Demonstrators took to the streets of downtown Chicago on Saturday, part of an international event to end human trafficking.
About 50 people gathered at the Thompson Center about 12:30 p.m. with signs reading, “Protect the vulnerable” and “Leave our children alone.”
“We are walking to raise awareness of human trafficking and child sexual abuse,” organizer Patrycja Bielecka said. “This happens every day. It’s a huge problem in our backyard.”
The march was part of an international demonstration planned for about 60 sites organized by the group Freedom for the Children, which advocates for school programs to educate students and adults about warning signs of sex abuse.
While the demonstration espoused mainstream views opposing human trafficking, NBC reported that many such protest had links to QAnon, a discredited conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump is fighting a group of child abusers in powerful positions in government, entertainment and the media.
Bielecka said the Chicago event was part of a nationwide series of protests led by co-founders of Freedom for the Children, Bhairavi Shera and Tara Nicole.
NBC reported that the founders’ Facebook profile pages previously included posts with conspiracy theories about Bill Gates, the coronavirus and Pizzagate, the unfounded claim that a child sex ring was being run out of a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C.
Bielecka said there were QAnon believers in the protest crowd in Chicago, but she had asked participants to leave their political beliefs out of the march and focus solely on the real problem of human trafficking.
While she preferred not to say if she believed QAnon, Bielecka said, “at the end of the day, I don’t care if you were left or right. This is a problem going on well before Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama were president. We were very neutral in our presentation of it. As for other protests, I’m not really sure.”
Shera denied any connection with QAnon.
“There is no connection,” Shera said. “We are a grassroots movement and we have zero affiliation to Q.”
NBC also reported that the demonstrators used the same #SaveOurChildren and #SavetheChildren social media subject hashtags that had been dominated recently online by QAnon posts.
Shera disputed the NBC report as “fake reporting,” and said that some group members unintentionally used hashtags used by QAnon, and would refine its message to avoid such overlap.
“There’s perhaps a hashtag here or there, but that doesn’t mean we are followers,” she said.
“QAnon-related” groups made up only 18% of those posting online about #SaveOurChildren, but nearly 70% of total online interactions in August, according to web analyst group First Draft, NBC reported.
Organizers of the rallies made clear they are not affiliated with the long-standing nonprofit group Save the Children.
The group worked with police and agreed to march on sidewalks and not to block traffic, while handing out informational pamphlets and white carnations to passersby.
The protesters walked north to Wacker Drive and up to North Michigan Avenue, before wrapping up about 2:30 p.m.
The U.S. State Department defines human trafficking as any servitude forced through coercion, and sex trafficking as any commercial sexual activity that is coerced or involves anyone under 18.
It’s difficult to quantify the extent of the problem, but the agency has estimated as many as 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, with millions more in involuntary servitude.
In the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice has estimated up to 200,000 children are at risk of sex trafficking.
rmccoppin@chicagotribune.com
