JOHN YANG: Last month, thousands of court documents were released detailing the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse and trafficking of teenage girls.

It brought new attention to the problem of sex trafficking in the United States and why the crime so often goes undetected.

Ali Rogin has more on the barriers that survivors of trafficking must overcome in their search for justice.

ALI ROGIN: Human trafficking can take many forms.

It can range from sexual manipulation and coercion to the exploitation and forced labor of an individual.

In 2021, the National Human Trafficking Hotline reported more than 10,000 cases of trafficking and over 16,000 victims.

Experts warn that's likely an undercount.

Megan Cutter directs the National Human Trafficking Hotline at Polaris, an anti-trafficking nonprofit based in Washington, DC.

Megan, thank you so much for being here.

We wanted to talk about this in the context of the Jeffrey Epstein news.

We hear so much about the perpetrators of that abuse that was happening in the context of that case.

But what about the victims?

Are there characteristics that Epstein's victims share with other people who've experienced human trafficking?

MEGAN CUTTER, Director, National Human Trafficking Hotline: I actually think that sometimes in talking about the Epstein case, we get lost in the, you know, money and the power and the influence that Epstein and some of the people involved in that situation had.

But actually, it's really very typical of a trafficking situation for a trafficker to identify people who maybe are vulnerable in some way.

In the case of the people that Jeffrey Epstein victimized, often they were from a lower income community, people looking for some sort of way to earn some extra money.

Human trafficking in general is a abuse of power and control, using some form of force, fraud, or coercion to get someone to have sex for money, get someone to remain in a work situation that they no longer want to be in.

And so it's not that different from what we see day to day.

But I think some of that gets lost in the conversation.

ALI ROGIN: Are there misconceptions about trafficking that you spend time talking about debunking?

MEGAN CUTTER: The first one I would share is this idea that trafficking requires some form of movement or transportation, or that it doesn't happen here in the United States.

But trafficking can happen in someone's own community, in their own family.

Really any situation where there is that abuse of power and control to coerce someone to provide sex acts or to work.

Another misconception is really this idea that people are getting snatched off the street and forced into human trafficking situations.

So much more often, we see scenarios where people are in some form of longer term trusting relationship with their trafficker.

Whether it's they met them online, that person's an intimate partner, a family member, a friend, and they build trust through a grooming process.

And then once the victim isolated, they take advantage of that and begin to abuse and exploit them.

ALI ROGIN: How do conspiracy theories and disinformation play into some of these misconceptions that people have?

MEGAN CUTTER: I think often when there's some sort of conspiracy theory or misinformation about human trafficking, it plays up some of those elements that are really sensational.

And what that can often mean is that well intentioned people, members of the public, are so focused on that they're missing how trafficking really happens.

And that can overwhelm resources like the national human trafficking hotline.

And it can impede the way that victims and survivors, people experiencing trafficking, see themselves in those narratives and therefore identify themselves and reach out for help.

ALI ROGIN: Now, a lot of us have been to airports, rest stops that have signs advising you on spotting the signs of human trafficking.

I wonder what your organization sees as the efficacy of those public service announcements.

Are there ones that are more effective than others?

MEGAN CUTTER: I think we would really recommend that those types of awareness materials are geared towards people who might be in trafficking situations or who might be close to someone in a trafficking situation.

So using plain language that's easy to understand in the languages of people who live in that community, if it's English or another language, making sure that's available and just making it really easy for the layperson to read and say, oh, I might know someone in that situation, versus sometimes just using the word human trafficking over and over again, people might not see that and say, oh, that's me.

That's my experience.

ALI ROGIN: What do people who experience trafficking need?

How do they move forward once they're out of that situation?

MEGAN CUTTER: Polaris operates the national human trafficking hotline.

And part of the way that we operate, that is when someone reaches out to us who is a survivor of trafficking, we share with them what their options are and then allow them to make a choice about what they want to see happen next.

Because trafficking really removes that autonomy that many of us have in our lives to decide, do I want to access this type of service?

Do I want to live in this place?

Do I want to be in relationship with these people?

And so we're really starting that process by giving folks options and choices and then helping them connect with those types of resources.

So that's really that first step of recovering from a situation where control is removed from you.

ALI ROGIN: We often talk about human trafficking in terms of sexual exploitation, but there's also a strong labor component to this.

How does that work?

MEGAN CUTTER: Absolutely I think labor trafficking is defined as a situation where someone is forced to work and they're unable to leave their work situation without severe consequences to themselves or someone else.

So we see that in agriculture, domestic work, caregiving, restaurants, really any place where there is work happening, labor trafficking can happen.

But particularly industries where there are less protections for workers or where workers are more isolated in rural areas or individual homes, we see a higher risk for that type of abuse happening.

ALI ROGIN: The Trafficking Victims Protection act of 2000 was.

It was a landmark federal response to human trafficking.

What does it do, and are there areas in which it falls short?

MEGAN CUTTER: I think one of the great things about the Trafficking Victims Protection Act is that brought the federal government together and to build a response to human trafficking and to make sure that we're united in responding to it, that different agencies are making sure that there is a response in their agency, and we're really supportive of that.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline started operating in 2007, and we really feel like that establishment of that has been really helpful for people who need assistance, people who are looking for help, and also people who maybe have a friend or a family member who they are worried about, and they're wanting to contact the hotline and get that type of assistance.

ALI ROGIN: Megan Cutter, the director of the National Human Trafficking Hotline at the Anti-Trafficking Organization Polaris, thank you so much for joining us.

MEGAN CUTTER: Thank you for having me.