How One Woman Started Austin 20 to Help Child Sex Trafficking Victims
Lisa Knapp knew about selling luxury goods. She was an account executive for brands like Cartier and Tiffany. And she knew about working on charity events for local nonprofit organizations.
She did not know anything about the underworld of child sex trafficking.
Three years ago her eyes opened to what was going on in and around the state and in Austin, and her life changed.
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| Austin 20 |
“Children just like ours are being manipulated by strangers on the internet,” she says. It’s parents or relatives selling their children for money. Often it’s kids who have some past with child protective services or foster care, she says.
“It’s a lot more common than we think,” Knapp says.
It’s typically not kids from over the border or flown in from Asia, as many people might think. “I used to think that,” says Andrea Sparks, director of the child sex trafficking team in the governor’s office. “Eight years ago, I was thinking of the movie ‘Taken.’”
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| Austin 20 |
In reality, Sparks says, “the vast majority of victims presenting themselves are actually our kids. They are from Texas. They are in our neighborhoods. More and more they are lured online. Their parents think they are safe, but they are talking to a very manipulative person online who is grooming them.”
The pimps are very organized, very skilled and very patient, says Angela Glode, the chief development officer for SAFE Austin. “They will groom these kids for two years if this is what it takes.”
Read more: https://atxne.ws/2VP7P0g
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| Lee McPherson |
Lee McPherson
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