes in the forms of
(10:55):
labor trafficking and debt bondage, the kind of thing that
you would think of of like, hey, can you smuggle
me across the border into a different country, Yes, but
now you have to pay off your debt and you
have to work off your debt. Oh, and we're going
to steal your passport. Oh, and we're going to force.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
You to do X, Y and z, depending on whatever
it is.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's different forms, right, So my main focus was always
you know, I had to kind of pick a focus,
so I just I focused on the sex trade because
for me, it was the most upsetting. And so, like
I said, it's supply and demand. You would not have
that supply if you did not have that demand. And
(11:32):
so my main focus now I have my own podcasts,
and I work and I try to educate directly to
women and children and teachers and parents of Hey, guys,
this is how you do not get pulled into this world.
And this is how to protect your kids online, and
this is how to protect yourself. You know, we're hearing
(11:54):
all kinds of things of between Uber and different online
forums and things like that. It's essentially you just have
to educate yourself so you can prevent yourself and your
loved ones from ever getting into the hands of these criminals.
(12:15):
One of the questions here is, you know, how do
young people get pulled into it? Well, in America, and
I'll try to keep this talk more towards America, the
majority of women and children that are that are or
young young women and children that are caught up into
this are runaways or foster care kids. There's actually a
(12:35):
saying in this industry that foster care is a straight
line to jail for boys and a straight line to
trafficking for girls.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
And it's just.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
It's because they're the most vulnerable. Any vulnerable person is
suspect to this, right. And so what happens is traffickers
will hang out of foster care homes.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
They'll go to schools.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
And hang out in the yard, or recruit another person
in school to recruit another girl to go meet with
the trafficker. There's something called a romeo we call it
the sort of romeo pimp slash trafficker where they'll be
tending to be your boyfriend. They'll pretend they're like, oh,
I love you and kame blah blah blah, and then
you slowly and they get you away from your support system,
(13:19):
so they'll convince you to run away. They'll convince you
that you know, the people that are supposed to look
out for you are bad and that they are better
at looking out for you. And then once they get
you in those grips, it changes, it changes and it's
it's called trafficking because it's it's forcing someone to do
something through force, cohersing against someone's will, that kind of thing.
(13:47):
How widespread is it in the US? I mean it's
in You cannot look. You don't have to listen to me, like,
look it up. It's in every city in America. I
was shocked when I first started doing this. One of
the one of the ops that we would do is
we would put an ad in a Craigslist right or
(14:10):
back then it was also backpage dot com, which was
a whole website that's been shut down, thank goodness. But
you'd put an ad and you would literally put an
ad and say hey, like encoded words. You know, we're parents,
we are in town three days only here to sell
our nine year old, twelve year old, thirteen year old.
(14:33):
And within seconds of posting it, I'd be sitting there
next to law enforcement. It's just appointment ap point'm an
appointment phone called email, email, send us a pictures like
can we talk to can we talk to them? How
old are the girls?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
What can we do?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Like just just in like small town America, you know,
just horrific. And I remember the law enforcement officers that
I was working with and this back in this one
was twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
They were astonished.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
They didn't know it was in their town and this
was a decade ago. And again, you don't have to
listen to me, like look it up if you're interested.
All the data is online, but it is and that's unfortunate.
(15:30):
My focus has been, Okay, if I can like where
does my niche fit in? And because of Riverdale, I
have a large audience of teenagers, young women, parents, sometimes teachers,
that kind of thing. And so I was like, okay,
if I can focus on one thing, I'm going to
focus on preventative and so that's what we do on
(15:50):
the podcast. And I also I also have guests on
that I've gone out of cover with or worked with
and some capacity, and I just kind of highlight what
they do and how to protect yourself. Okay, so suburban neighborhoods. Yes,
in suburban neighborhoods, victims are targeted. Again, Like I said,
the majority in America are runaways, some foster care kids.
But there's also they're looking for and what they are
(16:13):
looking for with traffickers, bad guys, bad actors are looking
for vulnerability. So they are pretty much everywhere where you
can have access to kids. So you think about it, parks, YMCAs,
swim clubs, all of that stuff, but then mainly online.
Like I always say, like the back in the day
(16:33):
was the white van you had to look out for,
which yes, you still have to look out for, but
it's not the majority. The white van is now the Internet.
So it's anywhere where they can have access to your kids, right,
So dming on Instagram, messaging on Facebook, and I'll talk
a little bit about what Meta has done to protect
put some policies in place recently, chat rooms, discord any
(16:57):
game that you can chat anywhere where you can reach
and talk directly to a kid. And what they're looking
for is they're looking for, as I mentioned, the vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So what does that look like. So that looks like
a girl.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Let's say, you know, maybe fifteen We all know this person,
you know, fifteen thirteen going on thirty dressed provocatively posting
a picture online of Instagram or on Facebook or wherever
they're posting, you know, and like, you know, screw my
parents or with a cigarette, or like just that they're
(17:31):
like a badass or they're trying to be a badass,
I should say, and I only say that because I
was that girl, you know, and sending up signals that
they don't maybe have a very close relationship or a
close support system, right, that's what these guys are looking for. So,
(17:52):
you know a lot of things that we do is
we'd put up fake profiles, fake profiles immediately because it's
the easiest thing in.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
The world to do. Fake profile.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I'll snap, you know, saw a picture of a young girl,
age down, Like you can take my face and age
it down, and now you've got a young girl and
just post something like screw my parents, or I hate school,
or you know, I don't know, do you think I'm pretty?
Things like that, And these guys literally have nothing else
to do. Like you know, the fat guy in the
(18:20):
basement that you hear about, they are the fat guy
in the basement on the internet like this, scrolling through
tons of profiles at anything in anywhere where they can
they can find this sort of vulnerable population in life.
Let's say there's a group of girls, and let's say
you're at the mall, because it's also you know, these
guys are everywhere. Say you're at the mall and there's
(18:41):
a group of group of kids. And let's say there's
five girls, and let's say some guy goes, hey, baby,
you know something, anything, just a comment. If four of
the girls are like ill, they're not going to bother them.
But the girl who puts her eyes down and is
like oh hi boom, that's their target. They're looking for vulnerability.
(19:06):
They're looking for someone who's not strong. They're looking for
someone that they can easily convince that it's not going
to fight back, it's not going to make any noise,
that kind of thing. I mean, there's so many, so
many things to look for.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I had.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I had a very dear friend of mine who's been
to my events by the way, been to my events,
woke up, called me up and said, oh my god,
marysal Marisel Marsol, Oh my god. And she she had
woken up the night before for some reason. She goes,
for some reason, something told me to go into my
son's room. And she's like, I went into my son's room,
who's fifteen. He wasn't there. She called him. He was
(19:38):
in an uber on his way to go meet what
he thought was a young woman who's you know, obviously
promising to do certain things with him and had sent
the Uber.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Now he's fifteen, she's supposed to be fifteen, but they're not.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
How does a fifteen year old get access to a
credit card to her parents to send an Uber And
by the way he was being he didn't even know
where he was going. He was going two hours away.
And also why does uber pick up a fifteen year
old boy in the middle of the night. But that's
a whole other conversation. My point is she had even
educated herself. She had even even like was aware of this.
(20:18):
But if they you have to educate your kids and
young kids, you have to be aware of this because
it's they will put up a fake profile. They it's
so easy to create a whole history of a person online.
It's the easiest thing in the world. Keep in mind,
none of these platforms require ID, so you can be anyone.
(20:41):
And these guys, these predators have multiple, multiple profiles, and
they're doing this all day long, trying to trying to
reach someone. So one of the things that I want
to say the good news because I think I'm talking
a mile a minute. But one of the great things
that Meta did so Meta owns Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, that
kind of thing. They rolled out earlier this year, a
(21:04):
mandatory change in all of their social media, So any
kid that is under the age I think it was
seventeen or eighteen, automatically their profiles were private no matter what.
And what that does is that if you have a
public profile, as some of you might know, anyone can
(21:25):
DM you, anyone can reach you. If it's private, you
have to actually accept messages and accept people in. So
that's one of the things that rolled out this year.
There's other legislation that if you want to know more,
just go onto my website, Marison Nicols dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That Meta is doing.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And the good news is that all these different entities
are all trying to help. Like I have never run
into anyone in the last decade that I said, oh
I work in the field of human trafficking or child
preditors or I work on protect Everyone was like, how
can I help?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
What can I do? Everyone?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So the good news is that there are so many
different organizations and people, law enforcement and politicians doing something
about this or trying.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
To do something about this.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I shouldn't say, okay, describe I have some questions here.
So they kind of prompt me to talk. Are people
being targeted online? I mean that's everywhere. By the way,
you also as a young adult, because I know it's
not just kids listening to this podcast, but we've got
women on here and men on here, so you have
(22:39):
to do your diligence.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
There are cases of.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Girls gone missing the nineteen twenty twenty one years old
or approached them all. Hey, I really like the way
you do your makeup. We're looking for makeup artists to
travel with models. Here's my card. They even have cards, right,
they even have website sites. So you know, there was
a case of a girl and it's a very actually
very famous case, but you know, she got offered a
(23:08):
job a job, and she went. They had a website,
they had a questionnaire, so she had given them by
filling it out her name, her address, her so security number, everything,
and then when she met met for the job interview,
then she was just snatched. So if something the biggest
(23:28):
thing that I teach my own daughter and anyone is like, look,
if something doesn't feel right, it's not right one hundred percent.
Like trust your instincts. I really believe these things are
built into us for a reason. You know, trust that
spidey sense. So in that case, if you meet a
stranger and they want to meet with you and they
want to bring a friend, bring someone along. Don't just
(23:51):
go on their website, but go on other websites and
see if anybody has even heard of this agency. Are
there any reviews for this agency? Check to see if
they're read just stirred, you know in the Better Business Bureau,
which is are they legit that kind of thing? Or
like you see these flyers for parties, you know, oh,
come in this party, come to this party. Ish you
don't know, like have a buddy, go with someone, don't
(24:14):
go alone when you're at bars, cover your drink, hands
over your drink at all times, those kind of things.
So these guys are organized. They have all the time
in the world. And the reason why trafficking is like
it's the fastest growing criminal enterprise on the planet. It's
(24:35):
literally drugs trap human trafficking, it's right there. And the
reason why is because you can sell a drug once
and it's gone and you have to get a new supply.
But you can not to horrify you, but you can
sell a human being over and over and over and
over it's lucrative. So that's also one of the reasons
(24:58):
why this is the biggest i mean criminal enterprise in
the world right now. How hard is it to find
the victims and rescue them, you know, it depends on
the victim, and it depends on the country, it depends
on how they're being sold. So there's a phenomenal organization
called Skull Games that if you want to know more,
(25:20):
you can look them up.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
But they do deep dives into.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
The dark Web and deep dives on the web, and
they can find and see things just on Facebook. They
can just chat, Okay, this girl is being trafficked by
this guy who's also trafficking these three women, Like it
depends on how if the person is on the street,
you know, like people used to there used to be
a term. I hated the term, but there used to
(25:43):
be a term. It's no longer in use child prostitute.
And you would see these young kids on the street
and you'd be like, oh my god, and blah la
la lah. They's traffic. They're not there by choice. They're
victims themselves, and they've got someone around the corner making
sure that they do what they need to do, or
they will be punished. It depends on the situation. One
(26:07):
place that I worked in was very guarded. It had
not only walls around the place, but men with guns
to make sure that they're not letting in someone like
me or someone like the law enforcement guys that I
(26:27):
was working with, right and it it's very well protected.
One of the things that I always say is if
you can run like people always astonished, why didn't they
run away? A lot of times they can't, a lot
of times they've been conditioned and beaten that they can't.
(26:50):
But running away making noise if you ever are being
taken and they put I would tell my daughter this,
which is horrible, but I was like, listen, if anyone.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Ever tells you to be quiet with it going to
hurt you. They want you need to out.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
You need to do the exact opposite of what they're
telling because they're trying to get you quiet, to get
you away from a crowd where bad things can happen.
So you want to make as much noise as possible.
I tell my daughter that's the only time you could kick, scream, bite,
and like make the most noise as possible. Anyway, that's
(27:23):
for kids, And I'm digressing. So let me get to
some of these questions. Many of us hear the term
human trafficking and immediately think taken by Liam Neeson.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Not really.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I mean again, that happens, but not it's not the majority.
It's more luring people into them by using different means.
I started a foundation for a slavery free world. So
what can our listeners do to help the fight? Well,
I mean lots of things. First of all, educate yourself.
Please listen to I have a podcast out called marisonal
(27:54):
Nicholas Podcast. I have different experts on there, all the
way from the National Center from miss and Exploited Children.
That's a phenomenal episode.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
If you want to know.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Who those guys are, the acronym is nick MAK National
Center for Missing Children, right or Missing and Exploited Children,
And they're the milk carton guys. They're the ones that
put out the missing children posters and they have an
entire trafficking division because what they found was that the
missing kids were now showing up on this side of
(28:26):
the equation. So they have an entire staff that's dedicated
to just finding where these kids are. They're phenomenal resource
u missingkids dot org is their their website. They're phenomenal,
But educate yourself. I've got different experts on there for
a reason to talk about different sides of this thing, right,
(28:47):
including survivors that have gotten out of this and been
able to escape.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
So to me, education is prevention.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
And listen to your instinct, listen to your gut instinct
and talk to your children or have your children watch
the podcast, like just so they understand. Right, there's an
episode on there with Sheriff Chris Wantson for the season
that we just put on there, and it was the
story of a I think it was a thirteen year
old girl who met a guy on freaking Instagram. Older
(29:18):
man pretending to be a younger man, convinced her to
sneak out of her parents' house, grabbed her, took her
to a hotel, did not so nice, horrible things to her,
filmed it because that's what these guys love to do,
and then dropped her back off and the parents the
(29:38):
next day could tell that something was very very very wrong,
took her to the hospital, found out and within the
I think it was like within three days, this guy
had done this in three different states, Like this is
all he does. So it's more than just don't talk
to strangers. It's do not talk to strangers online. It's
a different thing. One of the things I would tell
(30:13):
my daughter when she was younger, I would say, if
you ever get into trouble and like, don't necessarily go
to a law enforcement if you can, yes, but find
a mom with kids.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Find a mom or dad.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
With kids, because there's also women in this industry. That's
really That's the one that kills me and breaks my
heart every single time is when I say a female trafficker.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
They exist, So find a mom with kids. That mom
will know what to do.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Always tell your kids these things, these sort of safety things.
And what I did was I wanted to make it
because I didn't want my kid afraid. Right, It's a
fine line between protecting your children and overwhelming them with
way too much information that's going to wreck them, you know, mentally.
So I would always point out, like, look about eighty
(31:06):
percent of anyone you meet, and all the people are
going to be good people always, but about twenty percent
are going to be bad guys. And the bad guys
work very hard to not look like bad guys, so
they look like the good guys, so you can't tell, right,
(31:27):
And even though there's only a small amount of them,
you still have to protect yourself from the bad guys.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
That's all. I wasn't like, Hey, they take these kids
and they go do X, Y and Z to them.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Never instinctly, my kid knew exactly what I meant by
bad guy, Like they know these.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Things, so you know, and I would always be like, good,
so what do you do? What's my phone number? Good? Good?
What do you do if someone tries to grab you? Okay,
I screamed my up?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Good? What do you do if someone you know, the
old thing candy or a puppy to pet, or needs
directions or wants to go into the store with them?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
What do you do? What do you do? What do
you do? What do you do? And just drill drill, drill,
drill drill. There's also different things like on.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
For older an older population, you know, eighteen nineteen twenty,
young moms, that kind of thing for them, the traffickers
and these bad guys and the predators, be very careful
on dating apps. There's been many, many, many cases where
predators would date a mom just to get to her kid.
(32:32):
So you have to be very very careful about that,
and just like, trust your instincts on these things, like
if you're ever afraid to walk to your car at night,
or you have a car and you're parked in a
lot and then all of a sudden, there's like not
many other cars in the lot, but somebody pulled right
next to you.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Ask someone to walk you to your car.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
You don't want to be walking in between the cars
opening your door when they can just open the door
and grab you right there. Like, trust your instincts. They're
there for a reason, you know. Anyway, Again, even with adults,
I have found eighty percent of people are wonderful and
good and amazing, amazing people and twenty percent of the
(33:18):
bad guys. And that is just how it is. And
you can't tell I've met.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Traffickers that you would never know.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
You would never know, personable females you would never know
that they were doing this is It is astonishing except
for that hitchy feeling where there's something off.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
That I could tell. But that's about it.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Okay, So let's go back to let's do the acting,
because this has been a little bit a lot. Sorry,
you've been working actress from a very young age. Talk
about how you balance work with this level of activism. Well, okay, So,
like I said, I would go and do these things
sometimes when I was on Riverdale, and it depends on
the schedule, it depends on if I can or not.
(34:05):
And it's gotten me through, you know, acting Like anything else,
it's got its ups and downs, right, and it's got
its amazing periods where you're super busy, and then it's
got its dry periods where you always are like, oh
my god, am I ever going to work again?
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Always like always.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
And so having my nonprofit and doing this type of work,
it's such a strong purpose of mind to do it
that it's sometimes even more important to me than the
acting side of things. But the acting side of things
gives me a voice and gives me a large audience
and opens up more doors, and so it's sort of
(34:42):
balancing those two things together, if that, If that makes sense. Gosh,
I have no idea how long I've been talking or anything.
I think I still have some much some more time.
But it was funny that the acting things would sometimes
become less important then my other activist work because it's
(35:05):
real human beings. I mean, this is real people and
every time when I would get asked to go out,
I would I mean.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Like every time, I'd be like, what am I doing?
What am I doing? What am I doing? What am
I doing?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And the whole reason I would do it was because
I would go, well, if my daughter was in this situation,
I would want I would want someone to come and
take the chance and help her get out. And that's
and I mean, and I don't want anyone to think
that by doing this work.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Like it is terrifying.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I am terrified every single time, this last one that
I did, which is about it's been about a year
and a half now maybe two years that I've gone out.
Since I've gone out, which is great, I was like,
this is what am I doing? This is too it's
so scary, and my daughter's relying on me to come
back from these things, and so it's been sort of
(35:53):
a catch twenty two like if I can help and
you absolutely need my skill set or you need me,
I'll be there as long as you can protect me
and as long as you get me home to my daughter.
But otherwise I just try to work on legislation, work
on reaching people, work on mandatory. I want mandatory trafficking
(36:15):
education in every single school in America per age level,
like different tips for kids at grade school, tips for
kids at junior high, high school, college mandatory mandatory, because
this is too big of an issue to not be
preventative on this.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
So I don't know if I answer the question.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
But I could talk on and on and on about
about this, and I just I guess my goal, if
anyone would ever ask, it's to have human trafficking be
something you learn about in the history books, where it's
something that is abolished, it's done, it's eradicated, and it's
just something that we go, wow, how did howether that
(36:59):
many people enslaved and most people didn't even know it.
I want it to be a past tense thing. I
want to not have to do the work. I want
to be able to close down my nonprofit because it's
done within my lifetime. That's that's what I want.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I want.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I want the childhood that I used to have for
my grandkids, where I could go out so the street
lights came on and come home and it was no
big deal and I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
I would never, in.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
A million, trillion zillion years, let my kid go outside
by herself. Ever, like now she's sixteen, different story, but
like there's it's just it's a different world and I
want that old world back. That's what I'm going for.
(37:47):
I'm going for to reverse this. You know, so things
like this just don't happen. Let me see if there's
any other questions I have my Oh okay, so I
have a projects coming out. I have a movie with
Jenna Ortega. If you know who she is, she you
know Beetlejuice. She was the star of the new Beetle
(38:07):
Juice movie and a bunch of other things. Everyone just
google Jena Ortega if you don't know. I play her
mom in a movie coming out called Winter Spring Summer Fall.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
And then I also have a movie being made about
what I do. It's called Somebody's Daughter.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And what happened was Marie Claire, which is a fashion magazine,
shadowed me on a weekend op that I did with
the sheriff in Flint, Michigan. And then after that weekend,
they you know, did a giant spread about the stuff
that they do, and that thing went viral. It went
everywhere during COVID everyone their mother picked it up, like
it's crazy. It was like it was crazy. But anyway,
(38:47):
long story short, Sony stepped up and they're like, we
want to tell your story. And so now that's turned
into a movie for Lifetime called Somebody's Daughter, and it's
literally about a single mom who's also an actress who
also falls into this world of trafficking. So we are
(39:08):
hopefully starting to film in about the next two months
and then it's up to Lifetime when they come out,
but please look for it.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I love the title. It's called Somebody's Daughter. And if you.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Follow me on social media, my name is Marisol Nichols
on every single one of my channels, whether it's X
or Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and I'll obviously promote
it there.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
So I think that's about it.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I think I've talked a lot about this issue. I
hope I didn't overwhelm any of you. I hope that
I inspired you to talk to your friends and family
to get yourself educated. And please know that again, the
world is beautiful. I'm talking about a small percentage of situations,
(39:52):
but it's enough of a percentage that I would never
want anyone else caught up in it. So that's why
I do the work that I do thank you for
listening to this episode of Let's Be Clearer, and again,
I hope it helps you to get involved in anything
that touches your heart.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I'm Marison Nichols. Until next time,
This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Dohrny.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi everyone, and hello to the Let's Be Clear listeners.
My name is marisaul Nichols. Now you may know me
from shows like Refordo or even twenty four, or if
you're more my age, you may know me from Vegas
Vacation playing Audrey Griswold. But today I am very humbled
to be guest hosting this episode of Let's Be Clear.
(00:30):
I had the opportunity of working with Shannon actually several
times on nine O two one zero, also Uncharmed, and
then we did a movie together that was for MTV
called Friends Till the End, So and she was always
just absolutely wonderful and besides being incredibly talented, I always
always respected her advocate work. So I understand that this
(00:52):
podcast is something that's very important to her, and I'm
really honored to be doing it today and to be
hopefully creating a space for strong women and strong voices,
which is what I know Shannon wanted and today, aside
from me being an actress, if you don't know, and
(01:13):
you can just kind of google it or anything, but
for the past ten twelve years, I have been working
also in the field of human trafficking, both as believe
it or not, an undercover agent, because I've been deputized
in several states, in several countries, and I would use
my acting skills to partner with different law enforcements to
help them get into places or talk like a kid
(01:37):
or look like a kid, or look like a trafficker,
or look like a customer, depending on whatever's needed. And
I also have a nonprofit called Foundation for Slavery Few
World that I founded about almost a decade ago. So
that's what we're going to be talking to about today,
and hopefully by the end you'll learn something. You'll learn
how to protect yourself, happy, to protect your family, your friends.
(01:59):
We're going to cover things such as child predators and
internet safety and all of that.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
All of that stuff, So let's get started.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So first, I wanted to talk a little bit about
why in the world I am talking about human trafficking
and how in the world I got involved. So essentially,
back in twenty twelve, in a twenty twelve early twenty thirteen,
I was friends with this older woman who traveled around
the world educating people.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
About human rights. Literally, that's what she did.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And she would come back from these travels and tell
me these like heartbreaking, horrific stories about human trafficking, and
back then, I'm like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I didn't know what.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That meant, and I didn't understand that this was a thing,
you know. I mean, this was over a decade ago.
So anyway, I sort of hearing about it, and she
started telling me about like something called the sex trade,
which made me want to throw up, and that there were,
you know, people caught up in this and hold against
(03:04):
their will, just like slaves. And I was pretty shocked
because I was like, I thought slavery was abolished when
Abraham Lincoln abolished it, you know, on the Emancipation Proclamation.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And I was wrong. I was very wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And actually, back then, the statistics, according to the International
Labor Organization, there were twenty one million people worldwide caught
up in what Barack Obama called modern day slavery, and
today that number is upwards a fifty million worldwide, and
it's in every single country, especially also including the United States,
(03:39):
and every single city in the United States, and it
is just rampant. And so essentially I was like, Okay,
I couldn't sleep. It wasn't like I was like, Okay,
let me go take this on. I honestly could not sleep.
I had, I think at the time, I was six,
and I was I was I just I couldn't imagine
other kids going through the things that I heard. And
(04:02):
I'm going to try and keep this palatable so you
don't turn the channel, but some very very dark things.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And I couldn't sleep, and.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So I was just, well, I'm a firm believer in
let me figure out what I can do about it,
you know, And so I dove in, and I dove in.
I met with different NGOs, non governmental organizations, different nonprofits.
I met with senators, I met with Republicans, I met
with Democrats. I met with everyone and their mother. I
(04:30):
met with executive brands of the White House. I met
with State Department, I met with Homeland Security, different law
enforcement entities, everyone and anyone that I could that was
trying to tackle this, to learn as much as I could,
to see what I could do about it, if anything.
And at the time, I was promoting a TV show
(04:51):
that I did called GCB for ABC, and I was
walking the red carpet on you know, one of these
events where your publicist calls you and say hey, marries, well,
can you come out for backpacks for children? It's a
charity organization in Style magazine, it's going to be covering it,
you know. And then you run and you scramble and
you get an outfit, you get a dress, and you
get a makeup artist, and you know, you look all
(05:13):
pretty and you walk this red carpet and what you.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Get is a cheat sheet.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So what that is is your publicist goes, here's your
talking points, and you get talking points so that when
Access Hollywood shoves a microphone in your face and goes,
why are you here for backpacks for children? You can go, oh, bah,
there's sixty thousand children in the United States without backpacks.
And you look I hate to say this, but you
look like you really know what you're talking about, when honestly,
(05:38):
you've been given a cheat sheet for the most part,
for the most of us. And I was learning about
this very dark thing, and I just I was like, look,
the only way that this thing can be allowed to
happen to the degree that it is happening in the
world is because good people don't know about it.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Because all the.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Bad guys know about it, know about it, but good
people don't know about this thing. How would we ever
cross flow this thing and find out about it unless
we're involved with some dark stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So I was like, Okay, I'm going to throw.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
My own red carpet event, and I'm going to invite
people from different nonprofits and different sectors of the government
and law enforcement to come and speak on this issue.
And I'm going to have the press there, and I
had access Hollywood there, and we invited all my you know,
actor friends and stuff, and we gave them.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Cheat sheets and so when they would walk the red.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Carpet, they were the ones including like Terry Crews and
Kelly Preston and you know, Jenna Elfman and Erica Christensen
and Kristin Chenowith, and it was really amazing and they
would spit out the statistics and they were learning for
the first time about this issue. So when they came
into the event, instead of a typical Hollywood event where
(06:55):
there's like open bar and a DJ and that's it's
mingling and that's pretty much all of it. I made
it like an award show because I wanted to find
a way that I could communicate what was happening in
the world in a way that wasn't like a lecture,
you know, And so long story short, you know, I
had I had different celebrities award at different individuals that
(07:19):
were doing work in this field, and then as they
would accept their award, they would talk about what it
was that they did, and we had a nice intro
video and so by.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Default people would learn about it. So that's essentially how
it all started.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And then one year I needed a keynote speaker, and
I met an organization that was running around essentially another
NGO that was running around rescuing women and children and
infiltrating different trafficking rings and working with law enforcement here
in California or in other states or in other countries.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And the head of that organization at the time was like,
can you you know, do you want to come and
watch and op?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And I'm like sure, And then when I got there,
it was like, well, do you want to can you
help me? I need a female And that was kind
of it. I just kind of dove in, and by
default I would just get phone calls, can you come,
can you come out? We're going to go to this
foreign country which I'm not going to say, but different
foreign countries, and you know, this was the real This
(08:22):
is the real deal. This is as scary as it
freaking gets, it as dark as it freaking gets. And
but I felt like if I could use a skill
set that I have in acting to get into a
place where other law enforcement maybe can't get into because I.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Don't look like a cop.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That was the biggest thing is I'd wear disguises and
I don't look like a cop, so it would like
essentially bring the guard down of the bad guys. And
that's that's just what I did off and on while
filming Riverdale, while not filming Roverdale, in between other things,
and I would just get a phone call. And I've
(09:05):
worked with different sectors of law enforcement, including the LAPD
and the sheriffs in Chris Wanson in Michigan. I've worked
in Sacramento, California. I've worked in these other foreign countries
and there you go, and I kind of just fell
into that side of things.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
So okay.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So one of the things is that I wanted to
make sure that everyone understands like human trafficking, Like when
you think of human trafficking, you think people chained up
in a room and held against their will, and all
kinds of images conjure, right, and that does happen, and
that is true.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
But it's also when I say it's here in the
United States, because it is here in the United States.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
These are people, human beings, women, children, sometimes men, but
mainly in the sex trade, because it's what I kind
of concentrate on. It's women and children and little boys,
and they are essentially held against their will, forced into
by coercion or pain or something else, into servicing, for
(10:16):
lack of a better word, strangers. And it is horrible
and it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And my main thing is.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It's supply and demand, right, you would not have a
supply of what it is now six point six million
I think it's six point six million children caught up
in the sex trade currently globally. You would not have
that supply if you did not have a demand. And
so you know, there's trafficking comes in the forms of
(10:55):
labor trafficking and debt bondage, the kind of thing that
you would think of of like, hey, can you smuggle
me across the border into a different country, Yes, but
now you have to pay off your debt and you
have to work off your debt. Oh, and we're going
to steal your passport. Oh, and we're going to force.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
You to do X, Y and z, depending on whatever
it is.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's different forms, right, So my main focus was always
you know, I had to kind of pick a focus,
so I just I focused on the sex trade because
for me, it was the most upsetting. And so, like
I said, it's supply and demand. You would not have
that supply if you did not have that demand. And
(11:32):
so my main focus now I have my own podcasts,
and I work and I try to educate directly to
women and children and teachers and parents of Hey, guys,
this is how you do not get pulled into this world.
And this is how to protect your kids online, and
this is how to protect yourself. You know, we're hearing
(11:54):
all kinds of things of between Uber and different online
forums and things like that. It's essentially you just have
to educate yourself so you can prevent yourself and your
loved ones from ever getting into the hands of these criminals.
(12:15):
One of the questions here is, you know, how do
young people get pulled into it? Well, in America, and
I'll try to keep this talk more towards America, the
majority of women and children that are that are or
young young women and children that are caught up into
this are runaways or foster care kids. There's actually a
(12:35):
saying in this industry that foster care is a straight
line to jail for boys and a straight line to
trafficking for girls.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
And it's just.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
It's because they're the most vulnerable. Any vulnerable person is
suspect to this, right. And so what happens is traffickers
will hang out of foster care homes.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
They'll go to schools.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
And hang out in the yard, or recruit another person
in school to recruit another girl to go meet with
the trafficker. There's something called a romeo we call it
the sort of romeo pimp slash trafficker where they'll be
tending to be your boyfriend. They'll pretend they're like, oh,
I love you and kame blah blah blah, and then
you slowly and they get you away from your support system,
(13:19):
so they'll convince you to run away. They'll convince you
that you know, the people that are supposed to look
out for you are bad and that they are better
at looking out for you. And then once they get
you in those grips, it changes, it changes and it's
it's called trafficking because it's it's forcing someone to do
something through force, cohersing against someone's will, that kind of thing.
(13:47):
How widespread is it in the US? I mean it's
in You cannot look. You don't have to listen to me, like,
look it up. It's in every city in America. I
was shocked when I first started doing this. One of
the one of the ops that we would do is
we would put an ad in a Craigslist right or
(14:10):
back then it was also backpage dot com, which was
a whole website that's been shut down, thank goodness. But
you'd put an ad and you would literally put an
ad and say hey, like encoded words. You know, we're parents,
we are in town three days only here to sell
our nine year old, twelve year old, thirteen year old.
(14:33):
And within seconds of posting it, I'd be sitting there
next to law enforcement. It's just appointment ap point'm an
appointment phone called email, email, send us a pictures like
can we talk to can we talk to them? How
old are the girls?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
What can we do?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Like just just in like small town America, you know,
just horrific. And I remember the law enforcement officers that
I was working with and this back in this one
was twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
They were astonished.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
They didn't know it was in their town and this
was a decade ago. And again, you don't have to
listen to me, like look it up if you're interested.
All the data is online, but it is and that's unfortunate.
(15:30):
My focus has been, Okay, if I can like where
does my niche fit in? And because of Riverdale, I
have a large audience of teenagers, young women, parents, sometimes teachers,
that kind of thing. And so I was like, okay,
if I can focus on one thing, I'm going to
focus on preventative and so that's what we do on
(15:50):
the podcast. And I also I also have guests on
that I've gone out of cover with or worked with
and some capacity, and I just kind of highlight what
they do and how to protect yourself. Okay, so suburban neighborhoods. Yes,
in suburban neighborhoods, victims are targeted. Again, Like I said,
the majority in America are runaways, some foster care kids.
But there's also they're looking for and what they are
(16:13):
looking for with traffickers, bad guys, bad actors are looking
for vulnerability. So they are pretty much everywhere where you
can have access to kids. So you think about it, parks, YMCAs,
swim clubs, all of that stuff, but then mainly online.
Like I always say, like the back in the day
(16:33):
was the white van you had to look out for,
which yes, you still have to look out for, but
it's not the majority. The white van is now the Internet.
So it's anywhere where they can have access to your kids, right,
So dming on Instagram, messaging on Facebook, and I'll talk
a little bit about what Meta has done to protect
put some policies in place recently, chat rooms, discord any
(16:57):
game that you can chat anywhere where you can reach
and talk directly to a kid. And what they're looking
for is they're looking for, as I mentioned, the vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So what does that look like. So that looks like
a girl.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Let's say, you know, maybe fifteen We all know this person,
you know, fifteen thirteen going on thirty dressed provocatively posting
a picture online of Instagram or on Facebook or wherever
they're posting, you know, and like, you know, screw my
parents or with a cigarette, or like just that they're
(17:31):
like a badass or they're trying to be a badass,
I should say, and I only say that because I
was that girl, you know, and sending up signals that
they don't maybe have a very close relationship or a
close support system, right, that's what these guys are looking for. So,
(17:52):
you know a lot of things that we do is
we'd put up fake profiles, fake profiles immediately because it's
the easiest thing in.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
The world to do. Fake profile.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I'll snap, you know, saw a picture of a young girl,
age down, Like you can take my face and age
it down, and now you've got a young girl and
just post something like screw my parents, or I hate school,
or you know, I don't know, do you think I'm pretty?
Things like that, And these guys literally have nothing else
to do. Like you know, the fat guy in the
(18:20):
basement that you hear about, they are the fat guy
in the basement on the internet like this, scrolling through
tons of profiles at anything in anywhere where they can
they can find this sort of vulnerable population in life.
Let's say there's a group of girls, and let's say
you're at the mall, because it's also you know, these
guys are everywhere. Say you're at the mall and there's
(18:41):
a group of group of kids. And let's say there's
five girls, and let's say some guy goes, hey, baby,
you know something, anything, just a comment. If four of
the girls are like ill, they're not going to bother them.
But the girl who puts her eyes down and is
like oh hi boom, that's their target. They're looking for vulnerability.
(19:06):
They're looking for someone who's not strong. They're looking for
someone that they can easily convince that it's not going
to fight back, it's not going to make any noise,
that kind of thing. I mean, there's so many, so
many things to look for.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I had.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I had a very dear friend of mine who's been
to my events by the way, been to my events,
woke up, called me up and said, oh my god,
marysal Marisel Marsol, Oh my god. And she she had
woken up the night before for some reason. She goes,
for some reason, something told me to go into my
son's room. And she's like, I went into my son's room,
who's fifteen. He wasn't there. She called him. He was
(19:38):
in an uber on his way to go meet what
he thought was a young woman who's you know, obviously
promising to do certain things with him and had sent
the Uber.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Now he's fifteen, she's supposed to be fifteen, but they're not.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
How does a fifteen year old get access to a
credit card to her parents to send an Uber And
by the way he was being he didn't even know
where he was going. He was going two hours away.
And also why does uber pick up a fifteen year
old boy in the middle of the night. But that's
a whole other conversation. My point is she had even
educated herself. She had even even like was aware of this.
(20:18):
But if they you have to educate your kids and
young kids, you have to be aware of this because
it's they will put up a fake profile. They it's
so easy to create a whole history of a person online.
It's the easiest thing in the world. Keep in mind,
none of these platforms require ID, so you can be anyone.
(20:41):
And these guys, these predators have multiple, multiple profiles, and
they're doing this all day long, trying to trying to
reach someone. So one of the things that I want
to say the good news because I think I'm talking
a mile a minute. But one of the great things
that Meta did so Meta owns Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, that
kind of thing. They rolled out earlier this year, a
(21:04):
mandatory change in all of their social media, So any
kid that is under the age I think it was
seventeen or eighteen, automatically their profiles were private no matter what.
And what that does is that if you have a
public profile, as some of you might know, anyone can
(21:25):
DM you, anyone can reach you. If it's private, you
have to actually accept messages and accept people in. So
that's one of the things that rolled out this year.
There's other legislation that if you want to know more,
just go onto my website, Marison Nicols dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That Meta is doing.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And the good news is that all these different entities
are all trying to help. Like I have never run
into anyone in the last decade that I said, oh
I work in the field of human trafficking or child
preditors or I work on protect Everyone was like, how
can I help?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
What can I do? Everyone?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So the good news is that there are so many
different organizations and people, law enforcement and politicians doing something
about this or trying.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
To do something about this.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I shouldn't say, okay, describe I have some questions here.
So they kind of prompt me to talk. Are people
being targeted online? I mean that's everywhere. By the way,
you also as a young adult, because I know it's
not just kids listening to this podcast, but we've got
women on here and men on here, so you have
(22:39):
to do your diligence.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
There are cases of.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Girls gone missing the nineteen twenty twenty one years old
or approached them all. Hey, I really like the way
you do your makeup. We're looking for makeup artists to
travel with models. Here's my card. They even have cards, right,
they even have website sites. So you know, there was
a case of a girl and it's a very actually
very famous case, but you know, she got offered a
(23:08):
job a job, and she went. They had a website,
they had a questionnaire, so she had given them by
filling it out her name, her address, her so security number, everything,
and then when she met met for the job interview,
then she was just snatched. So if something the biggest
(23:28):
thing that I teach my own daughter and anyone is like, look,
if something doesn't feel right, it's not right one hundred percent.
Like trust your instincts. I really believe these things are
built into us for a reason. You know, trust that
spidey sense. So in that case, if you meet a
stranger and they want to meet with you and they
want to bring a friend, bring someone along. Don't just
(23:51):
go on their website, but go on other websites and
see if anybody has even heard of this agency. Are
there any reviews for this agency? Check to see if
they're read just stirred, you know in the Better Business Bureau,
which is are they legit that kind of thing? Or
like you see these flyers for parties, you know, oh,
come in this party, come to this party. Ish you
don't know, like have a buddy, go with someone, don't
(24:14):
go alone when you're at bars, cover your drink, hands
over your drink at all times, those kind of things.
So these guys are organized. They have all the time
in the world. And the reason why trafficking is like
it's the fastest growing criminal enterprise on the planet. It's
(24:35):
literally drugs trap human trafficking, it's right there. And the
reason why is because you can sell a drug once
and it's gone and you have to get a new supply.
But you can not to horrify you, but you can
sell a human being over and over and over and
over it's lucrative. So that's also one of the reasons
(24:58):
why this is the biggest i mean criminal enterprise in
the world right now. How hard is it to find
the victims and rescue them, you know, it depends on
the victim, and it depends on the country, it depends
on how they're being sold. So there's a phenomenal organization
called Skull Games that if you want to know more,
(25:20):
you can look them up.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
But they do deep dives into.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
The dark Web and deep dives on the web, and
they can find and see things just on Facebook. They
can just chat, Okay, this girl is being trafficked by
this guy who's also trafficking these three women, Like it
depends on how if the person is on the street,
you know, like people used to there used to be
a term. I hated the term, but there used to
(25:43):
be a term. It's no longer in use child prostitute.
And you would see these young kids on the street
and you'd be like, oh my god, and blah la
la lah. They's traffic. They're not there by choice. They're
victims themselves, and they've got someone around the corner making
sure that they do what they need to do, or
they will be punished. It depends on the situation. One
(26:07):
place that I worked in was very guarded. It had
not only walls around the place, but men with guns
to make sure that they're not letting in someone like
me or someone like the law enforcement guys that I
(26:27):
was working with, right and it it's very well protected.
One of the things that I always say is if
you can run like people always astonished, why didn't they
run away? A lot of times they can't, a lot
of times they've been conditioned and beaten that they can't.
(26:50):
But running away making noise if you ever are being
taken and they put I would tell my daughter this,
which is horrible, but I was like, listen, if anyone.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Ever tells you to be quiet with it going to
hurt you. They want you need to out.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
You need to do the exact opposite of what they're
telling because they're trying to get you quiet, to get
you away from a crowd where bad things can happen.
So you want to make as much noise as possible.
I tell my daughter that's the only time you could kick, scream, bite,
and like make the most noise as possible. Anyway, that's
(27:23):
for kids, And I'm digressing. So let me get to
some of these questions. Many of us hear the term
human trafficking and immediately think taken by Liam Neeson.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Not really.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I mean again, that happens, but not it's not the majority.
It's more luring people into them by using different means.
I started a foundation for a slavery free world. So
what can our listeners do to help the fight? Well,
I mean lots of things. First of all, educate yourself.
Please listen to I have a podcast out called marisonal
(27:54):
Nicholas Podcast. I have different experts on there, all the
way from the National Center from miss and Exploited Children.
That's a phenomenal episode.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
If you want to know.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Who those guys are, the acronym is nick MAK National
Center for Missing Children, right or Missing and Exploited Children,
And they're the milk carton guys. They're the ones that
put out the missing children posters and they have an
entire trafficking division because what they found was that the
missing kids were now showing up on this side of
(28:26):
the equation. So they have an entire staff that's dedicated
to just finding where these kids are. They're phenomenal resource
u missingkids dot org is their their website. They're phenomenal,
But educate yourself. I've got different experts on there for
a reason to talk about different sides of this thing, right,
(28:47):
including survivors that have gotten out of this and been
able to escape.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
So to me, education is prevention.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
And listen to your instinct, listen to your gut instinct
and talk to your children or have your children watch
the podcast, like just so they understand. Right, there's an
episode on there with Sheriff Chris Wantson for the season
that we just put on there, and it was the
story of a I think it was a thirteen year
old girl who met a guy on freaking Instagram. Older
(29:18):
man pretending to be a younger man, convinced her to
sneak out of her parents' house, grabbed her, took her
to a hotel, did not so nice, horrible things to her,
filmed it because that's what these guys love to do,
and then dropped her back off and the parents the
(29:38):
next day could tell that something was very very very wrong,
took her to the hospital, found out and within the
I think it was like within three days, this guy
had done this in three different states, Like this is
all he does. So it's more than just don't talk
to strangers. It's do not talk to strangers online. It's
a different thing. One of the things I would tell
(30:13):
my daughter when she was younger, I would say, if
you ever get into trouble and like, don't necessarily go
to a law enforcement if you can, yes, but find
a mom with kids.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Find a mom or dad.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
With kids, because there's also women in this industry. That's
really That's the one that kills me and breaks my
heart every single time is when I say a female trafficker.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
They exist, So find a mom with kids. That mom
will know what to do.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Always tell your kids these things, these sort of safety things.
And what I did was I wanted to make it
because I didn't want my kid afraid. Right, It's a
fine line between protecting your children and overwhelming them with
way too much information that's going to wreck them, you know, mentally.
So I would always point out, like, look about eighty
(31:06):
percent of anyone you meet, and all the people are
going to be good people always, but about twenty percent
are going to be bad guys. And the bad guys
work very hard to not look like bad guys, so
they look like the good guys, so you can't tell, right,
(31:27):
And even though there's only a small amount of them,
you still have to protect yourself from the bad guys.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
That's all. I wasn't like, Hey, they take these kids
and they go do X, Y and Z to them.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Never instinctly, my kid knew exactly what I meant by
bad guy, Like they know these.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Things, so you know, and I would always be like, good,
so what do you do? What's my phone number? Good? Good?
What do you do if someone tries to grab you? Okay,
I screamed my up?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Good? What do you do if someone you know, the
old thing candy or a puppy to pet, or needs
directions or wants to go into the store with them?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
What do you do? What do you do? What do
you do? What do you do? And just drill drill, drill,
drill drill. There's also different things like on.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
For older an older population, you know, eighteen nineteen twenty,
young moms, that kind of thing for them, the traffickers
and these bad guys and the predators, be very careful
on dating apps. There's been many, many, many cases where
predators would date a mom just to get to her kid.
(32:32):
So you have to be very very careful about that,
and just like, trust your instincts on these things, like
if you're ever afraid to walk to your car at night,
or you have a car and you're parked in a
lot and then all of a sudden, there's like not
many other cars in the lot, but somebody pulled right
next to you.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Ask someone to walk you to your car.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
You don't want to be walking in between the cars
opening your door when they can just open the door
and grab you right there. Like, trust your instincts. They're
there for a reason, you know. Anyway, Again, even with adults,
I have found eighty percent of people are wonderful and
good and amazing, amazing people and twenty percent of the
(33:18):
bad guys. And that is just how it is. And
you can't tell I've met.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Traffickers that you would never know.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
You would never know, personable females you would never know
that they were doing this is It is astonishing except
for that hitchy feeling where there's something off.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
That I could tell. But that's about it.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Okay, So let's go back to let's do the acting,
because this has been a little bit a lot. Sorry,
you've been working actress from a very young age. Talk
about how you balance work with this level of activism. Well, okay, So,
like I said, I would go and do these things
sometimes when I was on Riverdale, and it depends on
the schedule, it depends on if I can or not.
(34:05):
And it's gotten me through, you know, acting Like anything else,
it's got its ups and downs, right, and it's got
its amazing periods where you're super busy, and then it's
got its dry periods where you always are like, oh
my god, am I ever going to work again?
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Always like always.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
And so having my nonprofit and doing this type of work,
it's such a strong purpose of mind to do it
that it's sometimes even more important to me than the
acting side of things. But the acting side of things
gives me a voice and gives me a large audience
and opens up more doors, and so it's sort of
(34:42):
balancing those two things together, if that, If that makes sense. Gosh,
I have no idea how long I've been talking or anything.
I think I still have some much some more time.
But it was funny that the acting things would sometimes
become less important then my other activist work because it's
(35:05):
real human beings. I mean, this is real people and
every time when I would get asked to go out,
I would I mean.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Like every time, I'd be like, what am I doing?
What am I doing? What am I doing? What am
I doing?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And the whole reason I would do it was because
I would go, well, if my daughter was in this situation,
I would want I would want someone to come and
take the chance and help her get out. And that's
and I mean, and I don't want anyone to think
that by doing this work.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Like it is terrifying.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I am terrified every single time, this last one that
I did, which is about it's been about a year
and a half now maybe two years that I've gone out.
Since I've gone out, which is great, I was like,
this is what am I doing? This is too it's
so scary, and my daughter's relying on me to come
back from these things, and so it's been sort of
(35:53):
a catch twenty two like if I can help and
you absolutely need my skill set or you need me,
I'll be there as long as you can protect me
and as long as you get me home to my daughter.
But otherwise I just try to work on legislation, work
on reaching people, work on mandatory. I want mandatory trafficking
(36:15):
education in every single school in America per age level,
like different tips for kids at grade school, tips for
kids at junior high, high school, college mandatory mandatory, because
this is too big of an issue to not be
preventative on this.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
So I don't know if I answer the question.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
But I could talk on and on and on about
about this, and I just I guess my goal, if
anyone would ever ask, it's to have human trafficking be
something you learn about in the history books, where it's
something that is abolished, it's done, it's eradicated, and it's
just something that we go, wow, how did howether that
(36:59):
many people enslaved and most people didn't even know it.
I want it to be a past tense thing. I
want to not have to do the work. I want
to be able to close down my nonprofit because it's
done within my lifetime. That's that's what I want.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I want.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I want the childhood that I used to have for
my grandkids, where I could go out so the street
lights came on and come home and it was no
big deal and I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
I would never, in.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
A million, trillion zillion years, let my kid go outside
by herself. Ever, like now she's sixteen, different story, but
like there's it's just it's a different world and I
want that old world back. That's what I'm going for.
(37:47):
I'm going for to reverse this. You know, so things
like this just don't happen. Let me see if there's
any other questions I have my Oh okay, so I
have a projects coming out. I have a movie with
Jenna Ortega. If you know who she is, she you
know Beetlejuice. She was the star of the new Beetle
(38:07):
Juice movie and a bunch of other things. Everyone just
google Jena Ortega if you don't know. I play her
mom in a movie coming out called Winter Spring Summer Fall.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
And then I also have a movie being made about
what I do. It's called Somebody's Daughter.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And what happened was Marie Claire, which is a fashion magazine,
shadowed me on a weekend op that I did with
the sheriff in Flint, Michigan. And then after that weekend,
they you know, did a giant spread about the stuff
that they do, and that thing went viral. It went
everywhere during COVID everyone their mother picked it up, like
it's crazy. It was like it was crazy. But anyway,
(38:47):
long story short, Sony stepped up and they're like, we
want to tell your story. And so now that's turned
into a movie for Lifetime called Somebody's Daughter, and it's
literally about a single mom who's also an actress who
also falls into this world of trafficking. So we are
(39:08):
hopefully starting to film in about the next two months
and then it's up to Lifetime when they come out,
but please look for it.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I love the title. It's called Somebody's Daughter. And if you.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Follow me on social media, my name is Marisol Nichols
on every single one of my channels, whether it's X
or Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and I'll obviously promote
it there.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
So I think that's about it.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I think I've talked a lot about this issue. I
hope I didn't overwhelm any of you. I hope that
I inspired you to talk to your friends and family
to get yourself educated. And please know that again, the
world is beautiful. I'm talking about a small percentage of situations,
(39:52):
but it's enough of a percentage that I would never
want anyone else caught up in it. So that's why
I do the work that I do thank you for
listening to this episode of Let's Be Clearer, and again,
I hope it helps you to get involved in anything
that touches your heart.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I'm Marison Nichols. Until next time,
Host
Shannen Doherty
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