Pictured above are members of the Task Force leadership team with the mayor of Caldwell, ID, and the proclamation signed at the first City Council meeting of 2024. The Task Force has now worked to have a second Idaho city sign such a proclamation in recognition of January as National Human Trafficking Awareness & Prevention Month. The Caldwell proclamation reads in part:
"WHEREAS, the inherent dignity, freedom, and autonomy of every person deserves to be respected and protected; and

WHEREAS, human trafficking is often a hidden crime that knows no boundaries, with more than 27.6 million people - adults and children - trapped in forms of modern slavery around the world, including the United States, and
WHEREAS, over 70% of those being trafficked are women and girls who experience high rates of physical and sexual violence and internet enticements or our children are a significant point of grooming, and
WHEREAS, the majority of its victims are already part of an at-risk population, including all youth by the nature of their dependence upon adults, and
WHEREAS, we acknowledge that we must work together as a community to increase awareness of and prevent human trafficking and internet crimes against children, and continue to promote the social and emotional well-being of men, women, and children in safe, stable, nurturing environments, and
WHEREAS, living with our eyes wide open to the reality of human trafficking and the internet crimes being committed against our children in the Caldwell community, knowledge and education remain our best defense, ... "
We will work to bring more municipalities on board to sign such proclamations next year. Awareness-Education-Training-Prevention; we move forward to achieve our goal to protect our citizens from this horrible crime. Check out our Facebook page advertising our next event on January 18, 2024, at: Canyon County Anti-Trafficking Task Force. This is a must-attend event for parents and their children to learn child safety guidelines for protection from the advancements of online child sexual predators. Thanks to the generosity of donors we can bring these events to the public!

Projects to Protect Children from Sexual Predators

The Canyon County Anti-Trafficking Task Force (CCATTF) was born out of one woman’s eye-opening experience saving a very young woman from the grips of a captor one summer day in 2020 while walking in a city park. Learning that this young woman had been transported across the country from one state to another, drugged, abused, and ultimately registered as a missing person was a cry for help that could not be ignored. The story of this experience shared with others has become a grassroots rallying cry to develop educational programs that would educate and equip citizens to protect themselves and others, particularly our most vulnerable population, our children, from sexual predators.
There are over 750,000 sexual predators online at any given moment of every day luring and coercing children from all socio-economic levels into unwittingly producing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) through chat rooms, online gaming, and social media apps. Approximately 20 new children appear on porn sites monthly with child internet pornography sales reaching $4.9 BILLION annually. Only through education will our youth learn the warning signs of online strangers, how to avoid interaction with them, and know when to ask a trusted adult for help. Our Mission Statement precisely defines what our Task Force is all about: With Education as our approach,
Protection and Prevention are our goals,
We stand united as a community to combat sex trafficking.
To accomplish the "education, protection, and prevention of sex trafficking" of children in our community, we are committed to:
● Developing a professionally produced 15-20-minute video designed to provide children with life-saving education to stay safe online. Content will be sensitively designed to deliver appropriate, upbeat messages to students aged 8-13. The video will be presented by the School Resource Officers on campus, upon approval by school administration, staff, and parents. Our Task Force is working cooperatively with local law enforcement officers to provide this type of training video for them to use ASAP. They earnestly support the need for this tool, but their budgets do not allow for such an expenditure. Currently, no other resource provides this specific training video.
● Presenting our already developed informational parent workshop in area churches to alert, educate, and equip parents with necessary tools to help keep their kids safe. As a follow-up to this presentation, we will introduce on-going, detailed information/training through nationally recognized websites. This presentation will then be reformatted to address audiences within the general public. For this program, we need portable tech equipment to deliver the PowerPoint.
● Continue holding public events to spread our message to our community at large. The most prevailing comment we hear is, “Oh, that doesn’t happen here in Idaho.” BUT SEX TRAFFICKING IS ALIVE AND WELL IN IDAHO!
● Enlist the cooperation of local businesses to install public Wi-Fi safety filtering programs that block the exchange of pornographic material initiated by online sexual predators who aim to victimize minors accessing the internet while in public establishments.
The CCATTF is committed to making Idaho communities a role model for these programs that we believe will help change the trajectory of this horrific criminal activity now considered by professionals as a pandemic happening not only in our state but throughout our country.
The Canyon County Anti-Trafficking Task Force is now incorporated! Recently we became our legal entity as a non-profit, educational organization. We have also received notice from the IRS that we are now a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.
All donations will be distributed directly to The Canyon County Anti-Trafficking Task Force from this AGiveMe campaign. Thank you for considering us and thank you for donating to this very important Community cause.