In Our Backyard: Human Trafficking in America and What We Can Do to Stop It

This book is an important resource to help regular citizens understand what human trafficking is, how to recognize it, and what to do if they see it. Human trafficking is, how to recognize it and what to do if they see it. Human trafficking exists in every state and nearly every city. If you look hard enough, you’ll even find it in our nation’s small towns and in the countryside. In short, it’s in our backyard. And we can all help stop this atrocity.The author hopes that this book will help save some child, some young woman, some young man, as it encourages all of us to love as we would want to be loved in this fight against human trafficking and beyond. This book is not intended to be an all-inclusive look at modern slavery in the United States, but rather a sampling to inspire you to uncover more truths about this outrage for yourself.As always, people love statistics. It seems that we have a great deal on this topic: there are 27 million slaves in the world today, more slaves than during the trans-Atlantic slave trade; human trafficking is tied with arms dealing as the second largest criminal enterprise and is the fastest growing; about 80%of all trafficked individuals are female; about 50% are children; 70% of those female victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Each year between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States from other countries. Nationally about 450,000 children run away from home each year. One out of every three teens on the street will be lured toward sex trafficking each year. The average age of sex trafficking is 12-14 for girls and 11-13 for boys. Admittedly, these numbers are guestimates based on the best data available today.Some who are reading this book have possibly struggled with pornography. As the reader knows this affects nearly everyone on one level or another. Belles gives us some excellent resources to combat the addiction. She gives us some general sources and help for pornography concerns. There are also religious based programs and some filtering and accountability software. Using the internet to recruit victims as well as to connect sex buyers with sex, a huge and fast-growing method for the “marketing” of victims provides consumers of sex with anonymity as well as relatively easy access to nearly anything sexual that could be desired. “The Internet serves as a virtual clearinghouse, a sex bazaar connecting demand and supply” wrote one observer.It is about putting action behind the emotions and the talk. The trucking industry and TAT have done just that. TAT began to see changes in the trucking industry’s culture around the issue of trafficking and prostitution. What originally seemed like an audacious mission has made a huge difference. TAT and truckers are making it difficult to be a trafficker in places that traffickers once viewed as lucrative. The wonderfully daring group of courageous and hardworking women has made a huge difference by making trafficking at trick stops much more difficult for perpetrators. Indeed, they are heroes in the anti-trafficking movement, and TAT’s work is a shining example of engaging an industry as a partner in this fight against human trafficking.Each chapter has excellent questions for deliberation and discussion. It is not only a great resource book but it is also a way to transform the issues that are pointed out very clearly in this book so we create a society that has a respectful way of treating others.

Excellent read, true story & very hard to believe that this happens in suburbia and literally can happen next-door to where you live. Her story is detailed and I think from reading the book, at one point her parents did know what was going on, but certain cultures like Italians (me), Irish, Europeans, et al, especially if they’re from the old school, have that thinking of sweeping everything under the rug and not talking about it and then hopefully it goes away, but again I cannot stress enough what a fast read this book is and the author was frightfully honest & raw, but her story can be anyone’s story.

I’m a retired deputy sheriff & training officer in the Pacific N.W. I now do training for an anti trafficking organization. I’m constantly looking for materials to improve my presentations, as well as books or DVDs that I can suggest, that I think will help people understand the nature, scope and the wealth in sex & human trafficking. Nita Belles does this in a clear & understandable way, in “In Our Backyard”. From first hand experience, from local areas to Super Bowls, she has accounts of what she has observed. The book contains a number of references to projects & individuals working in the field, with references or contacts. I will recommend it highly to interested individuals.

This book provides a good overview of human trafficking in the United States and is readable for the average person. Each chapter covers a specific form of trafficking through life story and then gives further explanation of the issues of trafficking ending with questions relevant to the information covered in the chapter. The book is clear, concise and easily read. We are using this book specifically for a church book read as an additional way to inform members of our parish about the issues of human trafficking in conjunction with an education program in our community and in partnership with 2 local HT organizations. Some books we considered were too disturbing for a large book read. The sad part of this effort is the more we educate and discuss in our parish, the more people are coming forward with personal experience and exposure to Human Trafficking in our suburban backyard. The only reason I rated this book a 4 rather than 5 is the questions at the end of each chapter are more like test questions with factual answers that can be found by reading the text as opposed to discussion questions that might get at the moral and responsive aspect of this horrific fact of our culture.

It's hard to say I liked the book, when it was about such a difficult subject, and one that I wish never existed. However, I feel more informed about modern slavery, and hope I would be able to identify it.

I use this as part of the curriculum for a course I teach on human trafficking. My students find it helpful, as they prepare to serve as trauma recovery coaches to survivors. Thank you for this important work!

“In Our Backyard” is an excellent book to learn more about human trafficking. The stories will inspire you to do your part in reducing trafficking.

Loved it. Great information and I'm glad I read this