Jacob Boyens, founder of Jacob Boyens Ministries, told Jan Jekielek on the American Thought Leaders program that human trafficking within the United States has grown into a ‘‘$52,000,000,000 industry’’ affecting predominantly women and children and that prosecutions are falling even as reported cases increase.

Boyens said the nature of exploitation has changed since the pandemic: more activity is online, younger children are being exposed earlier, and many victims are abused by people close to them. "A quarter to a half of the exploitation that's happening to our own nation's youth, it's a caregiver doing it," Boyens said, citing a study he advised that examined 2,000 law‑enforcement cases and reported a caregiver‑perpetrator rate of roughly 22 percent to 47 percent.

Why it matters: Boyens presented three linked concerns—scale, proximity of perpetrators, and digital exposure—that he said make prevention harder. He argued that technology gives predators new tools and that cultural desensitization reduces urgency to act.

Boyens said his team curates data from think tanks and federal sources including the Department of Justice and the FBI, and described several trends he attributed to those data sets: the average first exposure to sexually explicit material for boys in the U.S. is now age 8; the previously reported average exploited child age of 12–14 has shifted to about 11; and online grooming techniques have shortened the time between first contact and exploitation in many cases.

In the interview, Boyens characterized pornography as a "gateway drug" to trafficking. He said that when children view explicit material it can create an internalized, trauma‑bonding reaction that he described as neurobiological and highly addictive. "When you bond trauma to the internal chemistry of your body, this is trauma bonding," Boyens said. "Pornography desensitizes any individual to what could be and most often is not okay ... it is the number one tool a predator uses to prepare a child for human trafficking."

Boyens offered a brief anonymized example to illustrate grooming: a 13‑year‑old he called "Sarah" who sought affirmation from peers after missing a soccer team cut, was contacted by an adult who sent selfies and promises of attention, and later was groomed for exploitation. He said predators often spend months building trust and that the average predator he described invests about nine months in a potential victim and profiles multiple potential victims simultaneously.

The guest also raised institutional concerns, saying only 22 percent of American pastors mentioned pornography from the pulpit in 2023–24 and suggesting that private shame and addiction among adults can limit public institutional responses.

Boyens recounted personal motivation: his sister, Ilonka, whom he said was trafficked through the entertainment industry in South Africa, was a central reason he founded his anti‑trafficking work.

What he asked of the public: Boyens urged citizens to partner with elected officials and "hold elected officials accountable" to pursue justice for victims. He did not outline specific legislation in the interview.

Reporting notes: The claims in this report come from Boyens's interview statements and the data sources he cited (think tanks, Department of Justice, FBI) as summarized on the program; the interview did not include cited, named peer‑reviewed studies beyond the study he described (2,000 cases) or independent confirmation of every numeric figure mentioned. The interview included allegations and statistical summaries presented by Boyens; where the transcript did not specify formal law or policy, this article only reports the assertions he made.