The headline was easy to miss.
Another vulnerable girl duped on the internet into a relationship with a man who, in turn, sold her body time and time again.
But this particular story had a twist, a twist that should give us hope that the scourge of human sex trafficking is something we can fight and we can defeat.
Here are the details.
A man named Kedrick Nelms used a social media app called Tagged to lure his victim, a 14-year-old girl, into prostitution.
Typically, traffickers and pimps use every manner of psychological manipulation and physical intimidation, if not outright abuse, to twist their “relationship” with the girls and women they traffic into a sort of imprisonment that is all but impossible to escape without some outside help.
Nelms, who was 28 in July, was arrested, charged and sentenced to 40 years in prison for trafficking this child victim in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio in 2016.
It’s good news Nelms is behind bars.
But here’s the important twist.
Prosecutors also arrested Nelms’ girlfriend, Kirsten Violette, and charged her with playing an essential role in the victim’s trafficking.
Violette, 22, just got handed a 20-year sentence in the case.
Why is this important?
Because giving all of the individuals involved in the crime of human trafficking long prison sentences sends a message to people who would victimize the next child that very serious consequences await them when they are caught.
Trafficking, at its heart, is a financial crime that destroys human lives.
Pimps are making the calculation that the risk of imprisonment is not significant enough weighed against the money they can make selling a victim.
Left unprosecuted or lightly enforced, trafficking will spike. But there are reverse indications that when the penalties are steep enough, capturing and punishing even a relatively few number of traffickers can help reduce the overall amount of trafficking.
Heavy penalties simply reduce the incentive to take the risk to make money through human trafficking — a business that, unfortunately, is incredibly lucrative.
Law enforcement and anti-trafficking advocates such as New Friends New Life estimate that trafficking in North Texas alone is at least a $99 million-a-year business.
But if more heavy sentences are handed down against people such as Nelms and Violette, the more likely it is that would-be traffickers would curtail their activities.
So spread the word wherever you might.
These two people will spend a good chunk of their lives in prison cells because they decided a child was something to sell. Spread the word so the next person who thinks about doing such a thing might think twice.
— The Dallas Morning News