1215: Human Trafficking | Skeptical Sunday

Summary

---

The Jordan Harbinger Show: Skeptical Sunday #1215

Episode Title: Human Trafficking | Skeptical Sunday
Release Date: September 28, 2025
Host: Jordan Harbinger
Guest Co-Host: Nick Pell

---

Episode Overview

On this Skeptical Sunday, Jordan Harbinger and writer/researcher Nick Pell dissect the realities, myths, and moral panics surrounding human trafficking—especially child sex trafficking claims rampant on social media. They debunk viral statistics, clarify definitions, expose how misunderstandings harm real victims, and offer practical advice grounded in evidence. The conversation is laced with dark humor, sharp skepticism, and a commitment to critical thinking.

---

Key Topics & Discussion Breakdown

1. Setting the Stage: Why Skepticism is Needed

• [02:09] Viral online claims like "800,000 missing kids in America" are setting off parental and public panic, often drawing on recycled fears from past "Satanic Panics."
• Jordan: “800,000 kids. That sounds like a lot...I just feel like someone at CNN or Fox News maybe would have noticed.” ([03:17])

---

2. Defining Terms: What is (and isn’t) Human Trafficking?

• [04:25] Nick: Law enforcement defines human trafficking as “using force, fraud, or coercion to move someone around for the purpose of commercial sex or other labor.”
  • Not Included: Consensual human smuggling, most kidnapping (typically familial), most runaways, consensual sex work, and survival sex (coercion by circumstance).
• [07:26] Nick: “It’s basically coercion by circumstance, but I think for the purposes of this episode, we need to exclude it...I just want to keep our definitions bottled and tight.”

---

3. Myths vs. Reality: Are Kids Being Grabbed Off the Street?

• [08:12] Nick: “Child sex trafficking is absolutely not a myth. But the idea that children are being abducted into sex slavery is mostly a myth.”
• Stranger abductions are extremely rare; most “kidnappings” are either familial or runaways ([05:24], [06:43]).
• Jordan: “We live in an age where cameras are everywhere. I just don’t see how this could be happening on any kind of mass scale.” ([15:34])

---

4. How Child Sex Trafficking Actually Happens

• [08:42] Trafficking is rooted in grooming, manipulation, and blackmail—often by trusted adults, not strangers.
  • UK Scandals: Group grooming and institutional apathy, not mass stranger kidnappings ([09:45]-[13:59]).
  • Victims often remain at home or in care, unseen as ‘missing.’
• Nick: “It’s a boiled frog kind of thing. You have to get the child to feel as if they’re a participant in the crime so that they won’t report you.” ([09:37])

---

5. Who Are the Real Victims? Systemic Risks

• Minority and poor communities disproportionately at risk (African-American, Native American, Hispanic, LGBTQ+ teens, etc) ([14:17]-[15:28]).
• Nick: “If you’re telling kids to watch out for [stranger danger], you’re really doing them a disservice because that’s not what they need to be on the lookout for.” ([15:28])
• Marginalized and invisible populations are targeted due to lack of oversight or community support.

---

6. Gangs, Immigration, and Community Exploitation

• Gangs prey within their own immigrant communities, using threats to family or legal status ([19:01]-[23:12]).
  • Language and cultural barriers further isolate victims.
• Examples of “juju rituals” (West African voodoo curses) used as psychological coercion ([22:32]-[22:48]).

---

7. Numbers Game: How Many Are Really Trafficked?

• Viral numbers in the millions are inflated for politics or fundraising ([10:52]-[12:43]); official figures are much lower but likely undercounts.
• Nick: “5,000 cases tops in the United States, which is absolutely 5,000 too many. But it’s just not what is being claimed by these hysterical people…” ([38:19])

---

8. Debunking Hollywood and Moral Panic: “Sound of Freedom” and Tim Ballard

• Movies like Sound of Freedom attract audiences but grossly misrepresent typical trafficking (“not a documentary, nor does it purport to be...‘based on’ is doing a hell of a lot of work here” - [25:26]).
• Jordan and Nick discuss allegations against Tim Ballard (Operation Underground Railroad), highlighting the dangers of “savior complex” and questionable grifting ([28:27]-[33:34]).
• Nick: “You create this lurid image of trafficking that’s just not accurate...there are real people with real problems, including being trafficked, and you could be throwing your time and energy at that rather than this artificial fantasy.” ([27:58])

---

9. Panic, Policy, and Consequences

• Panic leads to overbroad laws (e.g. SESTA/FOSTA) that harm sex workers and make trafficking harder to identify ([41:44]-[43:16]).
• Nick: “...it just pushed the sex trade underground, which makes it harder to keep an eye on. And it did nothing to address the core issues. It was just a moral panic law.” ([43:02])

---

10. What Actually Works to Combat Trafficking

• Effective approaches: Long-term care, trauma services, housing, legal aid, and vocational training ([46:27]-[47:16]).
• Guiding organizations:
  • Polaris Project: National Human Trafficking Hotline; data & advocacy ([47:17])
  • CAST LA: Legal aid, shelter, skills ([47:17])
  • SWOP: Advocacy for commercial sex workers, re-entry support ([47:17])
• Jordan: “People aren’t saved by these daring rescue missions in the jungle. They’re saved through long term care and support.” ([48:45])

---

11. Critical Parenting Takeaways

• Ditch the “stranger danger” focus; stress internet safety, healthy skepticism of authority, and open communication ([48:51]-[49:20]).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jordan: “800,000 missing kids. Is there any truth to the claim that tons of kids have just disappeared?...someone at CNN or Fox News maybe would have noticed.” ([02:41], [03:17])
• Nick: “Child sex trafficking is absolutely not a myth. But the idea that children are being abducted into sex slavery is mostly a myth.” ([08:12])
• Nick: “It’s not like the movie Taken...the communities most impacted by trafficking in the US are African American girls, Native American girls, Hispanic girls, and then internationally...the poorest people on Earth, generally speaking, not white.” ([14:17])
• Jordan: “We live in an age where cameras are everywhere. I just don’t see how this could be happening on any kind of mass scale.” ([15:34])
• Nick: “I think that all this kind of save the children from trafficking stuff...really lends itself to QAnon-type conspiracies. The nonsense like the Wayfair furniture company is shipping children and advertising them as couches.” ([33:33])
• Nick: “Every bad law is based on one emotionally driven premise—if we don’t do something, a kid might get hurt.” ([41:19])
• Nick: “The panic-driven version that we are often sold in the media and on the Internet is not just false, it’s actually counterproductive.” ([48:30])

---

Timestamps for Essential Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |--------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:09 | Viral trafficking statistics, panic, and context | | 04:25 | Law enforcement's definition of trafficking | | 05:24 | Breakdown: most kidnappings, why “missing kids” may mislead | | 08:12 | Mythbusting: Stranger abductions are rare | | 09:45-13:59 | UK grooming gang scandals and systemic failures | | 14:17 | The real faces of victims (race, class, LGBTQ+ angle) | | 15:34 | Why Hollywood style kidnappings don’t happen | | 19:01-23:12 | How gangs exploit within immigrant communities | | 25:26-28:24 | Debunking Sound of Freedom and Tim Ballard's story | | 41:44-43:16 | How panic backfires—SESTA/FOSTA and legislative pitfalls | | 46:27 | What actually helps victims | | 48:30 | Final advice: Parenting and internet safety |

---

Conclusion: Takeaways & Resources

• Dispelling panic and misinformation is vital: The real risk of trafficking comes from vulnerable, marginalized backgrounds—not suburban Walmart parking lots.
• What to do: Support reputable, evidence-based organizations (Polaris, CAST LA, SWOP). Push for community-level support and systemic solutions over savior fantasies.
• For parents: Focus on digital literacy, communication, and teaching kids how to assess relationships—not just “stranger danger.”
• Quote to remember:
  • Nick Pell: “People aren’t saved by these daring rescue missions in the jungle. They’re saved through long term care and support.” ([48:45])

---

Resources Mentioned

• National Human Trafficking Hotline: Polaris Project
• “If Only Someone Had Listened” - UK Children’s Commissioner report ([13:04])
• CAST LA ([47:17])
• SWOP ([47:17])

---

This episode is a must-listen for anyone concerned about human trafficking—whether you want to take action, debunk viral myths, or protect your family and community with facts, not fear.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is sponsored in part by LinkedIn. Most platforms are built to distract you. LinkedIn is built to help you get things done. And when you're a small business owner, the one thing you don't have is time to waste. That's why LinkedIn jobs is a secret weapon. Post your job and LinkedIn doesn't just blast it out to randoms. It uses all that professional data people actually keep up to date on LinkedIn to match you with qualified candidates. You can post it for free or you can promote it to get three times more job applicants to expedite everything. And here's the cool part. Because LinkedIn is where people actually want to be found professionally, the quality is just higher. You're connecting with people who are serious curious about their next move. That's why 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn to hire. Add the hashtag hiring frame to your profile pic, let your network know that you're looking, and suddenly you've doubled the reach without spending more than 30 seconds. So when the clock's ticking and you need someone great, LinkedIn isn't just social media, it's your best recruiting partner. Post your job for [e-mail] harbinger that's LinkedIn.com harbinger to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

[Pacific Life Sponsor]

What can 160 years of experience teach you about the future? A lot. Especially when it comes to protecting what matters. At Pacific Life, we've helped people and businesses confidently embrace the future with life insurance, retirement income and employee benefits. With strategies built on strength and trust and a promise to be here for you today and tomorrow, ask a financial professional how Pacific Life can help you today. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co host, writer and researcher Nick Pell on the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Our mission is to help you become.

[Jordan Harbinger]

A better informed, more critical thinker. During the week we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays though, it's Skeptical Sunday where a rotating guest co host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

About that topic, such as ear candling.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Reiki Healing, the lottery, Crystal healing, diet pills, energy drinks, recycling, and astrology. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion and negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime and cults, and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started today on the show, you might have seen a claim online, such as there are 800,000 missing kids in America.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Today with the implication that they've been trafficked for some nefarious purpose, ranging from sex to an adrenochrome factory.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you're old enough to remember the satanic panic from the 80s, some of this is going to look really familiar to you. Influencer videos, rallies to save the children, parents panicking about their kids in the Ikea parking lot. Now, I've seen these online, and as.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

A parent and just somebody who cares.

[Jordan Harbinger]

About other people and kids generally, I'm concerned. But they also have my BS detector going off. 800,000 kids. That sounds like a lot. And while I know bad things can happen without them becoming international news, I.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Just feel like somebody at CNN or Fox News maybe would have noticed.

[Jordan Harbinger]

800,000 missing kids. Is there any truth to the claim that tons of kids have just disappeared? And if so, is the reason for it in line with whatever QAnon or your crazy but maybe still lovable uncle happens to think here today to help me unpack this disappearing act is writer and researcher Nick Pell. Nick, let's just address the question up front. Is there some kind of massive child.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Trafficking issue going on that the mainstream media refuses to report on?

[Nick Pell]

Well, it's complicated, as are most of the topics we do here. Yeah, there's tons of kids getting trafficked, but the problem is not whatever people on Facebook are posting about it. I think it's really important that people are informed about what's actually going on, who's actually at risk, and how to protect yourself and your kids and why panicking and creating folk demons is actually counterproductive.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, so before we get too deep.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

In the weeds about the human trafficking.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That'S actually going on, I think we.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Should define terms, because when we say trafficking, people might have a lot of ideas in their head about what that means. So what exactly are you talking about? What are you referring to when you say trafficking?

[Nick Pell]

I'm going to use the definition that law enforcement uses, and that is using force, fraud, or coercion to move someone around for the purpose of commercial sex or other labor.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

So that's a very dry and cold definition. Right.

[Nick Pell]

But I think we need to be clear. And sure, let's throw in kidnapping children for meat or whatever it is that qanon and qanon adjacent types think is going on for good measure. But the important thing is that these words mean things, and we have to be very specific about what we mean by trafficking and what we don't.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

What would your definition not include?

[Nick Pell]

Consensual human smuggling.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

So is that like when people hire a coyote to help them and their family get across the Mexican border or something like that?

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, yeah, this exactly. This is a whole other issue. It has nothing to do with trafficking. It also doesn't include kidnapping per se.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Why not, Though? It sounds like your definition from earlier.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Is basically kind of kidnapping adjacent.

[Nick Pell]

Some, but not all kidnapping is trafficking. Remember, we're saying that there's some purpose other than just taking the kid or the adult. Kidnapping is rare. It's almost never tied to trafficking. North of 90% of all kidnapping is done by a non custodial parent. One parent who doesn't have custody takes their own kid or goes across state lines without permission, or there's just an attempt to weaponize the courts against one parent or the other. This gets reported as kidnapping a lot of the times. It's not even what we would think of as kidnapping. Most missing persons are runaways, about 95% of them. Actually, stranger abductions are 1% of all kidnapping cases. We talked about this on the sextortion episode. After Johnny Gosh and Adam Walsh happened In the early 80s, kids just getting, you know, randomly grabbed off the street or from a park by a creepy man in a van. This is an absolute black swan event. It just doesn't happen anymore.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I remember that. For anybody who doubts what Nick is saying here, I mean, we always come with receipts. You can find those in the show notes. But yeah, you're right. The 80s was like kids were getting kidnapped randomly. And then now we've got America's most Wanted, and it kind of doesn't really. Yes, it's very, very rare.

[Nick Pell]

Very, very part of it. It's kind of like a chicken egg thing because, like, it's never been safer to be a kid. But how true is that? Because parents are, you know, helicopter. We go into all this on the sextortion episode. So I won't rehash it here.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's Right.

[Nick Pell]

The last thing that traffic isn't going to include for our purposes is consensual, transactional, sexual, or even necessarily survival sex.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What are those terms mean?

[Nick Pell]

Transactional sex is any sex act you're engaged in for some kind of remuneration, be it money, drugs, whatever. Survival sex is when you're sleeping with someone for a place to stay or food to eat or something like that.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Survival sex is starting to sound a little like trafficking because there's kind of coercion there, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like, oh, you don't want to be homeless.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, let's go. And I think that's a fair analysis. And I don't mean to like poo poo. This is like, oh, it's fine, whatever. But what I am trying to do is avoid gray areas. For the purpose of this episode.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Okay?

[Nick Pell]

I think we, we need to keep this episode as black and white as possible and to talk about it thoughtfully and seriously. So I'm going to exclude it for those purposes. I mean, it's basically coercion by circumstance, but I think for the purposes of this episode, we need to exclude it. It just starts blurring the lines again. It's not an attempt to hand wave it and make it okay. I just want to keep our definitions bottled and tight.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Got it. Okay. So you mentioned earlier that children are not just getting abducted from the local park.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Doesn't that kind of just give the game away?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I mean, aren't you basically saying that the child sex trafficking thing is a myth at that point?

[Nick Pell]

Child sex trafficking is absolutely not a myth. But the idea that children are being abducted into sex slavery is mostly a myth.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

Largely. I mean, we live in a world with 8 plus billion people. So if you say, if you make a statement about people, it's probably going to be true of somebody somewhere.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Right? Just the law of large numbers. Okay, so thread the needle for me here.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If kids are not getting kidnapped for.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Sex trafficking, but kids are getting sex trafficked, what is going on?

[Nick Pell]

Most of these kids who are being trafficked are being groomed or blackmailed or otherwise exploited. I mean, if you can stomach it, read the gory details of what happened with grooming gangs in the uk. The kind of PG version of it is they found lonely girls pretended to be their boyfriends, which you need to teach your daughters that a 35 year old man does not want to be her boyfriend when she's 10 years old. And then getting them hooked on drugs or getting compromising photos of them or.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Something like that, that is deeply unpleasant for a lot of reasons, but I suppose it's important to know because that's how it actually is working in practice. Right. It's not some weirdo stalking the park and throwing your girl into the back of a van. It's a creepy guy who befriends your child and then takes his time acclimating her to the idea of sexual exploitation.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Which is just gross.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yuck.

[Nick Pell]

Right. It's a boiled frog kind of thing. You have to get the child to.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Feel as if they're a participant in the crime so that they won't report you.

[Nick Pell]

The Children's Commissioner found over 2,400 confirmed.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Victims of group based child exploitation in over a year, with over 16,500 identified as being at risk during the same period.

[Nick Pell]

The J Report about Rotherham alone documented.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

At least 1400 children abused over 16 years.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Was this confined to Rotherham then?

[Nick Pell]

No. Rochdale and Oldham, which were close to Rotherham, are sometimes kind of lumped together.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

In the public imagination. Rotherham is just this shorthand term for the entire scandal.

[Nick Pell]

Huddersfield in West Yorkshire found dozens of.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Men running a sex ring with girls who were already on the radar of social services.

[Nick Pell]

There's Halifax and Bradford.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Bradford is like right outside of Leeds.

[Nick Pell]

Keely Darby. It was pretty concentrated in the north.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Which is one of the poorer parts of the country.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Okay, so, right, so the million figure is almost certainly an exaggeration from political activists. What's that actual number?

[Nick Pell]

It's honestly hard to say. Much of the data we have comes.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

From government commissioned reviews, which I just.

[Nick Pell]

Think we should be extremely skeptical anytime.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

The government is investigating their own failures. Official figures are far lower than the millions sometimes claimed.

[Nick Pell]

But we do have a good reason to think that, you know, even the.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Official numbers are undercounted.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And why is that? I know, I know you personally just don't trust government officials, but do we have any evidence that their numbers are off?

[Nick Pell]

So, Sue Barelowitz, I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing her name incorrectly, was a former Deputy Children's Commissioner.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

She called the 2,409 confirmed victims in 14 months the tip of the iceberg.

[Nick Pell]

She led a commission that filed another.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Report in November 2012, which is very.

[Nick Pell]

Sadly called I Thought I Was the.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Only one in the world. It's a government report that, if that's important to you, there's a link in the show notes for anybody who wants to read it. But I will warn you that it is grim reading. There are other reports questioning the numbers, such as the report of the Independent inquiry into child sex abuse, which is separate from the J Report, despite the fact that both were chaired by Alexis J.

[Nick Pell]

Professor Liz Kelly from the London Metropolitan.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

University has an extensive body of work showing that there were serious gaps in child services and police response.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I've heard wildly larger numbers for this phenomenon, by the way, which are also almost certainly inaccurate. People were, for example, talking about taking the 1400 from Rotherham specifically and trying to extrapolate that number into every hamlet and village in the uk and that's just obviously not the case.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, I've seen it estimated between 250,000.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

And a million, which. No, but it's more than 1400 or 2,400.

[Nick Pell]

These girls weren't missing.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

They were going home every night. In fact, there were tons of police reports about it from the girls or the parents and nothing was done. The official report from the Children's Commissioner.

[Nick Pell]

Was called if only someone had Listen more to the point, for us, it shows us how large scale child trafficking works.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

In reality. You know, it's not some random woman or girl getting grabbed out of the Walmart parking lot. The UK had a series of high profile scandals involving groups of men exploiting vulnerable girls. And while the exact numbers are highly.

[Nick Pell]

Disputed, the pattern is clear.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

The girls weren't missing. They were still living at home or in care. They were going to school, they were going about their lives. They were groomed. Over time, they were manipulated into thinking that they were making choices and in many cases were made to feel complicit in their own abuse. Parents and victims often reported what was happening, but the authorities were quite slow to act, if indeed they did. And police frequently dismissed complaints. Social services underestimated the degree to which these girls were in danger and the abuse carried on for years in plain sight.

[Nick Pell]

So, yeah, it's a process of grooming, coercion, institutional neglect. These things all kind of work in.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Concert to allow predators to operate, even when warning signs are right in front of them.

[Nick Pell]

You know, it wasn't just girls getting.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Grabbed in the Aldi parking lot.

[Nick Pell]

It's not like the movie. Take it. The reality is that most of the girls being trafficked both domestically and abroad. First of all, they're not girls who came out of central casting for a new CW show about high school cheerleaders. The communities most impacted by trafficking in the United States are African American girls, Native American girls, Hispanic girls, and then internationally. Yeah, this is happening to the poorest people on earth who, as you may or may not know, are, generally speaking, not white.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

But that doesn't mean white people aren't at risk, right?

[Nick Pell]

Oh, of course it doesn't. But it does tell us a lot about how trafficking works in practice. Gay teens are often at risk for, I think, a lot of complicated reasons. But one that's worth mentioning is, you know, you're from a house where your parents aren't supportive and they either throw you out or you run away because it's not a super cool environment for you and you move in with some older creep that you think is a supportive adult. It's not some guy with zip ties in a van. And if you're telling kids to watch out for that sort of thing, you're really doing them a disservice because that's not what they need to be on the lookout for.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's definitely a gross thing to think about.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

But check the show notes for anybody out there who doubts this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The whole kid or adult getting grabbed.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Out of the Safeway and forced into sexual slavery thing, that's always been one part of this that has just kind of always set off my BS detector. I mean, we live in an age.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Where cameras are everywhere. I just don't see how this could.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Be happening on any kind of mass scale. It just doesn't make sense.

[Nick Pell]

It's not happening on any kind of mass scale.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Vlad or whatever in a panel van.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is not waiting at the Walmart to hogtie your kids. But you'll get tied up in knots if you miss the amazing deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Rag and Bone. We've been fans of Rag and Bone for years. It's really cool. They're now sponsoring the podcast. I've always thought of them as the.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Brand you turn to when you want.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Clothes that are sharp, premium, built to last. And now with their new infused denim, they've raised the bar even higher. These are not just jeans that look.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Great right off the rack. They're designed to move with you hold.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Their shape, actually get better the longer you wear them. Rag and Bone has been perfecting denim for over two decades. And you can feel that experience the.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Moment you put these on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The fit is what really stands out. Infuse comes in slim, straight, relaxed, athletic. So whatever your style or body type.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

There'S a pair that feels like it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Was made for you. And then there's the wash. Each pair goes through an eight step over dye process that gives the denim these rich dimensional shades. They've got depth, texture. They even develop more character the more you break them in to me, these aren't just jeans, they're investment pieces as.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Far as clothes can be right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They look sharp, they feel premium and beyond denim.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Rag and Bone has the same standard.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Across their tees, jackets, knits, you name it. They built a whole wardrobe of elevated essentials designed to last.

[Sponsor Voice]

It's time to upgrade your denim with Rag and Bone. For a limited time, our listeners get 20% off their entire order with code [e-mail] and that's 20% [e-mail] with promo code Jordan. And when they ask you where you heard about them, please support our show and let them know we sent you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is also sponsored by Wayfair. Now that the weather's been cooling down and the days are getting shorter, we've been in that mode of making the house feel cozier and a little festive too. Jen especially loves to keep things fun for the kids around Halloween, so our front yard has to look the part. And Wayfair has been our one stop shop for all of it. We picked up some outdoor Halloween decor from Wayfair Skeletons, the spooky Cauldron. The kids love it, the neighbors notice it.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I'm sure they do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And the gen's happy. That's the beauty of Wayfair.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

They've got such a massive selection with.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Options for every style and budget. You can find pieces that match your vibe perfectly. And it's not just decor. Wayfair makes it easy to cozify your space for fall, whether it's warm bedding, cozy throw blankets, recliners for movie nights, even kitchen staples like a Dutch oven for soups and stews. They even have espresso machines so you.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Can make that pumpkin spice latte at.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Home instead of waiting in line. What makes it even better is the free, easy delivery, even on the big stuff. No crazy delivery fees, no running around to multiple stores. Just a few clicks and it shows.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Up at your door.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So if you're looking to make your home feel cozy and festive this season, check out Wayfair.

[Sponsor Voice]

Cozify your space with Wayfair's curated collection of easy, affordable fall updates. From comfy recliners to cozy bedding and autumn decor, find it all for way [e-mail] that's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Home don't forget about our newsletter. We bit wiser. It's a little tidbit every Wednesday delivered to your inbox. It's a Two minute read and it's highly practical, something that you can apply right away that'll make your decisions, your psychology, your psyche just a little bit better. It's a nice little takeaway from the show from us to you. Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it and it's a great companion to the show. Hope to see you there. Now back to Skeptical Sunday. What about gangs, though?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I did read somewhere that they're involved in trafficking rings a lot of the time, or maybe that's human smuggling or maybe it's both.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Sometimes I specifically, I think it was gangs from other countries that were preying.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

On the immigrant communities from their respective home countries. Kind of like old timey, you know, Italian mafia used to extort Italian businesses in New York, for example.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. So they're not like, you know, transnational criminal gangs are not coming up here to abduct your daughters and send them to Venezuela or whatever. Trafficking, especially sex trafficking, is a very serious concern for people who aren't in this country legally. It isn't necessarily or even primarily people are getting kidnapped and sent north of the border for slavery, sexual or otherwise, though that does happen. So it's not about international trafficking in the way people think of it so much as it is preying on the local community. I think the analogy with the mafia and Italian businesses is pretty good.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So how does that work?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

What's the process where they exploit their national community?

[Nick Pell]

Sometimes it'll be underage girls who aren't in this country legally and the gangs will offer protection or threaten their family back in the country of origin.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And these girls may not want to talk because they're afraid of what will happen if they go to the police. Right.

[Nick Pell]

That's true in a lot of cases. In some cases, the girls or women or even men or whoever it is have a legitimate fear of any engagement with law enforcement. In other cases, the traffickers just convince them that they can't go to the police. You know, it's kind of all the same thing from the victim's perspective, if you think about it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. And this is probably why law enforcement interventions can be a problem in the first place. I suppose.

[Nick Pell]

Yes. Because even when law enforcement shows up, they can be viewing victims as criminals. Particularly with the current administration and its focus on remigration and deportation, I think.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That language barriers must be an issue. Right. A cop who speaks Spanish, sure, there's a dime a dozen.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But a cop who speaks the right.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Local dialect of Chinese or Vietnamese or something more niche like HMONG which we have in Michigan a lot, but maybe probably not anywhere else.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I mean, see it in the Bay Area.

[Nick Pell]

Oh, we have that where I grew up too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, you do?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Okay, so, yeah, I see. Which is, by the way, for people who are wondering what we're talking about.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They're like a mountain dwelling minority from Laos and Vietnam, I think.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Is that accurate?

[Nick Pell]

And I think also Cambodia. In Cambodia we had tons of. We had a very large Cambodian population where I grew up.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

So they basically a bunch of them left during and after the Vietnam War because they were aiding the United States. And so Cambodia, Vietnam and that whole area.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, not a great place to live if you were.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Especially if you were on the wrong side of that thing. So they, a lot of them came to Michigan and stuff like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And they live in that movie Gran Torino, remember that?

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That's the ethnic minority in that. And they have a lot of issues just with crime. Because I think one of the sayings that I remember hearing growing up and that I heard from that movie was.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In the Hmong population, the girls go to college and the boys go to.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Jail or prison or something. And it's like really dark. Are not doing well. Those guys in the United States, for whatever reason, in at least in small part. So anyway, yeah, so you got cops and they can't really talk to the victims or they don't really know what's going on. And they're not integrated in the community because they're not from there. And that would be a problem to solve. To root this out, it's going to be very difficult.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, I think that's a fair assumption. I mean, any language you can't find a decent interpreter for, you're going to have to overcome that barrier before you even start establishing the trust that's going to be necessary to help these victims. Kind of the weirdest form of coercion that I came across is in West Africa. I guess they make women think they've put a curse on them and bad things will happen if they don't cooperate.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Oh, God, they fall for this.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, it's called a juju ritual. Look it up.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I will look in the show notes where you've hopefully provided a helpful link.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

But that sort of makes me sad that someone can be like, I've got a magic spell on you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And you're like, well, guess I have to do whatever want me to do forever.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Like, okay, yeah.

[Nick Pell]

The common denominator here though is that it's easy to exploit people with a shared background from A common place in a strange new land. It's definitely a lot easier than jacking someone from the parking lot. Another common denominator is your mom goes missing, there's going to be tons of people looking for her. A teenage girl here illegally who is potentially running around and only coming home half the time was going to miss her.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Oh, man, that's cold.

[Nick Pell]

I really don't mean it to be. And I honestly feel bad for someone whose parents wouldn't even notice or care enough to call the cops if she just went missing. The point I'm trying to make is there are some teenagers who could just disappear because they don't have the best parents and no one's going to say anything. And to get out in front of this, like, no, I'm not like, oh, it serves them right for not watching their kids, because somebody is putting that together in their head right now. But it's like, no, I don't think that at all. It's just a reality. So not everybody. If you're listening to the show, you know, you're intelligent, educated, and thus you probably came from a good family. Lots of people did not. Lots of people listening to this show know what I'm talking about. You just came from a home or like, where's my kid? I don't know. I don't care.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No, I think that's a fair point. In artful way, you're trying to draw attention to the fact that people in.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Marginalized communities are the biggest victims and probably the easiest targets.

[Nick Pell]

Exactly. But we've talked a lot about sex here, and it's another myth that's worth addressing, that trafficking necessarily means sex and sex necessarily means trafficking.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Didn't you include that, though, in your definition of trafficking?

[Nick Pell]

I said sex or commercial labor. Or is is the important word here because. And the slavery episode is a good point of reference to dig deeper into this. A lot of people aren't being trafficked for sexual. There might be sexual violence happening to traffic labor, but that's not the purpose of their trafficking. The purpose of their trafficking is not sexual exploitation. It's financial exploitation. And conversely, in a lot of sexual exploitation, there's a financial element as well. But not everyone being trafficked is being trafficked for sex.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Does that really make it any better?

[Nick Pell]

Well, in one sense, no. But I think most societies have established that there's something extra bad about sexual offenses, and I think that's correct.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

So I know that the Sound of Freedom movie was a big hit, especially in red states. For those of you who Aren't aware this is a film that supposedly details.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The exploits of a network of government.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Agencies rescuing small children from sexual slavery. How accurate is stuff like that?

[Nick Pell]

I mean, it's not a documentary, nor does it purport to be, but it.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Does claim to be sort of based on real events. Right.

[Nick Pell]

You know, Matt, Based on is doing a hell of a lot of work here. People calling this the most important movie ever made.

[Additional Researcher or Contributor]

Ok?

[Nick Pell]

And honestly, it's not. This was this huge, quote unquote, red pill moment for a lot of people where they just became convinced that guys were like, you know, leaving elite units of the federal government to embark on one man rescue missions in Colombia. I haven't seen the movie, but I believe that even in the movie it's not, you know, the head cheerleader gets hogtied and thrown in the back of a van at the mall parking lot. I think it was kids getting taken in through some bogus child modeling scene. Which, honestly, there's kind of a little kernel of truth to that. But even that's silly.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Why is that silly, though?

[Nick Pell]

Because. Because a total stranger is like, hey, your kids should be models. And you're going to be like, oh, yeah, take them. In reality, the person doing this, this is one of the problems with Stranger danger is like, who victimizes kids? Is it strangers? No, it's going to be a trusted friend, a neighbor, a family member, a teacher, a clergyman. It's going to be somebody that, you.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Know, what else in it is less than fully truthful slash totally fiction?

[Nick Pell]

Oh, there's this, you know, dramatic rescue scenes of children with gunfights and everything. This is America, after all. We do love a good gunfight and a good explosion, myself included. There have been some rescue attempts in reality, but they're. They're usually botched, as you could imagine. They traumatize the victims. They often violate international law. The other thing is there's just not some, you know, jungle compound where they're keeping child sex slaves. Again, this cannot be repeated enough. This is not what trafficking looks like. It looks a lot more like a farm staffed by people in debt bondage, or a runaway teenager with no other options who trusted the wrong person or someone who's been coerced through poverty and. Or addiction. And it's important that people know the truth about this so that they're not attacking straw men or getting some wildly inaccurate Hollywood version of what trafficking looks like.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There's also this weird kind of savior.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Fantasy involved in all this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The movie, it's kind of not really about the kids who are getting trafficked.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

It's about the guy saving them, which.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is kind of weird.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And I think it appeals to a very specific type of middle class religious person, largely.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, I think that's fair. This version of, you know, this Hollywood version of trafficking has become such a cause du jour among certain types of American evangelicals. And I hate it because there's real people with real problems, including being trafficked. And you could be throwing your time and energy at that rather than this artificial fantasy of what trafficking looks like.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about the guy that this movie.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Was supposedly based on?

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, it's based on Tim Ballard, and his authenticity is questionable. He was on your show.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

He was on the show way back in episode 369, which was sort of weirdly. I didn't follow up much with it after that, but it was like basically right after he did my show, he was just totally exposed as kind of a phony who was misusing the donations to like take luxury travel and hire his family and do all kinds of weird semi shady stuff and get reported. You know, he had to leave that organization that I think he started.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, he did. So Tim Ballard is a former Department of Homeland Security operative and actually, you know what, it would kind of be helpful if people revisited that episode. Sorry if I'm directing people to like naked baby photos of you or something. But it's all good, you know, to like listen to this guy spew his nonsense will give you a. Probably a pretty good idea of what trafficking is not and who's not actually helping. But the group is called Operation Underground Railroad. I actually did an art fundraiser for them. Well, I participated in. I didn't organize an art fundraiser for them maybe three years ago. And it was to allegedly free kids from trafficking. He's testified before Congress, he's on all kinds of anti trafficking councils, or was. Anyway, the point here isn't to drag him personally. There's allegations against him. I have no idea if they're true or not, but I do think that they're worth mentioning. There's sexual harassment allegations, which usually grain assault, but there's like civil suits and stuff and police reports. People aren't just trying to smear him in the media, which makes it, in my opinion, significantly more credible. He was telling women to pose as his wife or girlfriend as part of a cover for getting them to share a bed with him. Allegedly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ah, smooth.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, allegedly.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

We gotta make it look real, okay? Be really loud during our totally not real sex in. When the door locks yeah.

[Nick Pell]

I'm imagining them, like, jumping up and down on the bed and making, like, animal noises to convince people.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah.

[Nick Pell]

He allegedly had women model underwear for him to show how far they're willing to go to save the children. I mean, I love. My God, I'm sorry to laugh, but it's just like, it's such a ridiculous. Like, not because people did it because he had, you know, power over them, but allegedly, but it's, you know, that this is his. Like, this is where his mind goes with all this power.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I. I'm only laughing because I'm like.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

One, I gotta remember that line.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But two, it can't be so cut and dry, like, hey, I want to.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

See you in lingerie.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What? That's totally inappropriate. How far are you willing to go.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

To save the children?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I mean, it's just. There's no way that it went down that. So I'm like, what are the other missing elements of what happened here? Where we got from let's kick down some doors and beat up some human.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Traffickers to, like, you're putting on a hotel room Runway show with Victoria's Secret lingerie for this schmo. Yeah, right. Like, come on.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, the whole thing is really bizarre. Again, like, there's police reports at a civil suit, so I tend to take that stuff a lot more seriously than I do just like, you know, filing a brief with the court of public opinion. Also worth noting, not a smoking gun, but a lot of people who supported him, abandoned him. The Church of Latter Day Saints dished him. I don't know that he was a member, but they, like, stopped their support of him. Glenn Beck, and Ballard himself was forced to step down from his own organization. So it was pretty serious.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, but like you said, he hasn't.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Been convicted of anything, so at this point, it's just on the level of accusation. Got to be fair there.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And even if he is guilty, what does that have anything to do with.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Whether or not Operation Underground Railroad was actually saving children? Right. Because it was. The organization wasn't just him. Right.

[Nick Pell]

That's true. I think it matters because the way the whole trafficking moral panic is presented to people who believe in it, it's just so ripe for exploitation. You create this lurid image of trafficking that's just not accurate. You make it some kind of life or death struggle between good and evil, and you have power over these people who are very emotionally invested in your cause. It does not surprise me that among the accusations against Ballard are that he was spiritually manipulating people for the People.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Among us who are not religious.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

What does spiritual manipulation even mean?

[Nick Pell]

He was setting himself up as some kind of religious or spiritual authority on a mission from God, which, you know, I'm a religious person, and I don't think that's okay. If someone tells you that they're on a mission from God, you should be extremely skeptical of that. And I find it very cynical on his part that he's exploiting these people in this way. I think that all of this kind of save the children from trafficking stuff, the, like, kids are getting grabbed and sent to the secret pedophile island. I think that really lends itself to QAnon type conspiracies. The nonsense like the Wayfair furniture company is shipping children and advertising them as couches.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I remember that.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. I mean, this is a real thing. For anybody who's mercifully unaware. Ballard did push the Wayfarer conspiracy. He talked about baby farms. There are no baby farms. People are not breeding children to be sex slaves or any other thing for shadowy pedophile elites. Yeah, and this isn't some extremely stupid but innocuous belief. This takes attention off real child trafficking and discredits the credible accounts and makes them seem fantastical and frivolous. But, you know, America loves a good moral panic.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Speaking of grooming and coercion, let's hear from the amazing sponsors that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by BetterHelp. Ever catch yourself unloading on the wrong people? Like, suddenly you're trauma dumping on your dental hygienist? Shout out to Charles, best dental hygienist in the game. He listens to the show.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And I love my dental hygienist. I talk to him about everything.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But anyway, you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to unload about your childhood while they're elbow deep in your plaque. As much as these folks are polite about it, not everybody's a therapist. That's where BetterHelp comes in. Instead of relying on random captive audiences.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

In your life, you can connect with.

[Jordan Harbinger]

A licensed, clinically trained therapist. Somebody who actually knows how to help.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

With anxiety, relationships, depression, whatever's on your plate.

[Jordan Harbinger]

BetterHelp's been around for over 10 years. They've already helped more than 5 million people. With over 30,000 therapists, it is the world's largest online therapy platform. They've earned a 4.9 rating across 1.7 million session reviews. It's all online. It's totally flexible. You can start a session at the click of a button. No traffic. No waiting rooms. No more trauma dumping on your barista while they're just trying to steam your latte. That's why I like betterhelp. Real help made easy. No soccer coach has to hear about.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Your existential dread ever again.

[Sponsor Voice]

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of Expertise. Find the one with better help. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] Jorphdan that's betterhelp.com Jordan this episode.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is sponsored in part by the Defender. We all have those big goals that seem just out of reach, right? But the truth is, that's what keeps us moving forward. For the people who embrace challenges and explore their way, there's the Defender. The Defender is built to handle whatever comes its way with legendary capability on road or off. It's engineered with a tough, rigid body, tested to the extreme and built with durable, lightweight architecture for strength and confidence. But it's not just about ruggedness. It's an icon reimagined with a design that feels modern yet honors its adventurous roots. Plus, there's a Defender for every kind of Explorer, from the Defender 90 to the 110 and even the 130, which seats up to eight people. So whether it's just you or the whole family, there's a model for your journey. If you're ready to embrace the impossible, the Defender is your perfect partner, beyond capable and ready to go wherever you're headed next. Build your defender@land roverusa.com thank you all for listening to the show. Your support of our sponsors keeps the lights on around here. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable on the [e-mail] deals please consider supporting those who support the show now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That's a good point, I suppose, at the point where organizations that are maybe not really doing anything, you're starting to get a bunch of donations and so they're not donating to the center for Missing and Exploited Children or whatever other charity. I don't think that's a charity, actually. But like other organizations that are doing real work in this area that is maybe less sexy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like, oh, I stopped donating to the place that runs a safe shelter for.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Gay runaway kids because I donated to the ones where they go and kick down the door at this place where. But it's like, well, they're not actually doing that in the center with all the gay kids now can't afford to stay open. So like. And yeah, then somebody reports that they've been trafficked and it's like, oh, whatever, I saw a sound of freedom. It's a bunch of bs. It's not really happening. And it's like, no, no, no, my parents are doing it to me. And it's like, come on kid, get out of here. So that's what I worry about with this stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We've talked a lot about what child.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Trafficking is not though.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What does it look like?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

How widespread is it?

[Nick Pell]

Most of it is debt peonage or kids who fell through the cracks. The debt peonage is more of a global phenomenon. But you know, here in America, in your backyard, kids are falling through the cracks every day. Traffickers do not need to grab kids off the street. They just find kids who are hungry or homeless or neglected or even just scared and they offer them what they're lacking. And a very disturbingly common scenario is parents exploiting their own children, like you just said, which a lot of times drugs and drug addiction are involved in that. So mom's an addict and she's got a 13 year old daughter she can use to get drugs. And it's morally outrageous. It's also very, very sad. How widespread is it? 5,000 cases tops in the United States, which is absolutely 5,000 too many.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah.

[Nick Pell]

But it is just not what is being claimed by these hysterical people claiming that there's a groomer behind every door. There's not. These numbers come from Polaris project reports. They collect hotline tips and NGO referrals. You know, the point isn't. Oh yeah, it's not that big of a deal. It is. It's just not the same big deal that your weird uncle. You're weird, but lovable uncle's Facebook memes say that it is. Yeah, you know, police bus where they find a bunch of traffic kids. These are super rare. It's usually the victims reach out for help or social workers notice something is not quite on the up and up and that's when you know, something happens.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That's true. That was one of the big critiques that we got on our homeschooling episode, was that it's harder for stuff to get reported because when kids go to school and they're acting weird or they got bruises or whatever it is, it tends to come out faster. But when kids are homeschooled, there can be all this kind of hidden, abusive stuff. It's not that the majority of homeschooled kids are abused or anything. But it's like people who abuse their.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Kids certainly are gonna try and play.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

The homeschool card because it just keeps prying eyes away from them. I remember we got a lot of emails about that.

[Nick Pell]

We actually talked about that on the episode.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, we did.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Okay, good.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, I only remember the things people.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Hated about my show.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You say something nice, it's in one.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Ear and out the other. You tell me how much you hate the show, I'll remember it for the rest of my.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All right, so what about.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I wish I were lying.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about outside the United States? Because I'm willing to bet that this is a much bigger issue in parts of the world without such a strong rule of law.

[Nick Pell]

And you'd be right. As we discussed on the slavery episode, which people should go listen to, 50 million people worldwide are modern slaves. 12 million of them are children. 17 million people are in forced labor. 6 million of them are being sexually exploited. And that includes 1.7 million children. These are horrifying numbers. It is a comparatively small amount of people in a world of 8 billion. And they're mostly concentrated in places other than suburban Minneapolis. So the chances of you or your child being trafficked are extremely low. And neither one of you is getting grabbed at Waffle House and shipped to Cambodia.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Do you think these are accurate numbers or are they under or over reported?

[Nick Pell]

It's complicated. On the one hand, there's pressure to under report. These are just the ones we know about. It's like roaches. You see one, you can bet there's probably more. On the other hand, this is just conjecture on my part, but I do think it's worth bringing up as a reasonable postulate. There's a lot of pressure, I think, on NGOs to over report because they are going to get more funding for an exaggerated problem. It's a hard thing to accurately measure for a lot of reasons. Underreporting over reporting, fear of law enforcement, the blurry line between consent and coercion. I think, though, that ultimately we can, you know, we can use these numbers and kind of price in that they're fuzzy.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I see. Okay. You talked earlier about how you think panic does more harm than good. Why is that?

[Nick Pell]

I think in general, panic does more harm than good. Every bad law is based on one emotionally driven premise. If we don't do something, a kid might get hurt.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, so devil's advocate, what's wrong with that?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Right? We don't want kids to get hurt.

[Nick Pell]

Well, no, we don't. But I think at a philosophical level, it's just a very silly guide to law.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But specifically with regard to children and.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Other people getting trafficked, what's the issue?

[Nick Pell]

Okay, so let's look at bad law in practice. Congress passed two laws in tandem in 2018, SESTA and FOSTA. SESTA stands for Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers act and FOSTA stands for Fight Online Sex Trafficking. I'm instantly suspicious of any law with a name like Save the Puppies or Everyone Loves Ice Cream.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah, okay, I know, but what. What about these laws specifically?

[Nick Pell]

Sure. So basically this was during the golden age of Craigslist as a platform for commercial sex. It made platforms that enabled sex trafficking criminally liable. And that sounds great, right?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah, sure. I don't really know enough about it, but yeah. Okay.

[Nick Pell]

So the unintended consequences for these specific laws were that these platforms either shut down entirely or else banned commercial sex from the platform. And that might sound great, but the issue is that a lot of these platforms allowed people to vet their clients and communicate with each other about who to avoid. It also helped them to avoid street work, which is very, very dangerous. Yeah, it helped them to maintain financial independence, I. E. Not work for a pimp. This was sold as a way to end sex trafficking and save the children. The reality was that it just pushed the sex trade underground, which makes it harder to keep an eye on. And it did nothing to address the core issues. It was just a moral panic law. And like most moral panic laws, it was not written in an intelligent and thoughtful way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Sure, but isn't sex trafficking kind of.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Something to get panicky about?

[Nick Pell]

Well, I don't think so. I think it's awful, but I just don't think panic ever helps. And I think it can also, you know, panic can enable bad actors looking to take advantage of the situation. Like these bogus rescue organizations we talked about. They're good at pr. They don't seem to be very good at actually helping victims. I'm not aware of any evidence that they are. Anyway, I think that there are victim centered support organizations that help, but the savior organizations. I'm unaware of any evidence that they're helpful, though I'm sure the comments section will correct me. We need to start with talking about what the reality of trafficking actually looks like and not some Hollywood slash QAnon fantasy about what's happening.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We know that the person shopping at.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Target After Dark is not at risk. So who is we mentioned marginalized communities. Speak to that.

[Nick Pell]

Trafficking actually looks like migrant farm workers in California who have Their visas manipulated. It looks like young gay kids who felt like they had to run away from home and now they're living with some creep who's doing whatever to them. It also looks like a nanny from the Philippines who had her passport confiscated. Debt bondage, threat of deportation, coercion through family threats. These are called invisible chains. These are all factors. The risk factors are real and identifiable. It's not just random people getting grabbed off the street because they're cute or pretty. People at risk are homeless or at risk of being homeless. They're addicted to drugs, they're in the foster care system, they're extremely poor, or they lack proper paperwork or id.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

It seems almost like the human trafficking anxiety people have. It's like a semi sophisticated version of stranger danger.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All the risks that you're talking about.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Are failures of the system in general combined with a heaping dose of human frailty.

[Nick Pell]

Yes, this is stranger danger for adults.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

There's also a kind of way that trafficking gets hijacked by far right influencers and conspiracy theorists.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It takes the focus off of real.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Victims and real perpetrators and puts it onto drag queens or gay people in general, or maybe immigrants or something. And there's this whole panic about how groomers are everywhere.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Remember OK Groomer instead of OK Boomer?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yes. For a few months there's like, oh, they're everywhere.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it just, it doesn't match up with reality. It seems like this would lead to.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Allocating resources in the wrong spot. Perhaps if everybody sort of fell for this.

[Nick Pell]

I think that's very well put. I mean, I make no bones about the fact that I'm politically on the right.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Well, yeah, I had no, I had no idea. Nick didn't notice, obviously, but I just.

[Nick Pell]

I hate Internet influencers in general.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Well, let me, let me stop you right there, pal.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, let me finish. I hate influencers who are just grifting by hopping onto the latest and greatest outrage.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's fair.

[Nick Pell]

I hate outrage porn. Because even if there's some truth to what they're saying, and in this case, yeah, there is, people get trafficked, but what they're doing is not. Even if it was neutral, it would be like, who cares? It's not. It's actively harmful to the people who are the actual victims. It acts as a shield for the actual criminals behind it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We talked about what doesn't work. So what does?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And don't say nothing, please.

[Nick Pell]

No, I think things work. I also think you just kind of. You have to accept that there's a non trivial portion of the population who are always going to make bad choices to the point where they feel like their own exploitation is consensual. You can't help somebody who doesn't want your help. Yeah, it just doesn't seem rational to me that you can help somebody who doesn't think that there's a problem. But for everyone else, you need to remember what we talked about in terms of what drives this kind of exploitation. And then you have to heal the underlying cause. Housing for people, mental health care, trauma care, legal aid, vocational training. These are the things that can actually benefit people being victimized by trafficking and help them out of the bad situations that they're in.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Are there any organizations that are actually.

[Nick Pell]

Out there helping Polaris, who I mentioned earlier? They run the National Human Trafficking hotline that connects people with services around the clock in a whole bunch of different languages. They also have the largest database of information about trafficking in North America. And they train advocates. They're doing something Cast la, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. They offer direct services like legal advocacy, emergency shelter, they help set people up with long term housing. They give them life skills training. This addresses the problem swop that helps people who are currently involved in commercial sex both in and out of prison. And their kind of main cause is reducing prison recidivism. The thing is, people want there to be just this magic wand that they can wave that's going to make everything better and that's just not what the situation looks like. There's a lot of really unsexy grunt work and you're helping one person at a time.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That's why people love this fantasy of kicking down a door and rescuing 40 kids. Right, who are in some sort of warehouse. I totally understand people wanting something done about this. Right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But I also get that you really.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Do have to be realistic about what the situation actually is and what can be done about it. The panic driven version that we are often sold in the media and on the Internet is not just false, it's actually counterproductive. People aren't saved by these daring rescue missions in the jungle. They're saved through long term care and support.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And as unpleasant as it is to think about, some people don't actually want.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Help and there's nothing you can really do in that situation. For parents, there's no value really in trying to instill stranger danger in your kids.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Your time is going to be better.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Spent teaching your kids how to protect themselves against adult weirdos pretending to be.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Their friends or people in positions of.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Authority who might be using their power in unethical and criminal ways. Make sure you know what they're getting up to online, and foster open lines of communication so that if they do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Get into a bad situation or the.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Beginnings of one, they won't make it far worse for fear of how you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Are going to react. Thanks again to writer and researcher Nick.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Pell for helping us rescue reality from.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The clutches of panic. Nick, this is kind of a gross one. You're my gross topic guy.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Did you know that?

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, no, I. I've definitely noticed that. Like, I don't get bananas, you know, the teddy bear industry. I get the most depressing topics on on human earth, but they also tend to be like, you know, things I know about because I actively seek out depressing information because I'm that kind of person.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's funny, I think we mentioned this before.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Like, you're never gonna get the, like.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Do aluminum cans really get recycled? It's gonna be like, how about fentanyl, right?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Or whatever. It's like, oh yeah. Thanks, Jordan.

[Nick Pell]

Are puppies cute? Today on the Jordan Harbinger show with Nick Powell.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That's right.

[Nick Pell]

We unpack the truth behind whether or.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Not puppies are no. You're out of luck, man. But I thank you for occupying that niche. Somebody's got to do it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And thanks to everybody else for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to me. Jordanordanharbinger.com advertisers, deals, discounts and ways to support the show. All searchable and Clickable over at jordanharbinger.com deals I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

You can also connect with me on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

LinkedIn and this show. It's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Tata Solowskis, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Our advice and opinions are our own.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I am a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Also, of course, we try to get.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

These episodes as right as we can. Not everything is gospel, even if it might have been fact checked.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So consult a professional before applying anything.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

You hear on the show, especially if it's about your health and well being or that of others.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And knowledge that we doled out today.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time. What happens when you speak out against Vladimir Putin and the KGB starts showing up in your life outside of Russia? Konstantin Samoylov didn't just flee his homeland to avoid conscription. He's now exposing the regime from abroad with a target on his back.

[Konstantin Samoylov]

I was growing up under the impression that the USA was the cradle of all evil in the world. Okay, it was bad. And then the world started opening up and I understood that the commies were lying. Imagine for 70 years you're told that there's nothing good for people in the West. It's darkness there. None in Russia thought that we could invade Ukraine. And then I was absolutely caught off, guarded. It's unbelievable. The Russian state didn't care about what was being said about it. I on the outside, all they cared was on the inside. But now the focus has shifted on telling the truth about Russia, how things are. And my YouTube channel started growing. The numbers exploded because everyone wanted to be a part of a community support group. And I think that I'm becoming a bigger and bigger danger to them. So they're trying to neutralize me one way or another. Knowing that I. I am on the radar is one thing, but when you see actually an agent in real life, that's different. Ball game. I'm not stopping. I keep on talking because I was silent for 15 years. I was looking at my country going down to hell, and I wasn't doing anything about it. So there's no way they're gonna shut me up even if I put myself into more danger. I think that's more important right now. To tell the truth of what's really happening in Russia. If not me, then who?

[Jordan Harbinger]

To hear more about life under dictatorship, the myths of Russian strength, and what it really costs to tell the truth, check out episode 1021 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change your receipt. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Meal includes a hash brown and a.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Small coffee for just $5 only at.

[Jordan Harbinger]

McDonald's for a limited time. Prices and participation may vary.

[Experian Sponsor]

Not great with finances. That's okay. Experian is your big financial friend. Explore credit card offers, some labeled no Ding Decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. See experian.com for details. Applying for no Ding Decline cards won't hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved. 2025 Experian. Experian.