"If You See Something"

In the past, I have written memoir and creative nonfiction about foster parenting, guardianship of traumatized teens, and addiction. I am currently working on an extended essay (I estimate 50-60 pages when complete) titled "If You See Something," which explores from the personal perspective of a resource parent and in a non-scholarly approach why it is both so difficult to recognize child/teen trafficking when it happens in plain sight and why it is so difficult to confront it when we might think we do see it. The excerpt I will present discusses a particular instance in which a group of adults did try to confront what we all suspected might be a child trafficking situation in a chain hotel.