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Backyard Broadcast trains new members in effort to combat sex trafficking

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SALT LAKE CITY — More than 100,000 children are reported as victims of sex trafficking every year, according to Backyard Broadcasting, which is an organization aimed at raising awareness about child trafficking.

It’s an organization for youth by youth, and Saturday new members were being trained to run Backyard Broadcast clubs at their schools.

The club is in high schools and colleges, and they’re working to spread their message around the United States.

“Two-thirds of every run-away child meets a pimp or someone who would sell them, they met them within eight hours,” said Julia Piotrowski of Backyard Broadcast. “Which is a really scary statistic considering that that’s just two-thirds in eight hours, which means that as time expands, so do those numbers.”

Piotrowski said that one of the main ways sex traffickers pick up young girls is at the mall, by telling the girls they want them for a modeling or make up shoot and then kidnapping and selling them when they show up to the interview. She said homeless youth are particularly vulnerable to traffickers.

For more information about Backyard Broadcast, click here.