All eyes are on Charlotte, North Carolina, as incidents of sex trafficking are in the rise.
Fox News reported experts have noted children are particularly vulnerable, putting parents on notice as the state is now ranked ninth in the U.S. for human trafficking, according to data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
In 2024, North Carolina had 301 cases of human trafficking that included 580 victims, per the Hotline.
This includes sex trafficking, labor trafficking as well as other types of exploitation.
In North Carolina in 2024, there were 145 reported cases of sex trafficking, 73 cases of labor trafficking and 38 cases of both sex and labor trafficking.
Hannah Arrowood, executive director of Present Age Ministries, refers to this as “a perfect storm.”
Arrowood heads a partnership with the Charlotte Metro Human Trafficking Task Force to understand and combat the rise in cases.
“It really is kind of like a perfect storm,” Arrowood said. “There are a lot of variables. One of the things that we have to know is that trafficking happens everywhere. It happens in every city and every town, whether you’re rural [or in a] city – it really doesn’t matter. But for Charlotte, one thing is that we have a lot of factors that attract demand.”
One attraction to North Carolina is its interstate highway system.
There is also a demand for inexpensive labor in its agricultural industry and increased amount of gang activity, experts said.
“Part of the reason why Charlotte is such a huge trafficking hub is because of the highway system,” Toby Braun, founder of American Special Investigative Group, said. “A lot of these traffickers are running victims and may start in South Florida. From South Florida, they go to Atlanta, and from Atlanta, they pass through Charlotte. Oftentimes there, they may put them in safe houses.”
Victims are then taken to other major cities — such as New York or Houston – after going through Charlotte, Braun said.
“Charlotte is kind of like a central hub, or an epicenter,” Braun said. “For the most part, it’s kind of a pit stop.”
There is a increase of gang activity Charlotte as criminal organizations keep a grip on the area’s network, experts said.
“The Bloods have a huge stronghold in human trafficking,” Braun said. “They’re one of the primary organized crime groups responsible for trafficking [in Charlotte]. For the most part, these are criminal networks. And that also makes it tougher, because of the kind of resources that they have and the ability to traffic people around, hide them in places and really stay undetected.”
School-aged children from within the Charlotte area are being targeted, Arrowood said.
Data from the Charlotte Metro Human Trafficking Task Force shows 48% of trafficking cases in 2024 involved those under 15.
“People think that these traffickers are these monsters – and they are,” Braun said. “They can be boyfriends or classmates. We’ve seen cases with coaches and people that you would never really expect, and I think that’s what makes them dangerous – the fact that they can be individuals that are hiding in plain sight.”
