Stop Sex Trafficking: How Airlines Are Saving Children From Sex Traffickers by Nancy Dafoe

Flight attendant Sheila Frederick noticed something unusual on a flight from Seattle to San Francisco. A girl of about 14 looked “disheveled” and upset in traveling with an older, well-dressed man. Frederick quietly told the girl to go to the bathroom, where the flight attendant had left a blank note for her. The girl took advantage of her opportunity and wrote, “I need help.”

Frederick notified the pilot, who notified authorities. A team of police arrested the man when the plane landed and saved the girl from a sex trafficker. According to Kahlan Rosenblatt, who writes for NBC News, Frederick is a member of Airline Ambassadors International, “which focuses on training attendants to see signs of human trafficking.”

In a related story, an American Airline agent, wonderfully named Denice Miracle, rescued two girls from the sex trafficking trade at California’s Sacramento International Airport. According to Alex Lasker’s AOL report, the girls approached the ticket counter with almost no baggage and no identification on their way to New York. They had first-class tickets paid for by a man in New York the girls met on Instagram. Both girls were reunited with their parents.

Photo: NBC News