CWT360° Ep. 20 – The Human Trafficking Crisis: 2025 Update

In honor of recognizing that January is Human Trafficking Awareness month, we invited Jessica Kahn Obenauf, Esq. to be our podcast guest and give us some updated information on this major global and regional issue. Jessica is an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office, in the Southern District of Florida. She specializes in prosecuting human trafficking cases and was able to share her in-depth perspectives in this episode. Jessica reviewed some of the common vulnerabilities that victims of sex trafficking share (ex. foreign nationals and their fear of deportation preventing them from reporting crimes to law enforcement). How the victims of these types of crimes are most frequently female minors, and that traffickers use emotional/brainwashing tactics, not necessarily physical violence, in order to manipulate them. Finally, she outlined what even the most vigilant of parents need to avoid and look out for (ex. social media monitoring) in order to protect their loved ones.