Slavery in Our Own Back Yard: Realities of Human Trafficking in San Diego
Sheriff's Sgt. Jason King, chair, San Diego Human Trafficking Taskforce
Since launching in 2007, the sheriff’s San Diego Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force has identified over 400 victims of sex trafficking. Thirty percent were minors, said sheriff’s Sgt. Jason King, who heads the effort. Authorities are seeing girls who also hail from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds — from the upper-class suburbs to the poor urban neighborhoods — and their average ages are 14 to 18 years old. San Diego ranked eighth nationally for child prostitution in the U.S., said a 2003 FBI audit, the last such audit done. Los Angeles was no. 1