Spreading awareness and preventing sex trafficking of special education students
22%
Victims of sex trafficking received special education services in school
What We’re Doing to Help
Youth in special education services are at incredible risk for being targeted by sex traffickers. The Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research (STIR) at Arizona State University, created this website to support special educators and those working with special education youth to be able to identify high risk behaviors and situations and to provide prevention activities and information to the youth in their classrooms and the community that supports them.
Information Tailored to You
Students with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to victimization. To help caregivers tackle this weighty subject, we have crafted position-specific information to provide better support you.
Story of the Starfish
The Starfish Story, an adaption from “The Star Thrower” by Loren Eiseley
A little girl was walking along a beach with thousands of washed up starfish. Each starfish she came across, she picked it up, and threw it back into the ocean. An older man called out to her and asked, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”
The girl heard what the old man was asking, but she continued to bend down, pick up another starfish, and threw it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied, “Well, I made a difference for that one!”
