Her father forced Bloomsburg native Kate Price to have sex with truckers along Interstates 80 and 81 until she was about 12 years old.
Now a sociologist and published author, Price uses her research to heal and educate law enforcement and sex-trafficking victims' advocates on how to identify signs of sex trafficking and protect survivors.
“I always would have been a researcher and a sociologist no matter what had happened to me," Price said. "And then when I received my master's (degree), I really checked in with myself, my husband, my therapist (and asked) ‘Is this something that I could do? Is this something I could contribute to this field?’”
Yes, they answered resoundingly.
Price has added a Ph.D. in sociology since.
“It feels very much like a calling, and I've been doing this work for over 20 years now,” Price said in an interview Thursday with WVIA News.
She published her memoir, “This Happened to Me: A Reckoning,” in 2025. The book focuses on her experience and recovery through specialized therapy with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, who wrote a book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” which includes her story.
Price, an associate research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women, a gender-based institute at Wellesley College, gave the keynote address at the NEPA Task Force Against Human Trafficking’s annual multi-county conference Thursday in Monroe County.
More than 200 undercover officers, lawyers, teachers and social workers from 10 counties packed the Northampton County Community College's Pocono Campus to share confidential information on known trafficking routes and tactics, and to spread awareness to people who may come in contact with survivors. Some meetings were open only to law enforcement.
January is Human-Trafficking Awareness Month. In the last five years, authorities filed 1,432 human-trafficking offenses in 431 cases statewide, according to the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts.
Training NEPA’s law enforcement on stopping trafficking
Wyoming County District Attorney Joseph Peters said the conference aims to teach awareness of signs of human trafficking, but also how to connect survivors to long-term care and other resources.
“This is a unique crime … we know in law enforcement how to go after, investigate [and] prosecute cartels [and criminal] leaders,” Peters, who also serves as the task force’s law enforcement chair, said.
Sex trafficking victims are often young children, often 12- or 13-year-old girls. Law enforcement needs tools to help these children deal with their trauma and get medical treatment and support to build healthy lives, Peters said.
Child sex trafficking “is more common than you think,” Peters said. “When I first started talking about this issue, I was criticized by lots of people saying … I was talking about something that doesn’t exist … And it’s actually in plain sight.”
‘The face of human trafficking’ is online
Peters said most human trafficking cases do not resemble cases in a movie or on TV. Rarely does someone in a big “white van” grab a child off the street, although that's likelier in larger cities. Most cases start online.
Human trafficking in Northeast and Central Pennsylvania usually involves a young girl groomed by a predator online and duped into thinking the predator loves her or would make her popular at school, Peters said.
It’s normal for a young girl to want to feel pretty or popular, Peters said.
“It's not normal for someone to groom her,” Peters said. “He then convinces her either out of that romance … or out of threats. Now that he ‘owns her,’ [he will say,] ‘I have a naked picture of you that you sent me when you thought I was going to be your boyfriend. I'm going to send that to your parents.’”
Then, the predator forces the child into sex, either with him or others, Peters said.
“Her parents think she's at the high school with her friends. She comes home for dinner. No one seemingly knows anything different. That's the face of human trafficking in our area,” Peters said.
Price also said child sex trafficking often begins with photos traded over the internet. She grew up in the 70s and 80s, and her exploitation started with Polaroids.
“That child sexual abuse imagery is then the price of the ticket … It’s the entree and access to in-person child sex trafficking, and that we are seeing very much across the board that's been happening generations across time, across socioeconomic status, regionality, race, ethnicity, gender, that presence of child sexual abuse material is really the start of everything,” Price said.
She also highlighted that not all victims are women and not all perpetrators are men. Predators do use victims’ shame and fear as ways to keep their crime secret.
Pennsylvania’s highway system raises the risk
Price said most child human trafficking cases, especially familial trafficking, happen along major highways. Price said perpetrators are from outside the area, not children.
“These are local Pennsylvania children, and yet it is buyers who are transient populations, such as truckers or people coming for a conference, or someone who is moving, going from Boston to Philadelphia, who will then stop at a rest area or a motel or a truck stop and sexually abuse a child there and then move on,” Price said.
Price said one reason she loves being on the NEPA task force is she can share details on the systems used to traffic her. Predators use the same routes today, she said.
Tom Mosca, an attorney who started the task force in 2014 at his church in Shavertown, said the region is at increased risk for human trafficking because of its robust highway system.
“Think about major roads like [Interstates] 80 and 81. Think about our location between New York City and Philadelphia. Think about the fact that, in addition to those areas, Ohio is a hotbed, New Jersey is a hotbed [for human trafficking]. Well, guess what's right in the middle of all that: Pennsylvania … So, we do see a lot of sex trafficking within our 11-county task force area,” Mosca said.
Controlling behavior: human trafficking and domestic violence
Marissa Buatti, an prevention and outreach specialist at Safe Monroe, talked about the relationship between human trafficking and domestic violence. Both rely on controlling behavior.
She said abusers isolate victims by forbidding them from doing anything for themselves, having their own money or talking to family or friends.
“And so when you meet somebody like that in public, they may be hesitant to talk to you, may be hesitant to look you in the eye. They're not going to give you very much detailed information. They're probably going to be looking to whoever is with them to give them that information,” she said.
Buatti said victims may have bruises, possibly in different stages of healing because beatings happen regularly.
Victims may also struggle with a substance use disorder because of the trauma of their experiences, Buatti said.
Safe Monroe, the county’s domestic and sexual violence crisis agency, received more than 1,000 hotline calls last year, Buatti said.
The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence estimates one in three women and one in four men in the United States will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.
Advocates, lawmakers, community leaders fight human trafficking in NEPA
Price said the task force’s annual conference generates real change. The information exchanged between different disciplines shapes public policy and practices to protect survivors.
Carrie Andrews and Jane Kabuiku teach at the State Correctional Institution at Waymart in Wayne County. Andrews teaches inmates studying for their GED. Kabuiku is a guidance counselor.
Both teach a class on recognizing signs of violence and the effect on victims.
Kabuiku said many inmates have faced trauma or were victims.
“They’ve gone through possibly what we are hearing about today, and that just keeps the cycle going. So it gives us more insight, better insight into what they went through, and how we can better help them to come out and succeed in society,” Kabuiku said.
Price said she learns from others at conferences. Five years ago, she said she learned the phrase, “The eyes can't see what the brain doesn't know.”
Several attendees made similar comments about being aware to fight human trafficking or domestic violence.
Mosca said people who see a possible human trafficking victim need to call the state police hotline, but should not approach a suspected trafficker.
The state police human trafficking phone tipline is is 888-292-1919. You can also send an email to tips@pa.gov or call 911 in an emergency.
Price said she hopes to raise money to study human trafficking nationwide. She is working on a pilot study, applying to the Stoneleigh Foundation in Philadelphia for funding to work with local and state law enforcement.
"Healing is possible,” she said. “That's a big reason why I do this, particularly because I have heard from so many survivors who have lost siblings to suicide … because their family members said they were lying … (and refusing) to acknowledge anything was ever wrong, and they've literally paid with their lives … So I feel very compelled to speak out."
