Sex and Labor Trafficking Awareness, Survivor Empowerment, and Saving Children From Abuse: A Discussion With Rachel Thomas, M. Ed.

This week, I interviewed Rachel Thomas, who is not only a survivor of human trafficking but an author, teacher, speaker, and mentor. I have known her for years. We met through Carissa Phelps (founder of runawaygirl.com) at a Joint Regional Intelligence Center training for approximately six hundred law enforcement, including members of Homeland Security, the CIA, Police Chiefs, and others. This was an opportunity to teach about trafficking and mind control, and promote a better understanding of how to treat those who’ve been recruited into trafficking by pimps and traffickers. We helped them realize trafficked people are victims of mind control and, as such, need to be treated with respect. They are someone’s child and their lives have value. They did not want to be enslaved, exploited, and abused. The average age of induction into sex trafficking is age 12. Also, they listened to Carissa, Rachel, D’Lita, and others speak and heard their stories. Carissa gained an MBA and law degree from UCLA, for example. Rachel got her Masters from UCLA. Counter to existing beliefs, trafficking survivors can and should be helped. As a result of the training, this article was published in an FBI bulletin: A Victim-Centered Approach to Sex Trafficking Cases by Larry Alvarez, M.S., and Jocelyn Cañas-Moreira