Brainstorming Ideas for Project 4

Sex trafficking is an unspoken issue on college campuses. Students are not objectively the targets, but there is no conversation taken place on universities. Specifically, the city of Syracuse has a high rate of young women entering the sex trafficking cycle.

"70% of street youth are victims of

commercial sexual exploitation; they

may engage or be coerced into

prostitution for “survival sex” to meet

daily needs for food, shelter, or drugs"

http://www.nysena.org/central/sex%20trafficking%20brochure%20updated.pdf

Syracuse University contains a lot of wealth that is not distributed back into the community towards this issue. While briefly researching the issue, I found that many people enter the hidden industry through marketing strategies online. My goal is to intervene and start an online conversation about the issue. Spectrum news posted an article with an interview about how people are targeting on social media. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2018/11/08/sex-trafficking-growing-in-syracuse#

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I believe that the youth in Syracuse who are targeted by misleading advertisements would be able to see the University student's awareness. My plan is to create a new hashtag and have as many students online post it on social media to show victims the mass support for them. There is an opportunity for this movement to become a snowball effect in which other Universities in similar communities can raise awareness. This will happen by starting the first campaign at Syracuse University.

Marketing posts could contain a similar style and format to the Guerilla girls.

However, the facts would be about sex trafficking such as, "Average age of entry into the “life”

is 12-14 years of age" http://www.nysena.org/central/sex%20trafficking%20brochure%20updated.pdf

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The McMahon Ryan Child Advocacy center works one on one with victims of sex trafficking. There are opportunities within the program to host events. I want to host an event on campus for facility and staff to show their support for the cause. Greek life on campus is a really good network that I have access to in order to involve students for the cause. My plan would be to reach out to different councils such as social, cultural, and professional to explain my goal. I want to bring together as many people in the community that I can to raise awareness for sex trafficking in Syracuse.

https://www.mcmahonryan.org/get-involved/sponsor/