It seems on social media we are constantly seeing warnings about the dangers of human trafficking. While I hate to live my life in fear, I do think it’s good to be aware of our surroundings, and I personally appreciate when people share their experiences to give other parents a heads up. One Florida dad, Matthew Pilch, took to Facebook just two days ago to do just that after his family had a scary experience at a prominent Miami museum.
Pilch, who is in the military, says he doubts he’d even know about human trafficking if he hadn’t been forced to take classes about it in his military training. Now, he is certainly glad he did. In his Facebook post, Pilch details their frightening account. He says his military discount has been an impetus for his family to visit lots of museums in Florida, where they live, both close to and a few hours away from home. But at one museum in Miami, they had a much different kind of educational experience. He says:
“What we witnessed today was indeed out of the ordinary, and I was not simply being an overprotective dad. With several of the museums we have visited I took our camera to capture some of the moments and noticed lots of other parents, interested museum-goers, and tourists doing the same. None of the others visits or interactions gave cause for alarm until today…Keep in mind that this took place at a highly respected, state-of-the-art museum in downtown – right next to the Port of Miami. The admission to this museum is steep; it is well-staffed; and every exhibit is world-class.”
Pilch says the visit was going great until about two hours in, when he noticed a woman repeatedly getting close to their kids. He didn’t think much of it at first.
First Signs of Human Trafficking
“I noticed a woman who at first seemed to be a little eccentric,” he said “She had her phone out and it looked at first glance like she had it on a video call or something and was shooting a selfie video with the exhibit in the background, just chatting away in Spanish. Weird, but whatever. It is Miami after all. The thing that first caught my attention was when my kids decided to lay on the ground to look up at the fish and this woman decided that she also would lay down on the ground, and somewhat close to my kids. That did strike me as odd, though it still didn’t set off any alarms. As we continued to enjoy the exhibit however, I started noticing that she was paying more attention to our children than she was to the fish. Whenever she noticed me looking her way she resumed chatting on her phone and holding it in front of her. Then, it seemed as if she was not videoing, but taking photos, and not of fish, but of our children! I couldn’t tell for sure. This was when I started to feel a little on edge.”
Pilch continued being cautious and keeping an eye on the woman, but his parental radar really went off when a man joined the woman and used his high-quality camera to obviously begin taking pictures of Pilch’s kids.
“It was unmistakable – he was taking pictures of our children with a good quality DSLR Nikon camera! That set off the alarm bells for me,” Pilch reported. He continues: “Before I could say anything to my wife, he had snapped another picture of one of our other children, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was watching. I quickly informed my wife that we needed to leave and right away. Freaky? Yes. Reportable? I was still on the fence. I just wanted to leave. Maybe they were just weird tourists who thought our kids were beautiful. Hey! I think they’re pretty good-looking; they do take after their mother after all!”
