FORT SMITH, Ark. — In the digital age, minors are more and more susceptible to becoming victims of sex trafficking. According to the Morgan Nick Foundation, Arkansas ranks second in the nation for registered sex offenders per capita.
The average age of a trafficked child is only 12-years old, and that's why one of the foundation's main initiatives is to educate youth on the dangers of social media.
On the heels of a major break in the Morgan Nick case, foundation representatives visited Southside High School in Fort Smith to host a seminar on the dangers of social media.
"I don't think that kids really understand how much of their information is out there through social media and the internet without them giving that information to someone verbally," Genevie Strickland, the foundation's assistant director, told 5NEWS.
On Friday, Strickland hosted a seminar for around 120 students of all grade levels at Southside.
Some students said they've never had conversations at home about online predators.
"I heard about it before on the news, but I never knew the extent and how far people go with this trafficking," 11th grader AJ Love said.
"I never really thought how trafficking could be around me or get to me. I always saw it in other places far away or in underdeveloped countries," freshman Yee Le added.
The foundation said the lack of public knowledge on the subject is why conversations at school are so vital.
Coach Chronister, a health teacher at the school explained that seminars like this one do have an impact on the students and the way they think about social media.
"As you hear the kids leave the class period, you hear them saying, 'I think I may need to go unfriend a few people. I may need to not talk to this person anymore," Chronister said. "It's important for us as teachers to step in and make sure the kids are getting the information that they need to know. It's a scary world."
Strickland said if these conversations could help even one child, it's worth it.
"The more we talk about this and normalize it, it gets rid of that feeling of it being wrong or ugly, and it helps kids to realize it's okay for me to go to parents and tell them what's going on if I've got a predator sending me inappropriate photos," Strickland said.
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