The Truth & Myths About Human Trafficking | Detective Heidi Chance

Detective Heidi Chan has worked with sex trafficking for 27 years

>> Tiffanie: In today's age, anyone who has a child knows that there are so many risks out there in the world these days. We are definitely not being raised in our parents generation. Helping me with this topic today is Detective Heidi Chan, who has over 27 years experience working especially with the sex trafficking industry. Heidi, thank you so much for joining the theme for day.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: You're so welcome. I'm glad to be here.

>> Tiffanie: Yes, there's this topic is a big one because this is a huge problem and it's not just in America. It's all over the place.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah. I think also what it is is people's, misconceptions and myths that they believe about is not what people think. Right now everything's being called human trafficking or trafficking of some kind, when in actuality it's other crimes and it's a buzzword right now that's being misused, which is causing even more confusion about what it is.

>> Tiffanie: I could see that kind of like the word narcissist all of a sudden. Like everyone's a narcissist. So it's like, you know, that can't be it.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Exact thing. Yep. So you want me to define it?

>> Tiffanie: Yes, please.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Okay, so human trafficking, it's, it's best to compare it to human smuggling because that's something people confuse also. So human smuggling is a crime against the border or the state. It involves transportation and also it involves an element of consent. Human trafficking is a crime against a person and that trafficking could be in the form of forced labor or forced sex. So it actually isn't just sex trafficking. we don't hear a lot about labor trafficking because we have a lot of victims out there that don't even realize that they're a victim of anything. They're making more money here in this country than they are in their home country. And they don't know who to come forward to or how to report it. So they aren't coming forward as much as, or being discovered as much as a person who's been sex trafficked. But for both labor trafficking and sex trafficking, we have to prove force, fraud or coercion is going on in the situation of the person's trafficking. And force is pretty self explanatory. That's going to be some kind of violent incident, some kind of visible sign of injury, bruises, marks, scars, those kind of things. The fraud and the coercion are a little bit harder to prove and explain. Especially also for a victim to see that they've been frauded or coerced. The Fraud is an of better equated to like false promises, where a trafficker might say, hey, you want to go to beauty school? I'm going to get you there. We're going to get you to beauty school. You're going to do everything you want to do. I'm going to make your dreams come true. All of these things we just have to do this right now. And for whatever reason, victims believe the hype. Traffickers are very skilled at being manipulative and making them believe that these things that I've said are going to happen, are going to happen. And then coercion is best equated to the threats. So kind of part of the recruitment and grooming stage is you think someone's asking you questions, personal information, all these things about you, because they want to get to know you. But really what it is is they're learning information about you that they can flip the switch and use against you later when they threaten you. and they do threaten a lot. I've had lots of victims describe, you know, the threats and, and the way they've described it. I've coined the phrase that a pimp is the most reliable person you will ever meet. If they say they're going to beat you up, they're going to beat you up. Because they need their victims to believe that what I say is going to happen. Otherwise these victims wouldn't stick around in this situation. So that is, you know, best describing m the difference between human trafficking and human smuggling. People think that trafficking is anything and everything, but specifically it is the commercial sexual exploitation. And when we say commercial, we're meaning a sex act completed in exchange for some kind of item of value. It doesn't always have to be money. It could be drugs, it could be buy my hotel room, those kind of things. But it is the commercial sexual exploitation that is sex trafficking. And, and that is what we are seeing happen and blow up. But, it's really, really a clear definition and it's not someone putting a shopping cart behind your car and that you're going to be set up to be a trafficking victim. That is misleading, that is causing confusion, and that is not the right thing to put out there on TikTok and Instagram. You could be being set up for a kidnap or a robbery, but it's not a trafficking situation. I've never had, in my 16 years doing this, had a victim described that's how they met their trafficker.

>> Tiffanie: Railings. Yeah. Sometimes they make it seem like, you know, that white van pulls up and throws you in, and then off you go. And now you're in the system for sex trafficking. And I could see how that would sound plausible, but I'm sure, like, that's not your average case, that it means.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, that's like maybe 5% out of a hundred of how victims have described meeting their trafficker abduction. Like, depicted in movies like Taken and whatnot. That is also misleading about how this happens.

>> Tiffanie: Right? I mean, a lot of times, like you said, it is false promises. Oh, you want to be a model? I can do that for you. Let me get these pictures of you, and I'll set your portfolio. And the girl's thinking, wow, we're actually getting going. We're doing this. And then before you know it, they end up online, they're in sex rooms, they're working on sex chats, webcams, stuff like that. And that's not the modeling that they thought they were signing up for.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yes, absolutely.


Do you see that these cases are being handled differently as time is going on

>> Tiffanie: So you're an expert witness also in the court system. Do you see that these are being handled differently as time is going on? Like, are, the courts finally starting to get it? Because I feel like for a while, they just, they. They were missing it by far.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Oh, yeah. So since I've been doing this so long, I've seen traffickers that are doing the same behavior, pimping out kids, even, that they were doing back when I first started looking at this, you know, back in 2007, 2008. But in 2007, 2008, they didn't get the time that they're getting now because we didn't have prosecutors who wanted to take these to trial, who. Because sometimes these victims return back to prostitution. Sometimes they have a drug habit, Sometimes they're really hard to get to. Cork. So there's a lot of issues with even getting to the point of going to trial. And some prosecutors, you know, at least back then, didn't really want to go through all of that. And if they could offer, a plea offer of five, six years, and they take it, good, that's moved from this side of my desk to the resolved set of my desk. So we do have prosecutors and even judges who are more educated on this crime now. But what it really is is an informed public. And an informed public comes from community outreach and law enforcement training and survivors speaking out and training on human trafficking, so that we have people who are potentially going to serve as jurors, informed about things that are going on with the trafficking world. That wouldn't really compute to someone just coming in off the streets, who's never had any trafficking presentation or anything. Because I'm going to testify that this victim is freely walking down the side of the road, a phone in her hand, and I'm going to say she's a victim number one. And I'm going to say she's trapped and not free to leave. And I need a. A jury to wrap their head around that.

>> Tiffanie: Right, Right. So many times people think, why don't you just run? Why don't you tell someone? It's not that easy. Especially when you have. That tib is never far away. Never. They always have their eyes on you. And so that's frightening to them because after you're in their presence for so long, you know what they're capable of. Because even if they're not doing it to you, they're doing it to another girl or a boy. You know, it's those ways. Unfortunately, boys and girls can be trafficked. So.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yes. And, you know, just like I just said, traffickers spend a lot of time investing in that belief that if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. And so when they threaten that I'm going to shoot up your mom's house, the victim's going to believe that that's really going to happen. They have a gun, and they've said it, and they've taken me over there before and pointed the gun at my mom's house. So this is going to happen if I mess up. So I don't want to mess up. I'm not going to leave. That's definitely a thing. And then also, you have the other dynamic of this being a very transient crime. And so they're constantly moving from city to city, state to state. One, because they don't want to get caught by the police. Probably a good idea. But two, they want to keep their victims so isolated that, you know, they don't even have anyone to go home to if they tried to leave, because they've burned all the bridges of, family and friends. So this victim doesn't even have anyone to go home to. And they're telling their victim, your parents don't care about you, or they would have come got you already. You know what I mean? So then this victim, hearing that every day, all day long, starts believing that. And that's another reason why they stay in.

>> Tiffanie: Some of them will tell you, I'm the only one who cares for you. I'm perfecting, I'm doing. You know, it's such a mental, big play it really is. Do they have, things in place for, like, when they do go to trial and the pimp goes away to kind of help rehabilitate these girls? Because some of them maybe were never on drugs. But now you want the drugs so you can do what they're asking you to do so you don't go back to the streets.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, there are. I mean, we're not perfect. We're doing much better than other states. I. I'm not sure where you're based out of, but here in Arizona, you're where in Florida. Oh, Florida. Okay. I'm sure you guys have some things in place, but there are for adults. There are several. I call them shelters. They probably have a more appropriate name. But they are for trafficking victims specifically. Or a portion of the shelter is for that trafficking victim that we would bring in in the middle of the night. And they have rules, though. I mean, you're not allowed to have your phone for several months, if not a full year before you pass their. You know, because they don't want to put all the other people that are in that facility at risk if the trafficker shows up and starts causing a scene and start shooting and blah, blah, blah. So they do have special counseling. They have, other survivor victim advocates that come and try and, you know, talk them through all of the trauma that they've been. There is organizations out there that do tattoo removal. Soul Survivor Inc. Here locally in Arizona, does an amazing job of either removing it with the laser treatments or tattooing over the tattoo, the branding tattoo. And then for juvenile, same thing. The juvenile situation, though, is a little bit different because we have a protocol where if I had rescued a juvenile in the past and they were in Department of Child Safety or CPS custody, I would call up cps, say, hey, I'm done with my interview. I gotta go kick down doors and get the bad guy. Can you please come get this kid? Right. And they would come and get the kid. They would call random group home. You have an available bed? Cool. I'm gonna bring this kid over here. And then the kid would get there and look at the lady who's managing the house, the, group home, and say, hey, do I have to stay here? No. Cool. hey, girl, you look pretty.


A protocol was developed to stop trafficking victims from running away from placement

I want to introduce you to my daddy. Come with me. And then they both run away. And so it was kind of a revolving door of, not only introducing a kid who has been trafficked and who knows how quickly you can make money and into this house of other kids that have Never heard of this before. So we're kind of infecting that situation and then running away, you know, encouraging others to run away with them. And then we have more kids out there. Then to stop all of that, we have a protocol. And the protocol is amazing. It's. It was developed by a good friend of mine who was a dcs, caseworker and then my old boss and some other people. And it basically is a partnership between law enforcement where the transportation, they're not gonna be able to escape our car. CPS or dcs. Initially it was a behavioral health hospital, which is where we would take the kids. And then Mercy Maricopa here locally is the insurance company that would pay for all of this because we gotta have someone pay the bill. So that whole team created this 23 hour. We're kidnapping these kids for 23 hours, basically signing a temporary custody notice to the behavioral health hospital. And that gives the DCS case worker more time to find better placement than just random group home. And they are able to place them there. And then we come in, no matter, 23 hours later, 2:00 in the morning, we're coming in from home to transport that kid safely to that placement. and those placements are also specific for sex trafficking victims. So since we've been doing that, the trafficker freak out because we've kidnapped this kid for 23 hours. They're not going to wait that long, they're going to dip. And so they have a harder time running away from placement linking back up with that trafficker. Sad to say, but unfortunately that happens a lot. They're, they're loyal to their parents, they think they're in love with them. All the things so that since we've been doing that, it's been really working good.

>> Tiffanie: And it's just so sad to think when they're like, well, that's who loves me, that's who's going to protect me. And no, he's just making money off of you. And they don't even get to keep the money that they make for the most part. So it's like you wonder how do they not see that, like, I'm doing all the work here and I gotta hand over everything I'm making.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, it's one of those things where they are just so convincing that all of this amazing stuff is going to happen, that these victims believe the hype and they believe that that money that they've been hustling for is part theirs. So, it's unfortunate because they're Very good at convincing them.

>> Tiffanie: Yes, yes.


There are so many tools parents can use to keep an eye on their children

There are so many tools out there now that parents can use to kind of keep an eye on their children. Do you approve of all those? I know some people are like, that's sneaking. But I think it's protection.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Which tools are you referring to?

>> Tiffanie: Well, there's bar that's like parental. And I want to say there's another one out there that I cannot gab Wireless. Yes.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, there's actually several companies. so what's good about those companies, is they've created devices which is. This is the white van right here. This is replaced the stranger in the white van. It's got the candy or the puppy. and it is much worse. and, and basically they have devices where they have smartphones and watches that don't have the Internet at all. And then obviously the ones that have the parental controls. But the thing about parental controls, and it wasn't a bark phone or a gab zone, but my sister had put parental controls on my niece's phone. But at 12 years old, she found a way, and these kids are very resourceful, she found a way to bypass the parental controls and she had created a secret Instagram and had men trying to get her to send inappropriate pictures of herself to them. So I think the best protection is having conversations with your kids. And so that, that's like my goal is to increase, increase the prevention part of it in the whole first place. So when I travel around speaking and I'm talking to large groups and in the audience there's a lot of parents, I'm telling the parents in the audience, you know, we have a situation where when I first started investigating this crime, the national average age of entry into sex trafficking was 15 as a juvenile. That was back in 2007, 2008. Today it's 13. And we just picked up a couple 11, 12 year olds on the blade the other day in a rescue mission. So it's younger and younger kids. And so that means that the parents have to have these conversations earlier than you would think. Eight, nine, ten years old is when these conversations have to happen. So I've been asked in the crowd, well, how do we have these conversations? So that's why I wrote my book Co Host Space out of Here. so I wrote my book talk to Them. Because I really believe that parents need to know how to have these really difficult conversations about not only sex trafficking, but sextortion, luring a minor for sex, all kinds of things that are digital dangers that our kids are facing on the games on the phone, on the Internet, on the social media. So that is, you know, the purpose of the book. And I also wrote it with kind of the, the way that I would interview a victim as a forensic interviewer and because I've had thousands of victim interviews over the years and it's really difficult to get someone who doesn't want to talk to you to talk to you. So I think I might know a thing or two about getting people to talk to me and talking to them about difficult things. So that's what I put in the book. As far as, you know, a plan or a strategy for parents. I'm also having it translated in Spanish. I'm working on, the audiobook version of myself reading it. And then I have. I'm supporting a female officer in Mississippi, I think she's Mississippi, but she's a translator also. And so she's going to translate it in Spanish for me, both audio and print book form so that I can reach other parents and other demographics.

>> Tiffanie: That's great. And with like AI and stuff nowadays, I mean you could put it in Chinese, Japanese, I mean it's unlimited, which is amazing because I mean, like I said in the beginning, this is worldwide, so everyone needs to beyond that aame, especially when it comes to children, teenagers.


Do you believe there's a cap in age for trafficking

Do you believe there's a cap in age for trafficking? I've had a guest on my show before say they don't want anyone over 30. Do you find that to be true?

>> Detective Heidi Chan: No. I've had a victim that was in her 40s that had been a Department of Corrections officer, lost her job, became a stripper and then. And entered the life of five prostitution in her 40s. I think it is any person that a trafficker can see that they can exploit their vulnerabilities at the time and they're going to take advantage of anyone that can make them money, even if it's only for a few months.

>> Tiffanie: That's what I thought. I'm like money is money. Like I understand you might not be getting as much money for someone older, but they don't care. They're not doing any of it.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah. Do you hear any? I stopped petting him for a second so he got mad. I think my co host here.

>> Tiffanie: Love it.


I have a whole list of sex trafficking indicators for parents on my website

Do you have like any warning signs that parents might need to notice to realize that maybe something's not right with my child?

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, so obviously there's several things. I have a whole list of what I call my sex trafficking indicators list on my website as a Resource for parents. I also have a decoding emojis, and then I have one that's coming out soon. It's. It's basically defining acronyms that people use because there's new acronyms all the time and every day, you know, unless you, you know, you, you could, you could download Urban Dictionary and, and figure it out, but I just put it all in one place. But basically, I would suggest, obviously behavior changes if they change what they're dressing like, or if you find that they're packing clothes in their school bag to change for later. If they become a truancy problem all of a sudden as they start running away, if. When they were running away and they've been recovered, where were they recovered? Because that's important. If they're anywhere near, you know, know our city has several areas of known street prostitution areas. I think I called it the blade earlier. That is a term for that location of street prostitution. If they were recovered anywhere on the blade, that is a huge indicator that they were probably possibly trafficked or introduced to the idea. At least if they have multiple cell phones, hotel keys that you find in their bedroom. Like, what kid has hotel key room keys? Basically, you know, obviously there's the really red flag ones. Like the. They show up. There was a girl that came back to school, from fall break with a tattoo, JBO's bitch on her breast. And the school counselor saw that and was like, hey, let's come talk about your new tattoo in my office. and she was the trafficking victim and she was special needs. So I mean, there's definitely concerns with, you know, on the list. I have so many things that if it's multiple things going on in this whole behavior change, that would be a huge issue. And maybe you would want a professional to talk to your child. I, do know that Arizona has that and we model it off of Dallas and some other agencies have the high risk runaway model. Basically, if it. If a kid run, runs away multiple times, or like I said, found on the blade, not only when they get recovered, do a, missing persons detective talk to them, but they also call in, even if there's no indication other than they were found on the blade or they've run away a certain number of times, an opportunity to talk to this child with a forensic interviewer, a sex trafficking detective comes in from home, if it's in the middle of the night to interview that kid to make sure or try to make sure that they aren't involved in trafficking so that we can get some prevention going on early stages of when this is first happening, especially with runaway kids.

>> Tiffanie: Right. They're, they're easy targets and that's unfortunate. I've even noticed when my son was a little younger, playing on video games and he's talking to people and you know, I would ask, oh, so who you talking to? And sometimes you could hear the other people's voices and I'm like, they sound like grown ass men. Like, what are you doing playing with my job. you know, and that's another way that they become your friend. And then it's like, hey, we should meet up sometime. And it just, it goes on and on and on and it's, it's scary. It's so scary all the different ways now that children are approached.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, well, and what it is also, and what I talk about in my book is you have to not only have the conversation with them, but have it be where it's something they knew was going to happen. Because it's not if it's, it's when. And talk to them about, you know, if someone's telling you to keep this conversation a secret, that's something I want you to come tell me about as your mom. If someone's telling you to speak in code words, I want you to tell me. If someone's telling you to move to a different platform like Snapchat. We know Snapchat messages disappear. Tell me about that. And then when it happens and you may not be around the parent, they're going to say, wait a minute, this person's asking me for personal information. They're asking me to delete our conversation, keep things a secret. My mom told me about this. Not only are they going to stop talking to that person, they're going to come tell you because you've already laid the groundwork and had these conversations in advance of this ever happening and they're going to self police themselves and recognize it when it's happening. So super important to do all of that lead up. And if, if your child's already older, you can still have those conversations and instead of making it be a lecture, you can relate it to something you saw on TikTok or a friend of yours daughter was going through something. What do you think about that? And not make it be like I'm trying to direct this at you, kind of a roundabout way of talking about someone else but you know, encouraging more narrative about and conversation about that thing that you actually are trying to get them to learn. We kind of have to be a little bit creative but it is the job of a parent now to do these things and also to be on the up and up of all these apps, that pop up every day. So where do you go to find that information? Well, I have, Obviously we've mentioned Bark Technologies and Gab Wireless that have blog articles. But also there's a new family app called the Collective that I can send you a link to that basically has not only courses, but also daily articles as well to, you know, really inform parents about these new apps and how dangerous they are.

>> Tiffanie: That's good. The more knowledge we have and we can share, the more safer maybe some.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Of the will be.

>> Tiffanie: unfortunately, I've, even had guests on my shows where it was their own Paris that was trafficking them. And that's hard because that's who you go to that is supposed to. Supposed to keep m acted. What do you guys do in those cases?

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, so what you're describing is termed familial trafficking or a family member or even someone you're in a relationship with. Because I've had spouses, like married people. I've had, you know, obviously the dynamic of, pimping is a relationship, kind of like a boyfriend. It is the same. I mean, we're going to investigate it, we're going to try. And obviously, if there's other kids in the house, we're going to involve child protective services because we don't want those kids to be subject to any dangerous things that this victim has come, you know, forward with. The part about it is, the hard part about it is, is that victims in those kind of situations, you know, they're completely dependent on those parents, those family members, the person they're in a relationship with. And that's a situation that all pimps do. That is a consistent thing. They try and make you completely isolated and dependent on them. But coming forward and being discovered is harder when it's in familial settings because it's not out in the open, out on the streets like we have going on or not in hotels. It's people finding a way to advertise them. Maybe it's word of mouth to come to their house. So that's where we need people in the public to pay attention. People in the public to pay attention to things. We need them to call if they see suspicious activity. Like a house of prostitution is kind of what I'm describing, where, you know, random men are coming at all hours of the night, parking in front of your house, staying 15, 20 minutes and then leaving. That's kind of weird, right? And we should.


Most states are coming up with their own human trafficking hotline

And if that's happening on a regular nightly basis, or even if it's a consistent basis, just on the weekends, however it's happening, it is a phone call that you need to make. And if it's nothing, it's nothing. But if it is something, we're only going to learn about it because of good community members that are making that call. And it isn't where you have to have the patrol car and the uniform show up at your house and all the neighbors, see who called you can call and leave your phone number and your information for a call back. Please leave your information for us to call you back because you may have witnessed other things that we, you know, you forgot to tell us and that we have more questions about. Like, do you see a ring camera on their door? You know, we're hoping that you can see that from across the street. Or maybe you've been to their house before and you know, the layout, you know what I mean? Other things. So that is the way that we would discover familial trafficking, I think, more than anything else, informed public that will make that call.

>> Tiffanie: Right. Be aware of your surroundings, kind of keep an eye on your neighborhood. You don't have to spy. You don't have to be that crazy neighbor who sits on the, like on the porch and watches everybody. Just be aware.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Like, you'll notice if you see things.

>> Tiffanie: Happening all the time, because you'll be like, wow, that's like the fourth car I'd seen there in an hour.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: You know what I mean?

>> Tiffanie: Like, little things might stick out. And if you do, are not maybe sure of what you're seeing, start writing it down. That way when you go back and look, you'll be like, wow, no, look at all these different times and instances. And then it kind of. It holds a little more true then, because you're like, oh, shit, I'm not crazy. I wrote all this down.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah. And also that's helpful for when we're going to ask, well, is this on Saturdays only, or do you remember seeing this happen during the week? If you've written it down, you can say, well, it was this date, this date, this date, this date, right this time.

>> Tiffanie: This color copper. I mean, you can do all kinds of stuff. So, I mean, your best friend sometimes just take notes if you're even in doubt, and then hand it over to somebody who can do a little bit more investigation, see what's really going.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah. And so in that instance, when we're Talking about reporting, I would say that's something that's like been happening that you really just want someone to look into. Most states are coming up with their own human trafficking hotline. So Arizona has theirs and I know Texas does. I want to say Florida does, doesn't it?

>> Tiffanie: I know we have like a national one.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yes.

>> Tiffanie: And we have like, you know, the 988 and all that stuff. But I don't know if it's like just for, for I, know we have been something.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, I'm going to research that and write a vlog article about that because I want people to know which states have it and which states don't, so they can work towards having one. But basically that would be where you would call the hotline. I wouldn't necessarily call the national human trafficking hotline for that because that's like in D.C. and there's a delay of that information getting to the right state, to the right city, to the right police officer to investigate. So, you know, if it's something you want investigated, you could call the non emergency number if your state has one, or the hotline for your state or even 911 if you want to. I mean that is also your prerogative. You're not bothering them. This is something that we. I just told you, I need you to make that call and be a good witness. And in being a good witness, I'm going to need you to describe the vehicles you're seeing, if you've got license plates, if you could, you know, point your camera that way, or if you can, you know, on the down low, not, get caught. I don't want to put you in a position where you're going to get seen. Record some of the activity for us. That would be amazing as well. And especially if you're noticing the person that's renting that house that you know is the renter there during the times that this is happening, that would be helpful. Yeah, those are definitely good things.

>> Tiffanie: Good, good information for anyone who, thinks there might be something going on. Can't hurt. Nothing will come out of it if it's bad, if it's nothing, then awesome.


Your website focuses on human trafficking awareness and digital literacy

It's not. What if it.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yes.

>> Tiffanie: What is your website in case anybody wants to go on since you have such good views on there. In case anyone.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, yeah. It's called A Chance for Awareness dot com. And I have my own blog articles on there. I've also, I've been writing articles for Brains magazine if you've ever heard of them. And then I have online courses. I've got a course on human trafficking awareness from a law enforcement perspective where I talk about, you know, victim vulnerabilities, how they get into this situation. I talk about sex buyers and what's going on with them, what their punishments are, those kind of things. Traffickers. As an undercover detective, I've had thousands of sex buyers solicit sex for me. And the same with traffickers trying to recruit and groom me over the years. So I do know what I'm talking about with their tactics and things because I've been, you know, the one they're trying to recruit and groom. Almost like a survivor. But I get the, I get the satisfaction of taking them out, but definitely check that out. And then I just released. I've been asked, you know, by several women's conferences to present on modern day situational awareness. Not like the self defense class, but just your, your basic being aware of not only when you're out and about traveling, when you get in Ubers, when you go on dates, and then also digital awareness as far as these scams and how to protect your personal information and those kind of things. And, and then I also have a class for parents specific to this digital literacy and, and learning about the threats and the things that our kids are facing. More an expanded version of my book where I can actually do, you know, a training with parents and they can interact with, and I will reply back to any of their questions or scenarios or things going on with them. So that's all on my website. And then I do travel around, speaking not only to law enforcement, but also businesses and community organizations because I think everyone needs to be aware of what sex trafficking really is so that we're not believing and perpetuating any of these myths and misconceptions.

>> Tiffanie: Absolutely. I think what you're doing is such good work and it's so important and we need more people who care. I feel like in so many different societies, people just don't care anymore. It's become like normalized or they just want to pretend it doesn't exist. And it does exist and we need to put an end to it because we're ruining lives and we need to be setting people up for success, not failure and drug abuse and homicide and whatever else may come their way.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, I think the worst for me has been a, few times where victims describe being violently assaulted in public in broad daylight in front of people walking by and cars driving by and no one did anything. So that is the worst. And if our society's going that way. That. That's not. That's not a good thing.

>> Tiffanie: Right, Right. I mean, stand up. If you're too scared to step in, at least make a phone call. Hey, look, this is what's going on right now.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Get.

>> Tiffanie: Please get somebody down here.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah. And don't record it for your TikTok to go viral. Yes. Yeah.

>> Tiffanie: Oh, my God, that happens so much. It's just disgusting. Like you can't call someone for help, but you can sit and record the whole freaking thing and be like, look what I just saw. Like, no, that's not what we're doing.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah. I mean, obviously having a recording of the assault really goes towards evidence, but make sure someone is calling if you haven't made the call first.

>> Tiffanie: Right? Absolutely.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah.


I definitely wanted to talk about my book, which is on Amazon

>> Tiffanie: Is there anything else that you wanted?

>> Detective Heidi Chan: So I think, I think we went over how to report and some of the indicators, some of the opportunities for more education and training out there, obviously. I definitely wanted to talk about my book, which is on Amazon and I.

>> Tiffanie: Think too, so if anybody.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Oh, thank you.

>> Tiffanie: Absolutely. I think it's an, amazing book. Like we need.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Yeah, that and then I share a lot on my social media, so my social media is all consistent, a chance for awareness. It's just my Instagram has an underscore in between each word. But yeah, I definitely appreciate being on your show today.

>> Tiffanie: Of course. I loved having you. This is such good information and I mean, this is the only way we're going to change the world is you need to have conversations about it, even as uncomfortable as they may be for people. But I mean, it's time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: So. Yeah, absolutely.

>> Tiffanie: Well then I want to thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure. And I'll make sure. I'm going to put, a link for the book and your website and your social medias, everything in the show notes, so we can depend on you very easily.

>> Detective Heidi Chan: Okay, wonderful.

>> Tiffanie: All right, thank you, thank you, thank you.