MISSISSIPPI—For many human trafficking survivors, exploitation does not begin with violence but with trust—a reality advocates say communities must better understand as law enforcement identifies more cases across the state.
That was true for human trafficking survivor Amber Eide, who said she had just graduated from high school in Mississippi when she met an older man at a grocery store. What she believed was the start of a relationship eventually turned into a trafficking situation in Atlanta.
“I was very much not aware of what trafficking was,” Eide said. “It wasn’t established then. It was really just prostitution. It didn’t really have a name to it. I was young—I thought it was all about love.”
State investigators say Eide’s experience reflects a broader pattern.
Over the past five years, human trafficking has been reported in all 82 Mississippi counties, according to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. In 2024 alone, the National Human Trafficking Hotline received 303 tips from Mississippi, and law enforcement identified 195 cases in the state with nearly 300 victims.
MBI’s Human Trafficking Special Victims Unit reports trafficking remains a significant and growing concern, often hidden in plain sight.
Lori Hill, MBI’s human trafficking coordinator, said trafficking is not confined to large cities or tourist areas such as the Memphis border, Jackson or the Gulf Coast.
“It’s important to have those conversations because if they understand how people may be out there to take advantage of them and manipulate them, then they can see the red flags for themselves,” Hill said.
Why Trafficking Doesn’t Look Like Trafficking
Advocates say one reason trafficking continues to go unnoticed is because it rarely matches how it is portrayed in movies, books and on television.
Charlotte Arrowsmith, program manager at the Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence, said many victims are trafficked by someone they already know and trust.
“The most common relationship that we see is somebody’s romantic partner,” Arrowsmith said. “The second most common relationship is actually a family member.”
Human trafficking is defined as modern-day slavery, where traffickers profit by exploiting others through force, fraud or coercion.
Eide said her own exploitation escalated through manipulation, not physical abuse.
“It wasn’t abusive. It wasn’t forcible. It was coercible,” she said. “I was coerced into doing things—the unthinkable things.”
She said she was 18 or 19 years old when she became pregnant, and the trafficking began shortly after she gave birth.
“I remember my child being on the motel bed the day I was trafficked,” Eide said.
Today, she says her experience continues to shape how she understands what trafficking can look like—and why so many victims remain invisible.
“Human trafficking, to me, it just looks like a normal person,” she said. “No one knew I was being trafficked in the least bit.”
How Trafficking Victims Often Go Unnoticed
Advocates say that invisibility is one of the biggest challenges facing law enforcement and victim support agencies.
The Mississippi Coalition Against Human Trafficking reports that cases often go unrecognized because communities expect trafficking to involve physical restraint or abduction.
Arrowsmith said misinformation about what human trafficking can look like, along with economic instability and limited access to support services, often increase a person’s vulnerability.
These conditions, she said, create opportunities for traffickers to manipulate people who are already struggling.
“The traffickers are exploiting vulnerable individuals to get their own needs met, not considering the consequences of the harm that is due to the individual,” she said.
“We are seeing, the more we are asking the questions, people have been involved in trafficking without even realizing it,” Arrowsmith said.
What Traffickers Do to Find Their Victims
Although Eide was around 18, advocates say the average age of recruitment is between 12 and 14 years old.
Amanda Dollar, executive director of the Mississippi Coalition Against Human Trafficking, said children and teens are particularly vulnerable.
“These kids that are online and they’re talking to folks on social media and gaming apps and those type things, traffickers will very slowly build that trust,” Dollar said. “Then that child winds up in a trafficking situation.”
Dollar said misconceptions about trafficking also affect prosecutions.
“If the jury’s made up of people in your communities and the people in your communities think, ‘Hey, trafficking is like what I’ve seen on the movies—what I’ve seen on TV,’ and they don’t realize what it really looks like,” she said.
When survivors’ experiences do not match those expectations, she said, cases may be reduced or never brought to trial.
“What could have been a human trafficking charge and conviction kind of gets dropped down to promoting prostitution,” Dollar said.
What Mississippi Is Doing to Fight Trafficking
Under Mississippi law, anyone who recruits, transports, harbors or pressures a minor into paid sexual acts or explicit performance commits sexual servitude of a minor—a crime that carries a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.
Convictions can also include fines of up to $500,000. If the victim is an adult, the penalty ranges from two to 20 years in prison, with fines up to $100,000.
Mississippi has expanded services and legal protections for survivors in recent years and has invested in training law enforcement to better identify trafficking cases.
Dollar said certified human trafficking investigators are now present in most jurisdictions through coordinated efforts by the attorney general’s office, MBI and the Center for Violence Prevention.
Hill said technology companies also have a role in prevention.
“It’s going to be these tech companies strengthening their policies around keeping, especially our young people, safe,” she said.
Advocates say continued education and community awareness are essential to identifying trafficking, supporting survivors and ensuring the state’s laws are enforced as intended.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline provides free, confidential support for victims and survivors of trafficking. Services are available 24/7 in English and Spanish. Call 888-373-7888 or text INFO to 233733.
This article first appeared on RHCJC and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.