As Massachusetts welcomes huge crowds for the World Cup this summer, a Marblehead mother of three is helping lead efforts to protect some of the state’s most vulnerable children.
Sonja Solberg Potter, co-executive director of the Boston-based organization My Life My Choice, has spent the past 13 years working to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Amid concerns that large international sporting events can create increased opportunities for traffickers and buyers, My Life My Choice has expanded its capacity to respond if more young victims are identified.
“With any large sporting event, there’s an increased concentration of trafficking,” Solberg Potter told the Current.
She continued, “It is happening every day, and it’s impacting every community, but when there are waves of people coming from all over the world, we know there will be people trafficked to the event from other states and that community’s own vulnerable people are at heightened risk…. The state has been planning for a while, getting youth and adult-serving trafficking organizations on board to be prepared if there’s an influx or the possibility of an increase in victims.”…