The Jensen Project Exposes Sex Traffickers Social Media Tactics in the Texas Sky

Today and yesterday, Houston and Dallas natives spotted some ominous messages in the sky, escalating from How Old R U? to Leave And I’ll Find You. The organisation behind it is the Jensen Project, a non-profit unifying the fight against sexual violence, for its latest integrated campaign, Sky Trafficking. Created in partnership with advertising agency No Fixed Address, the goal of Sky Trafficking is to equip girls with the knowledge and resources to recognise the dirty tactics of sex traffickers online. 

Traffickers have a new way into lives via direct messages (DMs). Online platforms laid the foundation for sex trafficking’s digital transformation, providing a hidden place for traffickers to target potential victims. From behind a screen, they reach out to young women using the age-old playbook of luring and grooming. The Jensen Project makes the playbook visible through its Sky Trafficking campaign, which kicked off with OOH activations in Houston and Dallas, Texas via skywriting. The final message for the OOH series is the URL to SkyTrafficking.com - an educational website created for young women and parents alike to learn about the four stages of trafficking and how to identify these online. 

“Sex trafficking is happening in cities across the country and the more it happens, the closer to home it gets.” said Janet Jensen, founder and CEO of The Jensen Project. “To stop this epidemic, we need to be able to spot it.”

55% of trafficking victims report having met their traffickers on the online platforms Americans use daily (Source: Human Trafficking Institute's 2021 Federal Human Trafficking Report). As the Jensen Project’s inaugural awareness campaign, Sky Trafficking shines a light on the common language traffickers employ to recruit victims in the shadows on social media. With smartphones offering an open door for predators, recruitment occurs closer to home than most believe.

“While some may not understand the severity of this issue, we’re providing them a glimpse of what it might look and how close it can be by writing real and common trafficker messages above neighbourhoods in one of America’s largest trafficking hubs,” said Alexis Bronstorph, chief creative officer at No Fixed Address. 

Texas is the number two state for sex trafficking in the United States, with Dallas as one of the top 10 cities for sex trafficking in the country. Traffickers aren’t just recruiting somewhere else far away. It’s happening here in the United States, in every community. 

If you or someone you know has been approached by someone you think might be a trafficker, are currently being trafficked, or are a survivor of sex trafficking, visit The National Human Trafficking Hotline for resources that can help you at 1 (888) 373-7888, SMS Text: 233733 (Text "HELP" or "INFO")