News From the Huron County Prosecutor's Office

Victims come from all walks of life, but one frequently present risk factor is a sense of alienation. The average age of recruitment is 12 years old, but age is not a protective factor. Transient youth, those who are homeless, have a one in five chance of being recruited for commercial sex trafficking within 3 months of being homeless and young adults with little to no supervision are at elevated risk. Individuals who already feel like outsiders due to a national, gender, or LGBT identity are also at a greater risk. People with victim mentality or little to no self-reliance are easy targets for recruiters. Poverty is a risk factor, however, higher socio-economic status is not a protective factor.

You see, generation to generation, families pass on parenting styles; gentle or harsh, right and wrong.  We know only what we learn, and we learn often by what has been done to us.  Unless we receive education to know better, we remain trapped in the old, and sometimes dysfunctional and harmful styles of parenting, and will repeat what we know /what we have learned – and we will sometimes pass on a legacy of abuse.  But there is hope.  When we know better, we do better.