0:02

This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Dohrny.

0:07

Hi everyone, and hello to the Let's

0:10

Be Clear listeners. My name is marisaul

0:12

Nichols. Now you may know me from

0:15

shows like Refordo or even

0:17

twenty four, or if you're

0:19

more my age, you may know me from

0:22

Vegas Vacation playing Audrey Griswold.

0:25

But today I am very humbled to be guest

0:27

hosting this episode of Let's Be Clear. I

0:30

had the opportunity of working with Shannon actually

0:32

several times on nine O two one zero, also

0:35

Uncharmed, and then we did a movie

0:37

together that was for MTV called Friends

0:40

Till the End, So and

0:42

she was always just absolutely wonderful

0:44

and besides being incredibly talented,

0:47

I always always respected her advocate

0:50

work. So I understand that this

0:52

podcast is something

0:55

that's very important to her, and

0:57

I'm really honored to be doing it today

1:00

and to be hopefully

1:02

creating a space for strong women and strong

1:04

voices, which is what I know Shannon

1:06

wanted and today, aside

1:09

from me being an actress, if

1:12

you don't know, and you can just kind of google it or

1:14

anything, but for the past ten

1:17

twelve years, I have been working also in

1:19

the field of human trafficking, both

1:22

as believe it or not, an undercover

1:24

agent, because I've been deputized

1:26

in several states, in several countries, and

1:29

I would use my acting skills to partner with different

1:31

law enforcements to help them get

1:33

into places or

1:36

talk like a kid or look like a kid, or

1:38

look like a trafficker, or look like a customer, depending

1:40

on whatever's needed. And I also

1:42

have a nonprofit called Foundation for Slavery

1:44

Few World that I founded about almost

1:47

a decade ago. So that's what

1:49

we're going to be talking to about today,

1:51

and hopefully by the end you'll learn

1:54

something. You'll learn how to protect yourself,

1:56

happy, to protect your family, your

1:58

friends. We're going to cover things such

2:00

as child predators and internet

2:02

safety and all of that.

2:04

All of that stuff, So let's

2:07

get started.

2:08

So first, I wanted

2:10

to talk a little bit about why in the world I

2:13

am talking about human trafficking

2:15

and how in the world I got involved. So essentially,

2:17

back in twenty twelve, in

2:20

a twenty twelve early twenty thirteen, I

2:23

was friends with this older woman who traveled

2:25

around the world educating people.

2:28

About human rights. Literally, that's

2:30

what she did.

2:31

And she would come back from these travels

2:34

and tell me these like heartbreaking, horrific

2:37

stories about human

2:39

trafficking, and back then, I'm like, what are you talking

2:41

about.

2:42

I didn't know what.

2:43

That meant, and I didn't understand that

2:46

this was a thing, you know. I mean,

2:48

this was over a decade ago. So anyway,

2:51

I sort of hearing about it, and she started telling me about

2:54

like something called the sex trade, which

2:56

made me want to throw up, and

2:59

that there were, you know, people

3:02

caught up in this and hold against their will,

3:05

just like slaves. And I was pretty

3:07

shocked because I was like, I thought slavery was abolished

3:09

when Abraham Lincoln abolished

3:12

it, you know, on the Emancipation Proclamation.

3:14

And I was wrong. I was very

3:16

wrong.

3:17

And actually, back then, the

3:19

statistics, according to the International Labor

3:21

Organization, there were twenty one million people

3:23

worldwide caught up in what

3:26

Barack Obama called modern day slavery,

3:29

and today that number is upwards a fifty million

3:32

worldwide, and it's in every

3:34

single country, especially

3:37

also including the United States, and every

3:39

single city in the United States, and it is just rampant.

3:42

And so essentially I

3:44

was like, Okay, I couldn't sleep. It

3:46

wasn't like I was like, Okay, let me go take this

3:49

on. I honestly could not sleep.

3:51

I had, I think at the time, I was six, and

3:54

I was I was I just

3:56

I couldn't imagine other

3:59

kids going through the

4:01

things that I heard. And I'm going to try and keep this palatable

4:04

so you don't turn the channel, but some

4:06

very very dark things.

4:07

And I couldn't sleep, and.

4:08

So I was just, well, I'm

4:11

a firm believer in let me figure out what

4:13

I can do about it, you know, And

4:15

so I dove in, and I dove

4:17

in. I met with different NGOs,

4:20

non governmental organizations, different nonprofits.

4:23

I met with senators, I met with

4:25

Republicans, I met with Democrats. I met with

4:28

everyone and their mother. I met with executive

4:30

brands of the White House. I met with State Department, I met

4:32

with Homeland Security, different

4:35

law enforcement entities, everyone

4:37

and anyone that I could that was

4:39

trying to tackle this, to

4:41

learn as much as I could, to

4:44

see what I could do about it,

4:46

if anything. And at

4:48

the time, I was promoting a

4:50

TV show that I did called GCB for

4:53

ABC, and I was

4:55

walking the red carpet on you

4:57

know, one of these events where your publicist calls you and say hey,

4:59

marries, well, can you come out for

5:02

backpacks for children? It's a charity organization

5:04

in Style magazine, it's going to be covering it, you

5:08

know. And then you run and you scramble and you get an outfit,

5:10

you get a dress, and you get a makeup artist, and you

5:12

know, you look all pretty and you walk this red carpet

5:14

and what you.

5:15

Get is a cheat sheet.

5:17

So what that is is your publicist goes, here's your talking

5:19

points, and

5:22

you get talking points so that when Access

5:24

Hollywood shoves a microphone in your face and goes, why are

5:26

you here for backpacks for children? You

5:28

can go, oh, bah, there's sixty thousand

5:30

children in the United States without backpacks.

5:32

And you look I

5:34

hate to say this, but you look like you really know

5:37

what you're talking about, when honestly, you've been given a cheat

5:39

sheet for the most part, for the most of us. And

5:44

I was learning about this very dark thing,

5:48

and I just I was like, look, the only way

5:50

that this thing can be allowed to happen to

5:52

the degree that it is happening in the world is

5:55

because good people don't know about it.

5:57

Because all the.

5:58

Bad guys know about it, know

6:00

about it, but good people don't know about

6:02

this thing. How would we ever cross flow

6:05

this thing and find out about it unless

6:07

we're involved with some dark stuff.

6:09

So I was like, Okay, I'm going to throw.

6:11

My own red carpet event, and I'm going to

6:13

invite people from

6:15

different nonprofits and different sectors

6:17

of the government and law enforcement to come and speak

6:20

on this issue. And I'm going

6:22

to have the press there,

6:24

and I had access Hollywood there, and we

6:27

invited all my you know, actor friends

6:29

and stuff, and we gave them.

6:30

Cheat sheets and so when

6:32

they would walk the red.

6:33

Carpet, they were the ones including like Terry

6:36

Crews and Kelly Preston

6:38

and you know, Jenna Elfman and Erica

6:40

Christensen and Kristin

6:43

Chenowith, and it was really amazing

6:45

and they would spit out the statistics and

6:47

they were learning for the first time about

6:50

this issue. So when they came

6:53

into the event, instead of a typical Hollywood

6:55

event where there's like open bar and a DJ and that's

6:57

it's mingling and that's pretty much all

7:00

of it. I

7:02

made it like an award show because

7:05

I wanted to find a way that I could

7:07

communicate what was happening

7:09

in the world in a way that wasn't like a

7:11

lecture, you know, And

7:14

so long story short, you know, I had I had

7:16

different celebrities award

7:18

at different individuals that were doing work

7:20

in this field, and then as

7:22

they would accept their award, they would talk

7:24

about what it was that they did, and we had

7:27

a nice intro video and so by.

7:28

Default people would learn about it. So

7:32

that's essentially how it all started.

7:35

And then one year

7:39

I needed a keynote speaker, and I met

7:41

an organization that was running around essentially

7:43

another NGO that was running around rescuing women

7:46

and children and infiltrating different

7:48

trafficking rings and working with law enforcement

7:50

here in California or in other states

7:52

or in other countries.

7:53

And the head of that organization at the time

7:56

was like, can you you know, do you

7:58

want to come and watch and op?

8:00

And I'm like sure, And then when I got there,

8:02

it was like, well, do you want to can

8:04

you help me? I need a female And

8:09

that was kind of it. I just kind of dove in, and

8:11

by default I would just get phone calls, can

8:15

you come, can you come out? We're going to go to

8:17

this foreign country which I'm not going to say, but different

8:19

foreign countries, and you know,

8:21

this was the real This is the real deal. This

8:23

is as scary as it freaking gets, it as

8:25

dark as it freaking gets. And

8:32

but I felt

8:34

like if I could use a skill set

8:36

that I have in acting to

8:39

get into a place where other law

8:42

enforcement maybe can't get into because

8:44

I.

8:44

Don't look like a cop.

8:45

That was the biggest thing is I'd wear disguises and I

8:48

don't look like a cop, so

8:50

it would like essentially bring the guard

8:52

down of the bad guys. And

8:55

that's that's just what I did off and

8:57

on while filming Riverdale, while

8:59

not filming Roverdale, in between other

9:02

things, and I would just get a phone call.

9:05

And I've worked with different sectors of law enforcement,

9:07

including the LAPD and

9:10

the sheriffs in Chris Wanson

9:13

in Michigan. I've worked

9:15

in Sacramento, California. I've worked in these

9:17

other foreign countries and there

9:19

you go, and I kind of just fell into that side

9:22

of things.

9:23

So okay.

9:24

So one of the things

9:26

is that I wanted to make sure that everyone understands

9:28

like human trafficking, Like when you think of human trafficking,

9:31

you think people chained up in a room and

9:34

held against their will, and all

9:37

kinds of images conjure, right, and that

9:39

does happen, and that is true.

9:41

But it's also

9:46

when I say it's here in the United States, because

9:48

it is here in the United States.

9:50

These are people, human

9:52

beings, women, children, sometimes

9:55

men, but mainly in the sex trade, because it's what I

9:57

kind of concentrate on. It's women and children and

9:59

little boys, and

10:02

they are essentially

10:06

held against their will,

10:08

forced into by coercion or

10:10

pain or something else, into

10:15

servicing, for lack of a better word,

10:18

strangers. And

10:21

it is horrible

10:24

and it's heartbreaking.

10:26

And my

10:28

main thing is.

10:31

It's supply and demand, right,

10:34

you would not have a supply of

10:37

what it is now six point six million I

10:40

think it's six point six million children caught up

10:42

in the sex trade currently globally.

10:45

You would not have that supply if you

10:47

did not have a demand. And

10:50

so you

10:52

know, there's trafficking

10:54

comes in the forms of labor trafficking and

10:56

debt bondage, the kind of thing that you would

10:59

think of of like, hey, can you smuggle me across

11:01

the border into a different country, Yes, but now you

11:03

have to pay off your debt and you have to work

11:05

off your debt. Oh, and we're going to steal your passport.

11:07

Oh, and we're going to force.

11:08

You to do X, Y and z, depending on whatever it is.

11:10

It's different forms, right, So

11:15

my main focus was always you know, I

11:17

had to kind of pick a focus, so

11:19

I just I focused on the sex trade because for me, it

11:21

was the most upsetting.

11:25

And so, like I said, it's supply

11:27

and demand. You would not have that supply

11:29

if you did not have that demand. And

11:32

so my main focus now I have my

11:34

own podcasts, and I work and I try

11:37

to educate directly to

11:40

women and children and teachers

11:42

and parents of Hey, guys, this is how

11:44

you do not get pulled

11:47

into this world. And this is how

11:49

to protect your kids online, and

11:51

this is how to protect yourself. You

11:53

know, we're hearing all kinds of things of between

11:57

Uber and different

12:00

online forums and things like that. It's

12:03

essentially you

12:06

just have to educate yourself so

12:08

you can prevent yourself and your

12:10

loved ones from ever getting into the hands

12:12

of these criminals. One

12:15

of the questions here is, you

12:18

know, how do young people get pulled into it? Well, in

12:21

America, and I'll try to keep this talk more

12:23

towards America, the

12:25

majority of women and children

12:27

that are that are or young young women and

12:29

children that are caught up into this are

12:32

runaways or foster care

12:34

kids. There's actually a saying in

12:36

this industry that foster care is

12:38

a straight line to jail for boys and a

12:40

straight line to trafficking for girls.

12:43

And it's just.

12:45

It's because they're the most vulnerable. Any vulnerable

12:49

person is suspect to this, right.

12:52

And so what happens is traffickers will hang

12:54

out of foster care homes.

12:55

They'll go to schools.

12:57

And hang out in the yard, or recruit

13:00

another person in school to recruit

13:02

another girl to go meet with the trafficker.

13:05

There's something called a romeo we call it

13:07

the sort of romeo pimp

13:10

slash trafficker where they'll be tending to be your boyfriend.

13:13

They'll pretend they're like, oh, I love you and kame

13:15

blah blah blah, and then you slowly and they get

13:17

you away from your support system,

13:19

so they'll convince you to run away. They'll

13:21

convince you that you know, the people

13:23

that are supposed to look out for you are bad and

13:26

that they are better at looking out for you. And then once they

13:28

get you in those grips, it

13:30

changes, it changes

13:33

and it's it's called

13:35

trafficking because it's it's forcing

13:38

someone to do something through force, cohersing

13:42

against someone's will, that

13:45

kind of thing. How

13:47

widespread is it in the US?

13:50

I mean it's

13:54

in You cannot look. You don't have to listen to me, like,

13:56

look it up. It's in every

13:58

city in America. I

14:01

was shocked when I first started doing

14:03

this. One of the one of the ops that we would do is we would

14:06

put an ad in a Craigslist

14:09

right or back then it was also backpage dot

14:11

com, which was a whole website that's been shut down,

14:14

thank goodness. But you'd put an

14:16

ad and you would

14:18

literally put an ad and

14:21

say hey, like encoded

14:23

words. You know, we're parents,

14:25

we are in town three days only here

14:28

to sell our nine

14:30

year old, twelve year old, thirteen year old. And

14:34

within seconds

14:36

of posting it, I'd be sitting

14:38

there next to law enforcement. It's just appointment ap point'm an

14:40

appointment phone called email, email, send us a pictures

14:43

like can we talk to can we talk to them? How old

14:45

are the girls?

14:45

What can we do?

14:46

Like just just in like small

14:48

town America, you know, just

14:51

horrific. And I remember the law

14:54

enforcement officers that I was working with and this back

14:56

in this one was twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.

14:59

They were astonished.

15:01

They didn't know it was in their town

15:04

and this was a decade ago.

15:06

And again, you don't have to listen to me, like look it up if

15:08

you're interested. All

15:11

the data is online, but it

15:14

is and that's unfortunate.

15:30

My focus has been, Okay,

15:32

if I can like where does my niche

15:34

fit in? And because of Riverdale, I have a large

15:36

audience of teenagers,

15:39

young women, parents, sometimes

15:42

teachers, that kind of thing. And so I

15:44

was like, okay, if I can focus on one

15:46

thing, I'm going to focus on preventative

15:49

and so that's what we do on the podcast. And I also I

15:51

also have guests on that I've gone out of cover with

15:54

or worked with and some capacity, and I

15:56

just kind of highlight what they do and how

15:58

to protect yourself. Okay,

16:01

so suburban neighborhoods. Yes, in suburban

16:03

neighborhoods, victims are targeted. Again,

16:07

Like I said, the majority in America are runaways, some foster

16:09

care kids. But there's also they're

16:12

looking for and what they are looking

16:14

for with traffickers, bad guys, bad

16:16

actors are looking for vulnerability.

16:19

So they are pretty much everywhere

16:22

where you can have access to kids. So you think about it,

16:24

parks, YMCAs, swim

16:27

clubs, all of that stuff, but then mainly

16:30

online. Like I

16:32

always say, like the back in the day was the white

16:34

van you had to look out for, which yes, you

16:36

still have to look out for, but it's not the majority.

16:38

The white van is now the Internet. So

16:41

it's anywhere where they can have access

16:44

to your kids, right, So dming

16:47

on Instagram, messaging on Facebook,

16:49

and I'll talk a little bit about what Meta has done to

16:51

protect put some policies in place recently,

16:55

chat rooms, discord any game

16:58

that you can chat anywhere where you can

17:00

reach and talk directly to a kid.

17:03

And what they're looking for is they're looking for, as

17:05

I mentioned, the vulnerable.

17:06

So what does that look like. So that looks

17:08

like a girl.

17:10

Let's say, you know, maybe fifteen We

17:13

all know this person, you know, fifteen thirteen going

17:15

on thirty dressed

17:19

provocatively posting

17:22

a picture online of Instagram or on Facebook

17:24

or wherever they're posting, you know, and like,

17:26

you know, screw my parents or with

17:29

a cigarette, or like just that they're

17:31

like a badass or

17:33

they're trying to be a badass, I should say, and

17:36

I only say that because I was that girl, you

17:38

know, and sending

17:41

up signals that they don't maybe have

17:43

a very close relationship or

17:46

a close support system, right,

17:49

that's what these guys are looking for. So,

17:52

you know a lot of things that we do is we'd put up fake profiles,

17:55

fake profiles immediately because it's the easiest

17:57

thing in.

17:57

The world to do. Fake profile.

18:00

I'll snap, you know, saw a picture of a young

18:02

girl, age down, Like you can take my face

18:04

and age it down, and now you've got a young girl and

18:07

just post something like screw my parents, or

18:10

I hate school, or you

18:13

know, I don't know, do you think I'm pretty? Things

18:15

like that, And these

18:17

guys literally have nothing

18:19

else to do. Like you know, the fat guy in the basement that you

18:21

hear about, they are the fat guy in the basement

18:24

on the internet like this, scrolling

18:26

through tons of profiles at anything

18:29

in anywhere where they can they can find

18:31

this sort of vulnerable population in

18:35

life. Let's say there's a group of girls, and let's

18:37

say you're at the mall, because it's also you know, these guys

18:39

are everywhere. Say you're at the mall and there's

18:41

a group of group of kids. And let's

18:43

say there's five girls, and

18:46

let's say some guy goes, hey, baby, you

18:48

know something, anything, just a

18:50

comment. If four

18:53

of the girls are like ill, they're

18:55

not going to bother them. But

18:57

the girl who puts her eyes down and is

18:59

like oh hi boom,

19:02

that's their target. They're looking

19:04

for vulnerability. They're looking for someone

19:07

who's not strong. They're looking for someone that they can easily

19:09

convince that it's not going to fight back, it's

19:11

not going to make any noise, that kind

19:14

of thing. I mean, there's so many, so

19:16

many things to look for.

19:17

I had.

19:17

I had a very dear friend of mine who's been to my

19:19

events by the way, been to my events,

19:22

woke up, called me up and said, oh my

19:24

god, marysal Marisel Marsol, Oh my god. And she

19:26

she had woken up the night before for some

19:28

reason. She goes, for some reason, something told me to

19:30

go into my son's room. And

19:32

she's like, I went into my son's room, who's fifteen.

19:35

He wasn't there. She called

19:37

him. He was in an uber on

19:40

his way to go meet

19:43

what he thought was

19:45

a young woman who's you know, obviously

19:48

promising to do certain things with him and had

19:50

sent the Uber.

19:51

Now he's fifteen, she's supposed to be

19:53

fifteen, but they're

19:56

not.

19:57

How does a fifteen year old get access to a credit card

19:59

to her parents to send an Uber And by the way

20:01

he was being he didn't even know where he was going. He was going

20:03

two hours away. And also why

20:05

does uber pick up a fifteen year old boy in the middle of the night.

20:07

But that's a whole other conversation. My

20:10

point is she had

20:12

even educated herself. She had even

20:15

even like was aware of this.

20:18

But if they you have to educate

20:20

your kids and young

20:23

kids, you have to be aware of this because it's

20:25

they will put up a fake profile. They it's

20:28

so easy to create a whole history

20:30

of a person online.

20:33

It's the easiest thing in the world. Keep

20:35

in mind, none of these platforms

20:37

require ID, so

20:40

you can be anyone. And these

20:42

guys, these predators have multiple,

20:45

multiple profiles, and

20:47

they're doing this all day long, trying

20:49

to trying to reach someone. So one

20:51

of the things that I want to say the good news because I think I'm

20:54

talking a mile a minute. But one of the great things

20:56

that Meta did so Meta owns Instagram,

20:58

Facebook, Snapchat, that kind of thing.

21:01

They rolled out earlier this year, a

21:04

mandatory change in all of

21:06

their social media, So any kid

21:08

that is under the age I think it was seventeen

21:11

or eighteen, automatically their

21:14

profiles were private no

21:17

matter what. And

21:19

what that does is that if you

21:22

have a public profile, as some of you

21:24

might know, anyone can DM you,

21:26

anyone can reach you. If it's private,

21:30

you have to actually accept messages

21:33

and accept people in. So

21:35

that's one of the things that rolled

21:38

out this year. There's other legislation

21:40

that if you want to know more, just go onto my website, Marison

21:42

Nicols dot com.

21:44

That Meta is doing.

21:45

And the good news is that all these

21:47

different entities are all trying to help.

21:50

Like I have never run

21:52

into anyone in the last decade that I said,

21:55

oh I work in the field of human trafficking

21:57

or child preditors or I work on protect

22:00

Everyone was like, how can I help?

22:01

What can I do? Everyone?

22:03

So the good news is that there are so many

22:06

different organizations and people,

22:09

law enforcement and politicians doing

22:12

something about this or trying.

22:15

To do something about this.

22:16

I shouldn't say, okay,

22:19

describe I have some questions here. So they kind

22:21

of prompt me to talk. Are

22:25

people being targeted online? I mean that's

22:27

everywhere. By the way, you

22:30

also as a young adult, because I know it's

22:32

not just kids listening to this podcast, but we've

22:34

got women on here and men on

22:36

here, so you

22:39

have to do your diligence.

22:41

There are cases of.

22:45

Girls gone missing the nineteen twenty twenty

22:47

one years old or approached them all. Hey, I really

22:49

like the way you do your makeup. We're

22:51

looking for makeup artists to travel with

22:54

models. Here's my card. They even have

22:56

cards, right, they

22:59

even have website sites. So

23:02

you know, there was a case of a girl and

23:04

it's a very actually very famous case, but you

23:07

know, she got offered a job a

23:09

job, and she went. They had a website,

23:12

they had a questionnaire, so

23:14

she had given them by filling it out

23:16

her name, her address, her

23:19

so security number, everything, and

23:21

then when she met met for the

23:23

job interview, then she was

23:25

just snatched. So if

23:27

something the biggest thing that I teach my own

23:29

daughter and anyone is like, look, if

23:32

something doesn't feel right, it's not right

23:35

one hundred percent. Like

23:37

trust your instincts. I really believe

23:39

these things are built into us for

23:41

a reason. You know, trust that spidey

23:44

sense. So in that case, if

23:46

you meet a stranger and they want to meet with you and they want to

23:49

bring a friend, bring someone along. Don't

23:51

just go on their website, but go on other websites

23:54

and see if anybody has even heard of this agency.

23:56

Are there any reviews for this agency? Check

23:59

to see if they're read just stirred, you know in

24:01

the Better Business Bureau, which is are they

24:03

legit that kind

24:05

of thing? Or like you see these flyers for parties,

24:07

you know, oh, come in this party, come to this party. Ish

24:11

you don't know, like have a buddy, go

24:13

with someone, don't go alone when you're

24:15

at bars, cover your drink,

24:18

hands over your drink at all times,

24:21

those kind of things. So these

24:25

guys are organized. They

24:27

have all the time in the world. And

24:30

the reason why trafficking is like it's

24:32

the fastest growing criminal enterprise on the planet.

24:35

It's literally drugs trap human

24:38

trafficking, it's right there.

24:41

And the reason why is because you can sell

24:43

a drug once and it's gone and

24:46

you have to get a new supply. But you can not

24:49

to horrify you, but you can sell a human being over

24:52

and over and over and over it's

24:55

lucrative. So that's

24:57

also one of the reasons why this is the biggest

25:00

i mean criminal enterprise in the world

25:02

right now. How hard is

25:04

it to find the victims and rescue them, you

25:08

know, it

25:10

depends on the victim, and it depends on the country,

25:12

it depends on how they're being sold. So

25:15

there's a phenomenal organization called

25:18

Skull Games that if you

25:20

want to know more, you can look them up.

25:21

But they do deep dives into.

25:22

The dark Web and deep dives on the web, and they can

25:24

find and see things just on Facebook.

25:27

They can just chat, Okay, this girl is being trafficked

25:30

by this guy who's also trafficking these

25:32

three women, Like it depends

25:35

on how if the person is on the street,

25:38

you know, like people used to there used to be a term.

25:41

I hated the term, but there used to be a term. It's no

25:43

longer in use child prostitute.

25:46

And you would see these young kids on the street and you'd

25:48

be like, oh my god, and blah la la lah. They's traffic.

25:51

They're not there by choice. They're

25:53

victims themselves, and

25:55

they've got someone around the corner

25:58

making sure that they do what they need to do,

26:01

or they will be punished. It

26:04

depends on the situation. One

26:07

place that I worked in was very

26:12

guarded. It had

26:15

not only walls around the

26:17

place, but men with guns

26:20

to make sure

26:22

that they're not letting in someone like me or

26:25

someone like the law enforcement guys

26:27

that I was working with, right

26:29

and it

26:35

it's very well protected. One

26:39

of the things that I always say

26:42

is if you can run like people always

26:44

astonished, why didn't they run away? A lot

26:46

of times they can't, a lot of times they've been

26:48

conditioned and beaten that they can't. But

26:51

running away making noise

26:54

if you ever are being taken and they put

26:56

I would tell my daughter this, which is horrible, but I was like,

26:58

listen, if anyone.

26:58

Ever tells you to be quiet with it going to hurt you. They

27:01

want you need to out.

27:02

You need to do the exact opposite of what they're

27:04

telling because they're trying to get you quiet,

27:06

to get you away from a crowd

27:09

where bad things can happen. So you

27:12

want to make as much noise as possible. I tell

27:14

my daughter that's the only time you could kick, scream,

27:16

bite, and like make

27:19

the most noise as possible. Anyway,

27:22

that's for kids, And I'm digressing. So let me get

27:24

to some of these questions. Many

27:26

of us hear the term human trafficking and immediately

27:29

think taken by Liam Neeson.

27:31

Not really.

27:32

I mean again, that happens, but not it's

27:35

not the majority. It's more luring people

27:39

into them by using different means.

27:42

I started a foundation for a slavery

27:44

free world. So what can our listeners do to

27:47

help the fight? Well, I

27:49

mean lots of things. First of all, educate yourself. Please

27:52

listen to I have a podcast out

27:54

called marisonal Nicholas Podcast. I have different experts

27:56

on there, all the way

27:58

from the National Center from miss and Exploited

28:00

Children. That's a phenomenal episode.

28:04

If you want to know.

28:04

Who those guys are, the acronym is nick

28:06

MAK National Center for Missing Children,

28:09

right or Missing and Exploited Children, And

28:12

they're the milk carton guys. They're the ones that put

28:14

out the missing children posters and

28:17

they have an entire trafficking division because

28:19

what they found was that the

28:21

missing kids were now

28:23

showing up on this side

28:26

of the equation. So they have an entire

28:29

staff that's dedicated to just finding

28:32

where these kids are. They're phenomenal

28:34

resource u missingkids dot org

28:37

is their their website. They're phenomenal,

28:40

But educate yourself. I've got different experts

28:42

on there for a reason to talk about different

28:44

sides of this thing, right, including

28:47

survivors that have gotten out of this and been

28:49

able to escape.

28:51

So to me, education is

28:53

prevention.

28:54

And listen to your instinct, listen

28:57

to your gut instinct and talk to

28:59

your children or have your children

29:01

watch the podcast, like just

29:03

so they understand. Right, there's an episode

29:06

on there with Sheriff Chris Wantson for

29:08

the season that we just put on there, and it was the story

29:10

of a I

29:13

think it was a thirteen year old girl who met

29:15

a guy on freaking Instagram. Older

29:18

man pretending to be a younger man, convinced

29:21

her to sneak out of her parents' house, grabbed

29:26

her, took her to a hotel, did

29:28

not so nice, horrible things to her,

29:31

filmed it because that's what these

29:33

guys love to do, and then

29:35

dropped her back off and

29:38

the parents the next day could tell that something was very very

29:40

very wrong, took her to the hospital, found out and

29:43

within the I think it was like

29:45

within three days, this guy had done this in

29:47

three different states, Like this

29:49

is all he does. So

29:52

it's more than just don't talk to strangers.

29:55

It's do not talk to strangers online.

29:58

It's a different thing. One

30:12

of the things I would tell my daughter when she was younger,

30:15

I would say, if you ever get into trouble and

30:18

like, don't necessarily go to a law enforcement

30:20

if you can, yes, but find a mom

30:22

with kids.

30:24

Find a mom or dad.

30:26

With kids, because there's also women

30:28

in this industry. That's really That's

30:30

the one that kills me and breaks my heart every single

30:32

time is when I say a female trafficker.

30:35

They exist, So find a mom

30:37

with kids. That mom will know what to do.

30:41

Always tell your kids these things,

30:43

these sort of safety things. And what I did

30:45

was I wanted to

30:47

make it because I didn't want my kid afraid. Right,

30:50

It's a fine line between protecting

30:52

your children and overwhelming them with way

30:54

too much information that's going to

30:58

wreck them, you know, mentally.

31:01

So I would always point out,

31:03

like, look about

31:06

eighty percent of anyone you meet, and

31:08

all the people are going to be good people always,

31:11

but about twenty percent are

31:14

going to be bad guys. And

31:16

the bad guys work very

31:19

hard to not look

31:21

like bad guys, so they look

31:23

like the good guys, so you can't

31:26

tell, right, And even

31:28

though there's only a small amount of them,

31:31

you still have to protect yourself from the

31:33

bad guys.

31:34

That's all. I wasn't like, Hey, they

31:36

take these kids and they go do X, Y and Z to them.

31:38

Never instinctly, my kid

31:40

knew exactly what I meant by bad guy,

31:43

Like they know these.

31:44

Things, so you

31:47

know, and I would always be like, good, so what do you do? What's my

31:49

phone number? Good? Good? What do

31:51

you do if someone tries to grab you? Okay, I screamed

31:53

my up?

31:53

Good? What do you do if someone you know,

31:55

the old thing candy or a puppy to pet,

31:58

or needs directions or wants to

32:00

go into the store with them?

32:01

What do you do? What do you do? What do you do?

32:03

What do you do? And just drill drill, drill, drill

32:06

drill. There's also different

32:08

things like on.

32:10

For older an older

32:13

population, you know, eighteen nineteen twenty,

32:15

young moms, that kind of thing for

32:17

them, the traffickers and

32:21

these bad guys and the predators, be

32:24

very careful on dating apps. There's

32:26

been many, many, many cases where

32:29

predators would date a mom just to

32:31

get to her kid. So you have to be

32:33

very very careful about that, and

32:36

just like, trust

32:40

your instincts on these things,

32:43

like if you're ever afraid to walk to your car at

32:45

night, or you have a car and you're parked

32:47

in a lot and then all of a sudden, there's like not many

32:49

other cars in the lot, but somebody pulled right next

32:51

to you.

32:54

Ask someone to walk you to your car.

32:56

You don't want to be walking in between the cars

32:59

opening your door when they can just open the door and grab

33:01

you right there. Like, trust your

33:03

instincts. They're there for a reason,

33:06

you know. Anyway,

33:09

Again, even with adults, I

33:11

have found eighty percent of people are wonderful

33:14

and good and amazing, amazing

33:16

people and twenty percent of the

33:18

bad guys. And that is just how it is.

33:20

And you can't tell I've met.

33:22

Traffickers that you would never know.

33:24

You would never know, personable

33:29

females you would never

33:31

know that they were doing this is It

33:34

is astonishing

33:37

except for that hitchy

33:39

feeling where there's something off.

33:41

That I could tell. But that's

33:43

about it.

33:45

Okay, So let's go back to let's do the acting, because

33:47

this has been a little bit a lot. Sorry, you've

33:50

been working actress from a very young

33:52

age. Talk about how you balance

33:54

work with this level of activism. Well,

33:56

okay, So, like

33:59

I said, I would go and do these things sometimes when I was on Riverdale,

34:01

and it depends on the schedule, it depends on if

34:04

I can or not. And it's

34:06

gotten me through, you know, acting

34:08

Like anything else, it's got its ups and downs,

34:10

right, and it's got its amazing periods

34:13

where you're super busy, and then it's got its dry periods

34:15

where you always are like, oh my god, am I ever going to

34:17

work again?

34:18

Always like always.

34:21

And so having my nonprofit

34:23

and doing this type of work, it's

34:26

such a strong purpose of mind to

34:28

do it that it's

34:32

sometimes even more important to me than the acting

34:34

side of things. But the acting side of things gives me

34:36

a voice and gives me a large

34:38

audience and opens up more doors, and

34:41

so it's sort of balancing those two things

34:44

together, if that, If that

34:46

makes sense. Gosh, I have no idea

34:48

how long I've been talking or anything. I think I still

34:50

have some much some more time. But it

34:53

was funny that the acting things

34:57

would sometimes become less important

35:00

then my other activist work

35:03

because it's

35:05

real human beings. I mean, this is real

35:07

people and every time when I would get asked to go

35:10

out, I

35:12

would I mean.

35:13

Like every time, I'd be like, what am I doing?

35:15

What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?

35:17

And the whole reason I would do it was because I would go, well,

35:19

if my daughter was in this situation, I would

35:21

want I would want someone to come and take

35:23

the chance and help her get out. And

35:26

that's and I mean, and I don't

35:28

want anyone to think that by doing this work.

35:30

Like it is terrifying.

35:32

I am terrified every single time,

35:35

this last one that I did, which is about it's been about

35:38

a year and a half now maybe two years that

35:40

I've gone out. Since I've gone out, which is great, I

35:42

was like, this is what am I doing? This

35:45

is too it's so scary, and my daughter's

35:48

relying on me to come back from these things,

35:50

and so it's

35:52

been sort of a catch twenty two like if

35:54

I can help and you absolutely need

35:57

my skill set or you need me, I'll

36:00

be there as long as you can protect me and as long as

36:02

you get me home to my daughter. But

36:05

otherwise I just try to work

36:08

on legislation, work

36:11

on reaching people, work

36:13

on mandatory. I want mandatory trafficking

36:15

education in every single school in America

36:18

per age level, like different

36:20

tips for kids at grade school, tips

36:23

for kids at junior high, high school,

36:25

college mandatory mandatory,

36:28

because this is too big of an issue to

36:31

not be preventative on this.

36:33

So I don't know if I answer the

36:36

question.

36:37

But I could talk on and on and on

36:40

about about this, and I just I

36:42

guess my goal, if anyone would ever ask,

36:44

it's to have human trafficking

36:47

be something you learn about in the history

36:49

books, where it's something

36:51

that is abolished,

36:53

it's done, it's eradicated,

36:56

and it's just something that we go, wow, how did howether

36:59

that many people enslaved and

37:01

most people didn't even know it. I

37:03

want it to be a past tense

37:05

thing. I want to not have to

37:07

do the work. I want to be able to close

37:09

down my nonprofit because it's done within

37:12

my lifetime. That's that's

37:15

what I want.

37:15

I want.

37:16

I want the childhood that I used to have for

37:19

my grandkids, where I could go out so the

37:21

street lights came on and come home and it was

37:23

no big deal and I don't have to worry about it.

37:26

I would never, in.

37:26

A million, trillion zillion years,

37:29

let my kid go outside by

37:31

herself. Ever, like now she's

37:33

sixteen, different story, but like

37:38

there's it's just it's

37:41

a different world and I

37:43

want that old world back. That's

37:46

what I'm going for. I'm going for to reverse

37:48

this. You know, so things

37:50

like this just don't happen. Let

37:54

me see if there's any other questions

37:57

I have my Oh okay, so I have a

38:00

projects coming out. I have a movie with Jenna Ortega.

38:03

If you know who she is, she you know Beetlejuice.

38:06

She was the star of the new Beetle Juice movie and a bunch of

38:08

other things. Everyone just google Jena

38:10

Ortega if you don't know. I play her mom

38:13

in a movie coming out called Winter

38:15

Spring Summer Fall.

38:17

And then I also have a movie being

38:20

made about what I do. It's

38:22

called Somebody's Daughter.

38:24

And what happened was Marie

38:26

Claire, which is a fashion magazine,

38:29

shadowed me on a weekend op

38:31

that I did with the sheriff in Flint,

38:33

Michigan. And then after

38:36

that weekend, they you know, did a giant spread

38:38

about the stuff that they do, and that thing went viral.

38:40

It went everywhere during COVID everyone

38:42

their mother picked it up, like it's crazy.

38:44

It was like it was crazy. But anyway,

38:47

long story short, Sony

38:49

stepped up and they're like, we want to tell your story. And

38:51

so now that's turned into a movie

38:53

for Lifetime called Somebody's Daughter, and

38:56

it's literally about

38:58

a single mom

39:00

who's also an actress who also falls

39:03

into this world of

39:05

trafficking. So we

39:08

are hopefully starting to film in about the next

39:10

two months and then it's up to Lifetime

39:12

when they come out, but please look for it.

39:14

I love the title. It's called Somebody's Daughter. And if

39:16

you.

39:16

Follow me on social media, my name is Marisol Nichols

39:18

on every single one of my channels, whether it's X

39:21

or Facebook or Instagram or

39:23

whatever, and I'll obviously promote

39:25

it there.

39:27

So I think that's about

39:29

it.

39:29

I think I've talked a lot about

39:32

this issue. I hope I didn't overwhelm any

39:34

of you. I hope that I inspired

39:36

you to talk to your friends and family

39:39

to get yourself educated.

39:42

And please know that again, the world is

39:44

beautiful. I'm talking about a small

39:47

percentage of

39:51

situations, but it's enough of a

39:53

percentage that I would never want anyone

39:56

else caught up in it. So that's

39:58

why I do the work that I do

40:01

thank you for listening to this episode of Let's

40:04

Be Clearer, and again, I

40:06

hope it helps you to get involved in anything

40:08

that touches your heart.

40:10

I'm Marison Nichols. Until next time,