This summer another movie has been released highlighting the atrocity of child sex trafficking. While I’m grateful human trafficking is not being ignored and on the contrary being brought to public attention, I am still baffled as to why these types of productions only focus on the smallest type of human trafficking that occurs world wide.

Knowing what type of clinic I work in, people have approached me about this summer’s movie with varying comments, and are most always surprised when I tell them in our subsequent conversation that the majority of human trafficking occurs to adults and the vast majority of human trafficking is non-sexual labor trafficking.

I hope you don’t misunderstand my concern. No child should ever have to be victim to such a traumatic event and it’s tragic that child sex trafficking does happen. Also, I’m not attempting to quantify the level of egregiousness among the different types of human trafficking.

But what concerns me is that public perception ultimately dictates public response and policy. And if the perception of human trafficking is conflated mainly with child sex trafficking, there are so many people who will be over looked by a misinformed system and perpetually kept in bondage.

- Dr. Walls