Marisol Nichols - Anti-Trafficking Activist, Actress & Podcast Host | The Dark Truths of Human Trafficking

Today, my guest is Marisol Nichols. She is a renowned American actress known for her roles in TV series like 24 and Riverdale. In addition to her acting career, she is committed to philanthropy and activism. Inspired by her own life-changing experience of sexual assault at age 11, she founded the nonprofit foundation for a slavery-free world to combat sex trafficking. She is actively involved with law enforcement and she collaborates with organizations like Operation Underground Railroad to address child exploitation. Just a note, this podcast contains many adult themes and topics. This is not a podcast for your children. Please listen with discretion. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. A quick nod to HubSpots, new tools at the rolling out for your business before we get started. You know that this year is almost done and if you want to win next year in your business in 2024, you need tech that puts you in the pilot seat that gives you the unfair advantage. This is what the new HubSpot sales hub is all about. It's going to help you close a year strong. This tool does everything. Sales hub allows you to collaborate on every single step of the customer journey. That means when a customer interacts with any part of your business. They have a comprehensive prospecting workspace. They have powerful analytics, data, tools, all to help your team close more sales. Don't let leads slip through the crack. HubSpot sales hub lets you accelerate every single part of your sales operation with precision and they have over 1400 integrations, a ton of ways to mix in new features. Finish out your Q4 strong and gear for an incredible 2024 with HubSpot sales hub. Learn more at HubSpot.com slash sales. I was that girl and anyone watching this has heard the story a thousand times. If they watch me, so I apologize. But I was that girl who was like, you know in high school, where you had like the burnouts and the girls that were too much makeup and were very angry. And I'd like would blow off class and get in trouble all the time. That was me. To a T that was completely me. And I mean, literally I ended up getting kicked out of high school. I went to like three different high schools. I was a mess. And then at the junior college on like the three year plan on the two year college, I tried out for a play on a whim. After breaking up with a boyfriend and like lost all my friends and stuff because they were all super cool, but they were all like his group and tried out for play by just to fill the time and ended up getting it and it changed everything for me. It's the change your life. You had no idea, you know, when I first heard this story of how you got into the work that you do now, it was such a light bulb moment because it made so much sense. I mean, she's the perfect person to do this, but obviously looking back, you know, when it's 2020, you didn't expect to be in the world of fighting against human trafficking against all these horrible people, but you're, you know, you, you leverage your skills for different things. And I'm going to massively gloss over your entire, your entire career pre pre what you're doing right now with like slavery free world, what you've done with Tim Ballard because I think that has been documented a lot. And I think that's actually not the most important conversation even though that's been the most incredible work you've done. I think the work you're doing right now is is probably impacting people in a much different way, probably in a different way that you could have ever expected when you were growing up and stepping onto that first stage. So let's talk about, let's talk about that point in your life because that's going to lead to a great conversation, obviously very relevant right now. So what was the point when you thought, you know, you're doing very well in your career, you've never even abandoned your career, technically you're still in this, still, I hope so. Yeah, I'm still in that case, yeah, which is not easy and I'm actually curious about how somebody who has a notoriety and fame even does the work that you do, right? How did you pivot? What was that first point when you met Tim? I think it was at a testimony actually got into this before Tim Tim just joined, but and he's not the only person that I go undercover where I work a lot with Sheriff Chris Swanson out of Flint, Michigan and we're actually doing a docu-series on it. And I've worked with like the vice-squads in California and like it's been nice to be able to do this. It's been pretty amazing, but I actually learned and decided I needed to do something about this right after the birth of my daughter and I was in between gigs, which is normal for an actor. And I befriended this woman who basically would travel around the world, educating different, like literally like anywhere from like Zimbabwe to, you know, God forsaken Alaska, all different all over the world, educating about human rights. And she was telling me about, and this was back in 2009, 2010, she was telling me about human trafficking and I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. And she was telling me about children and she was telling me about sex trafficking and I was like, wait, what are you talking about? And to be honest, it just overwhelmed me. It horrified me and overwhelmed me and I couldn't sleep and, you know, I was a mom at home alone a lot with my beautiful daughter and I couldn't get these things and images and stories out of my mind. And so I actually ended up diving in out of default because I couldn't sleep. And so I was like, well, then let me see what I can do about this. If I can't, if I know about it, I felt like I had to do something. I couldn't just ignore that this was happening to children. I was like, what? And so that's how it started and I ended up educating, like doing a hardcore, deep dive education for about a year and a half where it was just I would meet with anybody and everybody, every organization, every, I read every paper, I met firsthand with survivors like I just went down that road to see what was needed and what I could do to help. And at the end of the day, I was like, okay, the only reason this is allowed to occur is because no one knows about it. Well, okay, I was at least back then. I think everybody has seen in the airport and in, you know, the bathrooms, they see the, if you, if you see something, say something, don't be a victim of a truck. Yeah, that's the blue campaign. And that's where most people stop. That's the education that most people get. And I think that you ask any normal person and they're going to say, of course, trafficking is bad. But 99% of people, they just see that poster and then that's, that's the, that's the most exposure they get to it until more recently. How big of an issue was it even when you were starting to get involved? Yeah. So back then, Homeland Security hadn't even launched that campaign yet. I actually met with them when they were saying, okay, in about six months we're launching this blue campaign and they were showing posters and all that stuff. Back then, it was like 20 million worldwide, like globally caught up in human trafficking, which would, you know, labor trafficking, sex trafficking, all of that stuff, but human trafficking. Now those numbers are up to 50 million, which is insane to even think about, which is insane to think about. And just so you know, like I don't like saying things without the source, that's, that's according to the global slavery index. And you can Google that and look up and that's sort of the index that everyone in this anti trafficking world uses. How come, how come we've added 30 million individuals into this even though there's access to information everybody's connected, it seems like it's harder to be a shitty person in 2023 because you would see something you, you tweet about it, you take a video of it, people find that person immediately, people get called out for much less on social media all the time. So why is it that we went from 20 million to 50 million? It's a great question. Again, according to the Walk Free Foundation, Global Savor Index, there's a phenomenal, by the way, resource and tools, but they talk about a lot of things that have allowed this number to grow so exponentially is a number of factors. A lot of it has to do with migrants crossing borders and fleeing wars and fleeing these horrific situations and they have nothing. And so they fall into the hands of traffickers so very easily because they're trying to get themselves and their family and their loved ones out. And then the next thing you know, they're in debt to a trafficker and it becomes generational. So you've got wars going on, you've got extreme poverty that's only gotten worse, especially in third world countries. You had massive global, you know, COVID that affected everyone in every country for the most part. And you've created a situation where even natural disasters and all these things were traffickers come in and they take advantage of these situations and it's just grown and grown and grown and grown. Also back then, we didn't have things like Born Hub. And with Born Hub, that's a user-generated porn site where people upload their videos. And so you've got, you know, tens of thousands of images of literally child sexual abuse up there. You've got actual rate videos up there that are being downloaded and spread across the internet globally. And so you're giving people more access to these things and you're creating more customers. So essentially. Even though technology has advanced, the chaos in the world helps people sort of fall into these crimes and also with Born Hub, I mean, I saw the cases where people were just suing Born Hub for all the, yeah, for the user-generated content. Because I'm assuming pre-Porn Hub in similar sites, this was like a dark web kind of activity. And that probably cut out a lot of non-technical, creepy, pedophile people. But now they have access just on the regular internet, right? Exactly. And if you even think back before the internet, you had to leave your home and like go to that dirty theater, you know, in a town and hide and it was a lot less accessible to see, you know, sexual images from strangers and stuff. But now with the internet and Born Hub, it's just literally a click. And it will, it will go down. Don't get me wrong. There's so many lawsuits and class action lawsuits and multiple lawsuits all at the same time against Born Hub. It will go down like it's too many lawsuits of too many rape victims, too many child sexual abuse, but it's take, it takes a while, takes a while. And we did an episode on that by Layla. If you go on my podcast and she McLevitt really goes through details on that if you guys, if anyone in your audience wants to know more, they do actually. And half the reason why I wanted to do this episode is because so many people have been asking about this and obviously the sound of freedom movie brought a lot of light to this. But everybody is still confused about this subject because it seemed like this movie came out of nowhere and it really blew people's minds in terms of the numbers and the severity and it's just all very, very sad, but it's important to get the knowledge out there because ignoring it doesn't help anybody. I want to go down your journey and the work that you've done, but I also really want to teet us up and frame this up because this is what doesn't make sense for so many people. How do people, how do individuals, good at one point in their life people engage in this? Because we talked about Born Hub. I'm assuming that's like the gateway drug of some of these activities because it starts with online and it turns into in person when you're talking about the exploitation of children. And I also looked up stats and I think that some of the biggest customers of this kind of content and and and industry, I say that in air quotes are Americans. So it's not it's not out there. It's not people in third world is not horrible people overseas. It's people that are at home in the US. So you've studied enough of these people you've arrested enough of these people. What goes wrong in these people's lives to turn them into these monsters? OK, so it's a great question. First of all, I want to layla McElwait is the person who's leading the charge against Born Hub and if anyone in your audience wants to know look her up or go, we do an entire episode on that. So layla McElwait is leading the charge against Born Hub. And to your comment about Americans, it does happen everywhere, but in America, America is the number one, disproducer, distributor, and consumer of child sexual abuse material, America. So it's it starts here. So to your comment of how do you take a normal person and turn them into a monster? It is always astonishing to me because the monsters look like normal people. You know, you see these, you know, we get these guys face to face and I'm like, you're doing this and you just they're normal white middle aged Americans, even though you want them to look like monsters. And the profile for men who travel abroad to have sex with children is white, the white middle aged American. But anyway, to your point, it takes a lot. I think that we have a culture now that has more drugs pumped into it than even in the 60s, different types of drugs now, including psychotropic drugs and all different kinds. We medicate everything. So first of all, I don't care what drug you're doing and I don't care for what purpose. It's going to alter something. That's the point of the drug. So there's a lot of, you know, street drugs going on and medical drugs going on. So you've got a very drugged society, then you've got access to sexual material that is unprecedented in any time ever on this planet where it's a click of a button. And if you inundate yourself watching like like no judgment here, whatever you want to watch porn, that's your decision. And you're watching strangers have sex over like some of these people watch this over and over and over and over again and it begins to act like a drug on your mind. And it's a click of a button to watch something just a little bit more darker. And then another click of a button because you're curious, let me watch something a little bit more darker. And you know, porn hubs and they're not the only website, but they're just the most popular. The most search terms are like teen, you know, young child rape assault. People are watching these things to be sensitized to the exactly and it's desensitizing your mind and it becomes, oh, and this is happening all the time and oh, look, the girl on the video looks like she wants it or looks like she likes it. Well, you're not seeing the stuff that's happening off screen for God's sakes. And it begins to act on a person's mind. Now this is my two cents, I'm no expert into the mind. I am no, you know, expert on human behavior. It's just these are my conclusions from what I have seen myself, if that makes sense. There wasn't one person that we arrested that did not have child sexual abuse material downloaded on their phone. So yeah, when you arrest them, do they ever have this breakdown moment where they realize how far? Yeah. The crime. Most of them. It's funny. There's always, there's been like one or two percent that like are just, they're, they're, they're really fun. They're really. They're just a machine. But most of them cry and are bawling because they know their life is over. But I think it's for a different reason and maybe I give people too much credit. But I, I believe that deep down inside they know they're crying because they know what they're doing is horrific. And you know, I mean, don't get me wrong, monsters are monsters and I'm not trying to make it excuse for these people in any way, shape or form. But at one point these individuals knew that they were crossing a line and then once they did, it's, it's, they don't cross back. But at one point there was that decision, I can do this or not do this and they chose to do that and they're responsible for those decisions. But I'm like, man, there, there's, there was a human in there at one point, do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I think that the, the saddest thing is when you see some of these stories and the people that are getting arrested actually have their own children, which to me doesn't make. What I don't get it, it's just like, it kills me. It kills me that how is it okay to do this to another child, but you would never do this to your own child, although in some cases the guys also doing it to their own children don't get me wrong. Like the line is blurred, but you know, you talk to any, any girl at least in America who has been rescued and left the life of, of, you know, a sex worker on the street and they will tell you the men that came to buy them by the hour had baby seats in the back of their cars. It's astonishing to me, like, that they don't put together, hey, that's someone's daughter you're doing that too. That's someone's daughter or the people that watch this stuff, like you're watching someone's daughter, it breaks my heart, they can't just draw that line in that conclusion. It's like this weird compartment they create in their brain to justify this really, really messed up thing they're doing. Okay, we're going to go back to this in a second. I need to know more about, I mean, this is obviously a difficult discussion, but what's just a discussion, you chose to dive into this, you chose to operate in this environment and to arrest these people and to go undercover. I mean, I, I, I don't want to ask why as if it's not a noble thing to do because it obviously is, but also why would you do this to yourself? This is obviously a difficult thing to take on. I asked myself a question of locks. Oh my God. Um, so I understand the question and like, what am I doing and how did I get here? And I will ask myself that exact questions, sometimes in the most extreme situations. Um, I, I, I, I, you know, I've talked about this on my podcast and I go into it in very great detail, which I know is where you're leading and why you're asking. And I, so I don't really have much of a problem talking about it, but as a kid, I was molested for many, many years by an extor neighbor. And I was raped by five guys when I was 12 years old. And it's, I was headed down one path and it was a dark, dark, dark path. As a result of those things, I did a lot of drugs like I explained. I was a bad girl, um, I ran away a lot. And I was headed down this path that I know had that been now, I would have been picked up by a trafficker and a heartbeat and a heartbeat. And some of, and, and so the girls that I see that are, that I've met that have ended up in these circumstances, it breaks my heart because I'm like, that could have been me. You know, it's, it's the majority of, of girls and boys don't get me wrong. They've ended up in this, these situations, you know, they didn't really come from amazing situations, you know, whether it was a home life or they come from poverty and thought that they were signing up for a job to make some money or help their family back home or whatever. They came from very dark circumstances or, you know, foster care or their parents aren't around or whatever. And I was dealt those same freaking circumstances in life, you know, my dad was an alcoholic, he went to prison, my brother killed himself, it was a crap situation. And so I, I relate to these people's plates on a visceral level. And so for, you know, through miracles, I've been able to turn my life around and have a great career as an actress and, and, and change my life and make different decisions, right? And so because of that, I felt that if I can do something and I've been put in a situation where law enforcement is going, hey, can you help us out, can you come? I can go, yeah, I can, all right, I will. Because that is someone's daughter that's being held. That's someone's, sometimes someone's mom that's being held. It's, you get what I mean? Well, I get it because I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of people that will have been listening to this show because even I know some of them personally that had not the exact same experiences you but had adjacent experiences where they were, they were molested, they were raped. And it's actually as, as a guy who, I mean, I'm very lucky to never have gone through any of this stuff, but very well-adjusted smart women that I know have gone through similar things and it almost seems more common than it should be, which is pretty messed up. And they ended up on the right side of it and they'll be listening to this and they'll be thinking like, you know, how do I, you know, why did I have the luck that someone else didn't? Because there's people that aren't listening to this that went through a similar situation as yours that are currently being trafficked. And it's just, it's just luck, it's just luck and that's really it. And that's what's so scary about it, right? It's just like, if you had spoken to the wrong person at the wrong time, where would you have ended up? I mean, I ran away. I was in stupid situations, stupid situations that, you know, in some cases, I'm lucky that I'm still here. Like the dumbest worst decisions I've made in those situations and it is what it is. And it just, we live in a different time right now and so if I can do something, I'll do it. Why? That's your why. Let's talk about the how. So you have skills as a performer, as an actress and you start to go down this rabbit hole and you start to learn everything there is about this. How do you go into a situation? What was that first operation that you took part in? How did you prep for that? I mean, I also want you to tell me your experience because I know your experience you weren't pretending to be the quote unquote pedophile in the situation in your first undercover experience. Not the first one. Well, I was, no, I was pretending to be a trafficker or mom, selling her kids and then also the kid, the actual kid. Oh, so you did every role? You did every episode? I bet you did the role was my first op ever. It was in California, it was with the vice squad in Northern California and Tim was working with them and they asked me to come and I didn't know what I was doing. And all the, you know, I was deputized as a legal informant, I signed a bunch of papers and signed everything away that in case I got hurt, I wouldn't sue the police department and all of that stuff. And I was like, what am I doing? But I could play this role. I could play this role of a drugged, methed out mom, you know, selling her nine-year-old and 12-year-old for money and for drugs. I could play it because that happens a lot and B, I'm an actor. So and we brought, you know, we brought a makeup artist and they put on meth scars and I made myself all, you know, fucked up looking and all of that stuff because I had to pull this off because we're trying to get these grown-ass men for lack of a better word, who show up to have sex with nine-year-olds and 12-year-olds to come out of hiding and I need to make it believable so that they don't do it the next time and they're off the streets and no girl has to go through that again from that person. And so how I ended up playing the kid as well is because more of the guys that come all the time, that do this all the time, that are smarter than the average guy who just answers an ad and shows up would ask for something called proof of life. I mean, like, proof, there's a kid there besides just an aged down picture. And so that's where Tim would ask me, hey, can you talk like a little kid? And I was like, yeah, I think so. And just literally get on the phone and I just got on the phone with these men. And they would say just so you know, like I'm talking like a little kid. I sound like a kid and there's no mistaking it, right, and we have recordings of this. And the things that they would say to me and it was, I mean, I was like, as if it's nothing, like as if they were ordering a pizza. Hey, do you think I can have like green pepper on my pizza and do you think like, like as if it's nothing and I was like, and it was, you know, it was a lot. Now, you know, you asked how I prep for this. That team took me through hostage training when I showed up and they're like, okay, if you're taking hostage, let's do this and they put their arms on me and I'm going to come in with the gun and I'm going to point I'm going to nod to you and you drop to your knees so I can shoot the guy and I'm like, oh my god, how did I get here? What are you talking about? Like, are you kidding me? And you know, we just did it. We just did it and I just dove in and you know, we took a lot of very, very bad men off the street. Well, I was very proud of that. And you should be. I was I was going to ask because I knew I saw when you put together a presentation, that's how we connected about this and you were doing that or I think you're playing a video with that fake voice and it was the grossest, most disturbing, most uncomfortable, it's really not fun to listen to this, obviously, it just, if you're a normal person, it just makes you feel gross listening to this interact. Yeah. And I cut down. Like, that's cut down. Yeah. No matter how many times I've listened to it, that man's voice still, like, it's still, I'm not immune to it. It doesn't, you don't numb to this, you know, you just don't just going to take a quick break. Thank the longtime friend and sponsor of the show, the HubSpot podcast network. They have incredible podcasts. 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How do you put this facade on? What's going through your mind when you're, when you're, when you're, yeah, it's sort of the same as building a character. Like, if you build a character for acting, let's say you're playing, I don't know, a lawyer, a doctor or an emergency technician or whatever, if you're worth your salt, you do your research. You know, you hear about all the time about actors that shadowed, you know, I don't know, let's say emergency technical people and they shadowed them for months to learn all they could about it. It's sort of the same thing, except for I already dove deep into this in, in while I was learning about the subject and researching the subject and I've met the files and I've seen these things. So I have the research done so then, then it's just building a character. Okay, so what kind of female would travel to go have sex with children or think that there's nothing on it and or do it with her husband or, um, who are these people? And then it's just acting like whatever I'm making up, you know, knock on wood, it works for the most part, it's worked. But I don't know, I don't even know when I'm walking in the door if it's going to work. I have no idea. I'm terrified. Don't get me wrong. Like, people are like, oh, you're so brave, I'm like, oh, I'm really stupid because I'm terrified. Like, there's no, I'm not beating my chest and like, look at me, what I'm doing, I'm terrified, period. Like it is scary. And I'm like, like, what, and I second guess it all the time and I'm like, what am I doing? What am I doing here? What? It works and when you are face to face with a human being stuck in a situation where they're being raped multiple times a day, and I can get that person out, like there's nothing that compares to that, I'm saving another human being's life. And that's why I will or have put myself in these situations, it's for that. And it's because if God forbid anything like that ever happened to me or my daughter, I would hope someone else who had the opportunity to help would say yes, you know? When we look at, you know, your story and when you started to get involved and it wasn't really as much of an awareness push as there is right now, I know I was reading about Tim Ballard story and he was, I guess, former CA Homeland Security and he started, oh, you are because he felt limited by the government's resources as well, which is a scary thought because as the average person, you're hoping that the government is doing a good job of dealing with this because I mean, who else really? Who else has the capacity to deal with 50 million globally traffic victims? But that's not the case, I mean, you're, you know, the government is not doing as much as it could or maybe even like inform us about what the government's doing, what they're not doing. Maybe are they limited by some mandates and procedures in the U.S. are they limited abroad when you deal with foreign governments? Like, I want to understand the whole system that surrounds us. Yeah, I mean, it's a giant system, first of all, you've got different facets of government. You've got, it's a bipartisan issue, like 100%, I'm a Democrat, Tim's a Republican. And both parties work together to do this, but then you've, so you've got Congress, then you've got Congressmen, you've got Senators, you've got the State Department, you've got the United Nations, you've got Homeland Security, you've got the agencies, CIA, FBI, it's a, it's a multi-faceted issue, and so it's, it's a multi-faceted approach. You can, you can't, and it's not one that will work, we can't, it doesn't matter, we can't, we can't legislate our way out of this, we can up the laws, we can make further punishments, but everyone's catching up to this, if that makes sense. And I always hear these criticisms of like, well, how come the police or how come the blah, blah, blah, look the same guys that we want to go answer every single robbery and investigate homicides and X, Y, and Z are the same guys who are doing trafficking, I mean, FBI only one time a year does this operation cross country in the United States where they do undercover strings all across the country, all across America, but that's once a year, like, and it's a great thing and don't get me wrong, but we need like, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of more agents and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of more policemen and law enforcement and all of this so that we can even begin to tackle this problem just on a national level, let alone on a global scale, it's, it's, it's, and these guys are, these criminals are smart and they know that we're just catching up to the issue and so they find loopholes and they, they go across borders and they find oh, okay, is this the rule? Well, good, that's how I'll break it and that's how I'll do this and it's just, it takes, it takes a massive effort and it starts with education in my opinion. It's why I do the podcast. It starts with education and making people aware that this is happening and it's happening to our children and it's happening not only globally and internationally, but nationally and it's happening to, happening to foreign subjects and domestic and that's what people don't know and that's what was so incredible about Santa Fraterma. I was like, I had no idea how many people still didn't know about this and even at the, you know, at the event that you saw me speak at, I was shocked at how many people came up to me and were like, I had no idea. I was like, wow, really still, but you really don't because it's not out there enough because it's just a poster on a bathroom in an airport. That's it. Exactly. It's not real. People don't know they don't know what to look for. They don't know what it looks like and what aren't those prostitutes? What do you mean she's being held against her well? And what do you mean? I, what do you mean it's American citizens? This is happening too. I thought it was like foreign, not that that makes it okay, but it just makes people care less. It's just a weird, tell me, tell me that story that you said when you were doing this presentation about the ad you put up on Craigslist and the amount of people that responded because that was a big WTF moment. I know. So this was back in 2014, 2015, we put an ad in Craigslist that in this time, you know, Northern California city, not even a big city, not like Sacramento, but like a smaller city. And we put this ad in Craigslist and it was coded, meaning so that their algorithms couldn't take it down just yet. They took it down, but just yet. And this ad said, husband and wife in town three days only need someone to educate in quotes, our nine year old, 12 year old, if it was 12 or 13 year old girls, while we watch and within 15 minutes, we had 35 appointments. And the, the vice squad was like, their jaws were like, they're like, what? They had no idea. This was happening in their jurisdiction. They had no idea. And that's, I see that time and time again. They had no idea this is happening in their town. And it was, I mean, it was shocking. They had no idea. It was heartbreaking. 35 and 15 minutes in a small, in a small town, small town. Yeah. Ubicity, if you want to look it up. So education is obviously not doing the job that needs to do. It's changing. It's changing because you're living in this world. Yeah. Look, I mean, since I've been learning about this what 2009, 2010, you didn't see one news article. You didn't see one news piece. You didn't, there was no operation cross country. There was no, like the only thing you ever heard about was maybe, you know, once every two seasons, an episode of SVU, right? And then, and then it was like, you know, a foreign national, it wasn't an American. And it's seen, you just didn't hear about it. Or people went, all those poor, you know, I've heard about that in Cambodia or Thailand or the Philippines. No, it's everywhere. It's every country. It's everywhere. It's every city. And so now you see it. You hear about it. Like you could just Google trafficking. Google any town, Georgia, Alabama, Chicago, Naperville, which is my hometown. Any city and just Google that and human trafficking. And you'll see it. And you'll see the news articles. And you'll see the cases and you'll see the arrests. You know, it's out there now. And it wasn't out there before. And sound of freedom. Sure, change that man. Wow. Yeah. Like it sure changed that. You know, I was pitching not many people know this, but I was pitching a television show on the work that I do and on trafficking. And we pitched, you know, almost everybody in town. And everyone in town, these were phenomenal pitch meetings. You know, when we tell these stories and every single solitary one said, we love it. We love it. It's too dark. It's too dark. No one wants to hear about this. No one wants to hear about this. And that sure proved them wrong when sound of freedom came out. Man, wow. Like I'm shocked at the the amount of people that have gone to see it. And they want to be able to tell me that they've seen it. Like I know people are like, oh, it's not true. Or that was because angel studios did whatever I don't know. I have nothing to do with the film. People think I had people. Congratulations. I have nothing to do with the film. Like absolutely nothing. And I don't know what the angel studios campaign was. I heard I just read about it like everyone else. I don't even know. I just saw that there was something. But I just also know how many people have told me that they've seen the film. Well, I changed your life. That's my job. I thought it was strange because some people were like, oh, it's, you know, I hate the biggest issue, the biggest issue that I have, especially in the US, is that everything becomes a partisan issue when it shouldn't become a partisan issue. It's so stupid. It's like between COVID and vaccines and everything is like, oh, if you know, you're right, you're left. You have to have this view. You have to, this is like things that affect everybody. This is not a partisan issue. And then it turned into a partisan issue and people get emotional. No, I was literally thinking I'm going to find I was like, maybe I should have some of my Democratic Congress people that I've worked with like on the podcast just to show. Yeah. But this is not a Republican issue. This is a bipartisan issue, but it was Barack Obama, of course, that modern day slavery. And he coined modern day slavery at the Clinton global initiative event. Like anyway, it's just silly. It is very silly that it devolves into this. But yeah, so the point is, you know, sound of freedom was an amazing piece. Obviously that brings a lot of awareness to it. You're doing work, bringing awareness to it. I want to even just unpack some of the things that that happened and that I saw and sounded freedom and some of your work that I thought were actually sort of very sad, but real realities of this world. I mean, people know what human trafficking is. People know that involves children. But another thing that has been brought up repeatedly and you spoken about are the women operatives in trafficking. And how I think that probably that probably screwed with you when you realized, you mean the female traffickers? The female traffickers? Yes. Sorry, no, not the operatives. Sorry. The women traffickers that are doing this to children. Yes. Yeah. It makes me sick. It makes me want to, like, I was horrified the first time I learned that women did this. I was shocked. I was like, how, how can you do this to your, like, I just didn't understand. They still have a child that came out of here. You know what it must feel like as a woman to like better word, but be forcibly penetrated. Like, you must have some semblance of this as a female. How can you possibly do this to your own group? And I didn't, and it's still incomprehensible. Period. I'm never, you're never going to comprehend something that is incomprehensible. You can't. You can't. And it horrified me. And it still breaks my heart every time I see it. I just... Well, I'm assuming the women, I'm assuming the women that do this are people that have gone through this system themselves. They have probably been trafficked. Not always. No. Well, you know, in the movie, Ms. Cardagena, that was Ms. Cardagena. This is real life. So in real life, in Colombia, and you can Google it, Ms. Cardagena, she was voting, Ms. Cardagena, a beauty queen literally went door to door to door to door to families. And we're like, oh, your children are so beautiful. I have a modeling school. Would you please give me your children and come to the modeling school and then she would turn them over to the traffickers? That's real. That's not fictionalized. That was real. Why? Money. Like, we try to, we try to go, oh, there must be some traumatic, no, not all the time. Sometimes it's just money. Sometimes women are just really bad people. And there's no getting around that. And there's no understanding it because it's impossible. You can't understand something that's insane. And it just is what it is. And you just have to be like, that's, I guess, that's it heartbreaking. Outside of education, is there another lever that we can pull that would have a major impact? For example, I don't know if this would help, but decriminalizing prostitution or things like that nature. God knows. What are the, what are the levers? What are the other adjacent things in this industry that could, in this world that could help? Okay. So way harsher loss, way harsher loss for anyone who has sex with a child period. And I don't mean like it's the weirdest thing. By the way, decriminalizing prostitution, not talking about children. I'm just talking about the sex. You know, I understand exactly what you're talking about. All that does is open the door for more and more and more trafficking. We did an entire episode on this that we're actually going to air. I think it's next week. This makes it worse. Okay. Oh my god. And if you want like all the statistics and all the actual countries that this has happened to. Yeah. They all walk it. They all like Holland and Amsterdam where you think of these places that want they need to walk it back. They're like, we need to walk back these laws because all it did was open the door for more and more and more criminal activity. Way more. And because you decriminalized it, now the police and law enforcement have no cause to go into a brothel and look for children at all because it's perfectly legal. And all the trafficker or how they they like to put it the sex facilitator has to say is, oh, I thought, I don't know, I thought shoes of age. Well, I don't know. I thought shoes here voluntarily. There's no, do you get what I mean? There's no exactly. So it just it does. Any kind of tools now at all. It's it's a complete facade. But if you want to know more about it, please, please, please watch. There's an episode coming out. It's with rights for girls. And I dedicated like 70% of the episode just on that issue because it's something that comes up all the time when people are just misinformed. That's all it is. And I hate to use that word because then it goes with COVID and vaccines. But it really is. It's just you just don't have enough information about this issue and how it looks in the real world. So she really does shed a light on that. And that's what I'll say about that. But to answer your question. And when I talk about education, I don't just mean like ringing the bell going, do you know that this is happening? I don't actually just mean that it's what I actually mean is I have an audience of a lot of teenagers because of Riverdale and a lot of moms because they watch Riverdale. So the one thing that I try to do is give when I say education, I mean speak directly to teens and moms and families and teachers and go, Hey, this is how you prevent this from happening to yourself or your friends or your family. Hey, this is what you need to look for. This is what's happening on social media. This is what's happening. If your kid goes to, you know, apply for a job. This is what to look for. This is how to keep yourself safe. It's preventative. That's. Can you give some of those tips for parents that we actually had. I was so proud that I got this. I was so happy. But we had the head of global global safety for meta, meaning Instagram and Facebook, the actual head and Tegany Davis on our episode. We already we already launched our second season with it. I was so proud of it. Please go on there. She literally walks walks you through Instagram and how to what to do, how to report, how you can keep yourself safe. The main things is traffickers and bad people and pedophiles and sex torsionists and all of these people. The main thing that they try to do is A, get indecent images that they can use cell or blackmail your kid with. B, they try to get you onto private platforms. So I mean, this happens on video games and Roblox. You can just Google Roblox and trafficking Roblox and child sexual abuse material. Just Google it. And they try to get the person that they're targeting onto a private chat room and a lot of these games allow this crap. Here, you could talk privately over here. So they'll use like if it's not within the game or the app itself, hey, do you want to go to Snapchat? Hey, can you talk on Discord? Hey, hey, hey, and try to get them over to these other platforms where it's private where no one's monitoring and no one can help. That's one of the things. Don't ever do that. Be turn off all your location services. I know it's a dumb thing, but people don't think about this. And they'll be like, you know, first day of school and we'll do a selfie in front of their school. Oh, my God. Or a new car. And here's my driver's license plate. Yeah. Or, you know, vacation starts tomorrow. Oh, great. Now you're letting everyone know that your home is getting your, you know, your home is going to be empty. Things like that. I hate to say it because I, I don't want to be a fearmonger or and I don't want like there's so many good good people out there. It's not, it's not every single person. It's just that the people that are doing this look like every single person. So you don't know. And so because of that, you have to think like a criminal. You have to think like these people so that you don't make mistakes and end up regretting that. I was going to say it must be so scary for a parent now because they don't know half of the things that their kids are on or the apps that, you know, they're, they've downloaded or the games are playing. And it's just everything could be an opportunity for a predator to start the communication, right? And to start talking. And that's so scary. That's so, so, so scary. I'm the biggest thing. And, you know, I don't, you've heard of sex torsion because it's a new thing that's that I don't know what it is, but I can put two and two together. I'm assuming you're extorting somebody because of stuff they've sent you or exactly. And the main target are little boys. Teenagers. And what's happening is, and you can Google this again. Don't just rely on me. I'm not, I'm not, you know, news, but you can Google it and look at the actual news articles and all that stuff. But this is actually targeting mainly teenage boys. And it's an epidemic in America where they're killing themselves. They're because of it. So what's happened? It's coming out of West Africa, a lot of it. And through AI, they're pretending to be teenage girls. And they're chatting with the boy or video chatting with a boy and getting him like, Hey, here's a picture of my boobs and me a picture. And then the boy does thinking that he's talking to a girl. And then that person now has hacked their computer and threatens to send those images to their entire contact list, to their school, to their parents, to their church, to whatever or they get a video, unfortunately, little boy masturbating or whatever it is. And it's, it's blackmail at the end of the day. It's blackmail. And kids are killing themselves because of this. It's a major, major issue. Please Google it again. Audience, don't just take my word for it. But that's another, another thing. And so if you don't reach, if no one's telling kids to look out for this, how are they supposed to know? Yeah. Like, how are they supposed to know? And it's just, it's, it's like I said before, these criminals, I hate to say it, are clever. And law enforcement and laws and restrictions and all of this stuff is just catching up to the issue. So you have to think like a bad guy to outsmart them. Yeah, it is, it is unfortunate because I feel that law enforcement always has best intentions. But I mean, they'll, they'll know about these types of scams and these types of setups, you know, and they, and they can't teach everybody. It really comes down to the parent. It really comes down to the parent being able to talk to their kid about these things. And the parent also needs to know about it. True. True. They also need to know about it. So that's, that's one of the things I'm trying to do with my podcast. We're trying to do so much with my nonprofits, slavery, free world. I'm trying to build a curriculum. Like, do you remember back in high school when they were doing school, um, like, what are they called? Like school assemblies? Yeah. They still call that. I don't know. I don't know if I don't have kids. Yeah. I'm sure they're the same. I'm sure they are. But they would do the like school assemblies and be all about, you know, something awareness. I want it to be mandatory. At least, at least in America, because that's where I have some control, but mandatory that there needs to be trafficking awareness and education mandatory in every school. And the curriculum needs to be tailored to the age group. And it's one of the things that we're working on on my nonprofit is we're building curriculums for different age groups, for middle school, for grade school, for high school. And so that you're reaching directly the targets of these predators and so that they can be educated themselves. And I don't care if they laugh. I actually don't care. Like my daughter was telling me the kids in her school are like making fun of. Oh, don't get traffic. Don't get taken. I don't really care. Because they still got the education. Yeah. They can make fun of it all they want. They will think twice of their in that situation. All the matters, all the matters is when there's a weird interaction with somebody online. There's this like red flag moment and it makes them stop and pause for a moment. And they don't do that thing they were doing. And if that's all that happens, that's a win. Yep. Okay. What are some what are some closing thoughts that you want to leave the audience with? This has been a heavy podcast. Obviously. I know. Thank you guys for listening. It's been a very heavy podcast. It's been a very important podcast. Talk to me is some last thoughts that we didn't go into. And then also, you know, you mentioned your podcast, slavery free world, all the things that you're working on right now. Yeah. So, so yes, I have my podcast. It's called The Marisol Nichols Podcast. We dive into the subject very deeply. We just launched our second season. Our second season focuses more on preventative measures and getting educated. And what you can do, the first season is where I sort of talk about how I went undercover and we show different footage and we do all of that stuff and different law enforcement guys that I've worked with. And I have them all on and it's pretty awesome. But anyway, so that's one thing that we're working on. Slavery free world. That is my nonprofit. That the education side of things is one of the major things that we're working on. And it's to me, the undercut to everything, including changing laws. And then last thoughts. Look, I my biggest struggle is has been talking about this in a way that doesn't overwhelm people because I understand so much as a parent or as a teacher or as a human being, you don't want to think about these horrifically dark, disturbing things. I so understand and I don't want people to because you can get so interpolated by it and so restimulated and so upset by it that it takes takes you over. So I understand why good people don't want to know about this, but if they don't know about it, they can't do anything about it. So what I would ask is look, I do understand, but you have to. You have to at least learn enough about this so that you can protect yourself and your friends and your family and it can spread out there. And if you don't want to do the deep dive, I've done it for you. Listen to this podcast. Send it to your friends. Listen to mine. Spread the word. Please, because we have to do something about this. And you know, I always get I get a lot of I just want to put this out there because I get all these things I want to go on to cover. No, you don't. Let me just tell you this is not in the movies. This is not, you know, who shoot them up bad guys. I am, I don't know if I can swear on your body. I am locked up afterwards. It messes you up. Let's leave this. This does not include me. Let's leave this to the professionals because I my expiration date is done. I've talked about this enough. You've seen my face enough. I'm burnt, right? You don't want to do this. It's not glamorous. It is not pretty. It is dangerous as hell. And I've had people on teams die because of it. You don't. This is not that. Okay. That being said, there are ways that you can get involved because people like, what can I do? Because I understand. I absolutely understand. Besides spreading the word, educating yourself, educating others, you know, we need help. Please ask us. We're doing projects that we need help. But also even in your own town, you can throw a rock and find an organization to volunteer with wherever you are. Just Google, trafficking organizations in my town or adoption, foster care, all of these holes that need to be filled that need good people and need volunteers and need help. Start with your start in your own community and in your own hometown. And there's ways that you can help and get involved and make a difference. I love this. I ask the same question at the end of every podcast. And you have to answer it. However, you'd like to answer it in whatever context you interpret it as. But you've had two seasons more or less to your life. You've had the acting season and then you've had the season of fighting against child trafficking. And I'm curious at this stage in your life, what is success mean to you? I think for me, because I'm still acting. I know I keep saying that. I don't mean to. No, not done. Success to me comes in little accomplishments. There's always long-term goals, which is, look, I'd like to see an end to trafficking or the modern day slavery in all its forms. I'd like it to be something that we read about in the history books like we do with Nazi Germany. And people go, how could anyone ever let that happen? I'd like to see that in my lifetime. Okay, that's the long-term success. But as an actor, I'd like to be on a show that's like a game of thrones. I'd like to have one of those epic roles that you can sink your teeth in and affect a global population in a positive way where they tune in to just escape their own life and hear a good story, right? I have different goals and different successes. And so each little success, each little accomplishment that I got, whether it's in the anti-traveling world, whether it's, oh, I sold this documentary, or we passed this legislation, or we did this, or if it's, I got that role, or that to me is success. And I think it's the same for most people. I would take a loss if I only looked at the long-term goals and the long-term successes. So it's little jumps, little things, little wins, little accomplishments, that to me is success. I love that. And actually, you know, to your point, I think that I don't think your different lives and different things you're working on are so mutually exclusive. I think that it's, I think you deserve the fame and the notoriety and the game of thrones-esque role because you know what that does, and that brings more attention to the other stuff you're working on. Oh, no, I'm well aware. It's a balancing act. And then at the end of the day, I'm a mom. So my kid, my daughter doing well, that's everything to me. That's first. And she knows that. Like, she absolutely knows that she is first. And so to all the parents out there, and I don't know the age of your audience, but you, you, it can get overwhelming, especially as a single mom. Don't get me wrong. But I'm trying to build a better world that my kid can grow up in. And I think we're all, I think we all share that in common.