Houston Students At The Forefront Of New Trafficking Prevention Breakthrough

HOUSTON, TEXAS – A new peer-reviewed study has delivered rare, measurable evidence that prevention education can equip youth with real-world tools to navigate risk and seek help. Conducted in two Houston public high schools, the study compared students who received Love146’s Not a Number curriculum to a control group of their peers who did not—making it one of the more rigorous evaluations of a trafficking prevention program to date.

While many prevention efforts rely on good intentions and awareness campaigns, this research—published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence—shows that students who participated in Not a Number were more likely to recognize exploitative recruitment tactics, reject victim-blaming attitudes, and feel confident seeking help from trusted sources. The curriculum also strengthened students’ safety planning—helping them identify specific actions and resources they could turn to in unsafe situations. And these tools don’t stop with them; youth often pass these perspectives on to peers, caregivers, or others in their community, extending the reach of prevention far beyond the classroom.

The field of combating human trafficking has been growing in maturity over recent decades. Past efforts to prevent child sex trafficking often relied on sensational storytelling and emotionally powerful narratives, hoping that awareness alone would translate into protection. Programs were frequently structured as one-time assemblies or brief curriculum add-ons, with little follow-up and few clear objectives for what young people should do with the information. Messaging sometimes leaned heavily on “stranger danger” tropes and savior framing, neglecting the more common—and complex—realities of relational exploitation and online grooming. Most importantly, prevention efforts have rarely been rigorously evaluated, leaving the field with good intentions but limited evidence about what actually reduces risk.

At Love146, we’ve spent years walking alongside children as they recover from trafficking. We’ve seen firsthand the complexities they face: how perpetrators manipulate, how systems fail, and how risk and protective factors can either exacerbate or improve their situations. We’ve also listened closely to what youth tell us in hindsight—what could have helped them earlier, and what helps them stay safe now. That is what’s baked into this curriculum. Not just good ideas, but concrete, teachable, and now measurable skills that reduce risk and strengthen resilience.

Students who participated in the Not a Number program showed statistically significant increases in both their ability to recognize when something is wrong and in their confidence to seek help. They were more likely to reject the idea that victims are to blame, more likely to understand that trafficking is harmful, and more likely to say they’d reach out to a parent, a crisis line, or even 911 if they were being pressured to exchange sex. Their awareness of resources—like hotlines and crisis centers—rose meaningfully. These aren’t abstract concepts; they’re the real-world competencies that make a difference when a young person is navigating risk. With this study, we can point to evidence that a trafficking prevention curriculum is building those competencies in measurable, lasting ways.

This evaluation was led by Lisa Jones, Ph.D., and her team at the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center, in collaboration with Houston-area schools and Love146. It was made possible through the visionary support of Love146’s partners, including The Salah Foundation. Conducting external evaluations at this level of rigor is complex and resource-intensive—requiring cooperation across school districts, academic institutions, nonprofits, and funders.

“We’ve always believed that prevention should be more than awareness; it should be action-oriented, developmentally relevant, and youth-led,” said Aria Flood, Managing Director of U.S. Prevention at Love146. “With the results of this evaluation, we were able to incorporate specific edits and improvements into the fourth edition of the curriculum in preparation for our (in progress) randomized control trial. This evaluation helps confirm that we are moving in the right direction—and we hope it encourages others in the field to join us in building a stronger evidence base for this critical work.”