Need help?Call 1-888-373-7888Text 233733In immediate danger, call 911.
Anti-trafficking advocate, speaker, and mother
Every parent believes they would see it coming. Deondriea Cantrice is the mother of a sex trafficking survivor, and the founder of Unmute the Silence. She speaks so that fewer families learn the truth the way hers did.
Most people believe human trafficking happens somewhere else, to someone else's child. Deondriea knows from her own family that it doesn't.
As the mother of a survivor, she has lived what families rarely say out loud: the fear, the questions that keep you awake, the shame that was never yours to carry, and the silence that lets traffickers keep working.
She refused to stay quiet. She founded Unmute the Silence, serves on the board of New Friends New Life, and stands in rooms across the country telling the truth that most people would rather not hear, because hearing it is how children are protected.
Her daughter's story belongs to her daughter. What Deondriea shares is a mother's: what she learned, and what every parent, educator, and community needs to know.
Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel a person into commercial sex or labor. When the person is under 18, any commercial sex act is trafficking under U.S. federal law, with or without force. It happens in every state, and it often begins with someone the person already knows and trusts.
Viral warnings about $100 bills on windshields and drugged tissues spread fast. They make trafficking sound like a stranger in a parking lot. The truth is closer to home, and believing the myth can keep us from seeing the danger sitting right in front of us.
Facts drawn from Polaris, which operates the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Black Americans make up about 13% of the population. Yet Black women and girls are rarely the face of the story we're told. When a crisis this large goes unspoken, it isn't an accident. It's silence.
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents, 2008 to 2010. Figures are for cases where race was known.
There is rarely one dramatic moment. More often there's a pattern of small changes, and the people who love someone can be the first to feel that something is wrong. Trust that feeling.
See the full list of red flags at the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
Don't confront the person you suspect. Reach out to trained advocates who can help safely, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in more than 200 languages.
If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. You can also chat with an advocate online at humantraffickinghotline.org.Founded by Deondriea Cantrice
Silence enables. Voices empower.
Trafficking survives on three things: secrecy, stigma, and misinformation. Unmute the Silence was created to take all three away. It opens the public's eyes to how trafficking really works, pushes for the laws that protect the vulnerable, and stands beside survivors as they rebuild their lives on their own terms.
Every person who learns the truth becomes one more voice that traffickers can't control.
Human trafficking awareness speaker
Deondriea doesn't speak about trafficking from a distance. She speaks from inside the story. Audiences leave with more than statistics: they leave knowing what to look for, what to say, and what to do, because someone who has lived it showed them.
Her story
Deondriea's lived experience as the mother of a trafficking survivor. An honest, deeply personal look at what trafficking does to a family, what parents and communities need to know, and how to walk with survivors toward healing.
How grooming works
Not every trafficker looks like a villain. Many look like the perfect boyfriend. This talk exposes the "Romeo pimp" playbook: the attention, gifts, and promises of love that slowly become control, and how to recognize grooming before it's too late.
The crisis no one names
Black girls and women are disproportionately affected by sex trafficking, yet their stories are rarely told and too often they're treated as offenders instead of victims. This talk breaks that silence and shows communities what it will take to protect them.
Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel a person into commercial sex or labor. When the person is under 18, any commercial sex act is trafficking under U.S. federal law, with or without force. It happens in every state, and it often begins with someone the person already knows and trusts.
A Romeo pimp is a trafficker who poses as a boyfriend or romantic partner. He builds trust with attention, gifts, and promises of a future together, then uses that emotional bond, along with isolation and manipulation, to pressure the person into commercial sex. Sex trafficking rarely begins with kidnapping. Far more often, it begins with what feels like love.
Most often through relationships, not abduction. Traffickers look for vulnerability: a need for love, money, housing, belonging, or a way out. They may make contact online, through friends, or even within families, and offer exactly what the person is missing before turning it into control.
In a U.S. Department of Justice study of confirmed sex trafficking cases, 40% of victims whose race was known were Black, while Black Americans are about 13% of the population. Advocates and survivors point to poverty, overrepresentation in foster care, and adultification, the tendency to see Black girls as older and less in need of protection. Black survivors are also more likely to be criminalized instead of recognized as victims.
There is rarely one obvious sign. Watch for a pattern: a new, controlling relationship, often with someone older; someone else holding their phone, ID, or money; unexplained gifts or cash; and pulling away from family, friends, or school. The National Human Trafficking Hotline publishes a fuller list of red flags.
Don't confront the person you suspect. Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733, any time, day or night. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.
Deondriea Cantrice is an author, keynote speaker, and anti-human trafficking advocate in Texas. As the mother of a sex trafficking survivor, she founded Unmute the Silence to educate the public, help end human trafficking, and empower survivors, and she serves on the board of directors of New Friends New Life in Dallas.
Request her through the Book Deondriea page at deondriea.com/book-deondriea. Her human trafficking talks include The Human Side of Human Trafficking, Romeo Pimp, Juliette Victim, and Sold in Silence, for parents, schools, faith communities, and organizations.
Because every life is worth fighting for. Unmute the silence.
