Human trafficking doesn’t always look like chains and locked doors.
Sometimes, it looks like silence.
Sometimes, it sounds like a phrase we’ve all heard before:
“It’s not that bad.”

In Episode 1 of Upfront Gwinnett: Trapped and Trafficked, we step into the uncomfortable reality of exploitation happening in plain sight, inside families, communities, and everyday spaces where trauma is often minimized or ignored.

Over the course of this four-part series, Upfront Gwinnett takes viewers inside the shadows of exploitation, centering the voices of survivors and the advocates fighting to protect them.

Trafficked in Plain Sight

Maria and Kameron are young women whose lives intersected with the Gwinnett Police Department’s VICE Unit during an undercover operation. Their stories are different, but their reality is hauntingly similar: survival became normal. Trauma became transactional. And exploitation was dismissed as something less than what it was.

What stood out most wasn’t just what they endured,  it was what they believed was normal.

“It’s Not That Bad”

Marina Peed, Executive Director of Mosaic Georgia, says one of the most dangerous myths surrounding abuse and trafficking is how often it’s downplayed.

When harmful behavior happens behind closed doors, people are afraid to call it out. Afraid of what it means. Afraid of disrupting families or exposing truths that feel too big to confront. That’s when exploitation thrives -- wrapped in excuses, silence, and minimization.

Breaking the Cycle

Mosaic Georgia provides a safe space where survivors of sexual violence and trafficking are seen, heard, and believed.

Lanie George is one of those survivors.

Her abuse began at a young age and followed her through foster care, family instability, and environments where exploitation was normalized. Grooming looked like kindness. Abuse looked like attention. And survival meant keeping secrets.

Today, George is not only a survivor, she’s an advocate, helping others find their voice and a path forward.

Why Survivors Go Back

One of the hardest truths addressed in this episode is why many survivors return to the very situations that harmed them.

According to Peed, it’s not about choice --  it’s about survival. Trauma rewires the brain. Hypervigilance becomes a way of life. Familiar harm can feel safer than the unknown.

Understanding that reality is critical to breaking the cycle.

What Comes Next

You’ve now met Maria. Kameron. Lanie.
All trafficked in plain sight.
All dismissed by the same dangerous phrase: It’s not that bad.

But it is.

Coming up in Episode 2 of Upfront Gwinnett: Trapped and Trafficked, we go undercover with the Gwinnett Police Department’s VICE Unit to see how traffickers are identified, investigated, and brought into custody -- including how social media and mobile apps have transformed the landscape of exploitation.

Upfront Gwinnett: Trapped and Trafficked is produced by Gwinnett County Government. Watch the full episode and follow the series at GwinnettCounty.com/TV.