The International Human Trafficking Institute (IHTI), an initiative of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Inc., launches a powerful and provocative billboard advertising campaign, “The Truth in Trafficking,” which focuses on disrupting and re-orienting the perception of predators. The dramatic and captivating ads depict ravaged dolls designed to show the predators’ perception of the victims as something less than human. It is that gross misperception that rationalizes the predators’ willingness to impose the horror they do on innocent children that the ad campaign aims to eradicate.
The digital billboard ads will be on display in 23 locations across Metro Atlanta from Cumming down to South Fulton, West Cobb to Gwinnett, crossing Major Interstates 1-85, 1-285 and 1-20, with total weekly impressions estimated at approximately 9 million. MARTA will also display the ads on buses and trains. The campaign will run through June 16th.
Deborah Richardson, Executive Director of IHTI says, “Our intent is that the campaign will spark the conversations that men, co-workers, faith communities, and civic groups need to have around this pervasive issue, not only on a local level, but on a national one. Our goal is to eradicate the demand for selling and buying children for sexual and labor exploitation. Demand Abolition (2019) estimates the annual size of the US commercial sex market at $5.7 billion.”
LEGEND ad agency CEO, Michael Dunn and artistic creator of the campaign says, “Buyers justify they are doing no harm. Hung in their web of lies, their vision of reality is blurred. “The Truth in Trafficking” is the aggressive jolt required to bring to light the horrors these children are living through day after day, rape after rape. We hope this campaign not only changes behavior but also stimulates conversations around the dinner table. It’s not an easy conversation. It’s a mandatory one, so we all can protect our youth—both girls and boys.”
The IHTI has elicited support from community outreach ambassadors in Metro Atlanta from the business, public safety, civic and faith sectors, including transportation, hospitality and education, who will partner in educating and bringing awareness to combat human sexual and labor exploitation, and spread the word regarding this unique campaign.