ATLANTA — Atlanta's reputation for human trafficking was a point of concern for President Jimmy Carter on Saturday as he spoke to thousands of graduates at Liberty University.
The comment came as part of a global fight to establish equal rights for women – a struggle he calls the greatest issue faced by the world today.
"Atlanta, where the Carter Center is located, is the greatest center for human trafficking or slavery in America," he said. "One reason is we have the busiest airport in the world for passengers."
Those words come as metro Atlanta continues its battle against images connected to a, sadly, very lucrative underworld trade. Carter explained that a lot of the passengers traveling through Atlanta – some victims of trafficking – come from the southern hemisphere.
"And a girl who is brown-skinned or black-skinned can be sold, according to the New York Times, to a brothel owner for about $1,000," he said. "And the brothel owner makes about $35,000 for these forced brothel prostitutes."
And an alarming statistic – that 94 percent of trafficking victims are women – underscores that point.
But with 83 percent of sex trafficking victims in the country being U.S. citizens, trafficking is far from limited to those traveling through Atlanta or the U.S.
The fact that this dark trade is happening on the streets of Atlanta has become the subject of a legislative journey through the city known as the "Unholy Tour" which hopes to bring more attention to the crime of sex trafficking.
On the tour, state and city officials stop by motels, the Greyhound bus station, strip clubs and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. These spots were chosen with proximity and traffic in mind. They're just a sampling of the places where sex is sold inside or nearby.
In fact, the very day Carter briefly spoke on the issue to graduates, deputies were placing a man in jail on charges of trafficking in sexual servitude in Forsyth County. Investigators were following up on a tip about a possible case of child prostitution when they found 31-year-old Matthew Humphries. They also found a 16-year-old girl reported as a runaway from DeKalb County to be the victim.
The average age of a sex trafficking victim in America is just over 15.
