We’re fighting child labor trafficking the wrong way

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OPINION – California has been a hotbed for human trafficking for years. According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, identified cases spiked to 3,603 in 2024, nearly an 80% increase from the postpandemic low of 2,055 cases the year before. This number even surpassed the 2018 high of 3,304 cases.

Despite this growing issue, the California Legislature has dragged its feet in providing support for preventative solutions.

Human trafficking is a crime that involves the compulsion or coercion of a person to provide labor, services or to engage in sex. This coercion can be either subtle or overt, physical or psychological, and may involve the use of violence, threats or debt bondage.

Predators target both children and adults, and for a variety of circumstances. Victims range from migrant boys trafficked from Central America to toil in slaughterhouses to girls who run from foster care only to be groomed by traffickers posed as boyfriends. What bonds them all is their experience of trauma and the systematic destruction of their self-worth.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. While California has made strides in passing legislation targeting sex trafficking, the same has not been the case in labor trafficking. Particularly for child labor trafficking, the state lags behind.

First responders and service providers are widely untrained to recognize the warning signs. In the case of child labor trafficking, 33% of victims participating in a national study were only identified as victims after they were arrested or detained.

Efforts are being made. Working its way up the legislature, AB2451, sponsored by Assemblymember Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), would expand the scope of county child welfare workers, allowing them to investigate allegations of child labor trafficking. Yet, punitive efforts alone may do more harm than healing.

On July 10th, 2025, ICE agents raided cannabis farms in Camarillo, detaining over 300 workers, including at least 14 children. The children were transferred into the care of the Department of Health and Human Services. A public information officer from Ventura county’s child welfare agency declined to inform the press on the minors’ status and wellbeing.

A similar incident just two years ago can enlighten us on their possible wellbeing.

In 2023, federal agents raided meat packing plants across eight states, uncovering 102 child laborers ages 13-17. In a later interview, a 13-year-old girl from Guatemala who was swept up in the Nebraska plant raids described how her life was torn apart. Her stepfather, also employed at the plant, was arrested on charges of human trafficking for driving the girl and her mother to work. Her mother was handed allegations of child abuse. In the aftermath of the raids, her family alongside many others, lived in fear, not only of criminal consequences, but of deportation.

Inaction does the victims no favors and gives the survivors no justice. Yet, shuffling children caught up in immigration raids into foster care does little to help.

This cannot be a task left to law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security, or child welfare alone. This must be a holistic effort. The first step to change is for the community and its leaders to recognize the complexity of the problem and work to address the issue at its root.

Future legislation must provide emergency food and immigration and housing support for vulnerable families. It must focus on raising awareness in the schools, so that affected youth can recognize the signs and signals in their own lives and be emboldened to speak up.

Crucially, teachers, service providers and law enforcement must be trained to recognize the signs of child labor trafficking and reach out a hand to help, rather than a hand to hurt.

Odin Dailo is a graduating Master of Social Work student concentrating in child welfare at CSU, Bakersfield.